awesome-lemmy-instances adds two new columns:
- BI - The number of instances that this instance blocks
- BB - The number of instances that block this instance
Now you can quickly see which instances censor (or are censored) in the lemmyverse:
384 blocked for beehaw, Jesus Christ. Trying to like build its own world over there?
They are explicitly trying to make a safe space for their users, and they are very explicit about that. The good thing about federation is that you can decide what kind of community you want to be part of, and there are plenty of instances with a more open policy.
That’s kinda the point of being able to create an instance, no?
Thanks for this. I actually suspect it’s rather valuable, as part of the value proposition of decentralisation is to create a diversity of cultures, which manifest most clearly in the blocks that each instance have and are subject to. Without this information, it becomes nigh on impossible for users to actually be informed and act accordingly about this supposed value.
Over on mastodon and the microblogging fediverse, this information is, AFAICT, frowned upon and so most have no idea where their instances stand in regards to blocks. There’s a reason for this, which is, AFAICT, bad faith actors will target those instances which block them or are heavy blockers with spam, DDOS or whatever else, and so hiding this information becomes a defensive measure. A potential side effect of this, perhaps, is that discussions around blocking can become rather heated over on mastodon/microblogs, and even have a feeling of shock and offense around them. I would imagine this is because it’s not really information people are accustomed to.
If the #threadiverse can be more open about blocks, in the same way that moderation activity is also open, it might lead to a healthier decentralised ecosystem where it’s simply appreciated that blocking is part of the character of an instance, and finding your “home” (or multiple “homes”) with this information in mind is just part of being a user here.