submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [M] to c/agora@sh.itjust.works
 

English message:

As some of you may have noticed, there's an instance with 1.1M bots reposting reddit posts and comments accross communities in several other instances.  

I expect there are multiple valid opinions on the subject and this thread is meant to get a feeling of everyone's opinion on the situation. 

You might also want to read lemmy.ca's discussion on that here which is a pretty decent thread about the subject.  

Things that I think need to be pointed out:  

  • alien.top currently has 1.1M bots, only 6 of those are weekly users logging in. 
  • together they've made 1.59M comments accross a multitude of communities in other instances.
  • That project claims to be trying to get reddit users to switch to lemmy. 
  • They have a portal to allow reddit users to claim and take over their bot persona. 
  • alien.top has a single local community, the bots all post on different instances with copies of different subreddits.

I don't have an exhaustive list of such communities,  I haven't found an official one.  I'll post a fewfrom my personal blocklist in a comment below. 

And a note on the upcoming 0.19 release: 

  • the new user-level instance block feature will block all the communities of the blocked instances,  but will not block these users' posts or comments if they are done on another instance's community.  

My opinion isn't any more valid then anyone else's so I'll put it in a comment below.

Our users' input is welcomed.

What do you, dear users of sh.itjust.works, think about federation with them?

Thanks


Message français:

Comme certains d'entre vous l'ont peut-être remarqué, il y a une instance peuplée de 1,1M de bots qui copient ees posts et commentaires Reddit dans plein de communautés sur plusieurs autres instances.

Il y a plusieurs opinions sur le sujet et ce fil de discussion vise à prendre le pouls de l'opinion générale sur la situation.

Je vous suggères de lire la discussion chez lemmy.ca à ce sujet ici, discussion intéressante. 

Quelques points qui, selon moi, doivent être soulignés :

  • alien.top compte actuellement 1,1 million de robots, dont seulement 6 sont des utilisateurs hebdomadaires qui se login.
  • collectivement, ils ont déjà fait 1,59 million de commentaires dans une multitude de communautés dans différentes instances.
  • Ce projet proclame essayer de convertir des utilisateurs de Reddit à passer à Lemmy.
  • Il existe un portail pour permettre aux utilisateurs de Reddit de prendre contrôle de leur version bot.
  • alien.top a une seule communauté locale, les bots publient tous sur différentes instances, des copies de différents subreddits.

Je n'ai pas de liste exhaustive de ces communautés, à première vue, je n'en trouve pas une liste officielle.  Je mettrai dans un commentaire ci-dessous quelques communautés que j'ai bloqué au niveau personnel. 

Pour finir,  une note sur la version 0.19 de lemmy qui s'en vient :

  • La nouvelle fonctionnalité pour bloquer une instance au niveau d'un uutilisateur bloquera toutes les communautés d'une instance bloquée, mais ne bloquera pas les publications ou les commentaires de ces utilisateurs s'ils sont publiés dans une communauté d'une autre instance.

Mon opinion n'est pas meilleur qu'une autre et je mettrai plutôt dans un commentaire ci-bas.

Les commentaires de nos utilisateurs sont les bienvenus.

Que pensez-vous, cher utilisateurs de sh.itjust.works de la fédération avec eux?

Merci

all 40 comments

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[–] [S] 13 points 2 years ago (3 children)

The following is just my opinion.

First, my issues with this as a user. 

The project claims to try to achieve mostly 2 things:  

  • Get redditors to switch
  • Kick-start communities/subreddits

Personally, I don't see how having a copy of your content history really helps in getting a reddit user to switch. 

On kick-starting communities with content, this is debatable. 

Personally, I think it instead creates somewhat of an illusion of content, a firehose of unmoderated reddit content that a lemmy user can't really engage with because the 1M users aren't here, not really, they're on reddit.  You could already feel like a ghost by visiting a reddit thread a few hours old, this just ensures no-one of your interactions do anything.
Plenty of those are meant to be a discussion, in this case, one which you can't be part of.
If I wanted to lurk reddit without any way to interact with them, I'd just go to reddit or use one of the several front-ends like LibReddit. 

The communities themselves are just bots talking to each other. An echo of a conversion that's happening on reddit, with the odd lemmy not realizing they're commenting into the void of reddit bots.  I know I've done just that a few times before realizing the OP or commenter would never get it. 

