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.
I can understand wanting to have a well-moderated community.
What I don’t understand is how they expect to do that with a moderation team of just 4 people.
I guess now people will just leave Beehaw, its communities that were popular here will be replaced by others in the Fediverse and life will go on. The Fediverse is built to be resilient to such changes.
The crazy part is that they want to be able to view and comment on other instances’ posts but not vice versa.
Like why should other instances agree to that?
Hopefully beehaw dies off quickly.
Hopefully beehaw dies off quickly.
I don’t get why you hope for this? Isn’t the point of fediverse to have lot of different instances for different people?
Beehaw will continue existing as it chooses to exist, with or without lemmy.world. Isn’t that a good thing? That’s decentralization. That’s what we want more of.
It’s a really shitty thing to do a growing platform. For the 3rd largest server to defederate a week into the platform growing is going to go a long way to convincing folks this platform isn’t viable. Honestly this may be it for me.
The Beehaw admins are really in love with their ideals but I can’t help but feel like they have effectively kneecapped a new platform.
I think your points about frustration are valid, particularly at this time when there’s a lot of reddit refugees. That said, it’s Beehaw’s choice what they’re willing to put up with. I think defederation with entire instances is a very extreme response to their issues, but ultimately it’s their choice.
I think with the admins’ mentality over there, they will probably end up with a very large defederation block list. For that reason, it is probably for the best if Lemmy’s most active communities were NOT hosted there. People should put the energy into building up other communities so the platform more broadly isn’t reliant on extremely moderated instances like Beehaw.
Major communities should be on instances that welcome a wide range of views that are also willing to have a robust and diverse admin team to handle issues, imo. That would be the healthiest solution overall. Beehaw choosing to defederate now is a blessing in disguise; it’s an early statement proving that instance is an unsuitable host for any community looking to be home to a broad-reaching and diverse member base.
This is a roadblock for sure, but this platform does work. I feel like the fediverse is perfect for Reddit. As soon as chat moves from beehaw we’ll be rolling again!
Yeah, the level of entitlement is insane.
The crazy part is that they want to be able to view and comment on other instances’ posts but not vice versa
Where did you get this idea from? They won’t be able to interact with other instances from Beehaw. They clearly don’t want to based on this action.
Read their comments - https://beehaw.org/comment/262284
Site (instance)-wide limiting is exactly that.
I disagree. It’s like a poorly implemented private subreddit. People didn’t complain that that was possible before and I don’t see why they should now.
It’s quite literally free-loading off other instances though.
Not just in the content sense, but also the actual monetary cost of the image hosting, etc.
How much cost are you to lemmy.world? Are you planning to track it and pay for it?
How much cost is it to lemmy.world to federate with another instance? Are they going to keep track of it and send out invoices?
This free-loading complaint rings hollow.
On that note, is there a donations thing somewhere for lemmy.world? Would like the donate to the community so the servers can keep on scaling
Check the sidebar at https://lemmy.world/
The idea is that every instance is basically responsible for their own users. And beehaw didn’t have confidence in the moderation of shit just works and lemmy.world and couldn’t keep up with banning them on their side. Thats why they defederated.
The idea is that every instance is basically responsible for their own users.
It’s correct what you say, but the idea bugs me the more I understand it.
It feels like guilt by association. The actual cause is the behaviour of specific, individual users but the repercussions are equally felt by other users from the same instance. These other users can have nothing in common with the causing users, or might have even opposed them in their wrongdoings.
There is also a level between users and instances; communities. Maybe the problem was with one specific community, yet all other communities who happen to live on the same instance feel the same consequences.
Defederating individual communities would feel better for me, but ultimately I think a problem caused by individuals should be solved with these individuals, not with groups which are more or less meaningfully associated with those individuals.
Unfortunately Lemmy doesn’t have that kind of fine tuned control yet
undefined> It feels like guilt by association. The actual cause is the behaviour of specific, individual users but the repercussions are equally felt by other users from the same instance.
That’s why I always thought that the ideal scenario for federated web is to have instances that are either single-user or are down to friends-of-friends level of members (say, under 100 users per instance), so that there can be social accountability and if you have a bad actor on your instance, then it’s easy to kick them out and preserve your reputation. Bad actors will concentrate on their own instances and they can be defederated without collateral damage.
So, if Beehaw’s registration model is invite-only (that’s what I gather from this thread), then I think they probably have the right approach to federation; they are vouching for their users and they are responsible for making sure that they won’t be damaging communities across the federation.
