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1. Embed this notice
   Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 20:57:54 JST Rich Felker

   I recently saw someone leave fedi at least temporarily as a result of harassment, and one thing they highlighted was that most of us don't see the harassment they were getting because of how federation works and the fact that our instances block all the vile ones most of the harassment was coming from.

   They were running their own single-user instance. 🙁

   We really need better resources for single user instances to benefit from third-party moderation resources, but we also need to get the narrative out that running a single user instance is a horrible idea unless you want to be your own fulltime moderator or drowned in engagement from the worst parts of the net. Treating it as a viable option now really sours folks to the whole concept.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 21:39:11 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • George B

     @gbargoud I have no idea. I intentionally didn't identify them because I don't want to send folks judging their choices via my post.

   • Embed this notice
     George B (gbargoud@masto.nyc)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 21:39:12 JST George B

     in reply to

     @dalias

     Was that the most popular single user instance? Definitely in the top few meaning that any harassment issues are amplified hard

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 21:48:26 JST Rich Felker

     • maxine 🇵🇸

     @maxine It's far worse than running your own email server, because discoverability and incentives. You discover harassment targets via social graph, and your messages get relayed to people reading their posts.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 22:26:15 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Alexander Goeres

     @jabgoe2089 🤦 Replies like yours are exactly the sort of harassment(*) we're talking about.

     Think about this for a second: did you see and reply to my post because you follow me or because someone you follow boosted it? 🤔

     (*) It's not harassing me, but this is the sort of reply the person in question was getting rather than support when talking about first-order harassment.

   • Embed this notice
     Alexander Goeres (jabgoe2089@hub.netzgemeinde.eu)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 22:26:19 JST Alexander Goeres

     in reply to
     @Cassandrich well, why do these people allow followers who harass them?
   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 22:41:44 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Alexander Goeres

     @jabgoe2089 No, a reply blaming a target of harassment for not doing the non-solution you naively proposed is second-order harassment.

   • Embed this notice
     Alexander Goeres (jabgoe2089@hub.netzgemeinde.eu)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 22:41:49 JST Alexander Goeres

     in reply to
     @Cassandrich
     Replies like yours are exactly the sort of harassment(*) we're talking about.
     what?? any non glorifying reply is harassment for you??
     
     if you are so soft, why do you follow people who harrass you back?
   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 22:59:26 JST Rich Felker

     • maxine 🇵🇸

     RE: https://hachyderm.io/@maxine/116024033755106861

     @maxine Good analogy!

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 23:16:26 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Silicon Dryad

     @Jayjader No, opt-in as default would just effectively exclude anyone on single-user/self-hosted instances from the fedi 😦

     There are ways to do this right, like limiting privileges for newly seen instances (but this requires the still-missing reply controls) until you see someone on an instance you trust following someone on the newly seen instance. Software needs to catch up and offer features like this.

   • Embed this notice
     Silicon Dryad (jayjader@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 23:16:28 JST Silicon Dryad

     in reply to

     @dalias makes me wonder if opt-in should be the default for federation instead of opt-out - instance admins would need to procatively allow federation with each other instance, instead of proactively cutting off said federation with instances that they don't want to chat with.

     I must not be the first person to think of this, but I don't remember seeing it mentioned in discussions such as this one.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 23:28:17 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • The Turtle

     @the_turtle Good luck getting volunteers. That should have happened to 4chan/8kun/KF/etc. ages ago. Even when doxxed it didn't happen.

   • Embed this notice
     The Turtle (the_turtle@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 23:28:18 JST The Turtle

     in reply to

     @dalias how bout we buy them a baseball bat, so they can go to wherever instance is harassing them and beat the shit out of their server?

     #violenceistheanswer

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Feb-2026 00:09:03 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Julia Evans

     @b0rk I'm rather surprised you don't given how large yout audience seems to be and the subject matter. But that's good to hear! I wonder if it's a result of your initial import being good or something else.

   • Embed this notice
     Julia Evans (b0rk@social.jvns.ca)'s status on Saturday, 07-Feb-2026 00:09:04 JST Julia Evans

     in reply to

     @dalias personally running my own instance has been a very good experience for me so far, so I'm not sure "it's a horrible idea for everyone" is accurate

     I did import an instance blocklist when I started but haven't updated it. I think I've gotten a harrassing post exactly once.

   • Embed this notice
     RalfMaximus (ralfmaximus@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Feb-2026 03:47:25 JST RalfMaximus

     in reply to

     • 🍄💀Shye Strange💀🍄

     @shye @dalias

     What are the benefits/advantages of a single user instance? Serious question.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Feb-2026 03:47:25 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • RalfMaximus
     • 🍄💀Shye Strange💀🍄

     @ralfmaximus @shye Advantage is that you permanently own your identity (provided you pay registrar fees for the domain) and data, and you theoretically have better local privacy (no admins who could snoop on your usage patterns etc).

     But in most senses that matter, you have less privacy - any fetch request by your instance reveals to remote instances that you, the only user, was requesting those posts, and at what time, etc. You lose the benefits of an instance as a privacy union (and T&S union).

   • Embed this notice
     🍄💀Shye Strange💀🍄 (shye@deadrobots.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Feb-2026 03:47:27 JST 🍄💀Shye Strange💀🍄

     in reply to

     @dalias@hachyderm.io I run a single user instance and upkeep is very minimal. Perhaps I'm a little more savvy with things, and likely also less of a target - but I added a publicly curated block list, and follow the #fediblock tag, adding to it when needed.
     And running your own instance isn't a horrible idea and that's not good advice, sorry, as the fediverse works better with many small instances, than a few bigger ones. Sure there is downside, but what I feel would be better is that if the instances had some kind of inbuilt block list that could be subscribed to, and which auto updates.

   • Embed this notice
     🍄💀Shye Strange💀🍄 (shye@deadrobots.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Feb-2026 04:17:32 JST 🍄💀Shye Strange💀🍄

     in reply to

     • RalfMaximus

     @ralfmaximus@mastodon.social @dalias@hachyderm.io
     
     Off the top of my head
     
     - Full admin control - setup exactly how you want for your own needs
     - Set up moderation in a way that suits your own needs
     - Full control over other instances it federates with
     - Less system overhead and (potentially) faster loading
     - Use your own domain name if identity is important
     - Not being vulnerable to instances suddenly shutting down or being defederated by other instances
     - Full control of own data / media
     - Can run from a home server
     - Can mess around with instance's code and customize
     - can integrate it with other software / services you run on the same server
     - self reliance - long term stability
     
     There's probably more things
     
     There are downsides though, of course needing server admin knowledge, but a big one is that it can take some time for your instance to find other instances - but you can set up relays to help with that.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Feb-2026 10:49:22 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • GhostOnTheHalfShell

     @GhostOnTheHalfShell Because YouTube is full of gooners brought in by the algorithm and Mastodon is full of reply guys who will never miss a chance to tell women they're wrong about their own experiences.

   • Embed this notice
     GhostOnTheHalfShell (ghostonthehalfshell@masto.ai)'s status on Saturday, 07-Feb-2026 10:49:23 JST GhostOnTheHalfShell

     in reply to

     @dalias

     I had wonder how and why they were receiving such, but it’s quite clear that one form of protection has to come from a Federated resource to manage abusive sites and individuals