Why YSK: Beehaw defederated from Lemmy.World and Sh.itjust.works effectively shadowbanning anyone from those instances. You will not be able to interact with their users or posts.

Edit: A lot of people are asking why Beehaw did this. I want to keep this post informational and not color it with my personal opinion. I am adding a link to the Beehaw announcement if you are interested in reading it, you can form your own views. https://beehaw.org/post/567170

  • Boozilla@lemmy.worldM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s important to note that the admins of beehaw are not happy about this solution, either. And they hope to refederate once they have better tools and enough mods / admins to deal with it.

    They point wasn’t to shadowban, that was a side effect. The point was to protect their member–who specifically wanted a certain type of safe friendly instance–from hostile weirdos sending dick pics and stuff like that. Nobody’s happy with the situation, but it’s the best they could do under the circumstances with the resources they have.

    I also don’t think it’s wrong for instances to have their own strong rules and preferences. This is one of the GOOD things about the Fediverse. The software features and how people use lemmy will catch up eventually.

    As for the confusion / chaos around multiple/redundant/competing communities and so on…that will get better over time as people figure things out. Honestly it’s not that different than reddit with all of its splinter subs like “true-” whatever.

    • sadreality@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      The` point was to protect their member–who specifically wanted a certain type of safe friendly instance–from hostile weirdos sending dick pics and stuff like that``

      They are making community policy around a single person?

      I am not following.

      With that being said, they can do as they please and other can do what they want. That’s the beautity of the protocol.

      However, people shoudnt be surpised when others take the ball and play else where.

      Looking forward to seeing how this works out.

      • wildeaboutoskar@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        That was just a typo. Beehaw has advertised itself as being a largely positive, safe online space. People who sign up for it would generally be considered to want that same ethos.

        It’s not ideal at the moment but until the moderation tools improve it’s the best way forward if they want to stick to their ethos. I enjoy Beehaw and the admin do seem like they want to refererate when it’s possible to.

        I’m on both Beehaw and Lemmy.world so I between the two I can interact with everything I would want to see.

  • krackalot@vlemmy.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    If you don’t want to color with your opinion, use a different word than shadowban. They didn’t do this with malice as the connotations of that word would imply.

    • deafboy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Defederation is always malicious. Imagine your email getting silently lost, because gmail defederated from aol.

      The network has started to implode sooner than I expected. This was an interesting week and a half…

      • krackalot@vlemmy.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’m guessing you have no idea that the mods of world and shitjustwork talked with the mods at behaw, and they all agreed it was the right thing to do at the time. You obviously don’t know the situation, or understand that the fediverse is not supposed to work like a centralized platform.

        • deafboy@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          What fediverse? We’re finding ourselves on an island. Seeing other islands far away, while not being sure if they can hear us or not.

          I’m trying to stay positive, but I’m seeing people making the same predictable mistakes over again. To start the fediverse going, we need to do ONE thing. Federate. I knew a bunch of people would appear, and do exactly the oposite, ruining the whole thing for everyone, but I had no idea it would happen even before we got any serious traction.

          There are tons of great, mature software projects aimed at smaller, closely moderated communities. PHPBB, SMF, Discourse, various *chan clones… yet, they chose a new, experimental software, who’s only strong feature was the ability to connect communities together. Just to turn it off.

          In the last 5 years I’ve tried Twister, Secure Scuttlebut, Mastodon, Matrix, Nostr, even the protocols not using the internet as a physical layer at all, like disaster.radio, Meshtastic, rnode.

          I just want a place to gather news and read some shitposts, without the constant bug hunting and drama.

  • LeZero@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s getting pretty tiring to see people feeling entitled to have access to any and all communities of the Fediverse, if the people paying for the running cost of the Beehaw instance wants to defederate (for whatever reason, “good” or “bad”), that’s their prerogative.

    If you really want access to their content, apply to join, otherwise sign up to any of the dozens of lemmy instances federated to the rest of the fediverse.

