Clarification
You do not have to worry about your mastodon.social (m.s) account being defederated.
There is a well meaning, but misleading post currently promoted that suggests you should move your m.s account because:
1) "Instance admins are considering defederating them"
2) "Their admin is making spam accounts easier to create."
Very few, if any, instances are considering blocking m.s, and the recent spam attacks are worthy of sober discussion, not hyperbole. [more]
So what is going on? Recently mastodon.social (m.s) has been the target of crypto spam attacks. Attackers have joined m.s and started to post many irrelevant crypto related posts. Moderators on m.s have tracked down these bad actors and isolated them, but some sneak through while the moderation effort tracks them down. It has been dealt with pretty swiftly.
Also happening recently, Eugen Rochko @Gargron, the developer of Mastodon changed the sign up process, ostensibly to make it simpler, such that people now are funneled onto mastodon.social (m.s) unless they select a different instance. This has been the source of some concern that m.s will be oversubscribed and be vulnerable to hacker attacks, as well as performance issues. Some regard the concentration at m.s as anti-Fediverse in principle.
@Gargron People point to the issue of "too big to defederate" as a reason that large instances like m.s are a bad thing. The logic goes that if bad actors are left unchecked then other instances can not simple defederate m.s because that would block too many other accounts. It is certainly true that it is not really possible to defederate a very large instance so large instances have a big responsibility to police themselves.
@Gargron Smaller instances always have the threat of defederation as motivation for doing a good job of moderating their users, but bad actors piling on a smaller instance happens too as we have seen in numerous attacks. Simply defederating that instance without any means of re-federation would disenfranchise all those users, so that's another issue that needs our attention.
@Gargron So the question remains: Should you move to a smaller instance? The answer is you are free to do whatever you want. Some people like smaller instances because of the greater sense of community or common interest. Some people like big instances because of the broader perspective they may afford. It's up to you.
If you are on mastodon.social and want a more intimate experience, open an account on a smaller server and give it a try. It's your social network.
thanks. it's not easy, ever, but it's worth it, too.
@TFFPrisoner @mastodonmigration @Gargron @stux @stux ?!!???
Doesn't ring any bells to me...
@TFFPrisoner @kkarhan @mastodonmigration @Gargron @stux @stux Yes, a pretty ban-happy/arbitrary instance; I'd avoid it if you value stability for building up a lot of followers or something.
Seth Abramson makes the point that Mastodon, generally, is sketchy for this purpose: I'd say probably get your own instance if this is your goal.
Otherwise, who cares? Use it if you like, if you get banned just go somewhere else.
I guess one problem with banning is the people who blocked you suddenly don't have you blocked, so they'll have to re-block you if they run into you again. Other than that, no biggie, right?
I think instances blocking instances is likely going to be a bigger problem going forward than banning individuals.
@ech @TFFPrisoner @mastodonmigration @Gargron well, if you don't like the rules of an instance, do #SelfHosting.
Jist be aware that instances and users can still block one anytime for any reason.
Just like #eMail.
Also I'd like to see some sources since that completely goes against the experience I have with @stux @stux ...
@mastodonmigration
Thanks for this. I recently saw a toot claiming that my server - mastodonapp.uk - is being defederated for tolerating transphobia. I haven't seen any, but I don't want to be tooting into the void.
How can I verify or disprove this allegation? I saw no boosts or replies to the toot. Thx
@taoish That was a misunderstanding between mastodonapp and calckey.social specifically. They defederated for a day or two but were back in communion six days ago.
After talking with @[email protected] , it seems that the reports of transphobia were back from an old post/posts which never federated the delete action properly, leading to a false sense of a lack of admin/moderation action. They're committed to moderating against transphobia, so we are re-federating with mastodonapp.uk! My sincerest apologies for jumping to conclusions over something which clearly required more investigation and outreach.
@clacke Thank you very much. So I can stay on mastadonapp.uk without worrying about being defederated?
I haven't seen a single transphobic post but given UK culture these days (Ricky Gervais as much as JK Rowling) I can't say I would be shocked if there was a problem.
@Gargron
Sfba reduced communication with mastodon.social for a while
https://sfba.social/@announcements/110368103560944346
Hello everyone! Weβve seen a large number of spam direct posts from mastodon.social. We have temporarily limited federation with them. Apologies for the inconvenience, we plan to reassess/reenable full federation tomorrow if the issue is resolved.
@kevindalley @Gargron Full statement:
Hello everyone! Weβve seen a large number of spam direct posts from mastodon.social. We have temporarily limited federation with them.
Apologies for the inconvenience, we plan to reassess/reenable full federation tomorrow if the issue is resolved.
https://sfba.social/@announcements/110368103560944346
...
We are using βlimitedβ federation. This setting means that we only receive and process events for people who are followed by our users...
Hello everyone! Weβve seen a large number of spam direct posts from mastodon.social. We have temporarily limited federation with them. Apologies for the inconvenience, we plan to reassess/reenable full federation tomorrow if the issue is resolved.
@mastodonmigration
I disagree. Moderation of a huge instance is a different game than moderation on a small instance. And the users/mods ratio on m.s is bad.
/cc @jwildeboer
@mastodonmigration @Gargron did I read that correctly? If an instance defederates another it *can't* re-federate with it in the future?
Hopefully it's my reading comprehension failure
@pixelpusher220 @Gargron No that is certainly not the case. However, in practice, once your instance gets on a ban list it may be difficult to get it removed from the list.
What is being said is that moderation in a federated environment is not simple and that there are multiple aspects which need to be successfully coordinated to keep our communities safe from both outside attack and unwanted isolation of normal users.
ok, whew :) Perhaps there's no 'built in' process for it but it's possible. Yes would be more difficult as it's likely a direct convo between admins to figure it out.
What might be useful is the 'mute for 1/3/7 days' type option we have for individual account interactions instead a complete block. Or maybe even a 'only allow people you directly follow' type thing to let the other instance get the issue under control before more dire measures.
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