cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/37047080

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/fediverse/p/887450/piefed-flagship-instance-shadowbanning-instances-from-discoverability-other-questionable-upd

This morning while checking if Quokk.au’s new instance logo was federated out, I discovered that overnight we had been shadowbanned from the PieFed.Social Instance Chooser (This is a tool to help spread out users across the platform and help avoid funnelling users into the largest.)

Knowing that Rimu was happy to explain, I just asked for some clarification as we were visible on every other PieFed instance except his.

Apparently for ’ obvious reasons ', of which I can only assume is our left leaning anarchist/pro-trans stance we were chosen not be advertised on the PieFed flagship instance and first point of contact for many potential new users. Seeing as a large portion of our new users found us via this method, it will have a tangible effect on a small instance such as ours.

This was a pretty sad sight to see, and reflects the sort of petty drama that is emanating from the PieFed project lately. It’s now the third such move to discredit and harm left leaning instances by PieFed’s lead developer. This also shows a trend towards autocratic unilateral decision-making on Piefed.social, of which is starting to be run as a personal fiefdom without consulting the team or users.

I must commend Lemmy.ml for remaining neutral and not letting its own political leanings influence join-lemmy.org, while simultaneously condemn PieFed.social for this immature move that is harmful to the health of the Fediverse.

Following this exchange, Rimu announced a new update to PieFed allowing for some rather concerning things.

  • Modlog: Reason for the action is only shown from trusted instances, so abusive mods won’t have an audience. Admins can still see the reason though. Which instances are trusted is set in the admin UI.

This feature means problematic users can now go undetected, and will harm moderators ability to view their past moderation history. For example PieFed.social runs a ‘trusted’ list of only 34 instances, meaning any mod action taken by any of the hundreds of instances outside of this will not show up. So for example if Quokk.au was to ban a user for transphobia (our most common ban), this will not be reflected for piefed.social users potentially leading towards more hate speech on the Fediverse.

  • Instance silencing similar to Mastodon. A silenced instance is not defederated from but their posts do not show in the Popular or All feeds and their communities are not shown in Starter packs aka Topics. Their communities can still be found in the communities list and joined in the normal way. Once joined, posts in there show up in the subscribed feed as usual.

This is another way to shadowban instances and not ‘advertise’ them. Surely if an instance is problematic enough that a defederation would be in order rather than this reddit-like move.

Edit, per comm moderator apparently this time of post has no business in fediverse piefed.social.

Leaving it up but just go ahead and lock it since it’s obviously nothing productive will happen here.

  • Snoopy@tarte.nuage-libre.frMEnglish
    8·
    1 month ago

    Hello,

    Same as before, i’m watching the post and will lock it tomorrow at 8pm (in 24h). Be kind to each other

    Thank you :)

          • Snoopy@tarte.nuage-libre.frMEnglish
            7·
            1 month ago

            Don’t play that game with me OP, you know it well.

            “Same as before” simply meant that you can disagree or agree in this post as long you don’t use slur and follows the rules in the sidebar.

            Here are the three posts mentionned :

            • Goferking0@ttrpg.networkOPEnglish
              7·
              1 month ago

              Those are 3 different posts and topics?

              Don’t play that game with me OP, you know it well.

              I honestly didn’t but instantly going to that tone says more about you and hostility towards users than anything else.

              • Snoopy@piefed.socialMEnglish
                2·
                1 month ago

                You asked me, if it was the same post as this one which the obivious answer is no…this is a different topic.

                I was refering to those three posts before where i handled the same situation. Maybe to your eye it’s very different, and it does matter to you, i see it, i fell it. But in my eye that’s moment where i try to handle the framework for discussion overnight. That’s all.

                • Goferking0@ttrpg.networkOPEnglish
                  3·
                  1 month ago

                  Maybe to your eye it’s very different, and it does matter to you, i see it, i fell it. But in my eye that’s moment where i try to handle the framework for discussion overnight. That’s all.

                  The only part that’s the same is it’s about piefed administration but that seems odd to announce prematurely it’ll be locked.

                  You asked me, if it was the same post as this one which the obivious answer is no…this is a different topic.

                  Which is the entire point of why I asked about it.

  • Blaze@piefed.zipEnglish
    17·
    1 month ago

    The “obvious reasons” come from the drama I tried to summarize in this comment: https://lemmy.ml/post/47022286/25575766

    If we go down to the core of the issue, there’s a fundamental disagreement between some instances on a niche use case: can the modlog be used for permanent slander, without giving people the option to reply?

    Dbzer0, quokk.au and anarchist.nexus instance admins didn’t see the value in allowing admins to act on other instances modlogs. Rimu and other people in the Piefed staff were interested in this, hence the new feature regarding the modlog.

    There was some additional tension between Quokk.au admins and Rimu on the way he handled the AI moderation disclosure, leading to a quokk.au admin leaving the channel.

    Now remember that all of this only affects Piefed.social. I’ve been a Piefed.zip user for 11 months now, and that’s the instance I recommend to everyone. Even from a federation perspective, Piefed.zip doesn’t defederate from for instance hexbear or lemmygrad (but the Piefed instance blocking is an actual blocking compared to Lemmy’s incomplete one).

    Switching between Piefed instances is as easy as it can be.

    Some people will see these decisions for Piefed.social and the new Piefed feature as “drama”, but they seem to be a way to deal with what triggered the drama in the first place (slander in modlogs)