Defederation Investigator for Lemmy
defed.xyz
external-link
Discover who has defederated your Lemmy instance with the Defederation Investigator.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.basedcount.com/post/113726

I couldn’t find any tools to check this, so I built one myself.

This is a little site I built: the Defederation Investigator defed.xyz. With it, you can get a comprehensive view of which instances have blocked yours, as well as which ones you are federated with.

The tool is open source and available on GitHub. Hopefully someone will find it useful, enjoy.

kitonthenet
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641Y

You should probably cache results so users aren’tspamming other instances

Never seen exploding-heads before, so I went to their page … turns out they’re leaving lemmy and the fediverse for nostr: https://exploding-heads.com/post/765290

Main reason being all the “censorship” (ie defederation) they’ve received.

Cool, it seems defederation works as intended!

What is nostr?

Crypto social media as far as I can tell. It is essentially a microblog. Jack Dorsey is into it, and weird is that cares more about it than BlueSky.

Oh wow, I just looked up Lemmygrad and was shocked and dissapointed at the results, seeing the Exploding Heads results changed that dissapointment to complete disgust.

Didn’t wanna be friends with those le redditors anyways

Magnor
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01Y

Yeah, not really surprising. Radical left is usually shunned much more readily than the far right.

Really says a lot about the liberals around us.

I wonder what happens when you scratch them

CARCOSA [they/them]
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8M

deleted by creator

oh god is that a CP instance? How the fuck, is there no way to obliterate these people without going to their houses and [Redacted]?

Looks like the usage may have gone over Vercel’s usage policy (I’m not super familiar with Vercel)? I see the following when trying to bring it up:

402: PAYMENT_REQUIRED 
Code: DEPLOYMENT_DISABLED

That’s very useful, thank you @Nerd02@lemmy.basedcount.com

Just to note if copying the URL you have to strip off the https:// or else it won’t work (maybe people just don’t copy that these days, but I ran in to that problem anyway).

Nerd02
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111Y

Uh yeah that is true. This was a one afternoon project, so I kinda threw the frontend together without thinking too much of it. I guess truncating the protocol instead of relying on the users doing it makes sense.

Also: tested it on mobile. And my probe capitalized the first letter, returning an “instance not found”.

Nerd02
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131Y

Noted, adding a forced .toLowerCase(). I’m implementing all of the feedback I’ve received thus far right now.

Nerd02
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31Y

@infamousbelgian@waste-of.space @Mane25@feddit.uk both changes have been pushed and deployed, thank you for your feedback.

I couldn’t find any tools to check this, so I built one myself.

Literally the first link on join-lemmy.org has a table showing all instances and it shows both how many instances that instance is blocking "and* how many other instances are blocking that instance

https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances

how many instances that instance is blocking "and* how many other instances are blocking that instance

how’s that helpful if you don’t know which ones

krolden
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41Y

Very cool, ive been wondering about who defeds the most and now I know. Thanks.

ok, it seems to be working 😆

even lemmynsfw defederated them, lol 🤣 why?

For what it’s worth hexbear wouldn’t have federated with them anyway because the site is staunchly against hosting NSFW content.

@14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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16
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1Y

they are are extremely obnoxious mix of tankies and some other leftists who might have been slightly less obnoxious if they were on their own, but being in the group with said tankies, you don’t want them any more than the former

i apologize for grammar structure of my sentence and hope it makes some sense

if you have few days of time to kill you can check this thread where lemm.ee admin is asking lemm.ee users about their opinion on defederating them. they brigade the thread in such a way they make more than 77% of the 2k comments in the thread (not exaggerating - the thread has 1920 comments when viewed from lemm.ee and 425 when viewed from lemmy.world which blocks them) and explain their philosophy in the process. so you will understand stuff like “who absolutely needs to be murdered for the crime of having more money than you in order to make world more just place & other tankies’ wisdom”.

you have to acknowledge that they did really good job of introducing themselves, though - i had no idea they even existed the day before that thread and i am firm proponent of “defederate. now.” today 😆

I don’t know why you are shocked and horrified when people engage with something on their own front page?

That’s how federation works, is it not?

It’s not brigading, it’s literally right there at the top of the front page, so of course people will comment on it.

