Friendly reminder that Mastodon, et al is federated, which means you almost certainly won't see every reply on a thread.

@vkc Running my own instance to always keep my own data. What I don't like is that I can only follow users of other instances, but not a feed of another instance or a hashtag. Unless, I would join a relay but then get all those messages send to my instance which might overload it. So I just search for interesting people to follow on a lot of instances.

Friendly reminder that Mastodon, et al is federated, which means you almost certainly won't see every reply on a thread.

Let's say you're reading a post from "reasonable.domain". And someone from "cesspool.domain" replies to it. If your instance blocked "cesspool.domain", you won't see that reply.

This effect minimizes the appearance of harm. It can be a blessing, but it also means you won't always see the problems inherent on these platforms.

@vkc I only use open source, Mastodon and Loops. No need to know what’s said on bird site or bs.

@mochsner @vkc yes, people like @iftas offer (or did, @jaz can tell you if it's still running) a blocklist of domains that have been agreed by various other admins to be awful.

@vkc I feel like this exact problem has been brought up with the issue of racism being made invisible, creating the impression among people on other servers that it wasn't existent on the fediverse.

It's as if gaslighting was built into the system by accident. That is; there's somethings some people can see but others can't.

@sashin @vkc like maybe if there could be a "comment is from a blocked instance" banner, that could be a helpful feature. Not showing the comment itself but that a potentially unsavory comment exists. That could at last grant some transparency without having to dunk yourself in the cesspool.

@fishidwardrobe @vkc

You can at least sometimes work around this by clicking on the three dots and choosing "Open original page", at least on the web interface.

Friendly reminder that Mastodon, et al is federated, which means you almost certainly won't see every reply on a thread.

Let's say you're reading a post from "reasonable.domain". And someone from "cesspool.domain" replies to it. If your instance blocked "cesspool.domain", you won't see that reply.

This effect minimizes the appearance of harm. It can be a blessing, but it also means you won't always see the problems inherent on these platforms.

Friendly reminder that Mastodon, et al is federated, which means you almost certainly won't see every reply on a thread.

Let's say you're reading a post from "reasonable.domain". And someone from "cesspool.domain" replies to it. If your instance blocked "cesspool.domain", you won't see that reply.

This effect minimizes the appearance of harm. It can be a blessing, but it also means you won't always see the problems inherent on these platforms.

Friendly reminder that Mastodon, et al is federated, which means you almost certainly won't see every reply on a thread.

Let's say you're reading a post from "reasonable.domain". And someone from "cesspool.domain" replies to it. If your instance blocked "cesspool.domain", you won't see that reply.

This effect minimizes the appearance of harm. It can be a blessing, but it also means you won't always see the problems inherent on these platforms.

@vkc Running my own instance to always keep my own data. What I don't like is that I can only follow users of other instances, but not a feed of another instance or a hashtag. Unless, I would join a relay but then get all those messages send to my instance which might overload it. So I just search for interesting people to follow on a lot of instances.

Friendly reminder that Mastodon, et al is federated, which means you almost certainly won't see every reply on a thread.

Let's say you're reading a post from "reasonable.domain". And someone from "cesspool.domain" replies to it. If your instance blocked "cesspool.domain", you won't see that reply.

This effect minimizes the appearance of harm. It can be a blessing, but it also means you won't always see the problems inherent on these platforms.

Friendly reminder that Mastodon, et al is federated, which means you almost certainly won't see every reply on a thread.

Let's say you're reading a post from "reasonable.domain". And someone from "cesspool.domain" replies to it. If your instance blocked "cesspool.domain", you won't see that reply.

This effect minimizes the appearance of harm. It can be a blessing, but it also means you won't always see the problems inherent on these platforms.

Friendly reminder that Mastodon, et al is federated, which means you almost certainly won't see every reply on a thread.

Let's say you're reading a post from "reasonable.domain". And someone from "cesspool.domain" replies to it. If your instance blocked "cesspool.domain", you won't see that reply.

This effect minimizes the appearance of harm. It can be a blessing, but it also means you won't always see the problems inherent on these platforms.

@vkc i get the idea, but i'm not sure if i like someone else to decide if i can see a reply or not.

@gabe @vkc

I have two separate accounts, one for following people and saying stuff, and one for following hashtags. In my case, both are on the same instance, but you could perhaps keep your account on your own instance for following people and saying stuff, and have an account on one of the big instances for following hashtags?

@vkc

I guess so? there's no actual harm if nobody who is offended by the comment sees it. like all the horrible stuff on the web that we never browse to. I guess we could say those sites are problems too but that reality is not something people usually complain about, except maybe when some wanted to scare us off the web in the 90s. it was a trade-off for letting people create their own sites. this moderation approach lets us share a social network with people we don't agree with 100%.

@wjmaggos

"there's no actual harm if nobody who is offended by the comment sees it."

This is false. Have a think about what kinds of harm _could_ be enacted/supported via comments invisible to the target.

Friendly reminder that Mastodon, et al is federated, which means you almost certainly won't see every reply on a thread.

Let's say you're reading a post from "reasonable.domain". And someone from "cesspool.domain" replies to it. If your instance blocked "cesspool.domain", you won't see that reply.

This effect minimizes the appearance of harm. It can be a blessing, but it also means you won't always see the problems inherent on these platforms.