This morning while checking if Quokk.au’s new instance logo was federated out, I discovered that overnight we had been shadowbanned from the PieFed.Social Instance Chooser (This is a tool to help spread out users across the platform and help avoid funnelling users into the largest.)

Knowing that Rimu was happy to explain, I just asked for some clarification as we were visible on every other PieFed instance except his.

Apparently for ’ obvious reasons ', of which I can only assume is our left leaning anarchist/pro-trans stance we were chosen not be advertised on the PieFed flagship instance and first point of contact for many potential new users. Seeing as a large portion of our new users found us via this method, it will have a tangible effect on a small instance such as ours.

This was a pretty sad sight to see, and reflects the sort of petty drama that is emanating from the PieFed project lately. It’s now the third such move to discredit and harm left leaning instances by PieFed’s lead developer. This also shows a trend towards autocratic unilateral decision-making on Piefed.social, of which is starting to be run as a personal fiefdom without consulting the team or users.

I must commend Lemmy.ml for remaining neutral and not letting its own political leanings influence join-lemmy.org, while simultaneously condemn PieFed.social for this immature move that is harmful to the health of the Fediverse.


Following this exchange, Rimu announced a new update to PieFed allowing for some rather concerning things.

  • Modlog: Reason for the action is only shown from trusted instances, so abusive mods won’t have an audience. Admins can still see the reason though. Which instances are trusted is set in the admin UI.

This feature means problematic users can now go undetected, and will harm moderators ability to view their past moderation history. For example PieFed.social runs a ‘trusted’ list of only 34 instances, meaning any mod action taken by any of the hundreds of instances outside of this will not show up. So for example if Quokk.au was to ban a user for transphobia (our most common ban), this will not be reflected for piefed.social users potentially leading towards more hate speech on the Fediverse.

  • Instance silencing similar to Mastodon. A silenced instance is not defederated from but their posts do not show in the Popular or All feeds and their communities are not shown in Starter packs aka Topics. Their communities can still be found in the communities list and joined in the normal way. Once joined, posts in there show up in the subscribed feed as usual.

This is another way to shadowban instances and not ‘advertise’ them. Surely if an instance is problematic enough that a defederation would be in order rather than this reddit-like move.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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    8 hours ago

    Serious question, why do people even bother with piefed at this point. Also, I’m not really against libs creating their own bubble if that means they stop being obnoxious all across the fediverse.

      • Goferking0@ttrpg.network
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        4 hours ago

        Idk, seems more like PR speak for I’m going to do it all through a different account now rather than a reflection of anything

        • mathemachristian[he]@lemmy.ml
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          3 hours ago

          Idc, i also don’t understand why people are so into alt-hunting. Everyone who has two people disagreeing with them is immediately going on about how its all sockpuppets. That or “brigading”/“dogpiling” like they can’t face multiple people disagreeing with them they’re that insecure about what their saying 😒 not that applies to what you’re saying, but some regular idiot massaging the numbers until they find somenthing that lets them post is way more preferable to the leading dev of a platform used by the instances the posts are about.

          • Goferking0@ttrpg.network
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            3 hours ago

            The “brigading”/“dogpiling” excuse has always been terrible.

            I’m not saying it’s bad to have alts just that nothing in their post seems like anything will change just do better at not being as divisive? with the public account

  • Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com
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    23 hours ago

    I kinda wish developers would not host their own flagship/open instance, but I know it makes testing and development much easier

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Entirely unsurprising. When you wonder why someone would develop an alternative to Lemmy, rather than work within it, and then you see Rimu’s deplorable views and attitudes towards leftists, it’s clear: Piefed has always been developed to cultivate liberalism through coercive means. Lemmy is developed along communist principles out of a sheer belief that doing so and sticking to principles is the best way to create a platform for not just communists, but everyone. Pieces is developed along liberal, anti-leftist lines as an act of ideological warfare itself, resorting to implementing social credit scores and other manipulative means to try to force its own viewpoint.

    In other words, the Lemmy devs believe sticking to principles is the best path forward, whereas Rimu doesn’t trust liberalism’s own principles and is fine to “play dirty.”

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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      8 hours ago

      Very well put, the fact that they have to go to such length to lock people into their bubble shows that deep down they know their ideology has no staying power, and can only be sustained through coercive measures.

      In terms of developing an alternative, I don’t really see that of itself as a negative necessarily though. You might want to just play around to learn how this stuff works, use a different technology stack, or try out some new ideas in terms of UX. The real issue in my opinion is with all the dark patterns in piefed.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        7 hours ago

        Yea, the part about developing an alternative itself is more as it relates to Rimu’s stated goals. The alternative isn’t the problem, it’s the drive that has already been stated by Rimu behind the alternative that determines the reactionary nature of this particular alternative, not alternatives in general.

    • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      19 hours ago

      Entirely unsurprising. When you wonder why someone would develop an alternative to Lemmy, rather than work within it, and then you see Rimu’s deplorable views and attitudes towards leftists, it’s clear:

      Honestly that’s not necessary. I can absolutely see someone wanting to work with Python instead of Rust.

  • Vegafjord demcon@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Fediverse are hives of benevolent dictators. The dictators must do what they feel is right for the hive.

    The hives assumes dictatorship.

    If we want this to change, we need to demand hives that are built with democratic control in mind.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
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      1 day ago

      Piefed has always been developed to cultivate liberalism reactionsrianism through coercive means.

      Sorry cowbee, I respect you a lot, but if this garbage isn’t wholly reactionary, it’s reactionary enough, imo. Always happy to take correction, as I know it’s not the original sense of the word.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      Lemmy.world is the biggest instance by far, which created a positive feedback loop. Lemmy is not Lemmy.world, and so it makes more sense to spread out the growth.

    • 𝓜𝓲𝓪@quokk.auOP
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      2 days ago

      From my understanding lemmy.world is missing as it is the largest of all instances and this helps users find others.

      That is not done for ideological reasoning but Fediverse health.

        • Christian@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          Yep, and if they drop back below that threshold it will automatically rejoin the list. One instance holding the majority of the userbase defeats the purpose of federation, setting a cap at (IIRC) 30% for this is healthy.

          Long ago I used XMPP to chat with a few people, and when google chat came along suddenly I could instant message with a ton of other people in my life. Google later defederated and I was too stubborn to get a google account and it felt like XMPP died overnight. The people I had originally been talking with logged off when that happened.

          People go where other people are, and if most people are on one instance and the admins restrict federation, there’s a lot more inertia towards people without access joining the big one than there is towards their existing userbase leaving. Speading out the userbase of a federated network is decentralizing power, which is the entire appeal of federation.

  • thoro@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    This is completely unsurprising when you’re aware of the reasons that motivated PieFed’s development (anti communism). Features designed to limit the voice and reach of certain instances lines up with that motivation. PieFed exists to counteract communist influence in the threadiverse.

    Some here who helped push it spin it as a way to make the fediverse more palatable to the average Internet user because they care more about growth than culture, but the underlying motivation has always been to try to separate the threadiverse from its communist roots.

    I’ll take the tankie devs over liberal devs every single time, personally. You can say what you want about them and how they personally run their instances, but I’m not aware of them developing any underhanded features like these and others in PieFed.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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      8 hours ago

      What’s really funny to me is that liberals consistently preach one thing and then do another in practice. Open debate and the whole market of ideas is at the core of liberal ideology. Yet, whenever liberals don’t have the dominant position, they immediately reach for censorship breaking precisely the principle they claim differentiates them from their ideological adversaries.

  • rhythmisaprancer@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    This stinks. I remember someone from anarchist.nexus posting a question about being banned but not seeing why (I think, I don’t remember the details) and a very terrible response from Rimu. I don’t see anyone else from piefed.social posting here but I can’t be the only one that has seen this negativity over the last month or so. Maybe time to instance hop again or use an old account. Guess I didn’t learn any lessons about flagships after being on kbin.social, although that was very different.

    • 𝓜𝓲𝓪@quokk.auOP
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      2 days ago

      Well if you do decide to move instances, quokk.au is always open. We have a few improvements to our instance web view over the default PF.

      :babaw_you::babaw_win:

      • teslekova@sh.itjust.works
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        23 hours ago

        If I get kicked off sh.itjust.works, I’m coming to you. Didn’t know which instances were ban-happy when I first came here, so picked the one that looked like it cared the least. Good so far!

      • rhythmisaprancer@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        I appreciate that! I am not in AUS tho, I guess I need to head over and see your rules. It would be my first time switching instances where I could move info over, that would be nice and a fun learning experience.

        • 𝓜𝓲𝓪@quokk.auOP
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          2 days ago

          The domain is .au, but we’re international focused. I believe PieFed has features to migrate your subscribed communities over, so you won’t have to start over completely fresh.

          As for rules, we (me) have been a bit slack and don’t have anything formalised. We basically follow the same as lemmy.dbzer0.com and anarchist.nexus, so you can view those rules here: https://wiki.dbzer0.com/divisions-by-zero/the-golden-rules/

          Mostly it’s just be a decent person, don’t support nazism, zionism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.

          • rhythmisaprancer@quokk.au
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            2 days ago

            Well, I did it. I am sure I have more work to do but I do not have to worry about the other stuff. Thanks for your encouragement!

            • 𝓜𝓲𝓪@quokk.auOP
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              2 days ago

              Pleasure to have you here! I know you just came from PieFed so you’re familiar with the software, but please let me know if you have any issues or need help.

          • rhythmisaprancer@piefed.social
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            2 days ago

            Wow, I just finished reading the db0 conduct and it sounds more thought out than the piefed. Now I will look into migration before I leave for a work trip.