It certainly wouldn’t be brigading if the ratio of hexbear comments was proportional to its size. But I haven’t seen many lemmy.world comments there, for example, and they saw the thread in their feeds just as much as you did.

That’s how federation works, is it not?

Federation works by connecting various instances with different goals and different userbases. Those instances need a space to discuss those goals among themselves, where the admins can communicate with the users, etc. Some external engagement is to be expected, but one specific instance creating 3x more comments than all the others taken together (including the instance whose policy is supposed to be discussed) should, uh, raise an eyebrow.

Honestly it sounds about right. Prior to federation our news megathreads occasionally broke 1k comments over a week, and that’s only a small subset of the userbase. Hexbear users have cultivated a culture that encourages being more online, and we were already extremely online. No downvotes, for instance, means that if you disagree with someone you have to comment, and we obviously disagree with the political opinions held by the majority of people so there’s quite a bit there. Also worth noting that if an admin/mod expressly calls for us not to comment on a post, as was the case on the second defederation discussion post on blahaj, we won’t.

-V0lD
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81Y

I’m surprised at how reasonable and self reflective you are. Breaking the instances stereotype a tad

But, you bring up a point that I’ve always wondered about. Why would an instance not have downvotes? If I hosted an instance I’d prefer to not implement upvotes rather than ever getting rid of downvotes, considering they are basically required to filter out the bad faith content without engaging with it.

considering they are basically required to filter out the bad faith content without engaging with it.

Well there’s where the hexbear magic happens. If we see bad faith content it’s basically open seasons to very vocally inform the poster how bad faith their post is.

-V0lD
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11Y

I could imagine that this often leads to harassment. Are there any measures in place to prevent that?

If by harassment you mean getting piled on for the bad faith take, then no there’s nothing except the offenders self-crit to prevent that.

If by harassment you mean a user that posted a bad take getting followed and dragged in other threads, then yes. Mods take action to prevent that. Everyone has a right to disengage at HB

-V0lD
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31Y

Fair enough

Breaking the instances stereotype a tad

when approached in good faith, 90%+ of Hexbears will level with you

When NOT approached in good faith (90% of the time) we don’t react as well

Early in the history of the site, some bigots were finding trans users and then downvoting all of their posts and comments. The admins confirmed this, and went through and banned the offending accounts, but they just made alts, so the permanent solution was to eliminate the downvotes. Our moderation is so strict that bad faith arguing is banned on sight.

Also we’re not as scary as all the libs would have you think. We’re just, again, extremely online, generally confrontational, and have political views outside the norm. All this adds together to make us abrasive when we have to explain something that’s taken for granted on our instance for the 50th time.

Also we have more emojis than anyone can remember, some of which render as giant on every other instance. Spoilered is a picture of a cartoon pig pooping which I'm using as a demonstration because I know it's one of the giant ones, and also one other emoji as a treat

kobeni-dance pigpoop

-V0lD
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51Y

Thank you for the reply. It’s very informative

I believe the original reason was that there were people downvoting trans positive content, and this let people be transphobic anonymously. (Conversely, transphobic content can easily be removed by moderators.)

And let’s be honest, despite what reddit people might say, people don’t only downvote bad faith content, they use the downvote as a “disagree” button.

That’s what PPB is for

kristina [she/her]
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8
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1Y

queerphobic people were downvoting people just because they were gay/trans/etc, so we took note of those people, banned them, and removed downvotes so it couldnt happen again

eatmyass [he/him]
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7
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1Y

removed by mod

Remember, emojis are bugged so that ppb is the size of the entire webpage for everyone but us

But I haven’t seen many lemmy.world comments there, for example

Why would there be a large proportion of lemmy.world comments when the thread is literally about hexbear? You don’t expect hexbear users to have stronger opinions on that than lemmy.world users?

It certainly wouldn’t be brigading if the ratio of hexbear comments was proportional to its size. But I haven’t seen many lemmy.world comments there

Have you ever seen how active our site is for its size? What you’re getting is just the normal amount of organic engagement when you offer our most prolific posters the opportunity to dunk on the most braindead libs outside of reddit.

booty [he/him]
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14
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1Y

Imagine you’ve got 100,000 people in a room. Let’s say they’re split between people wearing blue shirts, green shirts, and red shirts. But it’s not an even split. Half of the people in the room are wearing red shirts. Someone in a blue shirt steps up onto the stage and says, “Open discussion everyone: I think red shirts are assholes and we should kick them all out of the room.”

