Talk:FediBlock

candidates

instance	block count	up/down last checked
niscii.xyz	18	2022-11-28
novoa.nagoya	34	2022-11-28
hallsofamenti.io	34	2022-11-28
glindr.org	139	2022-11-26
skippers-bin.com	75	2022-11-28
nnia.space	68	2022-11-28
tastingtraffic.net	67	2022-11-28
catgirl.life	63	2022-11-28
vuju.com	26	2022-11-28

bea.st misspelling?

Should this be bae.st instead?
--IgnisIncendio2 (talk) 08:34, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Should be both actually. I'll add bae.st

--Paula (talk) 08:41, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

No you were right. Bea.st is a completely unrelated site.

--Paula (talk) 14:00, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

CSV file

I appreciate the way the table is laid out, because it was quite easy to paste into a CSV file that can be imported into GlitchSoc or Ecko Mastodon forks. I was able to import the blocklist that way (it's just... too many to check through, unfortunately). Is this allowed? Should I upload it here? :O --IgnisIncendio2 (talk) 04:34, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm against sharing a .csv file of the list as people will just import it without checking the instances first themselves.

--Paula (talk) 18:11, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for responding. I appreciate the separation of the list into multiple sections, so instance admins can have a choice in what to block according to their values (as well as the disclaimer to do research themselves). Thank you for your hard work. IgnisIncendio2 (talk)

Remove qoto from the list?

I'd like to lobby to have qoto.org removed from the list; the reasons given ("no moderation" and "free speech") are just wrong. qoto has moderation, like any reasonable server, and it's not some "free speech" nuthouse. The thing that it doesn't do, and that some people don't like it for, is that it doesn't defederate in most cases (there are exceptions); the rationale for this policy is nicely described here: https://qoto.org/@freemo/109319817943835261

There are people who don't like the main mod, think his politics are too centrist, or whatever, but that shouldn't lead to blocking the whole server unless it has some impact on the server's moderation or behavior (which it hasn't). The thread pointed to in the table is pretty much entirely a few people who just don't like the guy and don't like some proposal that he put on github; nothing about actual server moderation or behavior. It even ends with someone saying "oh, I misread this because I thought it said hate speech WAS allowed, but it says that it ISN'T, oops my bad" or other words to that effect. This doesn't seem like a great reason for blocking!

People are citing this list commonly as some authoritative list of nastybad servers; since qoto.org seems to be on it for reasons that aren't actually true, could it be removed?

Thanks! http://qoto.org/@ceoln

Did you even read the provided link? As stated there there are many reasons why qoto is on fediblock lists. And the moderator clearly states that he wouldn't moderate for racism.

So I see no reason to take qoto off the list.

--Paula (talk) 07:02, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

The evidence provided was taken completely out of context, and dishonest, not to mention leaves out very important details. I will address each one and show the photto evidence, which be more than sufficient to remove QOTO from the list presuming this is an evidence-based block list.

First off the full context of the conversation quoted out of context is seen here: (https://qoto.org/@freemo/109405618861950255)[1]

As is obvious from the screen shots above we were not talking about blocking users but servers. We do moderate heavily, and specifically racism, our terms of service are quite clear on that and no racist content can be found on our timeline. see here: https://qoto.org/about/more

Second as for CSAM/child porn. When asked we had no rules about how to handle it since we never had any. Our rules page can only be updated with a majority vote from the moderators of the instance (which i clearly say as such).. moments after that conversation we had a vote and explicitly added the banning of CSAM material, both WRT defederating from other servers, and within our own community. You can now find that on our ToS page explicitly stated as linked above. See here for me addressing this with screen shots: https://qoto.org/@freemo/109398932541172700

As for the UFI document, that has no relationship to QOTO of any kind. I am authoring it, but QOTO is not a part of the UFI, so no relevance there. I will point out the clause about nudity also explicitly defines nudity as genitalia and sexual penetration only, not toplessness. Moreover the clause about "Explicit hate based racism" has been removed since "explicit" is too restrictive. The recent version of hte UFI draft can be seen here and clearly shows improved wording over the screen shot: https://ufoi.gitlab.io/constitution/united_federation_of_instances_proposal.pdf

I find it quitte discrediting of this list to include clear manipulative "evidence" without providing the counter evidence, lets hope this resolves it. I will for now at a minimum add the full context of the conversation into the wiki.

