10 ms·

Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.

49 points by alexgleason 3y ago

decremental 3y ago
[dead]
PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
Can imagine the shit show if Threads tried to avoid instances blocking them.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
sylware 3y ago
They really don't know how to do it: By default a curated view which probably group-minimizes the posts, unless the user decides to go uncurated. One could think of categories of curation, levels, etc (AI could understand sarcasm). No need to shadow ban or ban full servers, just group curated-out content and always let the user decides, unless the account was adult gated with adult temporal wallet code (there will be a black market ofc, but if control is done properly, that should stay anecdotal).
TOMDM 3y ago
The complaint by the author that Meta should moderate individual users rather than simply block "loosely moderated" servers feels like an unreasonable expectation.
- lynndotpy 3y ago
  Exactly; one of the most valuable things federation brings to the table is the ability to choose which servers to federate with and which not to. I don't want Meta moderating individual users on sites they don't own.
  - AJ007 3y ago
    The "moderation" line for e-mail has been drawn at spam/hacking/phishing. If the fediverse succeeds, then it will do the same. Servers that fail to police spam/hacking/phishing will be blocked, everything else will be allowed. If the lines are drawn elsewhere, each server will choose their own lines, there will be no agreement, and thus no ability to share blocklists, and the fediverse will be in name only. There is a very good reason to see this path being taken, given what the Apple App Store disallows and new EU law with rigid speech requirements.
- LTom 3y ago
  I suppose it fits with the rest of this article being rather disingenuous. Alex Gleason, Spinster and Neenster are part of a controversial group that detractors call "trans-exclusionary radical feminism." For better or for worse (the details of this controversy are not necessarily relevant), instances of that nature (and pretty much anything that runs on Soapbox) are defederated by a lot of Fediverse servers, and it seems that Meta for one reason or another has joined those servers. Gleason is well aware of this controversy. My best guess is that Meta hopes to make itself appear more palatable to mainstream Mastodon servers by also defederating.
Barrin92 3y ago
>Meta seems to be betting on the fact that people have played nicely in the past, but I for one am not going to let them have their way. I am going to ensure the data they publish remains free and open to all. is there a name for this behavior? 'in-your-face-ism?' Choosing who to federate with is an explicit feature of federation. It's precisely what a lot of servers wanted to do with traffic from Threads, and they should have the ability to. There's an increasing number of people in social communities who seemingly want to have a right to not just have their own space, but insert themselves into spaces of people who have kicked them out, or don't want anything to do with them.
- TOMDM 3y ago
  Exactly. The principle of free association isn't just anyone should be able to associate with those that feel the same way, it's also that people shouldn't have to with those they don't.
Observer3082 3y ago
[flagged]
vero24 3y ago
some of these people might do to read instagram/threads TOS before complaining about suppression of speech
- fbdrgvv 3y ago
  Why? They aren’t legally binding. No reasonable person thinks they are.
phoe-krk 3y ago
> It's very common on Mastodon to block servers with a heavy hand, with huge blocklists such as "Fediblock" naming nearly every server on the network. This is a big problem, because it creates a fragmented network where people cannot communicate with each other. This "problem" is actually a feature. The requirement that everyone must be able to communicate with one another is a fallacy. An admin of an instance has a right to block any server they wish to block, just as a user of that instance has a right to move to another one if their instance's administration policy doesn't suit them. This includes Threads, since it decides to become one of the many other instances on the Fediverse. > goes against the open nature of the Fediverse The nature of the Fediverse is that it is decentralized and that you, as an instance administrator, own your instance, with all the ups and downs of that fact. Who are you to impose your own limitations upon owners of other instances and tell them what they should or shouldn't do with their own hardware and their own software?
- orblivion 3y ago
  This system solves the "safe space problem" and the "free speech problem" at the same time if only both sides could recognize it.
  - phoe-krk 3y ago
    It's on the users to recognize and define the distinction between safe space and free speech - unlike on other platforms, where it's the global moderators' job.
- gettodachoppa 3y ago
  This seems fair, unless these blocklists are used to bully neutral servers into adopting your blocklist? Let's say there's a federation of bully admins who dislike Server Wrongthink. There's a moderate server Moderate which they're federated with, but Moderate does not block Wrongthink. In this scenario, will Moderate get blocked too? Or only Wrongthink?
  - phoe-krk 3y ago
the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
> Threads must moderate users, not servers Why does threads have to do that? Server blocks are incredibly common in the fediverse and last time this came up as a complaint people defended this religiously as being just how stuff works. The server I'm on has an incredibly large blocklist and it's not even entirely clear what it blocks given that half the blocks themselves are censored: https://hachyderm.io/about https://hachyderm.io/about This is exactly what one would expect to find if the fediverse can't agree on shared rules.
- whatshisface 3y ago
  I think the issues with server blocks are mainly related to the way administrators use them to settle personal beefs or play a nuclear negotiation game with other admins who they want to impose their moderation policies on. "Moderate my way or you'll all be defederated." Mastodon administrators aren't "faceless corporations," they are people with as many personality flaws and weaknesses as your coworkers or any other group of techies you didn't get to choose to work with. Some of them are Machiavellian narcissists, who want to decide how the entire network functions - and they're not afraid to use their ability to sever social connections with unaware users as a negotiating tool.
  - phoe-krk 3y ago
