Fediverse@lemmy.worldbyZedstrian@sopuli.xyz
23 hours

Threadiverse Major Defederations Graph

English

In the graph above I’ve arranged the 28 Threadiverse instances with at least 200 monthly active users (MAU)—orange instances running Lemmy, green Piefed, and red Mbin—on the basis of which instances they defederate.

Each instance has its MAU count listed below it, sourced from the latest MAU figures at Fediverse Observer, with adjustments made to the totals for Piefed (due to undercounting by outdated instances, as noted here; I used @[email protected]’s suggested estimate of 7,200 Piefed users) and Mbin (due to tardigram.com having a duplicate listing).

After adjustments, there are an estimated 43,287 monthly active Threadiverse users (35,184+7,200+903), of whom 87.84% are on the 28 largest instances. The percentages listed alongside the MAU figures correspond to each instance’s share of the total MAU count.

Defederation data was sourced from Federation Checker. The tool doesn’t support Mbin instances, so I left fedia.io in its own category. If any defederations are missing, feel free to let me know. Ideally such a chart should also include community blocks to better illustrate which instances block what, but that data doesn’t appear to be as easily searchable.

I also noticed cases of some instances being listed as being defederated by another instance, despite not appearing on the defederation list for that instance (i.e. reddthat.com and lemmygrad.ml are listed as being mutually blocked, despite neither having the other on their block lists). In testing that federation, I noticed that [email protected] did not federate to Lemmygrad while [email protected] did, so clarification on that matter would be helpful.

While I’ll update my generalized chart as needed to correct errors, perhaps at some point an automated federation mapping tool similar to the one feddit.de formerly hosted could be developed to more completely illustrate instance federation.

147
    • brognak@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      23 minutes

      Ok, I’ll be the one to ask: What happened that 6 instances with 13% of the population combined blocked the porn instance?

      • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        3 minutes

        As many instances were already blocking the original lemmynsfw.com, I suspect most do it as a means of moderating the feeds of new users who might not want to see porn. An alternative to this (as mentioned by @[email protected]) would be blocking its communities (versus the instance itself) by default, allowing users to see replies from fedinsfw.app users and unblock the communities should they wish to. In either case, I think user retention is better served by limiting access to such content to those who are specifically interested in it.

        For Multiverse and apparently Blahaj specifically, they defederate it over CP concerns due to it hosting a ‘Fautbait’ community.

      • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        8 minutes

        The number is the number of instances within the box blocking the instance in question, whereas the percentage is the percentage of overall Threadiverse users that those instances represent. For instance, at least 64.01% of Threadiverse users (the actual figure is higher as the 12% of users on smaller instances are not accounted for) cannot access Hexbear communities or interact with Hexbear users.

    • AgentSeven@lemmy.todayEnglish
      3 hours

      dbzer0 refuses to put their “old” interface back up, which I could get around with opnxng - but it keeps going down anyway, so I have switched to lemmy.today thanks to this thread! I prefer less defederation rather than more. I’ll opt out of what I want to opt out of.

    • leadore@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6 hours

      OK I think I get how to read this, once I understood the concept. Very nice work.

      Maybe it would be a little clearer if the lines where boxes overlap were just slightly offset – it would help see and distinguish them. For example if the blue box was moved down by just a little more than the width of the red lines, instead of being directly on top of them. If that makes sense.

      • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        6 hours

        I’ll consider doing that for the revision; thanks for the feedback!

      • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        5 hours

        102 monthly active users, so if I expand the limit to 100 next time it would be included. Ideally all instances would be represented, but when doing it manually in a chart like this, at some point I have to draw a line.

    • Noxy@pawb.socialEnglish
      6 hours

      am I reading this right, that blahaj blocks federation from pawb?? that doesn’t seem right

      • JRaccoon@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        5 hours

        blahaj is in the black box (has defederated fedinsfw.app), in the blue box (has defederated Lemmygrad) and in the red box (has defederated Hexbear). No one on this graph has defederated pawb. The graph is a bit confusing on the first look.

      • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        5 hours

        No; the instances in the black box defederate fedinsfw.app, not pawb.

      • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        15 hours

        Since defederating is essentially an explicit block list and is directional, my assumption is that the groups that are circled have defederated from the things they’re pointing at. I could be wrong.

        Map needs a key/legend.

        The red circled stuff seems to be only one possible option, but isn’t visually very distinct, and the red circle shouldn’t be broken like that, just make sure the lines are all visible.

        • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          10 hours

          Apologies for the confusion; didn’t want to make it overly cluttered, but in retrospect I see that a legend would have been useful. I’ll incorporate suggestions in a revision.

      • mehquestion@lemmy.worldEnglish
        15 hours

        Yeah, as someone who is struggling to understand the concept of federation…this doesn’t help me at all.

        I guess what its saying, if you’re on lemmy.world, you can’t access content on lemmy.zip?

          • scytale@piefed.zipEnglish
            2 minutes

            Yeah, .zip gives its users full autonomy to block instances/users as they see fit, which is why I’m on their instance.

          • mehquestion@lemmy.worldEnglish
            12 hours

            Why would they do that? I’m unaware of internal issues in Lemmy at this point?

            • khorovodoved@lemmy.zipEnglish
              10 hours

              Ideological differences. Lemmy.world is liberal, while lemmygrad and hexbear are hardcore communists (aka tankies).

              • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                6 hours

                I believe its not the hardcore communism but the style of users on those instances. hexbear users were brigading communities of other instances, and their moderators did nothing. they earned it.

        • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netEnglish
          14 hours

          The ones at the bottom that are below the None category aren’t defederated from anyone, so they can access every instance.

    • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zipEnglish
      15 hours

      Very proud of lemmy.zip! Joined very early on cause the name sounded cool lol, and apparently a lot of others also did. If i remember right we had a vote on defederations and the only major one to happen(or maybe the only one, idk) was exploding heads which was a nazi instance with CSAM on it so that was obvious, even that was mainly cause of the CSAM. I really like the approach of users being able to block instances and communities rather than the instance deciding for me. I still have ml and hexbear blocked tho cause they banned me after i stood up for trans rights or something lol

      • Edges@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2 hours

        Hexbear blocked you for being pro trans? I find that hard to believe.

        I disagree with them on a lot but they are a very pro trans group of people

      • seawoowaes@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5 hours

        You got temporary banned from the lemmy.ml memes community and permanently banned from the hexbear vegan community and divisionsbyzero mycology community.

      • LincolnsDogFido@lemmy.zipEnglish
        9 hours

        I’m feeling the same way. I’ve bounced around a few places since joining. I started on midwest.social which was great for a while, but I think the instance grew more than the dev could keep up with. I started seeing connectivity issues and problems displaying content so I reluctantly migrated to .world to see what joining the largest instance would be like. The technical issues went away but I couldn’t figure out why I could no longer see /c/piracy until I realized that they’re a bunch of pushovers that defederated from dbzer0 based on some liability bogeyman. So I found myself on Lemmy.zip where I can police my own content and have no technical issues.

      • Million@lemmy.zipEnglish
        13 hours

        .zip and Demogodrick definitely cool.

        I also lucked out by joining here just because I couldnt join more popular instances at the time. Happy that I landed here

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
      English
      18 hours

      I really like this but I can not figure it out. Would you be willing to make the data available?

      • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        17 hours

        The MAU numbers for instances were sourced from Fediverse Observer and calculated as a percentage of 43,287 for the percentages, but here’s a table of the defederation data:

        Lemmy
        Instance Defederates
        lemmy.world Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        sh.itjust.works Beehaw, Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        lemmy.zip N/A
        lemmy.ml fedinsfw.app
        feddit.org fedinsfw.app, Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        hexbear.net lemmy.world
        lemmy.dbzer0.com Lemmygrad, Feddit.org
        lemmy.ca Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        lemmy.blahaj.zone fedinsfw.app, Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        programming.dev Hexbear
        discuss.tchncs.de Lemmygrad
        sopuli.xyz fedinsfw.app, Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        lemmygrad.ml fedinsfw.app
        lemmy.today N/A
        slrpnk.net Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        feddit.uk N/A
        infosec.pub fedinsfw.app, Hexbear, Lemmygrad, Lemmy.ml
        reddthat.com N/A
        jlai.lu Lemmygrad
        beehaw.org sh.itjust.works, lemmy.world, Lemmygrad, Hexbear
        pawb.social Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        thelemmy.club N/A
        feddit.nl N/A
        Piefed
        Instance Defederates
        fedinsfw.app Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        piefed.social Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        piefed.ca Hexbear, Lemmygrad
        piefed.zip N/A
        Mbin
        Instance Defederates
        fedia.io ?
          • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            7 hours

