I keep seeing people ask for this. There are basically only two ways, neither of which are terribly easy unless you are willing to switch to a Lemmy alternative and then it can be a breeze with just a couple of button clicks.
First, note that on base Lemmy, it basically cannot be done, short of either spinning up your own instance or trying to do some advanced programming with spamblock filtering rules (that is likely to mess up the pages in some way). There is a related feature though - in User -> Settings -> Blocks -> scroll waaay down -> Block instance - except that unlike blocking a community or a user, this does not actually “block an instance”, and instead merely (& misleadingly?) hides the communities on those instances. You will still see comments from those users, they can still downvote you, and ping your notifications, etc.
About the only thing the above approach offers beyond blocking those communities individually is that if ever new communities were to be made from those instances, they would be automatically hidden from your account. So not all that helpful imho.
(1) Use an App
I have heard that the Sync and Connect apps (+ maybe others?) offer this, as well as a plethora of other features. Note that Voyager does not work for this - it is the same type of blocking as mentioned above.
Check them out? If anyone wants to supplement this section, please submit a post to this community to help people who want to know! (and/or at least add it in the comments here)
(2) Lemmy Alternatives
What I do use is PieFed.social, which in addition to this feature also offers several other advancements not currently available in Lemmy such as Categories of Communities that makes finding additional content a breeze (though overall it is not as feature-rich or easy to use as base Lemmy; and yet its choice to use Python rather than Rust should help it to catch up extremely quickly, plus the admins are extraordinarily responsive to deal with any issues).
To block all users from a PieFed instance, the easiest way is to start from a user on that instance, click their account, then click More -> Block everyone from [instance_name]. Or you could go to a page with the instance name in the url, like https://piefed.social/instance/lemmy.ml and just click “Block everyone from [instance_name]” there.
PieFed also offers additional opportunities in-between blocking trolls vs. not doing so: accounts that meet certain criteria levels will have icons placed next to the account name, so that you can still see their content (rather than have it automatically removed) but not have to spend as much time parsing it as you would something that is more likely to have been offered in good faith.
Mbin likewise offers Categories, and cross-connection with Mastodon, and also user blocking too, though the process to do it is not nearly as easy. Overall I find that whole style confusing - e.g. “communities” become “magazines”, downvotes become “reduces”, upvotes are both “favorites” and also upvotes exist too that are entirely separate from that, plus you can see who offers favorites, but only from other Mbin/Kbin users and you cannot see the same for reduces. Though if you want Mastodon integration with Lemmy in one account, this is definitely the way to go (b/c it’s the only one that does both:-). From @nictophilia@fedia.io:
It’s not anywhere in the settings at all, lol. Like a hidden option. You have to go to the url
https://fedia.io/d/[instance_domain_name], like https://fedia.io/d/lemmy.ml. Then it will give you the ability to block, and that block will be reflected in your settings page.
Either of these alternatives should make you quite happy with the result!:-)
(3) Honorable mention: relying upon an instance admin
As a normal user, not an admin yourself, you cannot implement a custom block of users from any specified instance. However, you can either ask your current admins to implement such a block for you (would need the support of the entire community on that instance ofc), or move your account to one that has already done so?
The only instances I’ve ever heard of that block the big-3 (lemmygrad.ml, hexbear.net, and lemmy.ml) are:
- lemmy.cafe - has very welcoming messages, including a link guiding new users to this community!:-)
- Tesseract on dubvee.org - extremely impressive, if not for everyone, but definitely worth a look
- quokk.au
The caveat to all of these is that each is a single-admin instance. Those of us who recall the story of e.g. Kbin.social (or dmv.social or so many others) know how worrisome that can be in that it could vanish overnight with little to no warning. Then again, unlike Kbin.social, they seem quite healthy for now - definitely worth at least taking a look?
Solid post. The biggest issue I see is that if a new joiner has to go through all of this before being able to “block the extreme views”, they are going to leave the platform altogether. Not sure how to address that
Responding separately to provide an update on this matter in isolation of others, here is an example of PieFed adding a label regarding an instance: https://piefed.social/post/307766 adds at the end:
This post is hosted on beehaw.org which has higher standards of behaviour than most places. Be nice.
So this isn’t some hypothetical future thing: such labeling is already being done.
PieFed.social has defederated entirely from Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml though, so no need for a label in those cases.
Yes, I remember seeing it a while ago.
Once Piefed gets mobile apps established instances might consider switching to it
Yeah and right now the web UI lacks significant polish. e.g. in the deeper threads, it is easy to get “lost” and not find what you are looking for, especially with all the collapsing and Continue thread elsewhere stuff going on.