They are fine with being a small community. They aren’t interested in growth for growth’s sake. They existed for 18 months with around 200 members and were content with that continuing indefinitely. They aren’t against growth, they simply don’t value it highly.
And yet they still have the largest communities by an order of magnitude.
I don’t think you’re technically wrong, but I think with the reddit migration it’s overall damaging to the concept of a fediverse to have a large instance defederate with two huge instances.
There are people who are just getting settled only to find out they now have to use two accounts to access the content they needed one for yesterday.
Yeah, the solution is just to leave beehaw though. It takes a few minutes to make a new account on another instance. If they really want to access the beehaw stuff they could join an instance that is still federated with them, that way they could see the beehaw posts and the lemmy.world posts.
It’s probably best just to abandon beehaw entirely though and use alternative communities in the Fediverse.
People really shouldn’t see that as a bug, it’s a feature. Reddit does something you don’t like? Too bad. One instance in the fediverse does something you don’t like? It’s incredibly easy to leave. Maybe some day you’ll be able to transfer accounts to other instances, that’d be neat.
I made a new account yesterday. The beehaw node was a choice but I did not take it. I won’t be making two accounts to access “all of this content” and this little bit over here.
I’m not sure what would change my mind but it would need to be very enticing.
It won’t. There will be likely lots of cases of mod abuse that ends up pushing users away. Moderation requires a healthy balance, not an extreme of either side. Lots of Reddit subs had similar issues, but they at least benefited from the overall growth of the platform itself to fill the previous slots with new users.
As someone just learning and exploring the Fediverse, what in your opinion would be a good reason to defederate? Also, thanks for the excellent write-up to help me understand better
Hey I am just going to throw this out into the ether, I have been on the lemmy instances longer than beehaw, and I have yet to find an instance whos admin team I would trust less with their stated reasoning. I would not trust their stated reasoning and if I had to guess they are trying to get Lemmy.world to change something to come into line with them. if you ask me you have dodged a bullet. I hope lemmy.world stands strong
You’re not wrong… beehaw admins literally have a list of demands.
I’m okay with letting their community push out reasonable users as it festers in its toxic positivity and hypersensitivity turned into toxic hostility to nonconformity.
It’s far from a safe place. If you so much as ask for clarification of a rule you will be labeled by their admins and toxic community as outing yourself as a bigot who doesn’t belong there.
Whether or not it’s how it started, it feels like the most toxic users from shit reddit says migrated to beehaw under the guise of a safe place for the LGBTQI+ community.
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Someone needs to make a regularly updated map of which instances are federated with which other instances.
Edit: Ok, apparently there’s one here but there’s over 600 instances and trying to show the connections between all of them destroys your browser.
Beehaw instance owners:
Looks pretty dumb to me, but hey if they want a walled community they have the right to have it.
It doesn’t align with me and it makes me super happy of being here instead of there.
Thanks a lot for the explanation and also your other example comment, super useful!
As for me, I’ll simply unjoin their communities and find the same somewhere else, I feel a bit sad tho for open users there that will have to create a new account somewhere else.
They have a right to build a walled community, but lemmy is a strange choice to do it. By connecting to a network known not to handle such disruptions well, (the OP is proof that it doesn’t) and then disconnecting from it, seems like a small FU.
Well, they’re not actually disconnecting from the network, just from some communities. Deferation should be indeed only be used as a last resort but I think it’s a good feature to have.
What they want is moderation. Unlike microblogging where you post to your followers, I think that running a public debate platform like Lemmy without controlling who enters is a horrible idea. That’s why they posted a statement with the clarification that this defederation need not be permanent.
But Reddit has open registration.
We don’t need no “moderation”, we don’t need no thought control.
We don’t need no “moderation”, we don’t need no thought control.
If you don’t want it, that’s absolutely fine - you just have to respect that others don’t share that opinion and cut the line since it’s hard to find a shared Fediverse of opposite ideas. Unmoderated instances have always been seperated in Fediverse-microblogging and I really don’t see why history shouldn’t repeat in this case.
Who is talking about Reddit?
Are you aware this is a different place?
public debate platform like Lemmy without controlling who enters is a horrible idea
Reddit is a public debate platform (even before Lemmy) and they don’t control who enters in any way, is that really a horrible idea as you say?
A lot of people are missing the point of their defederation, which is a lack of proper moderation team and tools for the sudden scale they are exposed to as one of the most popular place of discussion with the rexxit with them harboring some of the most active communities around.