    One of the great things about the Fediverse in general is choice, user and instance admin can choose how they want to interact, and are not beholden to a company or group which can take any arbitrary decisions they want.

    TLDR : Instance admin are entitled to how they want to run it, you’re not.

    • Pazuzu@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      I signed up through sh.itjust.works - was this a bad idea? Only opened my account 2 days ago so learning the ropes.

      • lightrush@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Nothing is stopping you to register on multiple and see how each one feels, then stick to the one you like most. Instances with application process tend to have a bit more curated user bases and that’s reflected in conversations where they participate. You could try lemmy.world, Beehaw.org, lemmy.ml, or any other instance.

    • tooting_lemmy@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m entitled to leave to another instance. One of the main things to look at when choosing an instance is who they are federated/defederated with. I would never join BeeHaw Lemmy.world, or Sh.itjust.works because of their feud. I’d rather join a third party instance and have access to all the content on all three.

      • EpeeGnome@lemmy.fmhy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’s not a feud, lol. Admins from all of them say they talked it out and they plan to re-federate in the future. Beehaw wants to be a heavily moderated instance, and lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works were growing faster than Beehaw’s moderation ability.

      • LeZero@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        If you really want access to their content, apply to join, otherwise sign up to any of the dozens of lemmy instances federated to the rest of the fediverse.

        I think it was pretty clear, yeah

      • Damaniel@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Until the instance you choose to set up on ends up in a feud with any, or all of those instances.

        The whole fediverse experiment is going to end up with a number of small, highly segregated communities, and even more political polarization. I guess if you want to live in an echo chamber, a federated environment is the best way to go about it.

  • Bear@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Disclaimer: pretty new to Lemmy a federation (older than this account though).

    From what I gather, defederation is supposed to be a function of this whole system, but intended to cut off whole instances that refuse to moderate or are active cesspools. In saying that, I don’t understand Beehaw cutting off two of the other biggest instances. I know they have a weird mentality over there of no downvotes and saw some odd conversations condemning someone’s political views while admitting to not know the person at all (dafuq?).

    It seems to me it would make more sense to block a single community rather than the whole instance.

    Maybe they want a walled garden, but as new people come in and want as much content as possible to show that this is a better venue than Reddit, to me they give off the wrong message.

    Am I mistaken somehow? Anyone able to enlighten me?

    • dagwood@vlemmy.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I recommend reading Beehaw’s statement: https://beehaw.org/comment/263590

      As it is just text on a screen, I think there are more and less generous ways to read the post. But I think a lack of scalable mod tools (to combat an internet-sized influx of “bad actors”) is a reasonable (and hopefully temporary) rationale for defederation.

      • Bear@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Having read this, I get what they’re going for, but also question the venue a bit.

        With Lemmy being about federation, it sounds like they want to have a de federated mini Lemmy to themselves where they can decide who is allowed in or not. Not that that is a bad thing, if there’s a demand for it, but I think it’s different than what every other instance is about and maybe would be better as something like a Discord server (or FOSS alternative).

        Again just my 2c, I just know I’m looking for a better quality alternative to Reddit, and an isolated instance isn’t my cup of tea.

        • CarnivorousCouch@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Eh, I have accounts on both instances. I’ve appreciated the active moderation on some Beehaw communities - I’d rather discuss LGBTQ issues on Beehaw than other instances, for example. But I also like to see more content elsewhere, so I’ve got my Lemmy.world account too. It’s pretty easy to account hop when using an app. It’s reminds me of being a member of multiple hobbyist forums, in a way.

          • CorruptBuddha@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I’d rather discuss LGBTQ issues on Beehaw

            Sooo… I’m nonbinary… and I got banned from beehaw for talking about my ex pushing their daughter into LGBTQ.

            So who gets to decide what issues are acceptable to talk about?

        • NicoCharrua@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I disagree, they definitely don’t want their own mini Lemmy. They want a safe space they are happy with, and defederation the only way they can do that with Lemmy’s current mod tools.

          Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works make up about 20% of the acitve users in the threadiverse (source). That is a lot, and it sucks, but it’s far off from making beehaw an isolated instance.

          Imo for now new users should be discouraged from joining Beehaw, lemmy.world, and sh.itjust.works, since all the content can be seen from other instances anyways.

            • sapient [they/them]@infosec.pub
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              When your life and right to exist as who you are is political, it’s nice to not have to deal with “debates” over that.

              Beehaw is pretty explicitly a safe space for queer people and other members of minority groups, and their allies or just anyone who can take the time not to be bigoted or “Just Ask Questions”. They don’t exactly hide this fact ;p

              They are much more proactive about it than other places, sometimes too much for my personal tastes (though I think about making an account there for when I don’t feel up for dealing with shit >.<) even if I respect what they are doing.

              • CorruptBuddha@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                ·
                1 year ago

                I don’t agree at all. The fact of the matter is I can’t even talk about my lived experiences being nonbinary in beehaw so to call it a safe space for minorities is blatantly false.

                This is the “I have a black friend” of online communities.

                • sapient [they/them]@infosec.pub
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  From what I see, you said you said something about your ex “”“pushing”“” their daughter “into” LGBTQ. Which is stupid. 99.999% of the time this a bad faith argument from trolls and even if not you cant make someone queer just as much as you can’t make someone straight or cis. Queer people are exposed to intense social pressure to be cishet and yet we are still not. You can feel pressure into hiding or self-repressing or self-denying, but that’s a different thing >.<

                  Also, you can be bigoted while bieng a part of a minority group.

        • Kayn@dormi.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s important to remember that federation is just a feature in the end. As an instance administrator, you’re absolutely free to choose who to federate with.

          I don’t see anyone giving Hexbear any shit for not federating with anybody.

            • SwallowsDick@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              But they’re rightfully salty if Beehaw defederating themselves deprives this platform of a big chunk of content and users, especially during this month

  • Matt Payne@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Is there a page where we can see which instances are ban-crazy and which ones actually federate and communicate?

    • millie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      Being able to create spaces according to your needs without having your hand forced by anyone is kind of the point of the Fediverse. Beehaw can cultivate a community that fits what they want, just like Lemmy.world. That’s what it’s for.

      There’s nothing stopping you from registering on Beehaw if you want to post there and contribute to that community. But without being able to detach themselves from instances that have open registration, there’s no way to even slow trolls down. Banning would be meaningless, because you can register as many accounts as you could want.

      The point of the Fediverse is decentralization and choice where the default options have been a bland toxic mess.

      Personally, I enjoy both the more cultivated environment of Beehaw and the bigger community feeling of Lemmy.world, so I registered with both Beehaw and Lemmy.blahaj.zone so that i can post and read whatever.

      It’s not about what’s better, it’s about choice.

    • CaptainEffort@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Well then you better block this one too, because Lemmy.world defederated from the tanky instances. In fact, most instances did.

        • CaptainEffort@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Yeah, before all the new Reddit refugees the biggest instance was Lemmygrad, which was run and used exclusively by tankies. It gave Lemmy a bad wrap unfortunately.

          Obviously with all the new users that’s changed, with instances like Lemmy.World quickly surpassing it. Now I’m not even sure if Lemmygrad is in the top 5. But my point is that most big instances have defederated from Lemmygrad, lemmy.world included.

    • thecdc1995@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      The Beehaw instance has defederated from the Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works instances. Each instance is responsible for sending updates to other instances. Defederation means that no outgoing updates are sent and no incoming updates are honored.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    What are you talking about? The apps all allow multi login. So why is this an issue?

  • Kaltovar@lemmy.villa-straylight.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Okay, guess I just won’t use it then if they defed from my primary instance. Glad they did this now and not later when they became bigger and more important.

    If they’re that into making a safe space then fine. Hopefully some other people will also make more free spaces and both of them can exist and everyone can be happy.

