On desktop there should be a small "about" link in the bottom left, from which there is a "moderated servers" dropdown menu where you can see defederated servers. I don't see anywhere to view the servers you ARE federated with, but if it's listed at ~~Mastodon's official website~~ (whoops, I actually meant this)it's probably in.

I don't see anything on the official Masto app, but that app is just missing a ton of functionality in general.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

the servers you ARE federated with

iirc, that's all down to what accounts your server's users follow. If any users on server A follow users on server B, and neither A nor B block the other, then A is federated with B.

[–] BlemboTheThird@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But how would a user on A find anyone on B before federation? I know Lemmy can initiate federation through the search function just in case you're the first to look for something on another instance, but I don't see how that would work on Masto.

[–] russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's done through a similar mechanism, you can paste the URL of a user on a different Mastodon search which triggers the same style of search as it does on Lemmy. Mastodon has relays (an admin needs to add/subscribe to one, and the relay has to confirm/accept) however which can also help "kickstart" Federation so to speak as well - which is like blasting a firehose at an instance.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In addition, I believe that there might be a "viral" component to federation; if users on server A follow users on server B, and users on server B follow users on server C, then server C's popular posts can show up on server A's explore page. Is that correct?

[–] russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net 3 points 1 year ago

If someone on server B were to boost that posts from server C, then yes they'd show up on server A as far as I know - but only if they're boosted. The federation aspect works a lot like Lemmy's, so while my instance my federates with lemmy.world (and vice versa), my instance doesn't know about the communities on LW unless someone on my instance subscribes to that community in particular (and vice-versa for a community on my instance not showing up on LW until someone over there subscribes). At least, that's how I understand it - to be honest I still don't have my head completely wrapped around Mastodon's federation aspect but since both Mastodon and Lemmy use ActivityPub I'd reckon that they're very similar.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

That's exactly the same as lemmy.

[–] ShittyKopper@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

FYI the official website is https://joinmastodon.org/servers, not whatever you linked to