full thread added here: https://joinfediverse.wiki/File:Qoto-dm-csam-1.png#/media/File:Qoto-dm-csam-1.png and https://joinfediverse.wiki/File:Qoto-dm-csam-2.png#/media/File:Qoto-dm-csam-2.png

Here is a quote from our ToC regarding racism, and it makes it quite clear we DO moderate racism and the screenshot clearly a lie: "We do not allow people to disseminate ideologies that are abusive or violent towards others. Demonstrating support for or defending ideologies known to be violent or hateful is a bannable offense. This includes, but is not limited to: racial supremacy, anti-LGBTQ or anti-cis-gender/anti-straight, pro-genocide, child abuse or child pornography, etc. While we recognize questions and conversation regarding these topics are essential for a STEM community, in general, doing so in bad faith will result in immediate expulsion."

So in summary I provided clear evidence that all the claims in the original post were misleading or straight out false.. 1) I showed clear evidence within minutes we added bans for CSAM 2) Showed evidence we DO and always have blocked for racsim, we just dont defederate for it (for the safety of our LGBTQ and at their request) 3) I demonstrated the UFI stuff has no association with QOTO and was fixed in later drafts... now that all points have been disproven please reconsider the block.

JeffreyFreeman (talk) 10:38, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

That conversation you are quoting gives me a hundred reasons to block qoto. If qoto really wanted to get off blocklists then they should change their fucked up policies. You can't have it both ways.

--Paula (talk) 11:21, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I have continually changed policies based on public feedback. If you'd like me to take your advice and make changes, however, you need to be more explicit on what you want... For starters you say this conversation gives you a "hundred reasons" to block QOTO. Would you ming listing some or all of these reasons so I can actually consider what I need to address, I dont see what those could be. You also say we need to make changes to our policy, again can you be specific about which policies you feel we need to change, happy to bring it up to the community if the issue hasnt already been considered.

Will be waiting to see if you at a minimum provide the full context of the conversation ont he block list.. this will indicate if you are a good-faitth block list that provides the **full** evidence for people to decide or if you just want to manipulate people and sell only your personal opinion and silence the evidence that contradicts that... please let me know what you decide

JeffreyFreeman (talk) 11:26, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

If you don't see it yourself, then you clearly don't want to see it and I don't need someone like you on my wiki. Goodbye.

--Paula (talk) 11:36, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

First-first (added after the below first), I noticed the How to use this list and "don't block without checking yourself", which I give a big thumbs up to. This does show that the author is trying to encourage you to think for yourself. Sadly, I think many people won't follow it, but at least the advice is there.

First of all, I am a qoto user, https://qoto.org/@sgryphon, so I have a personal interest in not getting banned; I'd like to be able to interact with users on other servers. Same motivation as original poster.

Second of all, the admin / main admin, does seem angry at being banned from instances (probably because users are complaining to him why they are blocked; I know I have, when I found qoto on some block lists, I asked why). Also, his recent reaction to being banned seems to have gotten out of hand, with personal attacks (calling others Nazis and fascists). Not the best way to make friends.

"Did you even read the provided link? And the moderator clearly states that he wouldn't moderate for racism."

Links on the previous page? there are two links. Also, I think the term moderation needs clarification: the server does moderate users (of Qoto) for racisim (it is against the terms of the server), but does not pre-emptively moderate entire federated servers by suspending them. So "wouldn't moderate for racism" is both true and false (because the term moderation applies to both users and servers). https://docs.joinmastodon.org/admin/moderation/

(1) Starts with "They were defederated for many reasons (some receipts attached)"

I'm not sure what receipts are, but I presume they are the screen shots attached. There were also a lot of phrases used in the discussion & links that I had to look up, like "dog whistle", "sealioning", "kiwi farms".

First receipt is a quote "wouldn't ban for racism"; note that this is talking about not silencing/banning other servers, with the explict reasons given (to monitor and expose). Note that racism is against the moderation rules of Qoto itself. Server rules are here: https://qoto.org/about/more . This is a valid issue, but probably best to clarify e.g. "moderates local users for racism; but does not defederate other servers" (otherwise it seems misleading that qoto does not moderate user)

Second receipt says they have never had a complaint about child porn, but will follow due process; which they have done and now added to their rules. I'm not sure why this is an issue (they took feedback, and updated rules; for a problem they have never had)

Third receipt is post-hoc reaction to the banning trying to set up some process. This can't be a reason for the initial banning, and seems a bit circular.

