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It is not that simple: 1. I endorse freedom of speech, even if I disagree with what you have to say. (This also means anyone can criticize what someone else (o

It is not that simple: 1. I endorse freedom of speech, even if I disagree with what you have to say. (This also means anyone can criticize what someone else (or themself) writes; if they cannot, then it is not real free speech.) 2. Even if an instance allows such a thing and some people support Trump or other stuff, this does not necessarily mean that everyone does; an entire instance is not a single person. 3. Blocking and downscoring at the user level may be possible, independently from instances. 4. You do not have to display all of the messages on the instance. You might view only those by a specific user account for a person or project, or only individual messages being linked to; not everything. 5. Nevertheless, excessive flooding may be a reason to block the federation (e.g. if they send too many millions of large data which is meaningless in less than a nanosecond, which would clearly overload the computer). 6. I don't know if there is possibility of federation but blocking certain types of messages, e.g. if you only want text and not video. Although this seems to be supported by the ActivityPub protocol (there is a Video object, so you can easily filter that), I don't know if the software supports it.

zem 3y ago
> 1. I endorse freedom of speech, even if I disagree with what you have to say. (This also means anyone can criticize what someone else (or themself) writes; if they cannot, then it is not real free speech.) do you merely need to be able to say it, or do you insist that the person you are criticising, and/or their associates, need to hear what you have to say?
- zzo38computer 3y ago
  They do not need to listen (they cannot be forced to listen), although a federated service should not prevent federation with an instance (even if they hide some or all messages) just because one message that has been added there is what the users of the other instance do not want on their computer. Blocking it entirely will just prevent communication even among the users (not the administrators) who wish to communicate freely, and will just result in more ignorance instead of better education. People could still vote against a message and apply tags and whatever, and can prevent messages from specific users from being displayed on their computer if they wish (by using scoring files (like on Usenet) or otherwise) (although they might be missing something), and even delete one copy of it (although it is best that users delete their own local copies instead of everyone else's), but you should not prevent a message from being accessed (or from being sent) at all costs.
JohnFen 3y ago
I wonder of the root of our differences about whether or not instances should be able to defederate with other instances is what we view an instance to be. I view it much like a cocktail party being thrown in someone's house. The host has every right to decide who will be at the party. If they don't want someone to come because they know that the person will make the party unpleasant for the other guests, they exclude them. It sucks, but it's not actually infringing on anyone's rights. Or, to put it in totally nonpolitical terms: if an instance is all about awesome a particular movie is, they may want to defederate from others who are all about how that movie is terrible. I genuinely don't see the problem with that, and while it is technically "censorship", it's not the sort that is actually problematic. Nobody is saying that the movie haters can't express their viewpoint, they're just saying that they can't do it in their particular clubhouse.
- zzo38computer 3y ago
  I partially agree with some of your points, but what if you actually want to communicate with both other instances, and be able to comment about other people's comments about the movie or whatever else it is that you are discussing? I specifically do want people from both opposite sides to be able to send messages, even if they are hidden by default.

zem 3y ago

> 1. I endorse freedom of speech, even if I disagree with what you have to say. (This also means anyone can criticize what someone else (or themself) writes; if they cannot, then it is not real free speech.) do you merely need to be able to say it, or do you insist that the person you are criticising, and/or their associates, need to hear what you have to say?

zzo38computer 3y ago
They do not need to listen (they cannot be forced to listen), although a federated service should not prevent federation with an instance (even if they hide some or all messages) just because one message that has been added there is what the users of the other instance do not want on their computer. Blocking it entirely will just prevent communication even among the users (not the administrators) who wish to communicate freely, and will just result in more ignorance instead of better education. People could still vote against a message and apply tags and whatever, and can prevent messages from specific users from being displayed on their computer if they wish (by using scoring files (like on Usenet) or otherwise) (although they might be missing something), and even delete one copy of it (although it is best that users delete their own local copies instead of everyone else's), but you should not prevent a message from being accessed (or from being sent) at all costs.

JohnFen 3y ago

I wonder of the root of our differences about whether or not instances should be able to defederate with other instances is what we view an instance to be. I view it much like a cocktail party being thrown in someone's house. The host has every right to decide who will be at the party. If they don't want someone to come because they know that the person will make the party unpleasant for the other guests, they exclude them. It sucks, but it's not actually infringing on anyone's rights. Or, to put it in totally nonpolitical terms: if an instance is all about awesome a particular movie is, they may want to defederate from others who are all about how that movie is terrible. I genuinely don't see the problem with that, and while it is technically "censorship", it's not the sort that is actually problematic. Nobody is saying that the movie haters can't express their viewpoint, they're just saying that they can't do it in their particular clubhouse.

zzo38computer 3y ago
I partially agree with some of your points, but what if you actually want to communicate with both other instances, and be able to comment about other people's comments about the movie or whatever else it is that you are discussing? I specifically do want people from both opposite sides to be able to send messages, even if they are hidden by default.