    I realize that is a highly optimistic outlook to put it mildly. I must remain hopeful to avoid losing my mind, if I haven’t already -.-

  • arayvenn@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is a bit of a bummer since I’m interested in a lot of the beehaw communities. Should users just make separate accounts to interact with beehaw communities?

    • eee@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      a lot of the beehaw communities have alternatives in the rest of the lemmyverse. while I can participate in beehaw communities, i personally found it more useful to just block all beehaw communities (so I don’t accidentally post there) and participate in the non-beehaw communities so I’m interacting with the majority of the fediverse.

      most of the other instances are low-drama and don’t have issues with defederating/shadowbanning like beehaw does!

      • t0e@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        There’s no reason you can’t have it both ways. Ban behaw here, and join beehaw there, if you feel any fear of missing out.

        I think that’s one of the best things about federation. You get to taste both options. If they’re right about high-admission instances leading to lower quality content, the only way to know it is to be in both places. Thankfully, we can.

  • lwuy9v5@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Also - fwiw - they are likely to refederate in the future. I subscribe to beehaw communities, cuz we can still see them, just can’t talk to them.

    • inverimus@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      For instances that are mostly for discussion, its pretty pointless to stay subscribed.

      • dom@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Unless you’re ok lurking and just reading. I used to rarely contribute to ask reddit, but I would read a ton of those threads

      • jherazob@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        They’ve already been talking to the admins of those instances, they did it because there weren’t better options like in Mastodon, remember that Lemmy is still Alpha software

      • wildeaboutoskar@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        As a member of Beehaw I haven’t seen any reason not to trust them so far. They’ve been transparent about why it was done and they’ve spoken with other instance admins.

        Think we have to be conscious that this is all still at an early stage and generally it’s wise to give people the benefit of the doubt at first. I get the cynicism but this isn’t a privatised space- people across lemmy have been constructive and open so far, so maybe give them a chance?

        • 🦥󠀠󠀠󠀠󠀠󠀠󠀠@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Both teams of admins have been openly posting about the discissions they’ve had with each other too. There isnt any hostility or underlying motives behind the situation at all. They are genuinely open and honest about things and definitely looking to refederate once it makes sense again to do so.

          It might seem like there is some drama here but there really isn’t any at all.

  • professor_entropy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Why does Lemmy make it look harder than it is? It’s not a massive load compared to what modern servers and applications are designed to handle.

    I couldn’t sign up on beehaw and lemmy.ml after multiple tries. It feels worse than a simple centralised platform one can build in a month.

    Is there alternative to reddit for people like me who don’t need this kind of decentralisation (Lemmy feels like centralisation, just multiple number of it, if any instance can cut off like this.) but likes the (text heavy)interface of Lemmy?

    • cynar@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Unfortunately, they all seem to have died to the “Nazi bar” problem or other issues. A centralised Lemmy variant would likely either lurch to the extreme right, or be rapidly pumped for profit, like Reddit is doing.

      One of the advantages of federation is the ability to disconnect groups that won’t mix well. This has already happened with Lemmy. Both extreme right wing (Nazi) and left wing (communist) groups have been de-federated. They are allowed to continue happily, just away from the bulk of users. The fragmented nature also allows for server cost, and workloads to be distributed.

      Additionally, Lemmy wasn’t quite ready for the mainstream when Reddit decided to sh#t the bed. I’ve watched it improve impressively, over the last few weeks though. Once it streamlines, it should hopefully provide all of us our fix.

        • cynar@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Sorry for the slow reply, apparently I don’t get notifications of messages through the app I’m currently using.

          The left wing group of note is Lemmygrad. It was de-federated from lemmy.world before I joined, apparently by mutual agreement. It’s basically a communist haven. Server updates have made it appear for a while, and them seem a lot more friendly than the far right equivalent groups.

          I look at them akin to nudists. They have every right to their own space. At the same time, they happily understand that it’s socially inappropriate to hold their meetings outside the local school.