There is also a mention of emailing admins and asking for the block to be removed. I don't know how often he has done this. A single polite email to ask to remove a block is not harrassment, but if he has done it multiple times then you should probably provide that as stronger evidence.

(2) Is a complaint about the block. Freemo does make a personal attack by initially calling Paula a dictator, and then later agreeing with another commentator effectively calling her a fascist. This also seems rather circular, to say the evidence for the block is that he complained about the block.

What I am not actually seeing is any bad posts/content from the users of the server such as racism, etc. i.e. the actual things that should probably get the entire server banned. Public timeline of the server is here: https://qoto.org/public

If there is evidence of horrid posts coming from the server, with no action by the moderators, (rather than just the moderator complaining and getting into fights about getting banned), then I would like to know, so that I can reconsider if I want to stay on qoto or not.

Maybe you want to ban the moderator (e.g. for harassment) but I don't think you should ban the entire server?

--SlyGryphon (talk) ~15:00, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Okay, so lets assume (which I don't agree with) that I made a mistake, adding qoto in the first place (and at least 86 server admins made that mistake before me). And lets assume (which I don't agree with) that I am wrong for keeping qoto on the list for exposing their users to harassment and worse from other instances.

In that case its still not okay to call me a dictator for keeping qoto on the list. A list which, marked with ❗️s, states that this is a list by one person and that you shouldn't take it as is.

And an instance that lets a person be a moderator, who instead of moderating a post, calling me a fascist trash, agrees with it and then doubles down on "fashist" many times, deserves to be on the blocklist.

--Paula (talk) 15:47, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Wielding arbitrary power without accountability... Is there a word for that? You could have considered and refuted his argument, assuming you were able. Instead you got upset that your decisions were being questioned and banished him for questioning your lack of accountability.

--

I agree, personal attacks are not warranted. And make it even less likely you will reconsider the request. All people can get emotional, and I know being effectively banned makes me angry as well, but isn't an excuse for personal attacks.

In theory Qoto could be exposing their users to harassment from other instances (due to open federation); but in practice I don't see that come up in my feed; and banning them won't change that if that is a goal. Users can also block if they want to.

I had a look at the public feeds of a few other sites on the list, and it was immediately obvious why some might want to ban them (the n- word, swastikas, etc, easily visible). In constrast, the qoto public feed doesn't have anything like that at all.

Whereas as some are banned for more political/philosophical reasons than for their actual content. i.e. the ban is not about protecting users on your server from the content on Qoto (because the content on Qoto is not an issue), but to protest, or this case also because the admin got angry and made personal attacks.

I would ask that instead of banning you just silence the server, although this is more applicable when the ban is due to content. If the ban is as a protest (understandable due to the attacks), then a silence has less impact.

I do like the guidance you give for people to check themselves before blocking; maybe you could facilitate that by making it clear whether the block is for Content reasons, or Other. A link to the public feed (to make it easy for people to check themselves) -- with an appropriate content warning -- would also be useful.

Finally, if the admin has made policy changes, and is asking for other specific changes you would like, the answer of "If you don't see it yourself", isn't that helpful. For example, maybe it is a different understanding of the word "Moderation" -- I originally assumed that meant moderation of on-server users, but from the documentation the same term also covers banning serves.

If you are okay with the user moderation of Qoto, but it is the server moderation (they don't block servers) that you would like to see changed, then maybe that is a point of disagreement that can't be solved. (Trying to guess what you mean by "If you don't see it yourself").

Thank you for the polite discussion so far, and sorry that you were personally attacked. If you have any further questions, I am open to be contacted at sly@gamertheory.net, but I think I have already said enough here, and don't want to be mistaken for trying to harass.

--SlyGryphon (talk) 05:09, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

The posts calling me a fascist trash and a fascist dictator are still up. So yes, there is a lack of moderation and yes, the block is about the content of the instance.

--Paula (talk) 06:40, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Why is Freethinkers.lgbt and blob.cat on the list?? You do realise that I'm an ecologist and an Individualist/Post-Civ Anarchist, right? I've read quite a bit of anarchist literature, I've also been heavily involved in the 2019 Climate Strikes and am currently doing a bunch of permaculture work in rural towns. The fact that you've defederated from me for, god knows why, is honestly quite concerning.

--Cee (talk) 19:47, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Seriously? You're asking why an instance that recommends freespeechextremist in the about page is on the list, which by the way it wasn't until now. Thanks for making me check it out though.