    > Moderate my way or you'll all be defederated. And it's a feature, too. The users trust their administration team with their presence on a given instance and actually defer their moderation choices to them - something that's impossible on other, centralized platforms. If a moderator of an instance serves the moderation wishes of the users of that instance, and everyone on that instance is happy, then what's the problem?
    - whatshisface 3y ago
      You might be imagining a server full of spam and Nazis, totally unmoderated except for compliance with basic laws, when you think of a server block. I am talking about a case such as where an admin had an argument with one user on another server and then blocked the entire server as a negotiation tactic to force the user's admin to ban them. The users on the Machiavellian admin's server didn't know this was happening because server blocks show up in the form of mysterious disappeances of some of your friends. The free market argument for the belief that everything an admin does is necessarily good if they still have any users left after they do it is flawed, because users do not know all that much about what their admins are doing, and don't have a way of knowing whether a server they're thinking about switching to is better or worse.
Spivak 3y ago
In case the author doesn't know or willfully didn't post the reason Spinster is banned both on Threads and Mastadon; the server is a safe haven for TERFs who co-opt feminism as the cover for open seething transphobia disguised as criticism when communicating to a wider audience. Credit where it's due they're much smarter than your typical bigots and know how to hide it better to avoid bans. The fact that the OP is out here defending them as just feminists is the a sign it's working. There is nothing in feminist thought that would earn them a ban on any major social network that isn't that "gender critical" nonsense. Whether or not you agree with the position or not Threads calls what they do hate speech and so defederating makes total sense from their perspective.
- biggestfan 3y ago
  The author of this was the head of engineering at Truth Social: https://www.reuters.com/technology/head-engineering-trumps-truth-social-app-resigns-2023-07-17/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/head-engineering-trumps-t.... He also runs/ran several "GC" focused instances, and worked at Gab (the "alt-right" social media that rebased itself on Mastodon). This is an intentionally vague post by someone with a bad history, trying to play cover for instances that Meta obviously doesn't want to associate with.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    Welp that answers that I guess. I do feel bad for these women who for whatever reason hate trans people so much they align themselves with groups that will throw them under the bus the instant they stop being useful.
- sp332 3y ago
  That part actually confused me, because TERFs don't usually bother Meta. Here is a sample post that they showed the admin of neuromatch.social (on his Instagram, as an ad for Threads): https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/111633121548703898 https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/111633121548703898 An unsympathetic test case, but it made me wonder if I missed something else going on.
- wjhill 3y ago
orblivion 3y ago
Lots of instances block Threads too. That's how it works.
__float 3y ago
It's an odd omission that the "feminist server" mentioned is actually a gathering place for TERFs, after they were banned from places like Reddit. If your community is problematic enough to be kicked off of Reddit, I can imagine your users/content may not be desirable to Meta/Threads' brand, either.
- friend_and_foe 3y ago
  Meh tbh reddit bans everyone now, it's not the place it once was where if you're banned on reddit you have to be particularly bad. People have been banned for liking a president, it's not like that's some fringe ideology. Banning feminists for thinking feminism is for females is pretty heavy handed.
- taylanub 3y ago
  [dead]
- drannex 3y ago
  Makes sense considering he is staunchly anti-trans https://web.archive.org/web/20220726042921/https://blog.alexgleason.me/trans/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220726042921/https://blog.alex... He was also previously the head of engineering of the Trump-related social network Truth Social. He also [worked on Poast](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/truth-social-poast-donald-trump/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/truth-social-poast-donald-tru...), which is a social network for neo-nazis and a direct successor to Kiwi Farms. Steer clear of it.
- guckle 3y ago
  The banned subreddits are archived here, they weren't particularly problematic, but the 'TERF' viewpoints they expressed angered the people-of-gender in the Reddit admin team so much that they decided to ban the whole lot: https://www.itsafetish.org/archives/gendercritical https://www.itsafetish.org/archives/gendercritical It's unfortunate because there was often a lot of interesting and thought-provoking discussion there that hasn't quite been replicated on its successor, Ovarit.
redserk 3y ago
The author's baseless accusations wrapped in snark sounds incredibly petty. Given this is how the instance admin handles defederation, preemptive defederation of this network makes sense.
- yunohn 3y ago
  Honestly this blog is one of the most entitled posts I’ve seen in a while.
camgunz 3y ago
I think it's probably a pretty bad idea to publish someone's stuff (content on threads) somewhere they don't want it published (a shitposting server). Feels like a TOS or copyright violation, if not just rude.
taimurkazmi 3y ago
Isn't the entire point of the fediverse that users and admins can block entire servers to create a curated experience? Why does this author hate the open internet?
tamimio 3y ago
[flagged]
- taylanub 3y ago
  It's because tech bros hate feminists and their allies even more than they hate the corrupt tech industry.
Ylmaz 3y ago
Threads will probably switch from a blacklist to a whitelist soon.
drannex 3y ago
Just a heads up, the creator and maintainer, Alex Gleason, of Soapbox (or Rebased as it was called) is [anti-trans](https://web.archive.org/web/20220726042921/https://blog.alexgleason.me/trans/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220726042921/https://blog.alex...) and was previously the [head of engineering](https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4102527-top-exec-at-trumps-truth-social-resigns/ https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4102527-top-exec-at-tr...) of the Trump-related social network (Truth Social) He also [worked on Poast](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/truth-social-poast-donald-trump/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/truth-social-poast-donald-tru...), which was a social network for neo-nazis and a direct successor to Kiwi Farms. Steer clear of it.

