A community index of servers added a new rule recently, that requires every participant to defederate from Threads. Some admins are unhappy.

Server indexes of places for newcomers to join can be instrumental for Fediverse adoption. However, sudden rule changes can leave some admins feeling pressure to change policies in order to remain listed.

  • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
    23·
    9 months ago

    Federarting means there’s a two-way road between your instance and threads.net and traffic can flow both ways. When you defederate it stops the traffic flow from threads.net to you but the traffic from you to them is unchanged. Even if every single instance defederates them they can still see all the content that’s posted there. Nobody else just wont see any of theirs. Only your instance admins know your email, ip-address and so on but all your posts and messages are publicly available to anyone and you can’t stop them from accessing it.

    It’s basically the same thing as blocking an user. You wont no longer see their messages but they will see yours.

    EDIT: Turns out I was mistaken. Defederation indeed does stop the flow of data both ways.

    • SorteKaninA
      61·
      9 months ago

      When you defederate it stops the traffic flow from threads.net to you but the traffic from you to them is unchanged.

      No, that is not how defederation works. One server defederates, traffic stops in both directions. It’s not comparable to user blocking.

      posts and messages are publicly available to anyone

      There’s a big difference between the posts being available publicly on the Web and them being sent to Threads via federation.

      • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
        5·
        9 months ago

        I hate to admit when I’ve been wrong but this seems to be one of those cases. I tried to use my lemmyNSFW account to view content on a instance that doesn’t federate with them and I indeed can’t see any. I stand corrected.

        • SorteKaninA
          5·
          9 months ago

          Good on you for admitting it - we’re all wrong sometimes :) take it as a learning opportunity