It is also somewhat difficult to deal with as a user,  because even if you block alien.top in 0.19, it won't do anything.   You'd still have to stay on top of the new instances that pop-up and keep blocking the new ones. 

Now, my issues with this as an admin: 

This firehose is unmoderated and it is unrealistic to expect any lemmy instance to take on moderation for all the spam and gavage that inevitably comes along with it.  It is openly breaking reddit ToS.
Don't get me wrong, I have no lost love for reddit, but such flagrant infringement is bound to attract unwanted legal attention sooner or later.  While "Reddit can suck it" is a vibe I don't disagree with, I'd still rather not deal with their lawyers for hosting stolen content.  

The author's comments are also somewhat problematic in that regard, they're claiming to be "at war with reddit", have publicly flaunted breaking reddit ToS, not caring for either their permission nor the consequences.   Even if they do implement a 2-way bridge with reddit, they'll be insta-banned by reddit.

Seems more like a liability than a positive.

All this for 6 active users that have maybe switched. 

I'd be inclined to block them at the instance level. 

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago*

    I think the best idea is to just defederate from them for the meantime. They haven't asked us permission to bridge our communities or post their content in our communities and are actively destroying what makes Lemmy nice. Even if the bidirectional bridges end up working, lemmy would be the second class way of seeing that content, and would make Lemmy seem cheap, slow, old, etc compared to Reddit.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    On a personal level

    They have a portal to allow reddit users to claim and take over their bot persona.

    So they're just going to impersonate me somewhere else, and then I can supposedly 'apply' to get the faked account back? And if I don't ask for that account, what happens when the botmaster gets bored? Do they just abandon their network, or do they view it as an asset that they put effort into and deserve to profit from - astroturfing, selling accounts, spamming products, running troll farms, etc?

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    A couple of thoughts:

    • More community interaction is nice, but this is like the ghost of community interaction.
    • I don't really think the stated goal of getting lots of people on Reddit to move over is a great idea. I don't have a problem with people from Reddit coming (I came from Reddit back in June), but slow organic growth is the better way to go in my opinion, rather than trying to force it.
    • What it really comes down to is that it's spam. It might have been ok if there were an easy way to block it, or even if the coming update's instance level blocking would work for it, but it won't.

    For some more personal opinions:

    • I'm kinda sick of hearing about Reddit. I wish those of us who've joined because of it would move on.
    • I don't know the specific details so I may be wrong, but from what I understand this is all the work of one guy. I don't like the idea of one person unilaterally deciding to do something that could end up heavily influencing the entire platform.

    I'd vote to defederate.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    1.1M bots

    Jesus shit in my fuck. That’s too much! Bots shouldn’t be commenting except to facilitate human interaction, anyway. Stealing the posts from /r/topofreddit sounds fine, but there is absolutely no need to rehost all of Reddit on Lemmy.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    https://sh.itjust.works/comment/6284995 want to say that for now they are disabled, so perhaps they come up with something better.
    i dont mind the actual users from alien top, but the myriad of posts that dont try too much to make it clear that they are botted are frustrating and make it harder to look for actual content.

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 2 years ago

    Thanks for the link.
    This linked thread is so full of entitlement, I don't know where to start.

    I thought that the people that came to Lemmy during the protests were willing to put their words into actions and leave Reddit

    Yes. I did. Many did. But it seems I can't escape reddit when people insist on spamming as much of reddit as they can everywhere they go. They need to take their own advice and leave Reddit and enjoy lemmy for what it is instead of trying to make lemmy into reddit.

    that people claim to be upset has more to do with their own ignorance

    Holy shit, that's the Skinners meme from the Simpsons. "No, it's the children who are wrong."

    And I don’t mean ignorance as a pejorative. I mean it that I have failed to communicate and educate people about the strategy and plan for fediverser.

    I also don't mean entitled bot spammer as a pejorative? But words doesn't really work like that.
    Shrug.

    I kinda understand where they're coming from, I just actually quit reddit and think their efforts drive down engagement more than they help.

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  • I'd vote to defederate as well. I'm all for getting Reddit users to switch to Lemmy, but I don't think that alien.top's strategy is a good one.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    As someone with an account on that instance, I picked it because it was easy to sign up coming from reddit, and it has good federation.

