ou might have seen that we’ve been defederated from beehaw.org. I think there’s some necessary context to understand what this means to the users on this instance.
How federation works
The way federation works is that the community on beehaw.org is an organization of posts, and you’re subscribed to it despite your account being on lemmy.world. Now someone posts on that community (created on beehaw.org), on which server is that post hosted?
It’s hosted on both! It’s hosted on any instance that has a subscriber. It’s also hosted on lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml, etc. Every instance that has a subscriber is going to have a copy of this post. That’s why if you host your own instance, you’ll often get a ton of text data just in your own server.
And the copies all stay in sync with each other using ActivityPub. So you’re reading the post that’s host on lemmy.world, and someone with an account on beehaw.org is reading the same post on beehaw.org, and the posts are kept in sync via ActivityPub. Whenever someone posts to that community or comments on a post, that data is shared to all the versions across the fediverse, and these versions are kept in sync. So up until 5 hours ago, they were the same post!
“True”-ness
A key concept that will matter in the next section is the idea of a “true” version. Effectively, one version of these posts is the “true” version, that every other community reflects. The “true” version is the one hosted on the instance that hosts the community. So the “true” version of a beehaw.org community post is the one actually hosted on beehaw.org. We have a copy, but ours is only a copy. If you post to our copy, it updates the “true” version on beehaw.org, and then all the other instances look to the “true” version on beehaw to update themselves.
The same goes for communities hosted on lemmy.world or lemmy.ml. Defederation affects how information is shared between instances. If you keep track of where the “true” version is hosted, it becomes a lot easier to understand what is going on.
How defederation works
Now take that example post from earlier, the one on beehaw.org. The “true” version of the post is on beehaw.org but the post is still hosted on both instances (again, it has a copy hosted on all instances). Let’s say someone with an account on beehaw.org comments on that post. That comment is going to be sent to every version of that post via ActivityPub, as the “true” version has been updated. That is, every version EXCEPT lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works. So users on lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works won’t get that comment, because we’ve been defederated from beehaw.org. If we write a comment, it will only be visible from accounts on lemmy.world, because we posted to a copy, but our copy is now out of sync with the “true” version. So we can appear to interact with the post, but those interactions are ONLY visible by other lemmy.world accounts, since our comments aren’t send to other versions. As the “true” version is hosted on beehaw, and we no longer get beehaw updates due to defederation, we will not see comments from ANY other community on those posts (including from other defederated instances like sh.itjust.works).
The same goes for posting to beehaw communities. We can still do that. However, the “true” version of those communities are the ones on beehaw, so our posts will not be shared to other instances via ActivityPub. And all of this is true for Beehaw users with our communities. Beehaw users can continue to see and interact with Lemmy.world communities, but those interactions are only visible to other Beehaw users, since the “true” versions of the Lemmy.world communities (the ones sent to/synced with every other instance) is the Lemmy.world one.
Communities on other instances, for example lemmy.ml, are unaffected by this. Lemmy.world and beehaw.org users will still be able to interact with those communities, but posts/comments from lemmy.world users won’t be visible to beehaw.org users, as defederation prevents our posts/comments from being sent to the version of these posts hosted on beehaw.org. However, as the “true” version is the one on the third instance, we can still see everything from beehaw.org users. So we see a more filled in version than the beehaw users.
Why can I still see posts/comments from beehaw users?
Until they defederated us, posts/comments were being sent to lemmy.world, so we can see everything from before defederation. After defederation, we are no longer receiving or sending updates. So there are now multiple versions of those posts.
Why can I still interact with beehaw communities?
This won’t ever stop. You’ll notice that all posts after defederation are only from lemmy.world users. You won’t see posts/comments from ANY other instance (including instances that ) on beehaw.org communities.
Those communities will quickly suck for us, as we’re only talking to other lemmy.world users. Your posts/comments are not being sent to any other lemmy. I highly recommend just unsubscribing from those communities, since they’re pretty pointless for us to be in right now.
Why do I still see comments from beehaw users on lemmy.world communities?
Again, comments from before defederation were still sent to us. After defederation, it will no longer be possible for beehaw users to interact with the “true” version of lemmy.world communities. Their posts/comments are not being sent to any other lemmy. They also aren’t getting updates from any other lemmy, as the “true” version of those communities is on our instance.
Why do I see posts/comments from beehaw users on communities outside lemmy.world and beehaw.org?
That’s because the “true” version of those posts is outside beehaw. So we get updates from those posts. And lemmy.world didn’t defederate beehaw, so posts/comments from beehaw users can still come to versions hosted on lemmy.world.
The reverse is not true. Because beehaw defederate lemmy.world, any post/comment from a lemmy.world users will NOT be sent to the beehaw version of the post.