Their issue is mainly bad actors, trolls and harassers coming from those big instances and overwhelming them.
Defederation is the big-nuke symptom of a wider fediverse problem, a lack of moderation tools and readiness for scale, that I also saw happen a lot on Mastodon. I followed the infosec instance and they basically ended up having to defederate the biggest mastodon instances for a few days at a time when stuff like spam and cryptobro DMs ran rampant. I’ve received many of those so I can tell you that it’s pretty real.
Construing their decision as a desire to fracture the community is missing the actual reason they’ve tried to articulate. It’s a temporary stopgap for the 4 admins who just weren’t expecting the sort of volume and associated misbehaving problems they are suddenly getting.
Overall, Lemmy is getting through a pretty intense “shit just got real” moment. Please bear with it, people are working really hard at solving this from what I can see.
This is the first time I’ve heard someone call the exodus from reddit “rexxit.” I haven’t been on lemmy too much yet so maybe it’s a common term I I’ve just missed but I love it.
I’m by no means the one who coined it. I just read it someplace else, but I find it fitting too!
There are plenty of instances that let you sign up instantly. To achieve that goal, they’d need de-federate with all such instances. Which they can, but I still think that’s a bad idea.
Construing their decision as a desire to fracture the community is missing the actual reason they’ve tried to articulate. It’s a temporary stopgap for the 4 admins who just weren’t expecting the sort of volume and associated misbehaving problems they are suddenly getting.
Thanks for this explanation, this makes a lot of sense and makes me less concerned about the whole thing.
Serious question though, if a server defederates, do the communities hosted on other servers just become completely un-moderated? This seems like a serious liability for the overall community.
Serious question though, if a server defederates, do the communities hosted on other servers just become completely un-moderated? This seems like a serious liability for the overall community.
I’m not the most savvy person there but it simply means to me that the defederated server cannot post or interact with the matching server. Moderation still works on both ends, enacted by their respective teams. This is akin to a server-wide “mute” button directed to content from another server.
Seems like they’re just using the wrong software? A private forum is more in line with what they want it seems.
On the bright side, at least I have drama content to read. Maybe this thing can replace reddit… lol
For context; the beehaw announcement
They have a right to build a walled community, but lemmy is a strange choice to do it. By connecting to a network known not to handle such disruptions well, (the OP is proof that it doesn’t) and then disconnecting from it, seems like a small FU.
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To be fair, it’s really hard to come up with the set of rules that can be objectively enforced. Even governments are failing to do so. When you come up with a rule set, some people will naturally take that as a challange. Banning individual users would still be more acceptable than banning the entire instances.
I think this is the best explanation of how federation works that I’ve seen so far. Really appreciate it. So would it benefit us to use an account for me different website to get the benefit of both communities? Is there a way to be essentially logged into two accounts at once so that you can see separate federated communities all at once?
i deleted my beehaw account and registered here as soon as i read about the defederation. They’re trying to police the beehaw community way too much, bunch of softies imo…
Welcome! With a name like “beehaw” can you ever take that instance seriously? (sorry, I really dislike the instance name lol)
What does the name beehaw refer to?
Play on the hillbilly “yeeehawwwww!” ?
What was their reason for defederating? I tried to read their post and it didn’t make sense to me.
They felt like they were getting a lot of flaming and trolls from those two instances.
Yeah, although they didn’t provide any data to back it up. I’ve been using lemmy.world for a few days and didn’t see any harassment whatsoever.
They definitely were, they were starting to be spammed by posts using slurs, and worse. There was even a post calling for the murder of drag performers.
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It wasn’t isolated incidents, it was a flood.
To elaborate user sign up on these instances are the easiest and fastest. They could ban a user from our server only to have that person spin up a new account and keep harassing them.
They felt this was their only solution to that problem given their current tool set.
Creating a “safe space”. Meaning that instead wanting for the community to self-regulate they want to have all the power of censorship.
Essentially, if you ever write anything they don’t like, they want to be able to never see you again.
They want to built an echo chamber where nothing even remotely upsetting can be mentioned or discussed.
I mean from what I’ve seen the less abrasive frame would be ‘find a space for constructive discussion for the marginalized.’ I’m not really their audience, but I have eyes, they take an abnormal amount of shit in their day to day life.
I don’t think there’s a shortage of places in that universe to speak your mind, and I wouldn’t try to set someone else’s house rules.