            FediNSFW is a Piefed instance dedicated to NSFW content. Some instances defederate it due to that, while (as @[email protected] mentioned) Multiverse and apparently Blahaj defederate it due to it hosting a ‘Fautbait’ community over CP concerns.

            Feddit.org strictly enforces German anti-semitism laws on criticizing Israel. As a result, dbzer0 accused it of being Zionist and defederated it. I don’t think criticism of Israel should be removed, but I also prefer to be on an instance with wider federation, which is why I switched my main account from dbzer0 to Sopuli.

        • Crescent@fedinsfw.appEnglish
          13 hours

          What the hell are Hexbear and Lemmygrad and what did they do that everyone’s blocking them?

          • yetAnotherUser@lemmy.caEnglish
            8 hours

            Lemmygrad and Hexbear (I think) are instances filled with “tankies”, which means that they can’t shut up about how awesome authoritarian regimes that present themselves as communist, like China, and some others, like Russia, are, despite all the crimes against human rights those countries’ governments keep committing (according to tankies, the governments they support don’t actually commit any atrocities, it’s just “lies spread via anti-communist propaganda”, which they also use as a excuse for silencing anyone presenting criticism about their favourite regimes). Please keep in mind that lots of communists don’t see countries like China as communist, despite the countries calling themselves that.

            As these instances have lots of tankies, they tend to have toxic communities. Their users also tend to hate trans people for some reason, and sometines try to harass people because of it, which is a big no-no to instances that want their trans users to feel safe, such as Blåhaj Zone.

            • Edges@lemmy.zipEnglish
              2 hours

              The second “hexbear is anti trans” comment I’ve seen in this thread

              I spent a lot of time on hexbear over the last year because I had never run into tankies before. They are definitely problematic, way too ok with killing humans to achieve goals, and willing to lie to win a debate in an ends justify the means sort of way, but they arent anti trans in any way that I saw. If they are lying about their pro trans stance they are putting a ton of effort into it and theyve succesfully tricked me I guess

          • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            10 hours

            To add an annecdote, hexbear has this handy link to an image: (nsfw) https://hexbear.net/PPB

            Ask yourself why a discussion platform might keep this image quick-link and you may understand why everyone defederates from them.

          • Krono@lemmy.todayEnglish
            12 hours

            Lammygrad are Marxist Leninist, Hexbear are dirtbag leftists. That makes them the natural enemies of center-left and centrist instances like .world.

            In my opinion it comes down to a disagreement over capitalism. One side wants to destroy it, the other side wants to moderate it.

    • kersploosh@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      20 hours

      The beehaw.org/sh.itjust.works defederation is really one-way. Beehaw defederated from us after some exceptionally bad trolls were operating from sh.itjust.works in 2023. IIRC, they requested that we also defederate from them to really make sure the split was made. We honored their request.

      We would happily reconnect if Beehaw decided they want to federate with us again. If not, then that’s fine; they have a right to associate with whomever they like.

      I believe infosec.pub temporarily defederated from us around the same time for the same reason. It was a rough time.

      • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        20 hours

        I’ll adjust the graph by the next version to account for it as an exception.

        • kersploosh@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          19 hours

          If you want to complicate the graph further, I believe hexbear federates using an allow list. Blahaj, lemmy.ca, and sh.itjust.works are not on the allow list, so they are effectively defederated. I haven’t looked further to see which other large instances may be affected.

