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Comment by cbeach | Hacker News Reader

Fediblock is a co-ordinated scheme for ostracising people from the Fediverse if they hold certain views. Generally it works by announcing blocks via the hashtag #fediblock, but there are also catalogues of instances to be blocked en masse, and automation available. One example of a list: https://joinfediverse.wiki/FediBlock

Some examples of reasons stated for blocking individual instances from the Fediverse:

* “libertarianism”

* “TERFism” (feminists that oppose modern trans ideology)

* “Trumpism” (blocking nearly half the American electorate based on their political views?)

* “free speech”

* “federate with evil instances”

Sounds sketchy, right?

At least Twitter 1.0 had concrete guidelines that it could use to justify its censorship.

As can be seen from the list above, Fediblock is highly partisan and arbitrary. An ideal tool for political weaponisation of the Fediverse.

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A bunch of people deciding not to be your friend isn't censorship.

Doesn't that depend on how orchestrated that decision-making is, and who's making the decisions (on behalf of others)?

When many instances co-ordinate to block an instance based on activism (Fediblock), they are censoring everyone on the targeted instance, many of whom may be innocent.

People deciding "whether they want to follow someone" is completely different from what's happening here.

I think you have a very strange definition of censorship. Generally, people use "censorship" to refer to an organization with some kind of power relationship to a speaker preventing speech from being disseminated. Fediblock is not an organization, and the admins who use it do so specifically because they don't have power over the person speaking.

It's the equivalent of sending an e-mail to my neighborhood listserv saying "the guy who lives down the street is a bit of a dick, let's not invite him to the chili cook-off next time."

By their ability to ban -others- from seeing an individual, those admins DO have censorship power over that individual.

And censorship power is further concentrated by the existence of Fediblock

Surely, you don't want to be associated with those instances anyway, right? I'm not seeing the problem here. You aren't being excluded from the fediverse, just from that group of instances.

So if I express a liking for “free speech,” for example, my entire instance might be de-federated by Fediblock activists.

And if I join another instance and discuss “free speech” I will be swiftly booted out, lest Fediblock comes for their instance, too.

Can you see the issue with that?

Do I represent a subversive niche group when I advocate for dangerous ideas like “free speech”?

Am I the asshole?

> Can you see the issue with that?

Not really, no. I understand maybe being a little irritated, but not being upset about it. Just associate with instances where you're welcomed instead.

There are many groups who wouldn't want me to be around, in real life and otherwise. That's just life.

> Do I represent a subversive niche group when I advocate for dangerous ideas like “free speech”?

I have no idea what you advocate for, honestly. Your comments here don't make that very clear-cut. But it doesn't matter for this point.

The point is that it's a matter of freedom of association. Do you really want to hang around where you're not welcome, for whatever reason? I know I wouldn't. Life is too short.

The issue here, as I see it, is orchestrated blocking of viewpoints. Not just on one instance, but across many instances. Fediblock is systematic and partisan.

Sure, but I don't see how that changes the point at all. Alliances like Fediblock can't exclude you from the fediverse, only from those instances.

I would think that the fediverse would be a thing that you, or anyone who is concerned about deplatforming and censorship, would be very happy about precisely because you can't be deplatformed or silenced on it.

You can join like-minded instances, neutral instances, or even start your own, do whatever you want. You have total freedom of speech. You just don't have the freedom to impose your speech on people who don't want to hear it. Freedom of speech does not in any way imply that you have the right to force others to listen.

I absolutely despise this particular flavor of HN-style discourse. A few easy steps:

1. Do or advocate for something unreasonable (banning and blocking people for having different politics than you, even if they're inside the Overton Window, even if their opinion is mainstream and perfectly fine);

2. Pretend the other party is being unreasonable ("I'm not seeing the problem here.", "Can you see the issue with that?" "Not really, no"), "gaslighting" them as the kids say;

3. When further pressed for detail or explanation deflect and feign ignorance ("I have no idea what you advocate for, honestly"), even if what the other person is asking is very clear (Do you think people should be de-federated or otherwise censored for expressing political opinions which are not your own?).

