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Comment by bastawhiz | Hacker News Reader

Isn't that objectively a good thing? The whole point of federation is to give each instance control over what is allowed and is not allowed. Surely the root of the complaint cannot be "everyone must consume and accept all content," because anyone can already create their own instance if they feel they're being limited? Or is it more simply "I'm not allowed to spread my views in places where they're unwelcome"? The latter is a complaint about human nature, not about the technology.

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We were sold on the promise of each user having control over what they see. In practice it's become like the bad old days of the usenet cabal: the network is run by a club who dodge accountability by having no official power, but if they don't like you then no-one will peer with you, so de facto everyone has to use their servers and follow their rules.

But you can just roll your own private server, and presumably no one will have the time to ban you. The barrier to entry is much much lower.

> But you can just roll your own private server

You can run your own private island, but if you want to be "part of the fediverse" then you need to peer with servers in the main network, right? Which means tyranny-of-structurelessness organisational politics, because each admin gets to make their own rules about who they peer with, and so if there are disagreements in the network then you have to pick a side.

Of course not. If instance A does not like instance B and blocks it, there is reason why there can't be an instance C that federates with both A and B.

If these three were the only instances in the world then, yes, A could be so strict it also blocks C because of it's communication with B. But since there are hundreds of these instances and since there is no limit on how many can be created this will not be a problem.

Admins can be dictators on their own instance, but there are a lot of admins to choose from. If a big instance goes sour, it is very easy to migrate to another one.

> If instance A does not like instance B and blocks it, there is reason why there can't be an instance C that federates with both A and B.

Instances will refuse to federate with your instance if your instance fails to block others that they don't like, and the list is steadily growing.

Yes, federating child porn or threats will cause other instances to block media content and perhaps toots from your instance, as other instance admins do not want to babysit filtering what your instance relays to theirs.

> You can run your own private island, but if you want to be "part of the fediverse" then you need to peer with servers in the main network, right? Which means tyranny-of-structurelessness organisational politics, because each admin gets to make their own rules about who they peer with, and so if there are disagreements in the network then you have to pick a side.

Sounds like normal human interaction to me. This is a feature, not a bug as far as I'm concerned.

True enough, but in the same way that mob rule is the normal human interaction pattern and a right to free speech or a fair trial is an unnatural exception.

The issue here is that even if you visit the page of the user if you use a software like pleroma that allows you to see their profile from your instance chances are that it will not display most of their posts. Although admittedly this is more of a Pleroma bug rather than anything else.

It is that isolated bubbles generate environments spreading and reinforcing dangerous information. E.g. spreading alternative medicine cancer "cures" will kill people. I believe everyone needs to be exposed to different views once in a while.

In theory I agree with you. Or I would have, had I never been exposed to Twitter.

Reddit has subs. Facebook is highly filtered by design. As far as I can tell Twitter is about as far away from a filter bubble as centralized social media currently gets but it's still full of hateful garbage.

At this point I think it's safe to say that the commonly perceived problems with social media can't be attributed to any single factor. Twitter stands as a counterexample to filter bubbles. Facebook stands as a counterexample to anonymity (real names don't seem to deter shitposting). Etc.

I'd also note that an increasing number of the people I know in real life are gravitating heavily towards group chats with family and friends. That's the ultimate filter bubble, but it's also much closer to how the typical person existed prior to the rise of the internet and smartphones.

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