Pierre Bourdon
As much as I love Torvalds' latest viral post on Mastodon, can we talk about the fact that this was once again caused by a major failure of the default moderation policies on the Fediverse?
Like, how has social.kernel.org not blocked poa.st -- you'd think it should be opt-in to receive their bullshit, not opt-out. They're not unknown offenders.
Jonathan S.
@delroth But then again, some instance block my instance because it doesn’t block e.g. poa.st. And that is just going way too far. I get blocked because I’d like to know what they are up to and get treated like one of them even though I have no connection to them. In German, we call this „Sippenhaft“ which is a big no no.
Jonathan S.
@delroth I guess this is personal preference. Personally, I like to see poa.st or even gab. I like to know what those I disagree with think and are up to and not live in my own bubble. But then again, I know about them and just ignore their bait. I wouldn’t even have replied like Torvalds did.
Jonathan S.
@delroth Yeah, that's essentially my point. S2S is on the wrong layer, and there should be an opt-out. Give control what to see to the user, not the admin.
Pierre Bourdon
@js I generally agree with this, but I lack the experience to evaluate how problematic the approach would be in practice (from a UX perspective or from a technical perspective) and I don't think it should be a requirement for "federating with poa.st should be an opt-in decision and not an opt-out thing that happens by default without you realizing".
Pierre Bourdon
@js yeah, I do feel like server to server with no per user override is a suboptimal model. If that's your point I agree.
Jonathan S.
@delroth I‘m absolutely not against having a default ignore list that you are subscribed to by default when you register. The problem is when I *want* to see a problematic post, e.g. for context, but can’t because the admin has decided to decide for me. I’m all fine with a default block list if there is an opt out.
Jonathan S.
@delroth As a user, I'm quite happy that my instance doesn't block a lot of other instances. I like to make my own decisions of what I see and what I don't see. Breaking federation is what's going to kill the Fediverse eventually - some instances basically block almost every other instance. However, I don't mind having ignore lists that you are subscribed to by default and can remove. In the end, it should be all about freedom of choice.
Pierre Bourdon
@js I think there's a middle ground to be found there: I suspect most users don't want to curate their moderation, especially not for egregious cases. Block lists also have the benefit of being preventive and not reactive, which is important when talking about potential harm to a user.
I also think people feeling unsafe being themselves (please don't bring up the paradox of tolerance) is also more likely to break the Fediverse than defederation. The latter is theoretical, the former happens now
Fediverse Contractor
Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:
Erin 💽
@delroth the challenge continues to be "who gets to define the default blocklist and why do you trust them with such power?" ...
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