[phoe-krk]

> It's very common on Mastodon to block servers with a heavy hand, with huge blocklists such as "Fediblock" naming nearly every server on the network. This is a big problem, because it creates a fragmented network where people cannot communicate with each other.

This "problem" is actually a feature. The requirement that everyone must be able to communicate with one another is a fallacy.

An admin of an instance has a right to block any server they wish to block, just as a user of that instance has a right to move to another one if their instance's administration policy doesn't suit them. This includes Threads, since it decides to become one of the many other instances on the Fediverse.

> goes against the open nature of the Fediverse

The nature of the Fediverse is that it is decentralized and that you, as an instance administrator, own your instance, with all the ups and downs of that fact. Who are you to impose your own limitations upon owners of other instances and tell them what they should or shouldn't do with their own hardware and their own software?

[orblivion]

This system solves the "safe space problem" and the "free speech problem" at the same time if only both sides could recognize it.

[phoe-krk]

It's on the users to recognize and define the distinction between safe space and free speech - unlike on other platforms, where it's the global moderators' job.

[gettodachoppa]

This seems fair, unless these blocklists are used to bully neutral servers into adopting your blocklist?

Let's say there's a federation of bully admins who dislike Server Wrongthink. There's a moderate server Moderate which they're federated with, but Moderate does not block Wrongthink.

In this scenario, will Moderate get blocked too? Or only Wrongthink?

[phoe-krk]

You calling them "bully" implies that they should not have a right to federate only with instances that they consider federation-worthy. Who are you to tell them what they ought to do with their own instances?

Also, the problem you describe is a social problem. You can't solve those with technology, as they say around HN.

[whatshisface]

But they are acting as bullies, both in the hypothetical example, and in several real-life cases. If a hypothetical right involves causing harm to others, maybe it's not the right one first suggested.

[phoe-krk]

Them being "bullies", whatever is meant by "bullying" in this context, doesn't deprive them of their right to own their instances or align with administrators with similar moderation policies. Fediverse is literally built on the idea that people own their instances and therefore all own the choices they make that affect these instances, just as you own the choice to call their flocking behavior "bullying".

Or, in other words, what are you expecting? It's their hardware and their software. If one pays for hosting, and owns the software, then - unlike you or me - they're entitled to do as they wish with their stuff and to bear the consequences of any moral judgments they make. Which is the same as Twitter, same as Threads, same as Bluesky, just on a smaller and more interconnected scale.

[whatshisface]

A lot of people would say I'm transgressing my bounds if I try to use the influence I gained by paying for my server to threaten you into changing what content your server serves to your users. That's the essence of "block X or I'll block you."

[phoe-krk]

And? They have a right to do so. In particular, they have a right to defederate any server for any reasons - which includes mine, yours, or this other person's, with or without asking things like "block X or I'll block you".