this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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I’ve been on a journey today trying to understand the fediverse better.

I’ll be mindful to not start bitching about certain instances.

Here’s my example:

Is it technically possible that posts or comments still get downvote-brigaded by an instance that is technically defederated from the instance of the OP?

So let’s say instance A and B are defederated from each other, but both are federated with instance C. After a user from A posts something on C does every user from B get to downvote everything?

I’m trying to determine if the Fediverse has recourse against an r/TheDonald scenario, where one toxic element is allowed to flourish for too long and - in the case with the other site - eventually takes over and destroys everything.

If this debate has been had somewhere else, please feel free to point me there, otherwise I’d love to understand this better.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That’s a nice analogy.

I wouldn't worry as much about Alt-Right conservatives here - they tried but couldn't get a foothold, and after being defederated from all instances eventually collapsed internally, and went to Truth Social. Here, we ironically have much more to worry about from the Alt-Left that uses identical patterns of behaviors, just ostensibly on the "left".

I’d love to learn more about this story. Who is alt-left? How do they behave?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

The Alt-Left is my own phrase for people who act identically to the Alt-Right (as described in e.g. Innuendo Studios' The Alt Right Playbook - gish gallop, didoing, pyramid thinking, controlling the conversation, etc.), just on the "left" side. The more traditional term is the (much more?) pejorative "tankies". There are several communities that discuss these events - one entirely dedicated to tankies in particular is [email protected], but as the abuses are rampant you will also see it in [email protected], [email protected], etc.

This graphic depiction may also help:

img

This will explain SO MUCH why so many people are site-wide banned from communities that they have never even so much as heard of, citing a rule that makes no mention of anything that their supposed offense is. Once you realize that the reason that Lemmy was created was bc Reddit banned the code developers, you will see why they created their own Reddit 2.0, which in many ways is somehow even more authoritarian than Reddit itself is. e.g. here we have a modlog, but there is no modmail, nor a notification of a moderation event, and the modlog simply says it was done by a "mod", so you have no idea who to ask for clarification, or to appeal the decision - all you are left with is the "choice" to go somewhere else (or...?).

Mind you, instance owners are very free, and mods likewise have a great deal of power subject only to instance admins, but individual users not so much - not even the right to be notified that your content was removed (sounds similar to shadowbanning doesn't it?).

OTOH, software is software, and so we are here as well, trying to find some way to talk that isn't owned by a corporate entity.

Here's a highly relevant post: https://lemmy.world/post/21055894, see also it + the comments in the OG cross-post it was from (its first link).