But wow it does give me strong hope to see what it’s doing already.:-)
More foundationally, anything that is opt-out rather than opt-in seems like it is “pushing an agenda”, even if unintentionally. Even if a user could block users from a particular instance on Lemmy, with just a few clicks like PieFed allows, still, why federate with such a place to begin with? e.g. Hexbear has repeatedly shown an interest in ignoring the consent of those that they choose to “dunk on”, which reveals them to be engaged in trolling - so why should a major Lemmy instance “push an agenda” to expose every single one of its new users to such trolls by default… even if there was a way to turn that off? Which importantly, there is not even?
Unless someone uses an app, leaves the Lemmy-proper instances and goes to one of the (currently 2) alternatives, or moves to an instance that at least matches their preferences - though ofc they aren’t going to know what those are when they first come here.
We need to do more - e.g. attach warning labels to certain communities (like ChapoTrapHouse), possibly with the input of those very same communities themselves in drafting the language (“warning to people in capitalist nations, you are about to get schooled in here - make sure you are ready for that!?!”). But the Lemmy developers don’t seem keen on making this happen (while in contrast, PieFed already has a form of it). And why would they be?
We are using their sourcecode, developed for their interests - the bringing in of more “mainstream users” from Western countries does not seem to be something that they desire, based on e.g. their moderation practices on lemmy.ml to not merely remove content that they do not like, but ban the people who offered their thoughts. Instead, they seem happy with how things are now.
So most future developments along those lines I suspect will come from PieFed, Mbin, and eventually Sublinks, rather than Lemmy.
so why should a major Lemmy instance “push an agenda” to expose every single one of its new users to such trolls by default…
Copy pasting the list from a few days ago below. I guess most of the still federated instances just have a “very last resort” defederation policy, or that users never complained, especially with the user-level blocking.
Also, a vast majority of users aren’t going to encounter HB/LG that much, especially if they avoid news and political communities. No encounter, so no complain, and no defederation.
About hexbear, from the top 20 (https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy/)
Federated
- lemm.ee
- lemmy.dbzer0.com
- discuss.tchncs.de
- lemmy.sdf.org
- lemmy.zip
- feddit.nl
- aussie.zone
.
Defederated:
- lemmy.world
- sh.itjust.works
- lemmy.ca
- feddit.org
- programming.dev
- lemmy.blahaj.zone
- sopuli.xyz
- beehaw.org
- infosec.pub
- slrpnk.net
I think you underestimate how many mainstream users want political news, but otherwise yeah all good points. Though also a user not logged in does face quite a different experience than one who has e.g. realized and blocked ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆. That one action alone can make such an enormous difference in terms of what posts are shown to a visitor to the site, with multiple posts per hour and spread across many many many communities, and sometimes cross-posting in Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml.
This post appears in !memes@lemmy.ml, despite being explicitly political. I suppose it must be “funny” bc the West does wars, but China in no way has threatened any nation ever (Ta…), or offered aid to another nation that is actively doing genocide (Ru…), or even done such activities directly by themselves (Uy…).
Or what about I’m sick of liberals pearl clutching over January 6th, claiming that:
the whole thing as an absolute joke, but they’re treating it like it was an actual terrorist strike or something. “An AtTaCk On DeMoCrAcY”, fuck off, it was some people wandering inside the Capitol because the cops let them in.
I found such things as these by browsing by All, especially since I had not subscribed to any communities yet. It’s a toss-up what you’ll see in All for sure, but that’s the point - to see what’s out there. And then mainstream people don’t like it and leave Lemmy. It would be nice if there were at least warning for this. Because it’s not just about seeing content - when someone makes the mistake of replying, oh oh! right directly inside of Chapotraphouse, wow, that’s when the fireworks begin, and the replies just keep rolling in for WEEKS and WEEKS.
So, yeah it’s possible that someone will manage to avoid running into someone from LG or ML or HB long enough for them to get to like this place and decide to stick around, but it’s also entirely possible for them to do the opposite and walk right into one of these places immediately. Likely even?
Here is a interesting conversation I had with an admin at sh.itjust.works 5 months ago. What makes it interesting is their suggestion to make:
something like autoblocking the instance on user creation… which might make more sense than outright defederation. A bot could probably be made to do that and send them a DM with instructions on how to change it off they so wish.
This is exactly what I was hoping for - making such posts opt-in, rather than have to opt-out! However, I don’t know if it was ever implemented, and even if it was, it would only affect new accounts on that one specific instance. Though it could serve as a model for others to follow, to provide an alternative to either defederation (not going to happen, not with ML) or retaining what we have now which is to treat their bad-faith posts the same as all the good-faith ones.
