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Comment by cblconfederate | Hacker News Reader

I don't think mastodon is a good idea. Don't they already remove servers they don't like? A twitter protocol should not be reliant on which home server you re on.

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Mastodon itself can't actually remove servers, any more than they can remove someone else's website, because servers are hosted by other people on others' computers. Mastodon can lock those servers out of their directories, or out of the main federation-network, though.

yeah , defederation. it would be better to have a protocol that doesnt allow that.

So if someone spun a child porn instance, we should all be forced to see that in our federated timeline?

Come on, get real.

no but it could be up to the receiver address to choose what to block.

That’s literally how it works now

email works the same way.

If I, as the email admin of xyzcorp.biz get too many spammy emails from your domain, you can expect to be blocked / defederated.

are we dismissing smtp now as a protocol?

email servers block by content/address though, not only entire domains

that's not true at all. I've ran mail servers. It's really easy to block by domain, and I have.

I think this is the correct way of doing it. Anyone can start their own instance and their own federation.

It'd actually be a massive breach of freedom if you were somehow not allowed to shut out servers from your Mastodon federation—kind of like not having the freedom to block someone on Twitter.

Exactly. Anyone has the freedom to post whatever they want on their own server. I have the freedom not to carry their traffic.

Blocking each instance is the best way compared to other centered option.

I'm not really sure where you're going with this.

Mastodon is a federated system, so there is no _they_. You can choose not to federate with groups/nodes you don't want, but its basically invite your village type of model. Pro-LGTBQ+ groups don't have to fediate with neonazi groups, if they don't want to.

You claim,

"...there is no _they_."

but another poster claims,

"Mastodon can lock those servers out of their directories, or out of the main federation-network, though." Which another poster referred to as "de-federation".

Which of you is correct? Is there a "_they_"?

Well, i think _they_ is "everyone". I dont follow the space but it seemed most (all?) servers federate with a limited subset of other servers. Kinda balkanized

Most servers I’m familiar with operate on a blacklist/default-allow basis. My server federated with everyone by default, and we only disconnect specific ill behaved servers.

Mastodon's not the only player in the federated social space, just the app with the biggest footprint.

You can get a WordPress blog, install the ActivityPub plugin, and you're now a fediverse actor which other actors can then subscribe to.

Mastodon's cool and all but let's not conflate this piece of software with the bigger network.

I wonder if there's an alternative protocol that is fully peer-to-peer.

Early days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky_(protocol)

thanks i forgot about that. actually doubt it will bear fruit as twitter has a vested interest not to let this grow. More likely some kid will come up with a better idea

Well, the new CEO was a leader of that project, so let's see.

bluesky's not even a protocol though. At best you could call it a working group.

I'd personally call it "vaporware".

and look at the talk page, I said the same thing a few weeks ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bluesky_(protocol)

I think this is the best way possible. I operate a Mastodon server. Users can take my moderation policies into account before deciding whether to join. For example, I ban COVID antivaxxers. My users like this. If someone disagrees, there are thousands of other servers they can choose from.

With Mastodon (and other federated systems), each server can cater to its clientele. It doesn’t have to be one size fits all. Want to host alt-right content? Go for it. Other people might not talk to you, but no one will stop you. Want to host BLM content? Go for it. Other people might not talk to you, but no one will stop you. That’s so much better than the centralized model.

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