I'm beginning to wonder if the only solution to hate speech and harassment on the Fediverse might be allowlist-only instances.

Jay

@Raccoon I think new instances actually would be more likely to use a pre-made blocklist like Oliphant than go allowlist-only.

Jay

@Raccoon

> maybe you should actually put this list together

An easy place to start would be the instances that have signed the "Mastodon covenant": https://joinmastodon.org/servers

Parsingphase

@jsit I'm very much Not A Lawyer but this looks like a useful reference for instance admins: https://denise.dreamwidth.org/91757.html
and as regards the list maintainers, I'd expect them to be a target of lawsuits claiming restrictions on free speech from owners of excluded servers. I can't speak to whether such lawsuits would have merit, but even their existence would be expensive.

Jay

@parsingphase Not A Lawyer Either, but I would be *very* surprised if "free speech" lawsuits would have any merit whatsoever. I won't let your server talk to my server? So what?

mybarkingdogs

@jackwilliambell @jsit BTW, people using "whitelist" and "blacklist" in this discussion - you yourselves are perpetuating racism - the proper terms are "allow list" and "block list/disallow list"

Jack William Bell

@mybarkingdogs @jsit

I'm sorry if that bothered you. But the term 'blacklist' has nothing to do with race, except perhaps in the minds of those who are looking for racial meaning. It dates to before 1639 in England.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklisting#Origins_of_the_term

And the term 'whitelist' is simply an inversion of 'blacklist'.

mybarkingdogs

@jackwilliambell why are you so invested in defending this language when you could just use inclusive language? It says a lot about you

Jay

Does anybody *know of* any "successful" existing allowlist-only instances?

#MastoAdmin #FediblockMeta

Paul Chambers

@jsit

I recall reading about a coach in a religious private school sports league wanting to set up a network of Mastodon instances federating only with the schools and churches in its sports league.

Players, students and parents, etc. could have accounts.

Each school would run its own instance and federate only with the other schools and other approved instances.

I'm not sure whatever came of that, though.

Jay

A fatal flaw in this idea: If an instance (limited.example) is in LIMITED_FEDERATION_MODE (i.e. is "allowlist-only”), then not only do posts from other instances (external.example) not reach limited.example, but posts on limited.example cannot be *read* by users on external.example.

I think it might be good if there were two levels of this setting: read-only, and no-read-write.

#Mastodon #MastoAdmin #FediblockMeta

Jay

I’m curious to hear input from @evan @thisismissem @Gargron on this idea.

Emelia 👸🏻

@jsit this idea has been floated a fair bit; limited federation mode has its, um, limitations. I'm aware of a few people who've attempted to switch across, but it basically means knowing ahead of time all potential servers that may want to interact with your server — that's a much larger list than the denylists that we currently have.

There's also some great writing by @jdp23 on "approval based" federation models.

e.g., https://privacy.thenexus.today/steps-towards-a-safer-fediverse/

Jon

And @oliphant has some very interesting thinking at https://oliphant.social/@oliphant/112887351805362426

@thisismissem @jsit

Jon

, thanks for pointing this out!
@mybarkingdogs @jackwilliambell

Jay

@thisismissem Thank you!!

Jay

@jdp23 @oliphant Whoa this post *just* happened? Wow! I feel like this idea is suddenly gaining traction in a bunch of different corners.

Oliphantom Menace

@jsit @jdp23 It was definitely spurred by the racist harassment of Kim Clayton and a desire to reimagine a new network that could be safety-first and (importantly) using tools we already have.

Jay

@oliphant ️

Jay

@oliphant @jdp23 It looks like the Outpost idea you outline doesn’t allow people outside of the outpost to follow people inside of the outpost. What would you think about allowing for that? I imagine some people might want to have a broad reach, but not hear from everybody who tries to mention them.

Oliphantom Menace

@jsit @jdp23 This is basically the original idea I had, that doesn't use the "cold start" model, where you connect to an "approved" list of instances, that might even be something like mastodon.social, which would of course allow them to follow you back.

I might think more about that model as well, but I personally like a more closed or "alternate" network where you just create a new account rather than trying to get two different networks to "play nice" with each other.