This post on Lemmy:

This post on Beehaw:

@lisko@sopuli.xyz’s comment is not visible at all on the Lemmy instance while to me my comment is not visible at all on the Beehaw instance, nothing is showing in modlog though so I assume it has not been removed.

Am I unaware of a mechanic of federation occurring here? Or is something bugged?

  • Slatlun@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth, but I think the problem is that you’re trying to debate what federation is. Do people control the content on their own instances or an instance you federate with control what they put on your server? To someone in the code these questions are not a philosophical debate of the future of federation. They are the essential misunderstanding of what federation means. That is something they have likely had to explain so many times it hurts. They might also be a human with other things happening in their life that have absolutely nothing to do with this post or even lemmy at all. I think it is worth remembering that we have no right to a person’s time or engagement.

    Should it work differently? Maybe, but that would mean changing the definition of federation. To someone developing within a fixed model of federation what you are actually asking is to start over, redraw the map, design a new system from scratch. It might be worthwhile, but it is outside the scope of the project they have taken on. Lemmy is going to work the way it does because it is following a model that works that way. The model you describe doesn’t exist yet.

    Here’s your opportunity. You can create that model. If you believe it is better maybe others will rally to it. Can you outline precisely who has control of what data on each server? Can you explain how a person or group hosting an instance can satisfy their moral and legal obligations under your system of ‘federation’?

    • Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.mlOP
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      2 years ago

      I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth, but I think the problem is that you’re trying to debate what federation is.

      I’m not trying to debate what it is, I’ve come to terms with what it is in its currently designed format over the course of the thread. I’m questioning whether it’s actually better for the left in the existing format because it feels like it will result in absolutely massive suppression of everything outside of the current hegemony. Not just for leftists but for every other battle occurring out there too. Maybe the fact that i misunderstood it to begin with, then learned, then quickly came to some pretty negative conclusions about what that will develop into over the course of its growth has led to the confusing that I’m “debating” what federation is. I see what it is, if I’m debating (not my intention) it is over whether that’s what it should be and whether it should in fact be something else.

      On reddit the manner in which the left gets suppressed is at the admin level, and it comes in the form of having successful communities cut down when they start to boom. This is actually at quite a sizeable and impactful level when this occurs. In the background too the admins are consistently banning effective communists, especially moderators and community builders. The smallest possible infractions are used to do this. This all sounds pretty bad but it pales in comparison to the repression the left would receive if you gave every single modteam on reddit the ability to block their userbase from ever seeing responses or content from communists/leftists, who are quite easily identified by their subreddits of origin over on left-reddit. Every single modteam on reddit would take action against leftists, one after another, and the ones that do not will be infiltrated and eventually take action against leftists. That is the troubling ecosystem I am imagining Lemmy developing into in the future. Lemmy instances are in essence, subreddits but with the functionality of reddit in that they can have sub-subreddits(comms), the wider reddit side of things is filled in by federation.

      Should it work differently? Maybe, but that would mean changing the definition of federation.

      Yes. I understand this.

      Here’s your opportunity. You can create that model. If you believe it is better maybe others will rally to it. Can you outline precisely who has control of what data on each server? Can you explain how a person or group hosting an instance can satisfy their moral and legal obligations under your system of ‘federation’?

      The legality is the sticking point. Server owners NEED to have control of the content on their server. The issue is providing this while also building in some sort of organisational structure that limits the capability of servers to act repressively along ideological lines. As I mentioned in another comment, the solution that makes sense here is for the technology to work as it does but for the federation itself to have an organisational agreement between federating participants on moderator jurisdiction of things that are not illegal and perhaps a voting method for federation participants to defederate a member that is not abiding by the federation agreement. A combination of federation and some of wiki’s systems perhaps.

      I don’t necessarily have a complete answer. I just think talking about this problem is essential at this point in time. Anyone that has been involved in multiple subreddit teams knows how fucking stupid reddit politics are, none of that is going to go away as things scale up, and with the systems the way they are and the behaviour of modteams I’ve seen I am concerned. That’s not even getting into the fact that I’ve watched entire communities be riled up into a form of digital colour-revolution against their modteams by bad-actors, as well as the infiltrations and takeovers by crypto-neoliberals. Antiwork has undergone so many purges and internal battles I have lost count and it has absolutely lost most of them to the liberals aiming to disarm it.