Hello everyone on asklemmy. I’m new to the lemmyverse and enjoy the communities and people here :) But now my question is: what’s the difference between creating an account on a server where you have to go through a whole series of steps? I don’t know if that’s the case, but I feel like there’s a difference between an account on a server where I have to go through a whole registration process and get approved manually and an account that I can “just” register and use. I don’t understand the difference since I can interact with all communities on all servers. Thank you in advance!
Servers with “lower” entry requirements have been infested with bots. Those with “higher” entry requirements are breaking ties (defederation) with these “lower requirement” lemmy servers
Uh. That’s only part of the story. Bots can get through basically all verification. The defederation is more political than it is about spam bots.
No, there’s many instances that defederate because of spam bots, or because other instances are filled with trolls, or yes politics, or just users tend to be slightly annoying on an instance.
I defederate for all of the above on my self-hosted instances.
Bots can get through basically all verification.
In theory, you are absolutely correct. In practice, the currently active wave of bots are specifically targeting instances without captchas.
The defederation is more political than it is about spam bots.
There are several instances which are only defederating spam bot instances at the moment.
I have the impression that a place like beehaw is defederating so much, that in the end they’ll be on their own.
I don’t need an e-mail to use reddit, it would be a pitty to need one on the alternative.
I don’t think they are defederating “so much”, however even if they did Beehaw’s primary focus is being it’s own community, I don’t think being on its own would bother them so much or the people who were there before the Reddit exodus.
I thought it was only a single instance (beehaw) defederating
Your own instance has 49 instances defederated https://lemmy.world/instances
full list as of this posting
burggit.moe lemmy.k6qw.com poa.st bae.st baraag.net pawoo.net eientei.org pleroma.nobodyhasthe.biz sneed.social eveningzoo.club posting.lolicon.rocks detroitriotcity.com mastinator.com activitypub-troll.cf rot.gives shitpost.cloud shitposter.club chudbuds.lol gearlandia.haus varishangout.net obo.sh glee.li lemmy.podycust.co.uk bbs.darkwitch.net lemmy.shwizard.chat retarded.dev cubing.social veenk.help lemmy.dekay.se granitestate.social databend.run lemmy.wiuf.net clatter.eu lemmy.juggler.jp oceanbreeze.earth lemmy.jtmn.dev www.jrz.city demotheque.com federated.fun feral.cafe fluf.club freak.university freeatlantis.com freespeech.group freespeechextremist.com freethinkers.lgbt freezepeach.xyz frennet.xyz gab.ai
Pretty much every instance have defederated from at least one other instance, especially towards instances that hosts illegal images, ones with lackluster moderations, instances that support views they consider dangerous, ones filled with spam bots, and yes, sometimes out of drama or politics.
It’s more of a question of which instances they defederated from and why.
From a technical standpoint, there is no real difference, it comes down to how the instance owner feels it’s best to run the server.
Ultimately, instances (or at least the ones most people want to join) want to keep rulebreakers, trolls and spam out. There are two main ways of doing this:
- Proactively: By attempting to prevent bad actors from signing up in the first place.
- Reactively: Allow everyone to sign up, and ban bad actors when they misbehave.
Of course, there is a lot of debate as to which of these methods are better (beehaw, for example, fundamentally doesn’t think a reactive approach can work at all), which causes tension between some instances.
This tension can rise to a point where one instance “defederates” from another, meaning they stop talking to each other and you can’t interact with one if you have an account with the other.