49 points by alexgleason 3y ago

decremental 3y ago

[dead]

PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago

Can imagine the shit show if Threads tried to avoid instances blocking them.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

sylware 3y ago

They really don't know how to do it: By default a curated view which probably group-minimizes the posts, unless the user decides to go uncurated. One could think of categories of curation, levels, etc (AI could understand sarcasm). No need to shadow ban or ban full servers, just group curated-out content and always let the user decides, unless the account was adult gated with adult temporal wallet code (there will be a black market ofc, but if control is done properly, that should stay anecdotal).

TOMDM 3y ago

The complaint by the author that Meta should moderate individual users rather than simply block "loosely moderated" servers feels like an unreasonable expectation.

lynndotpy 3y ago
Exactly; one of the most valuable things federation brings to the table is the ability to choose which servers to federate with and which not to. I don't want Meta moderating individual users on sites they don't own.
- AJ007 3y ago
  The "moderation" line for e-mail has been drawn at spam/hacking/phishing. If the fediverse succeeds, then it will do the same. Servers that fail to police spam/hacking/phishing will be blocked, everything else will be allowed. If the lines are drawn elsewhere, each server will choose their own lines, there will be no agreement, and thus no ability to share blocklists, and the fediverse will be in name only. There is a very good reason to see this path being taken, given what the Apple App Store disallows and new EU law with rigid speech requirements.
LTom 3y ago
I suppose it fits with the rest of this article being rather disingenuous. Alex Gleason, Spinster and Neenster are part of a controversial group that detractors call "trans-exclusionary radical feminism." For better or for worse (the details of this controversy are not necessarily relevant), instances of that nature (and pretty much anything that runs on Soapbox) are defederated by a lot of Fediverse servers, and it seems that Meta for one reason or another has joined those servers. Gleason is well aware of this controversy. My best guess is that Meta hopes to make itself appear more palatable to mainstream Mastodon servers by also defederating.