This seems like it’s worse for beehaw users than for us?
Yes. In my opinion, this is an extraordinarily dumb act by the beehaw instance owners. It’s worse for beehaw users than for us, and will likely result in many beehaw users leaving that instance. They said in their post that this is a nuke, but I don’t think they fully assessed the blast area. Based on their post, I don’t think they fully understand what defederation does.
“Risk creating an echo chamber”
That is not a bug, it’s a feature.
They made a post the other day about how they will ban anyone that is “part of a political group that enables bigotry”
I asked, since it seemed just poorly worded and vague by mistake but it sounded like they intend to ban anyone who associated with the republican party, even if the conversation was benign with no hate or bigotry in their comment history. (Yes I do know a couple Republicans that are not Dicks, just " Fiscally conservative " or whatever. I dont agree with them, but they aren’t homophobic or racists. On social issues they are pretty liberal. )
They responded confirming that was their intent and it was not a mistake.
That just isn’t healthy. I can understand not wanting to host /r/the_donald, but banning people for a comment eluding to a political affiliation just creates a bunch of people that are too sensitive to go outside.
There were people who voted for Nazis for “non-hateful” reasons, but it meant they didn’t care enough about the anti-jewish rhetoric to vote against it.
It’s the same for Republicans and trans people/Mexicans/etc. The party is full of hateful bigots, yes there are some people who are indifferent to the hatred spewed and stand with Republicans on some other basis, but indifference towards bigotry is an issue in and of itself.
Having a community explicitly ban people who support these bigoted groups (Republicans/Nazis/etc.) is not a problem. I prefer a space that allows people to share their views, I’ve debated self-identified fascists before, I’m fine in that environment, but I respect that some people aren’t.
Just because someone doesn’t want to engage with hateful communities only makes them “too sensitive to go outside” if “outside” is sympathetic to these hateful groups.
I absolutely dispise the current republican party. But equating them ALL to Nazis is ridiculous and inflammatory. A lot of Republicans hate Trump too. That is just who they were stuck with. Most of them regretted their vote and either didn’t vote, or voted for Biden in 2020, that’s why Biden won. Same as I felt about Joe Biden or Hillary. But trust me, I am not a Biden supporter. Everytime someone comes to me and is like "Did you see what your sleepy Biden did (or, more likely, didn’t) do?!? I get fucking annoyed, mostly because I agree with them, but also just because I’m not a republican doesn’t mean I’m a Biden supporter.
I, personally, don’t like to lump a mass of people into one giant stereotype and act like they are all the same. It goes against my personal ethics…
I specifically said I agree they shouldn’t have to host something like r/the_donald, but they said they would ban anyone who even eluded to being republican without any hate or bigotry involved. If you don’t see the hivemind and division created if a mass community isolates themselves from any opposing views I don’t know what to tell you. I found myself losing perspective of the hivemind mentality if I spent to much time on Reddit. It just seems silly to create that problem associated with this form of social media on purpose.
They have a right to a “safe space”. I have a right to call it unhealthy, unproductive, and stupid.
I didn’t equate them all to Nazis, you have an incredibly simplistic black/white view of the world.
The people who voted for Nazis weren’t a uniform mass of people. Some voted for them on promised economic reforms, some voted on the basis of making Germany great again, some voted for them because they disliked the Lügenpresse (lying press), which the Nazis talked about all the time. The thing all Nazi voters shared was that the anti-Jewish/anti-communist rhetoric didn’t turn them off to voting for the party.
Similarly, there are a ton of Republicans who vote Republican for many reasons; promised economic reforms, making America great again, a dislike for “fake news”, etc. The thing all Republican voters share is that the anti-Mexican/anti-trans rhetoric doesn’t turn them off to voting for the party.
They’re fine with the promise of building a wall to keep the Mexicans out. They’re fine with legislating against trans people. They’re fine with the rhetoric many southern Republicans are using about “solving the trans problem”, similar to the final solution rhetoric Nazis used.
Republicans in 2023 are about as bad as Nazis were in 1930. That is to say, they’ve only done very lightweight rounding up of minorities and haven’t started killing them en masse. Whether or not the fascist wing of the Republican party wins out and successfully genocides minorities is anyone’s guess, but ignoring the similarities and history here is incredibly foolish.
Not all people who voted Republican are horrible. Not all people who voted Nazi were horrible either. The platform can get better or worse, we’ve seen a history where it can get worse, but it’s also been shutdown before.
Either way, having spaces online that disallow protofascist or fascist parties is fine and not “unhealthy”. Not every part of the internet has to allow for hateful rhetoric, it’s fine to have spaces geared towards gaming, community, or just people in agreement that people supporting a bigoted party shouldn’t be there.