What exactly do you expect to happen next?

Those instances need a space to discuss those goals among themselves, where the admins can communicate with the users, etc.

That’s not what the thread in question was. We were invited to join the discussion. If we had not been welcome to join the discussion, we would have stayed out of it.

Regarding the analogy:

  1. it’s not one but multiple connected rooms

  2. the room with people in red shirts has suddenly decided to connect with the rooms with the less numerous blue and green shirts

  3. it’s not “someone” in a blue shirt, it’s a significant number of people in blue shirts who think the red ones should simply return to their own room that they were perfectly happy with until now

We were invited to join the discussion

https://lemm.ee/post/4543536

Where exactly do you see the invitation? I see “I am very interested to hear thoughts and responses from our own users.”

booty [he/him]
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17
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1Y

the room with people in red shirts has suddenly decided to connect with the rooms with the less numerous blue and green shirts
think the red ones should simply return to their own room that they were perfectly happy with until now

go back to reddit. this is the fediverse, the entire point is that these are not, in fact, “separate” rooms. being connected is the default. that’s why it requires a giant discussion to kick anyone out.

Where exactly do you see the invitation?

It was posted publicly to all federated communities and absolutely no indication was made that the majority of people to whom the post was sent were unwelcome to participate.

On Hexbear, we have a rule that we have to leave meta discussions of other instances alone if they want us to. All the admin had to say was, “lem.ee users only” and we would’ve stayed out. If you refuse to take such a simple measure to restrict discussion to your own community, you do not actually want to restrict discussion to your own community.

And the admin didn’t. You can go ask him. He was not trying to keep hexbear users out or in any way offended by the fact that we participated in the discussion. Why are you (a member of neither instance) offended on his behalf?

Don’t hate us because we post like gods gift to the internet.

You just cant match the raw power of our posting skills and that makes you feel weak and pathetic. As it should.

Rom [he/him]
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18
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1Y

you have to acknowledge that they did really good job of introducing themselves, though - i had no idea they even existed the day before that thread and i am firm proponent of “defederate. now.” today 😆

Is that why you haven’t stopped whining about us ever since

eatmyass [he/him]
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5
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1Y

removed by mod

NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR MODS SUPPRESSING MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH! THIS IS LITERALLY ANIMAL FARM!

No better boner killer than people spamming mao’s dong.

eatmyass [he/him]
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6
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1Y

removed by mod

I normally hate the whole de-federation thing, but the radlib chapocels there are annoying af.

Radlib isn’t one I’ve heard yet! Would you mind saying a little more about why you think hexbears are radlibs?

of course no response /:

Fucking same boring interactions over and over, and never any follow through!

They probably thought I was going to make fun of them if they elaborated kitty-birthday-sad I wasn’t though, I just wanted to see what they’d say!

You gave me like five hours to reply lmao.

I’m not used to people who take 2 days to respond to forum posts they involve themselves in

I’ll wait patiently this time, sorry :)

They’re wrong, we’re regular LIBs

Someone who claims to be a socialist, but who has a pathological obsession with identity politics and dividing the working class, and gives little regard to class consciousness or worker solidarity. Usually has an extreme hatred of patriotism despite patriotic socialism being the official ideology of the Soviet Union. Often defends lumpen behaviour to a bizarre extent.

Did I miss anything?

Wait, you think hexbear “gives little regard to class consciousness or worker solidarity”? You think we’re only claiming to be socialist? You think we have a “pathological obsession with identity politics”? I would disagree about all of the above, honestly. I will grant you that I’m not a big fan of patriotism, because I live in the imperial core, and there is nothing good about america. Also, could you give me an example of what “lumpen behavior” you think we’re defending?

I just realized, I have no desire to get in Yet Another Internet Argument. Please do not answer the above questions unless you really, really want to for some reason. Thanks for explaining your thinking, I very much disagree with you, but that’s ok! This is a 2 day old thread at this point and I’m trying to be less of an argumentative butthole online, so I’ll just say, I hope you have a great day!