Barrin92 3y ago

>Meta seems to be betting on the fact that people have played nicely in the past, but I for one am not going to let them have their way. I am going to ensure the data they publish remains free and open to all. is there a name for this behavior? 'in-your-face-ism?' Choosing who to federate with is an explicit feature of federation. It's precisely what a lot of servers wanted to do with traffic from Threads, and they should have the ability to. There's an increasing number of people in social communities who seemingly want to have a right to not just have their own space, but insert themselves into spaces of people who have kicked them out, or don't want anything to do with them.

TOMDM 3y ago
Exactly. The principle of free association isn't just anyone should be able to associate with those that feel the same way, it's also that people shouldn't have to with those they don't.

Observer3082 3y ago

[flagged]

vero24 3y ago

some of these people might do to read instagram/threads TOS before complaining about suppression of speech

fbdrgvv 3y ago
Why? They aren’t legally binding. No reasonable person thinks they are.

phoe-krk 3y ago

> It's very common on Mastodon to block servers with a heavy hand, with huge blocklists such as "Fediblock" naming nearly every server on the network. This is a big problem, because it creates a fragmented network where people cannot communicate with each other. This "problem" is actually a feature. The requirement that everyone must be able to communicate with one another is a fallacy. An admin of an instance has a right to block any server they wish to block, just as a user of that instance has a right to move to another one if their instance's administration policy doesn't suit them. This includes Threads, since it decides to become one of the many other instances on the Fediverse. > goes against the open nature of the Fediverse The nature of the Fediverse is that it is decentralized and that you, as an instance administrator, own your instance, with all the ups and downs of that fact. Who are you to impose your own limitations upon owners of other instances and tell them what they should or shouldn't do with their own hardware and their own software?

orblivion 3y ago
This system solves the "safe space problem" and the "free speech problem" at the same time if only both sides could recognize it.
- phoe-krk 3y ago
  It's on the users to recognize and define the distinction between safe space and free speech - unlike on other platforms, where it's the global moderators' job.
gettodachoppa 3y ago
This seems fair, unless these blocklists are used to bully neutral servers into adopting your blocklist? Let's say there's a federation of bully admins who dislike Server Wrongthink. There's a moderate server Moderate which they're federated with, but Moderate does not block Wrongthink. In this scenario, will Moderate get blocked too? Or only Wrongthink?
- phoe-krk 3y ago

the_mitsuhiko 3y ago

> Threads must moderate users, not servers Why does threads have to do that? Server blocks are incredibly common in the fediverse and last time this came up as a complaint people defended this religiously as being just how stuff works. The server I'm on has an incredibly large blocklist and it's not even entirely clear what it blocks given that half the blocks themselves are censored: https://hachyderm.io/about https://hachyderm.io/about This is exactly what one would expect to find if the fediverse can't agree on shared rules.

whatshisface 3y ago
I think the issues with server blocks are mainly related to the way administrators use them to settle personal beefs or play a nuclear negotiation game with other admins who they want to impose their moderation policies on. "Moderate my way or you'll all be defederated." Mastodon administrators aren't "faceless corporations," they are people with as many personality flaws and weaknesses as your coworkers or any other group of techies you didn't get to choose to work with. Some of them are Machiavellian narcissists, who want to decide how the entire network functions - and they're not afraid to use their ability to sever social connections with unaware users as a negotiating tool.
- phoe-krk 3y ago
  > Moderate my way or you'll all be defederated. And it's a feature, too. The users trust their administration team with their presence on a given instance and actually defer their moderation choices to them - something that's impossible on other, centralized platforms. If a moderator of an instance serves the moderation wishes of the users of that instance, and everyone on that instance is happy, then what's the problem?
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    You might be imagining a server full of spam and Nazis, totally unmoderated except for compliance with basic laws, when you think of a server block. I am talking about a case such as where an admin had an argument with one user on another server and then blocked the entire server as a negotiation tactic to force the user's admin to ban them. The users on the Machiavellian admin's server didn't know this was happening because server blocks show up in the form of mysterious disappeances of some of your friends. The free market argument for the belief that everything an admin does is necessarily good if they still have any users left after they do it is flawed, because users do not know all that much about what their admins are doing, and don't have a way of knowing whether a server they're thinking about switching to is better or worse.

