Check out https://lemmy.kde.social
Do they need to approve each and every instance manually? I thought it would happen automatically as soon as someone is trying to subscribe to a “channel” of another instance. No?
I’m not familiar with the exact process yet. But doesn’t that mean if you wanted to run an unfederated instance, you’d need to manually block every other instance there is?
By default, lemmy will federate openly with any other instance. You can then block specific instances. (Disallow-list)
You can additionally disable federation altogether, or only federate with a specified list. (Allow-list).