          • Zedstrian@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            2 hours

            In most cases that a major instance isn’t on the Hexbear allow list, it seems to be an instance that blocks Hexbear already anyhow, so the current layout is sufficient for that. An exception seems to be jlai.lu, which does not block Hexbear yet isn’t on the approved list. In such a case, would the two instances still effectively be defederated?

            • kersploosh@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              47 minutes

              In such a case, would the two instances still effectively be defederated?

              I think so? That’s what I would expect, at least.

      • JensSpahnpasta@feddit.orgEnglish
        8 hours

        There are a lot of threads here about this. Feddit.org wants to keep in line with local laws in their jurisdiction, dbzero thinks that this is a pro-zionist stand and genocide-denial.

        • mrdown@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6 hours

          If feddit.org was not Zionist they would remove justification for Zionism a genocidal supremacist ideology

      • JaN0h4ck@feddit.orgEnglish
        13 hours

        The admins of feddit.org are afraid of german police coming for their servers and therefore ban content that is possibly illegal in germany quite liberally. Since german courts are sometimes weird this includes some Pro-Palestine content that could be interpreted as Anti-Israel (e.g. the chant “From the river to the sea…”). That topic in particular pissed of the dbzero community which then defereated feddit.org for being “Zionists”.

        • bandanawearingbanana@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6 hours

          DACH under feddit.org removed my German news article on Israel. Apparently even German state media is anti-semitic.

          When I posted the same article on German language reddit I got a message that my content had been deemed inapropriate at least.

        • mrdown@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6 hours

          so ban all discussions about palestine then instead of policing Palestinians voice while letting zionists spread all kind of propaganda in your instance

            • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              10 hours

              Well, if you have to personally liable for the shit a bunch of internet strangers say, you might think differently. That is one boon of being a mega-corp. You are somewhat immune to SLAPP-lawsuits and the like.

    • kingofras@lemmy.worldEnglish
      23 hours

      I say, I really don’t get why so many people stay over on Reddit.

      This might be a micro version of the actual future internet, where we walk away from the global model and split it into ideological countries who believe the best way forward is to stop talking to the other group.

      We’ve come a long way from drawing artificial lines on maps.

      • Cris_Citrus (he/him <3)@piefed.zipEnglish
        22 hours

        The fediverse is great if you fall into the like 5 interests that are pretty well represented here.

        But if the communities you wanna engage with aren’t really active enough for potential posters to not just forget they exist, or you don’t really want to be on a platform where 75% of the front page is news or memes about the state of the world politically, its not neccisarily a great replacement to reddit

        For me it happens to cover enough of my bases, but I can get why it wouldn’t for many people.

        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          9 hours

          I’ve said this a number of times over the past couple days, but if there’s an instance for mirroring subreddits, where niche subreddits that don’t have an equivalent here yet basically get a carbon copy and a repost bot to stock them with relevant stuff from over there, that could fill in some of those gaps and make the fediverse a more attractive alternative.

          It won’t have the same level of engagement right away, but it will provide a place for that engagement to occur, and as more people start using it it will create a network effect. As things stand now, we’re missing a lot of those niche communities.

          • Cris_Citrus (he/him <3)@piefed.zipEnglish
            2 hours

            Someone explained that that exists and hasnt connected with people, but I think a big part of why it hasnt is that theres no real social drive to comment or engage with something if theres zero chance the poster might see it. It kinda feels like you’re just speaking into the void, or talking to yourself

            Thats how I feel about it at least 🤷🏻‍♂️ if a human reposts stuff at least you can chat with the reposter about it, if its the kind of post where that makes sense. If the post is a “hey look at this thing I did”, the reposter can’t really say how it went or discuss the experience

            • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              1 hour

              That makes sense. I guess it would mainly only work for posts linking to articles, but we already have that honestly

          • pruwyben@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            6 hours

            There is an instance like that - lemmit.online. It’s been going for three years and it’s still a ghost town.

        • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          9 hours

          It really is pretty dead outside the main subjects. I have noone to talk about the latest episode of My Adventures with Superman. Did they now just leave the other universe with Clark dead? That sucks.