--Paula (talk) 12:01, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Are you seriously? Our about page was created 3 years ago when we started the server. What is written there is in no way ment as a recommendation and i would have fix that as soon as you asked me to. Only someone who has not dealt with our instance can claim that we are a freespeech instance and have no moderation (and that i answer you here, should serve as proof enough). We have supported the Fediverse Friendly Moderation Covenant for years even tho we dont say that on our About Page. If you think that servers should be banned that allow federation with bad servers, then that applies to us, but im well known for speaking up against all reasons of your blocklist and dont tollerate any of those on our instance. However i wont block peoples from having conversations with bad servers. -Jain@blob.cat

--Jain (talk) 14:58, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

My instance doesn't recommend any instance, I've double checked the *About* section, I don't see it. Even then, so what, you think I automatically agree with my admin 100%, or with anyone on FSE, or with leftists who are on the same instance as me? Mate honestly, I disagree with literally everyone, but that's not the main point now is it?I fail to see how ostracising an Individualist Anarchist because [insert guilt-by-association fallacy here] is gonna help anyone, let alone your movement. Emma Goldman said it best, anarchism is the free grouping of individuals...

Ostracism contradicts that, it hoists the problem onto other communities, it sweeps it under the rug, it benefits the establishment by keeping us atomised and alienated. I'm happy to recommend anarchist theory in regards to this; or even, my whole list of books and essays I have read. I could be of massive help.

"If you are looking for a friend who is faultless, you will be friendless." -Rumi

--Cee (talk) 05:21, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Ironic to see QOTO to be on the FediBlock list for being "unmoderated" when it's actually been a hypermoderated instance, having the most moderators since early fediverse days and before the influx, and where mods argue publicly about moderation. 😂

The accusations of fascism against the listmaker holds some weight here, because clearly the real reason why QOTO was on the list is because it is not complying to the careless defederation spree that's been going on recently, led by some people trying to control and police the entire federated community without clear methodology and rationale. FediBlock is the Cancel Culture version of Mastodon. Khayri R.R. Woulfe (talk) 01:37, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

I'm done talking about this. This topic is closed.

--Paula (talk) 07:02, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

blob.cat

Our about page was created 3 years ago when we started the server. What is written there is in no way meant as a recommendation and i would have fix that as soon as you asked me to. Using a Sentence from our old about page (i changed it in the meanwhile) which was written by 3 years not very smart as a Reason to add blob.cat to the fediblock list, without contacting anyone from our instance seems to me a sign that there is something very wrong going on with this blocklist here. Only someone who has not dealt with our instance can claim that we are a freespeech instance and have no moderation (and that i answer you here, should serve as proof enough). We have supported the Fediverse Friendly Moderation Covenant for years even tho we dont say that on our About Page. If you think that servers should be banned that allow federation with bad servers, then that applies to us, but im well known for speaking up against all reasons of your blocklist and dont tollerate any of those on our instance. However i wont block peoples from having conversations with bad servers. -Jain@blob.cat

--Jain (talk) 15:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes I think servers should be banned that allow federation with bad servers, especially when there are other red flags. It's not like freespeechextremist was a good server 3 years ago. Also the name is a dead giveaway.

However I'm considering splitting the list into "worst offenders", which are instances full of hate speech or illegal stuff or that harass users and "controversial servers" where blob.cat and qoto would fall under. And maybe a category in between.

--Paula (talk) 09:47, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

PS: I did the split. Though its not perfect yet. Will have to go through every instance to sort them.

--Paula (talk) 10:56, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Move to or from "Instances that are down" list

If I made a mistake or an instance is no longer up/down please list it here so I can move it.

https://banana.dog/ is now just a "hello world" page. But they may still own the domain. Edit: I worry that some of those domains that now link to a static webpage (except for feminimism.lgbt) may simply be hiding the actual instance behind some secret URL. --IgnisIncendio2 (talk) 18:27, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

social.urspringer.de is back up. Unknown if it's the same instance as before. Edit: mstdn.jp is still up as well. --IgnisIncendio2 (talk) 20:18, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

#fediblock

There is no mention in this text how the fediblock account relates to the widely used #fediblock hashtag, started by monads.online users to keep the fedi safe. For many, it's a cornerstone of fediverse safety and moderation, used to keep track of bad actors. Does the account track that hashtag, and cherry-pick from it?

Either way, users should be made aware of the hashtag, as it's a very important community project. Also, proper social credit should be given to the people who started that hashtag.

alive.bar

I'm curious if there is more information or receipts on why this domain is included. I had it blocked but removed it until I could find more details.