can vlemmy control what I can or cannot see?

3 years ago by evirac to c/chat

I'm new to fediverse and lemmy stuff and when I made my account, I didn't know this but I saw a yt video today which showed that the instance I've registered with, can block another instance and I cannot interact with that instance as well. Is that true? That seems like more control over what I see than reddit itself. I don't want to be controlled by someone else's ideologies and opinions. And I hope that's not the case. I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding something but this is important to me

elephantintheroom 9 points 3 years ago

Yes, it's called defederation.

But VLemmy hasn't blocked any other instance, to my knowledge. Seems like they want to let us users decide what we block.

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evirac 5 points 3 years ago

I just hope it stays that way and we're informed when they decide to defederate anyone

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elephantintheroom 3 points 3 years ago

Me too. I check (ir-)regularly if any instances got defederated.

But I think even if it happens, they would inform us. Communication from the admins regarding changes seems very good.

EDIT: You can check it for yourself over here. It doesn't show exactly which instances are blocked, but it helps.

EDIT 2: Better check VLemmy's instance page directly. Blocked instances should be listed in there, if there will be any. Last link led to outdated information.

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insomniac 3 points 3 years ago

That’s the beauty of federation. If vlemmy gets taken over by people you disagree with and starts deferating with other instances willynilly, you can just move to a different one. No single instance controls Lemmy and you’re free to create your own instance and make your own rules or join an instance that suits you. As opposed to Reddit where the community is entirely at the whim of one person.

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jrubal1462 7 points 3 years ago

Yes and no. The way I've seen it described is "Freedom of speech, freedom to filter".

We come from a place where all of the rules about what can be said on Facebook come from zuck (and a hidden team of moderators, accountable to no one). The final say about what can be posted to reddit comes from /u/spez, and worst of all, all the rules about what can be said on Twitter come from Musk.

Here, yes. In theory, @Pyarra technically CAN defederate entire communities on a whim. His/her ball, his/her rules. But the neat part is you get to PICK your Zuckerberg here. If @Pyarra is too tyrannical, you can just go be a member of lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, knin.social, etc. and join all the same communities and talk with all the same people.

In practice, any time the issue of defederating an instance came up, /u/Pyarra was SUPER transparent about what they were considering and why, and we all talked it out. They don't HAVE to do that, but they have. It' find this to be a very good instance.

Footnote: beehaw.org is a large instance that has kindness and hard moderation built into its DNA. Right after the first wave of refugees arrived, they defederated major instances because the small mod team couldn't keep up with trolls. People who took issue with this left, and people who liked it stayed. In my opinion, this is an example of the system working. Beehaw's not for everybody, but I'm glad it's there.

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BrikoX 6 points 3 years ago

https://vlemmy.net/instances shows blocked instances (second column, which is empty now). You can read what this instance admin stance on defederation is here https://vlemmy.net/post/63994

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Elkaki123 2 points 3 years ago

Other people have already explained, but even under the scenario you describe (mods blocking entire instances) it would not be mor control that reddit. There entire subreddits were banned, which meant absolutely no one could access it, here a ban means only se instance/server that banned it can't access it, but you can just hop into another account or alternative browse as a guest the blocked instance

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