Everywhere I look there are people advocating for defederation from this and that! Do you even understand what you’re suggesting? Do you get what’s the point of decentralized social media and activity pub?

This is supposed to be free and accessible for everyone. We all have brains and can decide who to interact with.

If meta or any other company manages to create a better product it’s just natural that people tend to use it. I won’t use it, you may not use it and it’s totally fine! It’s about having options. Also as Mastodon’s CEO pointed out there’s no privacy concern, everything stays on your instance.

Edit: after reading and responding to many comments, I should point out that I’m not against defederation in general. It’s a great feature if used properly. Problem is General Instances with open sign-ups and tens of thousands of users making decisions on par of users and deciding what they can and can not see.

If you have a niche or small community with shared and agreed upon values, defederating can be great. But I believe individual users are intelligent enough to choose.

  • CarlsIII
    3•1 year ago

    Did you really just equate trying to leave an authoritarian country with signing up for a different federated instance? Every post you make just further confirms that you don’t know what the words “dictator” and “authoritarian.”

    Also, I’m not saying instances “shouldn’t be allowed to defederate”, I’m saying advocating for this on a general instance with 100K users is wrong. If this was a niche or small community with agreed upon and shared values (like beehaw for example) that would be understandable.

    First of all, this is probably some nuance you should have provided in your original post where you only say that calling for defederation makes you a “dictator” and in no way indicate that there are situation where you think defederation is appropriate. I don’t have time to read your entire posting history just to determine where you’re actually coming from. You could have probably included this nuance in your original post and avoided some of the backlash you are getting.

    But second of all, how would you enforce what you are proposing? If larger instances were prevented somehow from defederating, wouldn’t that require some sort of “authority” making that decision for those instance? That doesn’t seem to align with your values based on what you’ve posted.

    • @problematicconsumerOP
      1•1 year ago

      Did you really just equate trying to leave an authoritarian country with signing up for a different federated instance?

      Yes I am, you are suggesting I don’t know the meaning of these words, so I’ve provided an example of the exact same situation (importance doesn’t change meaning of words here, does it?)

      If you censor me, you have censored me! The fact that you’re a government or admin of instance doesn’t change word’s meaning.

      this is probably some nuance you should have provided in your original post where you only say that calling for defederation makes you a “dictator” and in no way indicate that there are situation where you think defederation is appropriate.

      In hindsight, I should’ve but in response to most comments I’ve acknowledged that it’s fine in a lot of situations

      But second of all, how would you enforce what you are proposing? If larger instances were prevented somehow from defederating, wouldn’t that require some sort of “authority” making that decision for those instance? That doesn’t seem to align with your values based on what you’ve posted.

      May I ask what made you think I’m looking for enforcement here? I believe in human coordination and freedom of choice. If I join a general instance, I don’t expect admins to decide who I can interact with, that’s all!

      • CarlsIII
        4•1 year ago

        Then what exactly is your proposed solution? Just more complaining and name-calling like you have been?

        Yes I am, you are suggesting I don’t know the meaning of these words, so I’ve provided an example of the exact same situation (importance doesn’t change meaning of words here, does it?)

        This is just fucking ridiculous. If you really think signing up for another instance actually requires the same amount of effort as leaving an authoritarian country (while doubling down to clarify that they are EXACTLY THE SAME) means that I am probably just a masochist for continuing to engage with you.

        • @problematicconsumerOP
          1•1 year ago

          Social Consensus! This should be part of the culture that unless some instance is factually harming us or content there is illegal (for jurisdiction of the hosted instance) we should not defederate.

          • CarlsIII
            1•1 year ago

            Well, ultimately, that’s just like, your opinion man. Besides that you think people are dictators when they propose defederation (sometimes)

            • @problematicconsumerOP
              1•1 year ago

              Well, it was always my opinion! No one’s opinion is a fact, necessarily. Let’s agree to disagree! glhf

              • CarlsIII
                0•1 year ago

                I was going to ask “don’t you want to try to bring people over to your point of view for the sake of building a social consensus?” and then I remember that you called those people “dictators” so I guess not.

                • @problematicconsumerOP
                  1•1 year ago

                  At this point I’m getting bad vibes from you TBH! I’ve expressed my opinion and apparently some people find it compelling and some disagree, that’s fine!