ou might have seen that we’ve been defederated from beehaw.org. I think there’s some necessary context to understand what this means to the users on this instance.
How federation works
The way federation works is that the community on beehaw.org is an organization of posts, and you’re subscribed to it despite your account being on lemmy.world. Now someone posts on that community (created on beehaw.org), on which server is that post hosted?
It’s hosted on both! It’s hosted on any instance that has a subscriber. It’s also hosted on lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml, etc. Every instance that has a subscriber is going to have a copy of this post. That’s why if you host your own instance, you’ll often get a ton of text data just in your own server.
And the copies all stay in sync with each other using ActivityPub. So you’re reading the post that’s host on lemmy.world, and someone with an account on beehaw.org is reading the same post on beehaw.org, and the posts are kept in sync via ActivityPub. Whenever someone posts to that community or comments on a post, that data is shared to all the versions across the fediverse, and these versions are kept in sync. So up until 5 hours ago, they were the same post!
“True”-ness
A key concept that will matter in the next section is the idea of a “true” version. Effectively, one version of these posts is the “true” version, that every other community reflects. The “true” version is the one hosted on the instance that hosts the community. So the “true” version of a beehaw.org community post is the one actually hosted on beehaw.org. We have a copy, but ours is only a copy. If you post to our copy, it updates the “true” version on beehaw.org, and then all the other instances look to the “true” version on beehaw to update themselves.
The same goes for communities hosted on lemmy.world or lemmy.ml. Defederation affects how information is shared between instances. If you keep track of where the “true” version is hosted, it becomes a lot easier to understand what is going on.
How defederation works
Now take that example post from earlier, the one on beehaw.org. The “true” version of the post is on beehaw.org but the post is still hosted on both instances (again, it has a copy hosted on all instances). Let’s say someone with an account on beehaw.org comments on that post. That comment is going to be sent to every version of that post via ActivityPub, as the “true” version has been updated. That is, every version EXCEPT lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works. So users on lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works won’t get that comment, because we’ve been defederated from beehaw.org. If we write a comment, it will only be visible from accounts on lemmy.world, because we posted to a copy, but our copy is now out of sync with the “true” version. So we can appear to interact with the post, but those interactions are ONLY visible by other lemmy.world accounts, since our comments aren’t send to other versions. As the “true” version is hosted on beehaw, and we no longer get beehaw updates due to defederation, we will not see comments from ANY other community on those posts (including from other defederated instances like sh.itjust.works).
The same goes for posting to beehaw communities. We can still do that. However, the “true” version of those communities are the ones on beehaw, so our posts will not be shared to other instances via ActivityPub. And all of this is true for Beehaw users with our communities. Beehaw users can continue to see and interact with Lemmy.world communities, but those interactions are only visible to other Beehaw users, since the “true” versions of the Lemmy.world communities (the ones sent to/synced with every other instance) is the Lemmy.world one.
Communities on other instances, for example lemmy.ml, are unaffected by this. Lemmy.world and beehaw.org users will still be able to interact with those communities, but posts/comments from lemmy.world users won’t be visible to beehaw.org users, as defederation prevents our posts/comments from being sent to the version of these posts hosted on beehaw.org. However, as the “true” version is the one on the third instance, we can still see everything from beehaw.org users. So we see a more filled in version than the beehaw users.
Why can I still see posts/comments from beehaw users?
Until they defederated us, posts/comments were being sent to lemmy.world, so we can see everything from before defederation. After defederation, we are no longer receiving or sending updates. So there are now multiple versions of those posts.
Why can I still interact with beehaw communities?
This won’t ever stop. You’ll notice that all posts after defederation are only from lemmy.world users. You won’t see posts/comments from ANY other instance (including instances that ) on beehaw.org communities.
Those communities will quickly suck for us, as we’re only talking to other lemmy.world users. Your posts/comments are not being sent to any other lemmy. I highly recommend just unsubscribing from those communities, since they’re pretty pointless for us to be in right now.
Why do I still see comments from beehaw users on lemmy.world communities?
Again, comments from before defederation were still sent to us. After defederation, it will no longer be possible for beehaw users to interact with the “true” version of lemmy.world communities. Their posts/comments are not being sent to any other lemmy. They also aren’t getting updates from any other lemmy, as the “true” version of those communities is on our instance.
Why do I see posts/comments from beehaw users on communities outside lemmy.world and beehaw.org?
That’s because the “true” version of those posts is outside beehaw. So we get updates from those posts. And lemmy.world didn’t defederate beehaw, so posts/comments from beehaw users can still come to versions hosted on lemmy.world.
The reverse is not true. Because beehaw defederate lemmy.world, any post/comment from a lemmy.world users will NOT be sent to the beehaw version of the post.