          • Cris_Citrus (he/him <3)@piefed.zipEnglish
            1 hour

            Maybe try making a post on one of the movies or shows comms (I’m not familiar with it and don’t know if its a movie or a show. Though you can also just post where people are.)

            c/casual_conversations can also be a place to chat

            I think in some cases on the threadiverse communities just have to be more catchall, because there aren’t enough people to congregate around a more specific topic. But there may be other people out there who would love to chat about that with you, even if there aren’t enough for a specific community for the show

            (Apologies if youve already tried this, I just had the problem solving thought and figured I’d share. If its not helpful thats okay :)

          • Meatwagon@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            7 hours

            I do want to watch that. It’s in my list of shows to watch one the first season is done. I normally don’t follow western animation or comics, but he’s so derpy I think it’ll be endearing enough for me to enjoy.

            • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              6 hours

              I don’t know if we’re talking about the same show. MAWS is in its 3rd season now. It has been good so far in my opinion.

        • CubitOom@infosec.pubEnglish
          19 hours

          Just like in real life, one must grow and sometimes create the communities they want to be apart of.

          • Cris_Citrus (he/him <3)@piefed.zipEnglish
            19 hours

            While thats true, if my friend whose biggest interests are science informed dog training and animal genetics joins the threadiverse there are not enough people here who genuinely really care about those subjects to actually sustain any of the social connection she’s looking for around them.

            If my friend who’s super into basketball and competitive league of legends join she’d have at least a couple people to talk to, but its fundamentally not what she’s looking for to talk to exactly 3 other people who care about the thing she’s into.

            I try to remember that as much as I love the fediverse and feel at home here, it has real limitations for lots of people, and its okay if its not in a state they can go enjoy very easily. This is a space that I am passionate about and want to contribute to. I don’t expect everyone to do labor to invest in a space that isnt their passion just to chat with folks when they have the ability to chat with folks somewhere else, even if that place has bigger picture downsides or harms associated with it.

          • Crescent@fedinsfw.appEnglish
            13 hours

            Difficult when people here only like 5 things and they shun everything that is not those 5 things.

      • Pamasich@kbin.earth
        10 hours

        I can understand people staying on Reddit more than those staying on Twitter to be honest.

        At least spez hasn’t gone full nazi yet, or provided tools for generating pedophilia.

        Both of which people seem to be perfectly fine with. So it doesn’t surprise me they’re fine with Reddit too.

      • pruwyben@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        22 hours

        You can still choose one that talks to everybody else. In fact, this graphic might be a nice tool for new users who want advice beyond “Just choose any instance, it doesn’t matter” or “Just use lemmy.world”.

      • HM King Charles III DG FD@feddit.ukEnglish
        21 hours

        I don’t know if this is better or worse. I do like the selectivity of it, though, where you’re free to join or privately defederate instances

      • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        13 hours

        Not so much beef as in beehaw could not manage the torrent of content coming their way from world

      • Holla@feddit.org
        English
        15 hours

        According to beehaw there’s no beef, it’s just too many users for them to effectively moderate

        • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          15 hours

          Block the “default”. That’s actually pretty clever. Not because you dislike those people, but because it’s the default and requires extra effort to not be a part of.

    • taiyang@lemmy.worldEnglish
      19 hours

      Things that pop out to me:

      1. The Internet was made for porn, both in users and less defederating.
      2. The main blocks really are mostly the Triad (grad, hexbear and ml) which I get. I personally don’t mind tankies despite the instance I’m on, but they can sometimes echo Russian propaganda that’s demonstrably false. Communism as a concept is ok, though.

      The Beehaw thing predates me, I heard they’re nice people, though. I also agree with the sentiment that more fringe groups and random porn might scare away newbies, so I get why things are the way they are.

      • Holla@feddit.org
        English
        13 hours

        No, discuss is only in the blue box, which’s arrow points to lemmygrad, so they defederated from them.

        You must not read this Graph like a Venn diagram

          • [email protected]@lemmy.zipEnglish
            2 hours

            That’s not it either. The graph is only illustrating defederations (the arrows), not federations. In other words, the blue box and blue arrow mean that those instances in the box are defederating from the instance the arrow is pointing to.