Yesterday I created a post on a regional community on lemmy.ca.

Fairly quickly thereafter, I got a DM saying that the post had been removed because someone who disagreed with me complained. Oddly though, the DM came from a @[email protected] - not the server hosting the community.

Furthermore, I still see the post when I go looking - and there has been a bit of discussion about it.

So my questions:

(a) Can a post be removed from a specific federated instance without being removed from the original instance? (b) Is there an appeal process for removed posts? I’m sorry that the guy got all butthurt, but my post was sincere, measured, and (I think) reasonable. If it offended someone, they should discuss it.

  • AdaEnglish
    7•1 year ago

    Ok, there’s your instance, instance A, that hosts your personal account. There’s the instance that hosts the community, instance B, and a random instance that your content has federated to, but doesn’t host you or the community directly. This is instance C.

    If an admin on A (instance A mods can’t remove this post) removes your post, it gets removed on other instances too, including B and C.

    If an admin or community mod on instance B removes your post, it gets removed on other instances too, including A and C.

    However, if an admin on C removes your post (a moderator on C can’t), then it is only removed on instance C. Instance A and B and any other instances the content has federated to aside from C, continue to see replies, edits, votes etc

    • SwordgeekOP
      1•1 year ago

      That’s exactly what I was wondering. In this case, A and B are the same, and C is lemmy.world.

      It’s kind of odd, but I think I like the system.

      Thanks.

      • Ada
        2•1 year ago

        One final point. My example above only works if there are no mods for the community on instance C.

        If there is a community mod on instance C, that moderator can remove the post and the removal will federate, even when an admin removal on instance C will not (unless that admin is also a community mod for the instance B community)

        • SwordgeekOP
          1•1 year ago

          Right, so a user on C could be a moderator for !community@instance_B, and could then remove it on instance B and it would federate; but if they deleted it only on instance C, it would not.

          Am I reading that correctly?

          • Ada
            1•1 year ago

            Not quite. An account on instance C that has moderator privileges on a community hosted on instance B can’t take any direct actions against instance B content.

            All that can do is remove it in instance C. However, because they’re a moderator, that removal will federate to instance B, which will remove it there, and then federate that removal to any instance that the post federated to originally.

        • Max-P
          1•1 year ago

          I think the best way to visualize it is in terms of who owns what and who has the authority to perform moderator actions.

          • As a user, you own the post, so you’re allowed to delete it no matter what. That always federate.
          • An admin always has full rights on what happens on their instance, because they own the server. The authority ends at their instance, so it may not federate out unless authorized otherwise.
          • An admin can nominate any user from the same instance to moderate any of its communities, local or remote. That authority also ends at that instance. In theory it should work for remote users too, but then it’d be hard to be from lemmy.ml and moderate lemmy.world’s view of a community on lemmy.ca.
          • The instance that owns the community can also do whatever they want even if the post originated from elsewhere, because they own the community. That federates out.
          • The instance that owns the community can nominate anyone from any instance as moderator. They’re authorized to perform mod actions on behalf of the instance that owns the community, therefore it will federate out as well.

          From those you can derive what would happen under any scenario involving any combinations of instances.