Spivak 3y ago

In case the author doesn't know or willfully didn't post the reason Spinster is banned both on Threads and Mastadon; the server is a safe haven for TERFs who co-opt feminism as the cover for open seething transphobia disguised as criticism when communicating to a wider audience. Credit where it's due they're much smarter than your typical bigots and know how to hide it better to avoid bans. The fact that the OP is out here defending them as just feminists is the a sign it's working. There is nothing in feminist thought that would earn them a ban on any major social network that isn't that "gender critical" nonsense. Whether or not you agree with the position or not Threads calls what they do hate speech and so defederating makes total sense from their perspective.

biggestfan 3y ago
The author of this was the head of engineering at Truth Social: https://www.reuters.com/technology/head-engineering-trumps-truth-social-app-resigns-2023-07-17/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/head-engineering-trumps-t.... He also runs/ran several "GC" focused instances, and worked at Gab (the "alt-right" social media that rebased itself on Mastodon). This is an intentionally vague post by someone with a bad history, trying to play cover for instances that Meta obviously doesn't want to associate with.
- Spivak 3y ago
  Welp that answers that I guess. I do feel bad for these women who for whatever reason hate trans people so much they align themselves with groups that will throw them under the bus the instant they stop being useful.
sp332 3y ago
That part actually confused me, because TERFs don't usually bother Meta. Here is a sample post that they showed the admin of neuromatch.social (on his Instagram, as an ad for Threads): https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/111633121548703898 https://neuromatch.social/@jonny/111633121548703898 An unsympathetic test case, but it made me wonder if I missed something else going on.
wjhill 3y ago

orblivion 3y ago

Lots of instances block Threads too. That's how it works.

__float 3y ago

It's an odd omission that the "feminist server" mentioned is actually a gathering place for TERFs, after they were banned from places like Reddit. If your community is problematic enough to be kicked off of Reddit, I can imagine your users/content may not be desirable to Meta/Threads' brand, either.

friend_and_foe 3y ago
Meh tbh reddit bans everyone now, it's not the place it once was where if you're banned on reddit you have to be particularly bad. People have been banned for liking a president, it's not like that's some fringe ideology. Banning feminists for thinking feminism is for females is pretty heavy handed.
taylanub 3y ago
[dead]
drannex 3y ago
Makes sense considering he is staunchly anti-trans https://web.archive.org/web/20220726042921/https://blog.alexgleason.me/trans/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220726042921/https://blog.alex... He was also previously the head of engineering of the Trump-related social network Truth Social. He also [worked on Poast](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/truth-social-poast-donald-trump/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/truth-social-poast-donald-tru...), which is a social network for neo-nazis and a direct successor to Kiwi Farms. Steer clear of it.
guckle 3y ago
The banned subreddits are archived here, they weren't particularly problematic, but the 'TERF' viewpoints they expressed angered the people-of-gender in the Reddit admin team so much that they decided to ban the whole lot: https://www.itsafetish.org/archives/gendercritical https://www.itsafetish.org/archives/gendercritical It's unfortunate because there was often a lot of interesting and thought-provoking discussion there that hasn't quite been replicated on its successor, Ovarit.

redserk 3y ago

The author's baseless accusations wrapped in snark sounds incredibly petty. Given this is how the instance admin handles defederation, preemptive defederation of this network makes sense.

yunohn 3y ago
Honestly this blog is one of the most entitled posts I’ve seen in a while.

camgunz 3y ago

I think it's probably a pretty bad idea to publish someone's stuff (content on threads) somewhere they don't want it published (a shitposting server). Feels like a TOS or copyright violation, if not just rude.

taimurkazmi 3y ago

Isn't the entire point of the fediverse that users and admins can block entire servers to create a curated experience? Why does this author hate the open internet?

tamimio 3y ago

[flagged]

taylanub 3y ago
It's because tech bros hate feminists and their allies even more than they hate the corrupt tech industry.

Ylmaz 3y ago

Threads will probably switch from a blacklist to a whitelist soon.

drannex 3y ago

Just a heads up, the creator and maintainer, Alex Gleason, of Soapbox (or Rebased as it was called) is [anti-trans](https://web.archive.org/web/20220726042921/https://blog.alexgleason.me/trans/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220726042921/https://blog.alex...) and was previously the [head of engineering](https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4102527-top-exec-at-trumps-truth-social-resigns/ https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4102527-top-exec-at-tr...) of the Trump-related social network (Truth Social) He also [worked on Poast](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/truth-social-poast-donald-trump/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/truth-social-poast-donald-tru...), which was a social network for neo-nazis and a direct successor to Kiwi Farms. Steer clear of it.