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    To be fair I don't really have a problem with the 6 of you who are active users, but these threads are just spam.

    https://sh.itjust.works/post/10364305 140 bot comments, I might as well chat with an LLM.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Lmao Jesus. Maybe it's just because I transferred it from my banned reddit account that I don't see any of that stuff normally

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I mean you can always make an account here lol

    We have buff sailor moon which is better company than bots?

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Tbh you guys have defederated too much for my personal taste in instances, and just having a bunch of separate accounts seems like it'd be annoying

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    If I may... which blocked instance from your personal tastes would be missing here?

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's the principle of it mostly.

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The current block list has only instances full of bot spam, pedophilia and lolicon. Is that principled or tasteful?

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I get that you guys have legal issues and such to worry over, being located in Canada and all, but where I'm at, but where I'm at, loli is considered completely legal free expression, and the pedo servers seem to just be weird discussion stuff and not porn so idgaf, I can just block on my end. And same regarding spam. I can block and ignore it on my own end.

    One of the big reasons I decided to switch to federated social media is because I was sick of having what I see controlled by someone else, especially big media companies. You guys are nowhere near as bad a reddit, and there's a few communities I like on your instance, but ultimately it doesn't seem like where I want to make my account.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Quelques communautés...
    A few of them..

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Wait they have several instances going at once? Why?

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 2 years ago

    The generous assumption would be to spread the load.
    The less generous assumption would be to mitigate blocks.

    Anyway, I think they've paused it for the moment.
    Whether they manage to deliver their 2-way bridge is a bit moot, as soon as they do that reddit will ban and sue them (and possibly us and other instances on which that content is available).

    There's a reason alternative front-ends like libreddit don't store much and instead fetch it from reddit.
    Archive sites would fall under fair use.
    This doesn't.

    Stealing users from reddit? Sure.
    Stealing their content? No.
    The fediverse grows (or not) by being more interesting.
    Floods of reddit bot content isn't.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    This isnpary of what leads me to believe their motives are more malicious than well-meaning.

    If they created "redditmirror.ml" or something and just put everything there that would be one thing.

    But also - they're actively copying user-created content and impersonating the users?

    Fuck 'em I say.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I see very little value in mirroring Reddit on Lemmy.

    As a link aggregator, I think we're doing fine. We seem to have no shortage of our own "Headline linking to a paywalled article no one reads" thank you very much.

    As a discussion board, I think most folks will see a Reddit mirror and go "Well that's pointless to engage with" and ignore it.

    It doesn't really help us out here, and I don't think it makes Lemmy more attractive to Redditors, who probably haven't noticed and might be a little alarmed at the identity theft aspect.

    I'm also curious as to the load this kind of behavior puts on the rest of the Fediverse. How much bandwidth, local storage etc. of sh.itjust.works does it take to spam the All Active feed with pages of Reddit mirrors?

    Aeons ago I drafted a defederation policy, which I don't think was ever officially ratified. I'm glad to say it hasn't come up a lot. "operated for the purpose of hosting bot accounts for the purposes of spam, scams, denial-of-service attacks, or other traffic generally unwelcome or disruptive to the Fediverse." was number one on my list of reasons to defed from an instance.

    I would call the behavior of alien.top to be spam, generally unwelcome or disruptive.

    If they are keeping posts within their own instance, open the poll and I'd vote to defederate. If they have bots that are posting spam here, I actively petition to defederate.

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  • The author paused their bots soon after this post was made, although probably not because of this post but likely the general backlash, not just from here.
    Last I checked, they were still very much in a "no it's the kids who are wrong" mindset.

    My main problem with this is it's actually a net negative for user engagement.
    Like you said, why would anyone interact with a pool of bots?

    While much less egregious, sometimes even useful, even the normal bots who post stuff from an RSS feed can get a little tiring. At least when someone posts something, there's at least this one person who's likely willing have a discussion about it, whereas with bots it's far from guaranteed.

    I too would be curious about the resource use coming from them, maybe if/when we purge them we can compare.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Lemmy sucks more and more everyday.

    It's sucking fast. I've been blocking so much lately. Like ...just pointless shit. Usually in communities that are irrelevant to the post.

    Is it possible to block instances as a regular user?

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It will be in 0.19, but it will only block communities on that instance, not their users.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    The bots only post in their own communities, and not just random ones, no? It doesn't really seem like an issue if so. Block those instances, and then you won't interact with them at all?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    I think that's right. The alien.top bots are only posting on their own communities, which you won't see if you block the instance in 0.19 or in your client. (many have had instance blocking for a while - I use Connect for Lemmy.)

