GeekRoom.Tech Federation Policy

As GeekRoom.Tech is a new lemmy instance, we have not seen any de-federation drama yet, but I want to make a point to address the policy of federation and de-federation in one place, prior to any drama that may eventually happen.

I am the head admin of GeekRoom.Tech. I have opened this instance to be a safe haven for all individuals that have a passion for technology, technology-related topics, and even those that just need a safe space to migrate from other websites such as Reddit without fear of shareholders forcing changes due to the need to make company profits.

This policy seeks to address how GeekRoom.Tech approaches de-federation and how we will handle discussions about de-federating from specific instances.

GeekRoom.Tech Statement of Federation

GeekRoom.Tech administration will treat de-federation as an absolute last resort and will not use it as a general purpose method of curating content for GeekRoom.Tech users. Administration will continue to federate with any willing instance.

Pros of federation

  • Federation is the strongest feature of Lemmy, Mastodon, Kbin, Mbin, and similar instances. While there is often confusion about what the “Fediverse” and what “federation” is and what it means for individual people trying to migrate or start anew, federation offers significant decentralization over sites like Facebook, Reddit, X, Instagram, and similar.
  • If a single instance goes down, it does not meaningfully affect the rest of the Fediverse. Users are able to choose to sign up for a new account on another instance, subscribe to their favorite communities again, and continue almost like nothing happened.
  • The maximum impact that a single instance administration team can have is limited to their own instance. An admin of an instance can only ban users from their own instance, they cannot have a significant impact on any other instance, besides de-federating from another instance, again, limiting their impact to their own instance. We can ban our own users from our instance, we can ban remote users from our instance, but those actions would only impact our own instance.
  • Federation offers significant privacy compared to centralized sites like Reddit and Facebook, because personalized details such as IP addresses or e-mail accounts are not shared between instances. If a user is extremely privacy-conscious and does not want to put trust in existing instances, they are more than welcome to self host their own instance.
  • Lemmy and similar types of instances are essentially the infrastructure of the Fediverse. Each branch of infrastructure offers multiple opportunities to get involved in communities.

Cons of de-federation

  • Every time an instance de-federates from the Fediverse, then it drives users to find other instances which may cause a higher level of centralization.
  • Lemmy and similar types of instances are essentially the infrastructure of the Fediverse. Each branch of infrastructure offers multiple opportunities to get involved in communities, however, the larger the instances become, the more centralized that particular branch becomes. This does unfortunately negate the positives of federation and can cause an impact for a larger number of users.
  • Collateral damage can be significant. If we de-federate from another instance at the demand of one, a dozen, or maybe even a few hundred users (when we get there), then all of those users that weren’t involved in any drama or discussion will also be affected.
  • It is incredibly easy for malicious actors to abuse this. If someone goes on to another instance and starts posting spam or generally malicious content and then approaches the admins of the instance with “evidence” of why that other instance should be de-federated, then it’s easy to be manipulated and make admins think they have no other choice than to de-federate from that other instance.
  • When instances de-federate from others, it means that users may end up requiring multiple accounts in order to be able to participate in discussions between instances, causing a very fragmented experience for them.

Alternatives to de-federation?

There are options that moderators and administrators of instances have, such as banning a user from a community and even from entire instances. If an entire community is used for hate, spam, or similar then those entire communities can be removed. Most issues can be resolved by simply communicating with other instance owners and either issuing bans for specific users or discussing how to handle those misbehaving users.

If GeekRoom.Tech de-federates over every single misbehaving user, we would likely not be federated with any other instances, which is something we seek to avoid.

Most individual clients have the option to block individual users and entire communities without involving instance admins. This leaves most of the decision up to the end-user rather than requesting involvement from admins.

When is de-federation the only option?

This is not a set-in-stone rule, but if an instance is abusing the Lemmy infrastrucutre by generating spam, posting illegal content - deliberately or not - then we may decide that de-federation is the appropriate last resort.

Conclusion

Most of what is written here is subjective, and for that I can only apologize. I will do my best to operate GeekRoom.Tech with the highest level of professionalism, maturity, and decisiveness to deliver the best experience for users across GeekRoom.Tech and throughout the Fediverse.

If you have questions or concerns, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments so that we can have a public discussion on how federation and de-federation can be approached.