this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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Their question was literally "do we still need instance blocks"
What? The question was literally “Should instances defederate with other instances anymore if we can filter instances out on our end?”.
Defederating = instance block
Defederation is done by the instance administrator and affects all users. Instance blocking is done by the user and affects only them.
Instance blocks have been admin/instance level before user level instance blocks were a thing. User level instance blocks are more accurately user level filters. Only admin level instance blocks are true blocks.
Admin level blocks are what I'm referring to in this conversation and that most people assume when they see the term "instance block"
But the OP specifically talked about how the new ability to block instances can replace defederation, so it’s clear what they had in mind.
You seem to be more interested in the semantics than the point I was making
Your original point was that a fediverse without instance blocks would be bad, which is irrelevant to the post because the OP is not advocating for a fediverse without instance blocks:
I used instance block as a synonym for defederating. Now you know what I meant, can we get on with the discussion instead of arguing about things I didn't mean
Alright. To quote your original comment:
How would removing defederation result in a situation where “every bigot can access anyone and everyone else” if user-level instance blocking was still a thing?
Because user level blocking isn't really blocking. It's just filtering. The bigots can still see the content of people that have blocked their instance, and they can even reply to it. The only person that can't see it is the user who configured the "block"
What exactly is the problem with a bigot replying to you if you don’t see the reply?
Also, they can see the content even if you defederate, because it’s public.
I've gone in to this in depth elsewhere, but the difference is in the number of drive by bigots encountered, and how easy it is for those drive by bigots to interact.
So, in an open fediverse, with no defederation, and only user level filtering, drive by bigots will come along and hate on someone. That person will block the bigots instance (after being exposed to their hate), but even after that, the bigots will still be able to interact, and other vulnerable folk will still encounter the bigot dog pile. This is exactly how things work on twitter currently.
But when you can lock down posts to limit who can see them and defederate from instances that attract bigots, then less bigots will randomly see the content from vulnerable folk in their feeds in the first place, meaning less drive bys and less dogpiling. It doesn't stop targeted bigotry, and it doesn't stop dogpiling completely, but it makes it far more manageable.