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. Hello anyone from the piefed.social thread snoopy locked to preemptively prevent mod work. More interesting mod chose to only attack me and others outside of the piefed.social thread 🤔

(page 3) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social 12 points 1 day ago

Most of this stuff is functionally over my head, but an instance leaving out others from it's 'picker' for whatever reasons seems like a Fediverse working in healthy fashion. That is, with individual instances getting to choose their own policy, exactly as you'd expect, and want.

If this stuff is really the worst that you can complain about in terms of PF.S, then I think you've had a pretty good day. By contrast, other stuff I could mention on the Lemmy.ml side (etc) are far more concerning to me.

[–] Rekall_Incorporated@piefed.social 15 points 1 day ago (12 children)

anarchist/pro-trans stance

This sounds like you are fishing for sympathy. Do you have anything to back up the claim about opposition to a pro-trans stance?

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

By the fact that we have trans members who are harassed for being trans during this, yes.

Would you like to see the lists of banned users who were banned for insulting queer people during this?

Or would you like links to people claiming the transphobia to our users is the users inflicting it to themselves?

[–] Salamence@mander.xyz 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

its pretty obvious axisworld and piefed are either against or apathetic to trans rights considering that the majority of banned transphobes come from there

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 day ago

Don't even get started on how many people have to be banned from blahaj for their toxic traits of "I don't have to respect pronouns when I hate the person" and then claim Blahaj is an evil no freeze peach instance.

Ada is one of the best admins on the fediverse, I mean that genuinely and deeply.

[–] Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Gonna be really honest, transphobia is very important and its important that we be vigilant for it on the fediverse, and, I'm really not super convinced thats the "obvious" reasons he unlisted them

I should be very clear- he sounds like an asshole for what you're describing. Thats not okay. That being said

The blahaj instance is still listed there. From the rest of the thread it sounds like he has tons of beef with the two instances in question for a variety of specific reasons. I don't really follow these things but it sounds as though he is unjustified for at least some of that beef, and has generally handled some shit poorly. But the idea that this is lashing out at trans people specifically seems ill substantiated, and honestly not a very realistic explanation

Actively persecuting people and allowing harm to come to them are generally different rungs on that ladder, and it sounds like he has allowed harm to come to trans folks through failures to moderate appropriately, and has potentially participated in a level of mistreatment (again, I really dont follow these things, I'm just here to chat with folks and look at art), but unlisting entire instances because they include or advocate for trans folks would be a really big escalation

It seems there are much more likely explanations for why he defederated those instances. At most it's possible his issues around trans folks colored his perception and made him more willing to ultimately delist them. To me it seems like this is an escalation of a different greivance with him, moreso than an escalation of his mistreatment of trans folks

[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I don't think he is an avowed transphobe. More like he's ok with looking the other way when queer users get attacked if he thinks they are too far left. Before the "AI moderation" scaremongering he put out a "these people are VERY BAN HAPPY but they are ANARCHISTS? 🤔 curious" type post which completely omitted the months long, ongoing harassment of specific, targeted queer users on those instances by alts made on other instances and the amount of bans that required.

Plus these instances have had a rough go of it these last couple weeks with people even claiming they're faking the harassment, it's been pretty disgusting. I'm a ping @Diva@lemmy.ml she has some more deets I believe.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (11 replies)

[–] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 10 points 1 day ago (5 children)

join-lemmy.org and piefed.social is not the same thing. One is a page about software and the other is an instance. Why shouldn't rimu be able to run piefed.social they way they see fit?

I am not seeing any political influence at join.piefed.social. join.piefed.social even links to the instance chooser of https://nord.pub/auth/instance_chooser

And don't tell me lemmy.ml on lemmy.ml is neutral lol

load more comments (5 replies)

[–] Auth@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (18 children)

Its pretty obvious to anyone that these instances are problem instances. I dont know why people are muddying the water arguing over the minor details and its insane to try paint it as if the reason is their left leaning protrans views. They are problem instances and quieting their notifications is fine if thats the action the admin wants to take. The other option is defederate.

load more comments (18 replies)

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

While it would probably be better if it was visible to both admins and mods, or at least the choice to also share with mods, but then again if the admin doesn't consider the reports reliable there really wouldn't be a reason for mods to take them into account.

There are a number of instances that abuse the modlog and filtering their crap out is a good approach.

[–] wjs018@piefed.wjs018.xyz 14 points 1 day ago (15 children)

Yeah, there was recently a case where somebody was doxxed in the modlog. At that moment, there really wasn't anything that you can do about it. So, being able to have some control over modlog visibility is a way to prevent abuses like that.

load more comments (15 replies)

[–] W3dd1e@lemmy.zip -1 points 21 hours ago

I find it hilarious that this was originally posted on Lemmy.ml, an instance where mods ban you for saying anything bad about China.

Second, a feature of piefed is curating a more positive feed so you don’t have to see all the political hatred.

This is a feature not a bug.

load more comments