@jaz @jerry @jztusk @Crell @jsit was talking about...

Jerry Bell :verified_paw: :donor: :verified_dragon: :rebelverified:'s posts Post Back to profile

@jaz @jerry @jztusk @Crell
@jsit was talking about this the other day, and I keep feeling like I shot this idea down too soon...

https://social.coop/@jsit/112876102135328617

...but maybe that would be a good plan for some of these new and small instances, especially the ones that are trying to be safe spaces for minority groups. Get some momentum going, get some connections with other servers, get some contact with other server staffs, maybe eventually open it up.

Yeah, I think a federated whitelist would be a good idea.

Still, I'm looking at how many of these groups making block lists purport to be going after bigotry and harassment or whatever, but then you see them blocking a bunch of queer instances or black instances or something, and I wonder who might actually be trusted with this sort of thing. I can even imagine TechHub and Infosec showing up because someone with list access doesn't like the "techbros" or whatever...

Like 1 August at 15:27 | Wall-to-wall | Open on techhub.social

10 comments

Jay

@Raccoon @jaz @jerry @jztusk @Crell The refrain of “allowlists/blocklists are bad because it means you won’t hear from me” misses the point: This is why they are GOOD.

People don’t have a “right” to talk to your instance, this is a privilege that should be EARNED. And the protection of vulnerable people on social media is more important than my ability to make sure they can see my dumb posts.

This is not antithetical to the Fediverse. Choosing which instances to federate with is central to it!

1 August at 15:39 | Open on social.coop

Jay

@Raccoon @jaz @jerry @jztusk @Crell Because I am not among a group that is a frequent target of abuse, I have the privilege of enjoying the benefits of being on an “open” instance without having to worry about the drawbacks. I will probably always prefer to be on an instance that is blocklist-based instead of allowlist-based. But many people do not have that privilege.

1 August at 15:42 | Open on social.coop

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@jsit @jaz @jerry @jztusk @Crell
> "Because I am not among a group that is a frequent target of abuse, I have the privilege of enjoying the benefits of being on an “open” instance without having to worry about the drawbacks."

But here's the flip side of that, one of the main things that makes people a bit squeamish about this: because you're not a member of a marginalized group, you haven't been on a server that has been brigaded with false reports trying to get the mainstream to block you, and then suddenly find a bunch of other marginalized groups' servers have blocked you without checking up on those reports. This is one of the things we keep seeing between queer fedi and black fedi.

What's to stop a member of one group, bigoted towards another, from getting in here and keeping servers that should be on the list off of it?

It then becomes a question of who will bell the cat: who will take on the responsibility, and thus open themselves up to abuse, of maintaining this?

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1 August at 15:46 | Open on techhub.social

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@jsit @jaz @jerry @jztusk @Crell
And this post here also summarizes the big problems we've seen with FediBlock and The Bad Space.

We have people posting marginalized group instances on FediBlock, misrepresenting or exaggerating or even fabricating issues with those instances, and then suddenly finding that like 10% of the network has blocked them because no one is vetting these posts. I recently even appeared on there for attempting to vet some of those posts.

Meanwhile, every issue that The Bad Space has has basically turned into a timeline nightmare for its creators. Yeah, TBS has a problem with the number of instances it calls out for "racism" that no one else can find, and we could always make the argument that they could respond differently, but some people go absolutely insane about the people running it.

With a whitelist it would be even worse, because simply not including a server is doing a very real harm to its connections, and someone is going to answer for that.

@jsit @jaz @jerry @jztusk @Crell
And this post here also summarizes the big problems we've seen with FediBlock and The Bad Space.

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1 August at 15:54 | Open on techhub.social

Jay

@Raccoon Yes, who decides what to put on an allowlist/blocklist and what are the criteria they use continues to be a fraught problem with no simple solution.

But I was countering the claim a lot of people make that shared allowlists/blocklists in principle -- even if "perfectly curated" -- are antithetical to the Fediverse, which I think isn't true.

Some people bristle at the idea of these lists not because they think they might not be perfect, but because they want a nearly 100% open Fedi.

1 August at 15:55 | Open on social.coop

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon: replied to Jay

@jsit
I think you're talking about people who aren't in the conversation though: everyone who would be involved in this thread maintains a substantial block list, even if we have different standards for it. No one here is going to suggest a 100% open Fedi.

Our issue is the number of new and marginalized instances that are going to find a chunk of the network cut off by this sort of thing. We want new servers to be made, and we want those servers to thrive, because new servers add new life to the network, and a very important part of both of all of that is that good posts need to be able to spread far and wide and fast.

The Content Must Flow.

How does one create a new marginalized instance in an environment where instances with great content from marginalized groups is going to be cut off from them for however long it takes to get on the list? How do we let people on these new instances know more content will come, and why would they join a server that's blocked off?

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1 August at 16:04 | Open on techhub.social

Jay replied to Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@Raccoon I think maybe part of my confusion is not fully understanding how allowlists work. Can someone on a LIMITED_FEDERATION_MODE instance be *followed by* someone on a non-allowlisted instance?

For instance (heh), limited.example is in limited federation mode with only safe.example in its allowlist.

Someone on unknown.example wants to follow @ user @ limited.example. Can they do this?

#MastoAdmin #FediblockMeta

1 August at 16:34 | Open on social.coop

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon: replied to Jay

@jsit
As someone who doesn't deal with that directly, I forget that we have options like that. That is a good question, because if that's the case, it changes the nature of how disconnected these instances would be.

1 August at 16:38 | Open on techhub.social

Jay replied to Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@Raccoon I have a test instance that I will enable limited federation on.

I would love to know if there are any big instances that do this already.

1 August at 16:41 | Open on social.coop

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@jaz @jerry @jztusk @Crell @jsit
It also occurs to me that this can't be run by the instances using it, because they won't be able to see new instances to whitelist, which means you're going to need a few large servers to be the "Canary in the coal mine" for these instances. I feel like Tech Hub, with our somewhat squeamish block policies, could be a really useful server here, and I'd be happy to help maintain such a list.

What I think we need is some framework for how this list is put together and maintained, without too much overhead. We would need to account for the fact that such a list needs to be absolutely huge, and that while it should prioritize safety, there is an ethical obligation to get as many servers on it as possible.

As I told Jsit, it might be useful for someone to make this list now, just so we can see what it looks like.

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1 August at 15:41 | Open on techhub.social