Some time ago I started following some Twitter accounts from the Mastodon instance I’m on, via one of the many Birdsitelive instances. Suddenly they all disappeared and I thought of a server down; no problem I followed them again via another Birdsitelive instance. Until this week: also those ones disappeared. Then I asked to my admins, they answered they are blocking Birdsitelive instances one by one because of their huge resource consuming on server. But: shouldn’t the “weight” be on the side of the Birdsitelive server? From Mastodon I’m only reading, I shouldn’t being generating anything. Am I missing some technical info?
I am guessing, but AFAIK reading requires the Mastodon instance you are on to mirror all the content as well. But why those twitter relays are especially bad is not so clear to me either as I never used those.
Yes, I’ve been explained just in this way, that every content from another instance is mirrored on the one I’m on. I always thought that posts from other instances were “empty shells” calling original server for the content. I think this is a big problem, from a certain point of view.