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Not exactly. He decided to set up a bunch of other instances like hardware.watch, soccer.forum, and level-up.zone, where he groups the botted communities based on topic. So you'd have to block those instances as well, if I'm not mistaken.

    I personally have experienced no issues, because I don't browse /all and I'm not subscribed to any of the fake communities. But the decision to spread it across dozens of servers definitely makes it harder to defend, because it's not exactly trivial to avoid the botted content if you make a habit of browsing /all.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    I'm not even sure I got them all yet and I'm at 176 communities across 16 instances:

    https://academy.garden/c/askastronomy
    https://academy.garden/c/askscience
    https://academy.garden/c/astrophysics
    https://academy.garden/c/cosmology
    https://academy.garden/c/datasets
    https://academy.garden/c/machinelearning
    https://blockchained.world/c/bat
    https://blockchained.world/c/ethereum
    https://blockchained.world/c/ipfs
    https://blockchained.world/c/loopring
    https://blockchained.world/c/polygon
    https://blockchained.world/c/solana
    https://blockchained.world/c/storj
    https://blockchained.world/c/thegraph
    https://communick.news/c/communick_news_network
    https://communick.news/c/emacs
    https://communick.news/c/fediverser_network
    https://communick.news/c/humanscale
    https://communick.news/c/lisp
    https://communick.news/c/makers
    https://communick.news/c/mastodon
    https://communick.news/c/meta
    https://gearhead.town/c/bikebuilders
    https://gearhead.town/c/bmw
    https://gearhead.town/c/cars
    https://gearhead.town/c/easyriders
    https://gearhead.town/c/electricvehicles
    https://gearhead.town/c/mazda
    https://gearhead.town/c/mechanic_advice
    https://gearhead.town/c/mercedes
    https://gearhead.town/c/motorcycleporn
    https://gearhead.town/c/porsche
    https://gearhead.town/c/toyota
    https://hardware.watch/c/amd
    https://hardware.watch/c/apple
    https://hardware.watch/c/buildapc
    https://hardware.watch/c/fairphone
    https://hardware.watch/c/framework
    https://hardware.watch/c/gadgets
    https://hardware.watch/c/hardware
    https://hardware.watch/c/intel
    https://hardware.watch/c/laptops
    https://hardware.watch/c/pcmods
    https://hardware.watch/c/remarkable
    https://hardware.watch/c/samsung
    https://hardware.watch/c/steamdeck
    https://hardware.watch/c/system76
    https://healthy.community/c/fit_meals
    https://healthy.community/c/meal_prep_sunday
    https://healthy.community/c/paleo
    https://healthy.community/c/running
    https://level-up.zone/c/3ds
    https://level-up.zone/c/atlus
    https://level-up.zone/c/civ
    https://level-up.zone/c/dota2
    https://level-up.zone/c/falcom
    https://level-up.zone/c/gaming
    https://level-up.zone/c/leagueoflegends
    https://level-up.zone/c/linuxgaming
    https://level-up.zone/c/minecraft
    https://level-up.zone/c/news
    https://level-up.zone/c/overwatch
    https://level-up.zone/c/rainbow6
    https://metacritics.zone/c/90dayfiance
    https://metacritics.zone/c/bojackhorseman
    https://metacritics.zone/c/books
    https://metacritics.zone/c/dailyshow
    https://metacritics.zone/c/gakinotsukai
    https://metacritics.zone/c/invincible
    https://metacritics.zone/c/movies
    https://metacritics.zone/c/southpark
    https://metacritics.zone/c/tedlasso
    https://nba.space/c/blazers
    https://nba.space/c/bucks
    https://nba.space/c/bulls
    https://nba.space/c/cavaliers
    https://nba.space/c/celtics
    https://nba.space/c/clippers
    https://nba.space/c/grizzlies
    https://nba.space/c/hawks
    https://nba.space/c/heat
    https://nba.space/c/hornets
    https://nba.space/c/jazz
    https://nba.space/c/kings
    https://nba.space/c/knicks
    https://nba.space/c/lakers
    https://nba.space/c/magic
    https://nba.space/c/mavericks
    https://nba.space/c/nba
    https://nba.space/c/nets
    https://nba.space/c/nuggets
    https://nba.space/c/pacers
    https://nba.space/c/pelicans
    https://nba.space/c/pistons
    https://nba.space/c/raptors
    https://nba.space/c/rockets