This seems like it’s worse for beehaw users than for us?
Yes. In my opinion, this is an extraordinarily dumb act by the beehaw instance owners. It’s worse for beehaw users than for us, and will likely result in many beehaw users leaving that instance. They said in their post that this is a nuke, but I don’t think they fully assessed the blast area. Based on their post, I don’t think they fully understand what defederation does.
There was a thread yesterday in kbin meta where there was overwhelming support for banning magazines (communities) which users didn’t like. One user gave an example of kbin.social/m/antiwoke. It had two milquetoast submissions and nothing even remotely against any rules. I suggested they simply block the magazine and move on with their lives. I was heavily downvoted.
I fear that a large portion of the Lemmy community actually desires censorship. Now we see these same communities which desire censorship censoring each other. It’s like a safe space arms race. I just want an instance where users welcome discussion - even when they don’t agree with the person on the other side. I really don’t think that is too much to ask for, even in 2023.
Let’s not waste our breath pretending a place called “antiwoke” is anything but a racist right wing cesspool. There’s literally no other purpose it could serve.
And of course you have censorship on the internet. You need to censor, literally every platform out there that has existed for a reasonable amount of time on the internet has to censor even if it’s just to comply with local laws.
In other words, if you don’t censor you open up your doors to hosting child porn, it’s that simple. So I hope people can see that censorship is a necessary evil and not some binary choice you can make.
So the question is what you censor, not if you censor. And of course there will be things that people straight up don’t want. You don’t have to be accepting of everything. In fact it’s actively detrimental to be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
I’m not gonna blame anyone if they want to kick out communities like “antiwoke” because it’s quite clear what’s gonna come out of them.
Perhaps we should wait until they actually do something unforgivably evil before we ban them. Pre-emptively banning anyone who disagrees with us is, IMHO, not what I want. As above, it does appear to be popular though.
I’m sorry, but there is no need or benefit to be found in tolerance for the intolerant. Nobody has to give them a platform. Nobody should. And if you seriously believe a community called “antiwoke” has anything positive or useful to bring to the table, I have a very nice bridge looking to get rid of.
Yeah, believe it or not, I don’t support banning people just because I disagree with them. You might be surprised how many of us there are.
Believe it or not, ne neither!
But this is also not something I have said. This is a strawman argument you created, consciously or not.
What I actually said was that we shouldn’t provide a platform to the intolerant. Because they will seek to undermine and destroy our tolerance. There’s a bit more nuance in my argument than “ban people just because they disagree with me”. You kinda missed that.
That’s literally what you wrote. It’s your entire premise:
You don’t like the name of the magazine and you want it banned, even though it hasn’t broken any rules. You just don’t like what the name implies.
No, what I actually wrote was
I already called you out for being dishonest in your argument, why continue? Address what I actually said instead of the shitty strawman you try and fail to create.
I’m not in the business in being naive about it, terribly sorry. Show me a community that labels itself as “antiwoke” that isn’t a racist cesspool and I’ll entertain the argument.
It takes some impressive mental gymnastics to claim that doesn’t mean you want the magazine banned. That’s exactly what it means. If you don’t want it banned, why do you keep saying it shouldn’t have a platform? Why not just own your position? You’re clearly comfortable with it. Is it the word “ban” which you don’t like?
There’s nothing wrong with an instance curating which communities they allow. If people want those communities they can create them on another instance. The thing about the Fediverse is that there’s no one person/organization that decides what kinds of content are allowed, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be a free-for-all.
Well that’s just it: there is. Whoever owns the instance can decide for everyone subscribed to that instance what they may and may not interact with. This is why I think transparency is so important; so users can subscribe to instances which align with their moderation preferences.
For one instance. Do I need to explain to you the difference between a single instance and an entire platform?
And nice piece of goalpost-moving with your claim that this is all about “transparency.” Nothing in your original post even alludes to that.
I think you need to re-read my comment. I made the distinction clear:
I’m also not sure how I’ve moved goalposts. Do I need a 300 page disclaimer attached to all my posts describing things that I like and dislike? I think it’s pretty reasonable to support transparency. Why would you push back on that?
I also support users blocking the communities/magazines they wish to, as long as the community isn’t doing anything specifically illegal.
I came to lemmy to have some personal autonomy over my social media, I strongly dislike the types of toxic rhetoric that the above mention community push and my response would be to personally block them and move on.
There is merit to lawful freedom of speech, despite the abuse that we will naturally see in it’s use. At some point our internet use will have to be understood as the same as the physical public.
The great thing that the fediverse can bring is that we can both have that freedom and personally block out the aggressors in a way that we couldn’t in the physical public world.