this is because we started using a heavily curated blocklist for the worst mastodon instances (they can interoperate with us). we didn’t expect any trouble from any of them, but any instance in the new batch of banned instances can be safely assumed to be quite bad and it’s better to be proactive than not.

link https://beehaw.org/comment/176651

edit:

checking into a few of the listed blocks now... most of them don't seem to be operating anymore.

[–] nooneescapesthelaw@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Still I'd like to have a choice in the matter lemmy.ml unfortunately also has a lot of blocked instances, and alot of the other instances are overloaded right now. I'll probably wait a week or so until this craze blows over and sign up w/ a newer and smaller instance

[–] 1993_toyota_camry@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

For sure, if you want the raw unadulterated experience of the fediverse, that's definitely the right choice.

Personally, I'm not looking to engage with the type of people who flock to 'uncensored' spaces, so I appreciate the admins filtering them out.

[–] Kovari@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Is there a way to view blocked instances and why?

[–] monkeytennis@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Shame the instances list doesn't include reason for blocking. Looking at the names most seem obvious (and I don't feel like I'm missing out on those) but there must be some grey areas.

[–] stankmut@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Having a reason listed would be nice. I picked one off the list that I couldn't figure out from the name alone why it would be banned and decided to take a look and see why. I was apprehensive. What horrors was I about to see?

Couldn't figure out why it was banned from the content alone. I looked it up and found a website that has their defederated instances list and the reasons. I didn't see anything that matched the reason given, but I didn't care enough to keep digging further.

I think the list is shared among a few instances.

[–] suth@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is there any chance instances will start (or already are) blocking other instances based on instances they're linked to? Similar to the way some subreddits would automatically ban users for participation in other subs, it could further enforce echo chambers. If Lemmy.world is a little more open, I'd hate for it to get blocked by somewhere like Beehaw just for that.

[–] zkikiz@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

It's possible, any admin can do anything they want, but it would be relatively rare. The way I've seen that play out is like if an instance pops up that seems like it's run by a Nazi but you can't really tell so you look at who their friends are. Usually it's like if the admin is interacting a lot with Nazi instances or content you can guess where their loyalties will lie. But a lot of instances simply won't block random small instances that haven't caused trouble yet, through nothing but being unaware.

Some communities want to be insular though, it's totally valid to want a "private forum" for let's say kids or religions or schools or a marginalized demographic. So they may block nearly everything for their own internal reasons.

My advice, don't hang out near Nazis and don't hang out in a place that doesn't make it clear that Nazis aren't welcome. Lemmy doesn't really have a lot of code of conduct stuff set up but that's the main thing to pay attention to.

[–] UnpopularBrainRot@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's the reason I didn't join there, they try to be this wholesome safespace with heavy moderation and it's just not my vibe.

I prefer minimal policing, I don't mind seeing opposing views even if I think they are stupid, I can just scroll pass it and ignore.

[–] Kovari@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I think a lot of it comes down to people who want to have a like minded experience; which can be good and bad. It essentially enforces to them that they're in the right regardless without seeing the big picture. And that can be dangerous.

[–] lyam23@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How can you see what has been blocked?

[–] nm_ghost@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

/instances url of a server shows both linked and blocked instances for a particular node. For example: https://lemmy.world/instances shows them for lemmy.world, https://beehaw.org/instances for beehaw.

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

Hey, cheers for this. I asked someone earlier in a post how to see what instances were shown and blocked. Is this published for all sites? Is there a way it can be hidden? Or is that the way it's built into the software? 👍

[–] nm_ghost@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

It's build into Lemmy. However, since it's open source, in practice anyone running a node could disable it, or even just block the url on a reverse proxy or something.

[–] original_reader@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Under "Instances" (at the bottom of the website).

lemmy.world Instances