    https://nba.space/c/sixers
    https://nba.space/c/spurs
    https://nba.space/c/suns
    https://nba.space/c/thunder
    https://nba.space/c/timberwolves
    https://nba.space/c/wizards
    https://nfl.community/c/49ers
    https://nfl.community/c/bears
    https://nfl.community/c/bengals
    https://nfl.community/c/bills
    https://nfl.community/c/broncos
    https://nfl.community/c/browns
    https://nfl.community/c/buccaneers
    https://nfl.community/c/cardinals
    https://nfl.community/c/chargers
    https://nfl.community/c/chiefs
    https://nfl.community/c/colts
    https://nfl.community/c/commanders
    https://nfl.community/c/cowboys
    https://nfl.community/c/dolphins
    https://nfl.community/c/eagles
    https://nfl.community/c/falcons
    https://nfl.community/c/fantasyfootball
    https://nfl.community/c/giants
    https://nfl.community/c/jaguars
    https://nfl.community/c/jets
    https://nfl.community/c/lions
    https://nfl.community/c/nfl
    https://nfl.community/c/packers
    https://nfl.community/c/panthers
    https://nfl.community/c/patriots
    https://nfl.community/c/raiders
    https://nfl.community/c/rams
    https://nfl.community/c/ravens
    https://nfl.community/c/saints
    https://nfl.community/c/seahawks
    https://nfl.community/c/steelers
    https://nfl.community/c/texans
    https://nfl.community/c/titans
    https://nfl.community/c/vikings
    https://poweruser.forum/c/cubase
    https://poweruser.forum/c/hugo
    https://poweruser.forum/c/localllama
    https://poweruser.forum/c/steamos
    https://poweruser.forum/c/techsupport
    https://selfhosted.forum/c/datahoarder
    https://selfhosted.forum/c/docker
    https://selfhosted.forum/c/homeautomation
    https://selfhosted.forum/c/homelab
    https://selfhosted.forum/c/homenetworking
    https://selfhosted.forum/c/main
    https://selfhosted.forum/c/meta
    https://selfhosted.forum/c/portainer
    https://selfhosted.forum/c/pro
    https://selfhosted.forum/c/show
    https://soccer.forum/c/ajax
    https://soccer.forum/c/bundesliga
    https://soccer.forum/c/corinthians
    https://soccer.forum/c/fcbayern
    https://soccer.forum/c/gunners
    https://soccer.forum/c/main
    https://soccer.forum/c/premierleague
    https://soccer.forum/c/seriea
    https://soccer.forum/c/talk
    https://style.land/c/fragrance
    https://style.land/c/makeup
    https://style.land/c/makeupaddiction
    https://style.land/c/malefashionadvice
    https://style.land/c/mechanical_keyboards
    https://style.land/c/nike
    https://style.land/c/shoes
    https://style.land/c/sneakers
    https://style.land/c/streetwear
    https://style.land/c/vans
    https://style.land/c/watches
    https://viewfinder.pro/c/itookapicture
    https://viewfinder.pro/c/photography
    https://viewfinder.pro/c/pixelfed

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    Wow. It's really a misleading system because the average user wouldn't normally recognize that those are all related instances with bot content. If he had at least followed a consistent naming scheme, it'd seem more honest and easier to engage/disengage with.

    That being said, I still genuinely believe that his motives are altruistic. He's just trying too hard to force growth when it's better to let it come organically for now.

    It's a bit rash to go ahead and create 16 instances. Maybe trying a pilot instance and seeing how people like it first would have gone over better.

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  • Yes, with a caveat.
    The bots are on alien.top.
    The communities are spread out in multiple instances, which do seem dedicated to that purpose.
    0.19 would allow blocking of these instances as they come up, if you stay on top of it.

    The author conveniently sells a hosting service for such instances, so I guess that's how they plan to monetize this.
    Money aside, I'm not sure how I feel about that much centralization in the fediverse if that ever was to take off.
    Im probably biased, but so far their comments I've seen make me think of spez2.0

    Legally speaking, it's also a hornet's n'est.

    I think they paused it because several instances backlash, I guess we'll see.

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