It is extremely, extremely obvious what the person you are replying to is concerned about but you don't actually care, do you?

> Do or advocate for something unreasonable

I am neither banning/blocking anyone, nor am I advocating doing so. I am arguing that that instances have the right to do so, and that them doing so doesn't make the platform useless to others.

I never asserted that I agree with instances actually doing this.

> "gaslighting" them as the kids say

In what world does "I disagree" count as gaslighting?

> It is extremely, extremely obvious what the person you are replying to is concerned about but you don't actually care, do you?

It is not so obvious to me, no. If I take what he's saying literally, then I struggle with inconsistencies. If I don't, then I'm assuming that he has a certain perspective, and I don't want to do that because I can't actually read his mind.

However, as I said in my comment, for the purposes of this conversation it doesn't really matter what he's concerned about. My stance and argument would be the same regardless of his sociopolitical viewpoint.

> So if I express a liking for “free speech,” for example, my entire instance might be de-federated by Fediblock activists.

Yes, because saying that is so strongly associated with people that many instances want to actively avoid. Nobody owes you anything, they protect their own community interests and favor over-blocking rather than the alternative of risking people having to see posts that violate their community's values.

> Am I the asshole?

Probably not.

It is not that simple:

1. I endorse freedom of speech, even if I disagree with what you have to say. (This also means anyone can criticize what someone else (or themself) writes; if they cannot, then it is not real free speech.)

2. Even if an instance allows such a thing and some people support Trump or other stuff, this does not necessarily mean that everyone does; an entire instance is not a single person.

3. Blocking and downscoring at the user level may be possible, independently from instances.

4. You do not have to display all of the messages on the instance. You might view only those by a specific user account for a person or project, or only individual messages being linked to; not everything.

5. Nevertheless, excessive flooding may be a reason to block the federation (e.g. if they send too many millions of large data which is meaningless in less than a nanosecond, which would clearly overload the computer).

6. I don't know if there is possibility of federation but blocking certain types of messages, e.g. if you only want text and not video. Although this seems to be supported by the ActivityPub protocol (there is a Video object, so you can easily filter that), I don't know if the software supports it.

> 1. I endorse freedom of speech, even if I disagree with what you have to say. (This also means anyone can criticize what someone else (or themself) writes; if they cannot, then it is not real free speech.)

do you merely need to be able to say it, or do you insist that the person you are criticising, and/or their associates, need to hear what you have to say?

They do not need to listen (they cannot be forced to listen), although a federated service should not prevent federation with an instance (even if they hide some or all messages) just because one message that has been added there is what the users of the other instance do not want on their computer. Blocking it entirely will just prevent communication even among the users (not the administrators) who wish to communicate freely, and will just result in more ignorance instead of better education. People could still vote against a message and apply tags and whatever, and can prevent messages from specific users from being displayed on their computer if they wish (by using scoring files (like on Usenet) or otherwise) (although they might be missing something), and even delete one copy of it (although it is best that users delete their own local copies instead of everyone else's), but you should not prevent a message from being accessed (or from being sent) at all costs.

I wonder of the root of our differences about whether or not instances should be able to defederate with other instances is what we view an instance to be.

I view it much like a cocktail party being thrown in someone's house. The host has every right to decide who will be at the party. If they don't want someone to come because they know that the person will make the party unpleasant for the other guests, they exclude them.

It sucks, but it's not actually infringing on anyone's rights.

Or, to put it in totally nonpolitical terms: if an instance is all about awesome a particular movie is, they may want to defederate from others who are all about how that movie is terrible.

I genuinely don't see the problem with that, and while it is technically "censorship", it's not the sort that is actually problematic. Nobody is saying that the movie haters can't express their viewpoint, they're just saying that they can't do it in their particular clubhouse.

I partially agree with some of your points, but what if you actually want to communicate with both other instances, and be able to comment about other people's comments about the movie or whatever else it is that you are discussing? I specifically do want people from both opposite sides to be able to send messages, even if they are hidden by default.

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