Guess I overdid the hyperbole, it probably came across stronger than intended, sorry.

radlib

wen u no wat werds meen

removed by mod

Imagine not having pronouns.

the tale of the boy without pronouns

radlib

oh fuck we’ve been owned

there are a lot of <250 user instances on that list.

They would probably never see their local content again

Thank you for this, @Nerd02@lemmy.basedcount.com

Nerd02
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11
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1Y

Oh I forgot about this community. Thank you for spreading the word.

You are welcome, thank you for your work!

What I’d really like to have is a tool that lists blocked communities. That information is not as public as defederated instances.

6 instances have. Out of 1350ish.

A total of 29 users. Oh my.

Spzi
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101Y

Thanks, bookmarked!

Just linking a similar tool because I haven’t seen it being mentioned yet: https://fba.ryona.agency/

Just linking a similar tool because I haven’t seen it being mentioned yet: https://fba.ryona.agency/

It’s made by kiwifarms though, they even included their favorite word at the end of the page.

Spzi
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31Y

It’s made by kiwifarms though

I didn’t know, thanks for letting me know. I frankly do not care though, in the exact same way that I do not care that Lemmy is made by tankies.

The interesting bit would be how people with these extreme agencies abuse these tools or their users to further their goals.

As I see it, both cases are questionable people providing useful tools free for me to use. Wether I use these tools or not, has what impact in regards to their agenda? I certainly would not like to be a pawn in their game, or support their cause without consent.

If you think that’s what happens, please show me. That would be very interesting to know and might lead to me ceasing usage / recommendation.

As I see it, both cases are questionable people providing useful tools free for me to use.

Lemmy devs may have controversal political views, but their software is written with a good intention. KiwiFarms on the other hand use it to target instances.

If you think that’s what happens, please show me. That would be very interesting to know and might lead to me ceasing usage / recommendation.

I just see no reason to use a tool made by controversial people with awful intention if there’s a good alternative with no such controversies. But you can decide for yourself, I just wanted to inform.

Lemmy devs may have controversial political views, but their software is written with a good intention. KiwiFarms on the other hand use it to target instances.

Not just that, in all interactions with them, I’ve never found the devs to be anything but respectful.

poVoq
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2
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1Y

Well, that is partially because they leave the less respectful interactions to their alt-accounts ;)

But yes, the software is written with good intentions.

True!

KiwiFarms on the other hand use it to target instances.

I haven’t heard of them. What are they about?

Seems like a forum with a focus on targeted trolling and harassment. There’s a wiki page on them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms

Oh I think Danny Brown mentioned this on one of his podcasts. Thanks.

Lemmy devs may have controversal political views, but their software is written with a good intention. KiwiFarms on the other hand use it to target instances.

Let’s go even further than that. Let’s say that the most annoying people around the whole Fediverse are Hexbear. On the worst days, all they do is to organize to spam specific threads, which is indeed annoying, but that’s the extent of it. KiwiFarms is responsible for harassing people until they commit suicide for the heinous crime of being weird. Anyone aware of this who wants to associate with them has no place in civilized society.

Spzi
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11Y

I’m not sure how the developer’s intention or leaning affects me. Or how my usage or non-usage affects their intention or leaning, or how they can act on it. Maybe my usage provides data for them to improve their tools? But since the tools themselves are agnostic, I’m not sure how that’s a bad thing either.

if there’s a good alternative with no such controversies

Strictly speaking about functionality, I saw no alternative which is on par to the .agency tool. It has more features, is faster, provides more information and causes less strain on network servers. At least that’s my quick impression.

Anyways, thanks for the conversation!

voxel
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81Y

aaaand it’s down. worked this morning but now it fails with PAYMENT_REQUIRED

any reason why sopuli.xyz isn’t included?

@Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de
creator
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2
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1Y

You can ask the creator (see the original post that I crossposted)

Wait why is “dubvee.org” defederated from my instance? Interesting…

El Barto
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91Y

Ask them and report back.

They don’t have any contact info, I guess I should PM from another instance.

Its really strange since there is no porn, controversial opinions or else on the instance.

Might be your TLD blocked by whatever firewall they’re using?

Nope it was about a removed community. They’re refederated now.

Looks like the only people not federated with the midwest are super small instances that aren’t federated a big way with anyone.

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