Is there a way to shop around for a Lemmy instance based on how many instances are blocking it and how many instances it’s blocking? For example, I noticed that the lemmygrad.ml instance is relatively popular, but it seems like a lot of other instances block it. It also blocks a bunch of other instances. So, if there are any communities on there that might be relevant to me then I would be missing out. I guess I could just create an account on a walled instance, but I would prefer not to keep creating accounts. I’d like to just find one instance that maximizes my access. Is the answer to just run my own instance?

  • salarua@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Some folks think that defederation is a bad thing. OK.

    Here’s a little experiment you can try at home.

    1. Stop using GMail, Hey, or whatever email service you’re currently using.
    2. Set up your own mail server (there’s instructions on the internet).
    3. When the instructions say to use a Remote Black List just ignore them.
    4. When the instructions say to validate domains, ignore those too.
    5. When the instructions say to set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC just let those slide.
    6. Try to send / receive email
    7. Also try to read your inbox. For added benefit turn on all notifications for received mail.

    Voila. Now you have an unfettered email experience.

    And this, class, is why defederation is useful.

    Please send your comments to the overworked TA in the back of the room.

    Craig Maloney

      • salarua@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        probably not, but you’d get the same amount of horrible stuff as you’d get if you turned off all the security precautions on an email server. the point i’m making here by quoting Maloney is that blocking is a security precaution. less is more, and by joining an instance that doesn’t block anyone, you’re exposing yourself to a lot of terrible stuff. besides, instances that don’t block get blocked themselves, so horrible stuff would be all you’d see

        • zkikiz@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Edit: apparently lemmygrad is much worse than I realized

          The only caveat I have to this is that being communist shouldn’t be an automatic block. Lemmy.ml doesn’t block lemmygrad and I see no reason why it should, the posts I see are like “wow capitalism is fucking us up” not like “Tiananmen did nothing wrong and let’s repeat it x1000” so it really doesn’t seem comparable to proactively blocking Nazis. If you block “both sides” of a violent conflict like, say, the war in Ukraine, you’ve suddenly blocked everyone with a useful opinion.

          • sarsaparilyptus@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Have you read Lemmygrad’s sidebar at all? They describe themselves as Tienanmen Square truthers, are openly pro-DPRK, and fully support genocide in the name of Communism. They exemplify everything bad people say about tankies and they take great pride in it.

            Wanting to cut out tankies and Nazis is NOT being a radical centrist who wants to “both sides” every issue, it’s just being a normal human being who doesn’t have bees in their head.

            • zkikiz@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              Ahh no I access Lemmy via the mobile app. Thanks for the information, I’ll be blocking them.

          • Kichae@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            lemmy.ml is also run by communists, as are quite a few other instances, I imagine. No one’s really saying that communists should be blocked.

            But lemmygrad is specifically a vanguard edgelord site. Even those of us who are communists don’t necessarily want to deal witih /c/GenZedong.

            Plus, I left the instance I host for me and my friends open to lemmygrad, and I had people from the server create accounts and just bulk subscribe to communities there.

            It’s not the communism people are blocking it for.

          • scoobford@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            I saw a lot of tianamen didn’t happen, CCP worship, etc on there for the first few days after I registered, which is a bit problematic.

            I wound up blocking them after a couple days, more because I don’t care about a tiny fringe movement (in my country), and don’t have any interest in their content.

          • salarua@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            Lemmygrad isn’t blocked because of their views, it’s blocked because it’s a massive troll farm. the posts that you see don’t include the replies they make to posts which they deem not communist enough, where they sealion and argue in bad faith until the op is driven out

            • RedMarsRepublic@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              And that doesn’t apply to liberals and every other ideology on this site? Every person has a political view which affects their opinions

              • salarua@sopuli.xyz
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                1 year ago

                if a liberal/anarchist/not-ML instance popped up and started behaving like Lemmygrad does, they’d get mass-defederated too. like i said, it’s not their views they got defederated for, it’s their behavior

                • RedMarsRepublic@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  To be fair it’s not like I know what lemmygrad does, I only joined yesterday, but it just seems like typical ‘tankiephobia’, I don’t exactly agree with MLs on everything either but some of what they get accused of is just beyond the pale. I mean generally if someone is a western liberal they don’t get endlessly accused of being a mass war crime apologist even though that’s basically what the ‘war on terror’ was.

                • RedMarsRepublic@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Behaviour like what though? Disagreeing? I don’t even know what ‘sealioning’ means, it basically seems like just saying ‘this person has different fundamental assumptions to me therefore they’re acting in bad faith’.

                  • salarua@sopuli.xyz
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                    1 year ago

                    Lemmygrad has a history of brigading communities, targeted harassment towards admins and prolific political posters, and as i mentioned before, sealioning (defined by Wikipedia as “a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity (‘I’m just trying to have a debate’), and feigning ignorance of the subject matter”)

        • jarfil@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Agreed that blocking is a security precaution… but this is not just an anti-spam feature, defederation in user communities can come from any motives, including political, religious, or whatever other views the instance owners find undesirable.

          I think each user should be able to pick what kind of blocking experience they wish for themselves. There should be as a bare minimum a way to set either an instance, or a client app, that can interact with instances that are defederated among themselves (without acting as a bridge, obviously).

        • CrimeDad@lemmy.oneOP
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          1 year ago

          If instance ‘A’ has already blocked instance ‘B’, what does it matter to ‘A’ whether or not any other instances have also blocked ‘B’? Would the admin have to go far out of their way to block the instances that don’t block ‘B’ or is there a way to do it automatically?

          • salarua@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            they would have to go out of their way, but it’s bad practice to block because of guilt by association. most instances have internal federation guidelines that are somewhat looser than their own rules, but still include a baseline level of decency. so an instance that doesn’t allow nsfw content would federate with an instance that does (even if they wouldn’t allow images to federate) as long as they don’t go all freezepeach or harass everyone

      • darkfoe@lemmy.serverfail.party
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        1 year ago

        It’s a fraction of the work of an email server, if you’re not keeping many users on it. Ie, my personal instance requires almost no work

    • RedMarsRepublic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What a ridiculous false dichotomy, obviously subs which are just creating outright machine spam should be blocked but the current policy is just creating complete echo chambers where the orthodoxy of the admins isn’t challenged.

      • Thomas@lemmy.douwes.co.uk
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        1 year ago

        depends, If you ignore all the outgoing things, like SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc. Your outgoing emails will always go into spam or disappear completely.
        If you follow all the outgoing things but ignore the inbound mail checking, you will get quite a bit of spam. I run my own email server and instead of blocking bad incoming emails I just send then to the spam folder. I usually receive about 2-4 spam email a day, usually it’s just marketing crap or it’s a single link with some cutout of a wikipedia article to avoid spam detectors, and sometimes it’s trying to extort you. I find it fun to read them sometimes, one time I got an email saying I missed a payment for my domain name but they got the amount of VAT wrong AND the maths on the subtotal. Some of them are comicality bad. but not quite the flood you might expect. If more people where on my email server or if I signed up to any shitty website I came across I’m sure it would be a lot worse though.