            Thanks for your encouragement!

    • 𝓜𝓲𝓪@quokk.auOP
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      2 days ago

      Unfortunately as >75% of all new members joined us from there it’s effectively killed off instance growth. Will have to do a lot of campaigning to get any visibility now.

  • kopasu22@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Quokk.au is a left-leaning instance? Never got that impression. I feel like I’ve seen as many Israel-simping zionists from there as on .world.

    • Riverside@reddthat.com
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      1 day ago

      For all my criticism against Quokk (like banning users for being Marxist Leninists), Zionism isn’t one of them

    • 𝓜𝓲𝓪@quokk.auOP
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      2 days ago

      Please name one?

      I’ve seen many report about our users for saying Israel should not exist etc, I’ve never seen anything in favour of Israel.

      Also Zionists and Nazis aren’t allowed on here.

      • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 hours ago

        It’s honestly nice that the worst thing on Quokk is someone who doesn’t tolerate weirdos and Hexbear wants you to ban them for that. The examples from Cowbee and Devel is nothing compared to other instances (including their own).

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        I haven’t seen Zionists, but I have seen Nazi apologia as a way of “critiquing” the Soviets. It wasn’t “Nazis good,” but quokk.au users (2 that I can remember) minimized Nazis lynching Jews and communists as “student protests” crushed by the Soviets, which is just historical revisionism.

        • lumpenproletariat@quokk.au
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          1 day ago

          Lol the chief propagandist with his walls of text about how everything is a CIA colour revolution. Yeah mate, trust your sources so much 🤣

          • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            7 hours ago

            Anything not done by Mao and Stalin was a color revolution, including anarchist revolutions, and other Marxist revolutions. Trotsky went from Lenin’s pick to color revolutionist overnight. So odd he went from trusted to CIA plant.

            And their citations will be a wiki they made because the woke mods of Wikipedia wouldn’t allow a self hosted blog post, and books that have publicly called out historical inaccuracies, called Conservapedia. Oh sorry, Prolewiki. Very different things.

            Maybe if the USSR didn’t pretend to be one thing and then do the opposite, while people say it’s the shining example of the thing it pretended to be. Queers are also color revolution.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            1 day ago

            Not everything is a counterrevolution nor CIA, but for clarity, you’re choosing not to trust communists or westerners. This is what you called “student protest:”

            The Hungarian revolt in 1956 was infested with anti-semitic pograms. MI6 funded, supplied, and trained the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries. These counter-revolutionaries were allied with fascists who were lynching Jewish people and Communists. The Truth About Hungary by Herbert Aptheker heavily relies on citing western sources like the New York Times. Aptheker backs up his claims heavily.

            "The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of those days, said that the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. “There is no longer any room for doubt,” said the Yugoslav reporter, “it is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,” continued this writer, “coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways.”

            “But the forces of reaction were rapidly consolidating their power and pushing forward on the top levels, while in the streets the blood of scores of massacred Communists, Jews, and progressives was flowing.”

            “Some of the reports reaching Warsaw from Budapest today caused considerable concern. These reports told of massacres of Communists and Jews by what were described as 'Fascist elements’ …” (N.Y. Times, Nov. 1. 1956)

            “The evidence is conclusive that the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest stopped the execution of scores, perhaps thousands of Jews, for by the end of October and early November, anti-Semtic pogroms - hallmark of unbridled fascistic terror - were making their appearance, after an absence of some ten years, within Hungary.”

            "A correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv (Tel Aviv) reported:

            During the uprising a number of former Nazis were released from prison and other former Nazis came to Hungary from Salzburg . . . I met them at the border . . . I saw anti-Semitic posters in Budapest . . . On the walls, street lights, streetcars, you saw inscriptions reading: “Down with Jew Gero!” “Down with Jew Rakosi!” or just simply “down with the Jews!”

            Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that “Jewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.” Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that “anti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.” This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because “fascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.” Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that “the majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.” The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."

            So, the New York Times, Maariv, Politika, The Independent, Naye Presse, Herbert Aptheker, and more all agree on the general fact that Nazis were let out of prison during the riots, and that said rioters were lynching Jews and communists. These certainly can’t all be said to be of the same political background. You let your bone to pick with the soviets get in the way of how you view history, which results in Nazi apologia.

          • lumpenproletariat@quokk.au
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            1 day ago

            And you harbour genocide deniers and transphobic devs.

            Sorry I’m not banning all users for simply being Libs. If you want to refute the articles they post, do so. It’s mostly an open forum for people to engage with if you’re not a *phobe, racist, misogynist, or genocide denier.

  • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    I actually like having a second order of downgrading an instance over pure defederation. For example it would be really cool to mark instances from which to accept downvotes. Etc

  • iByteABit@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    It’s always very interesting to see the imperialist type of “leftist” always punch left harder than they punch right. Almost as if that’s their actual intended purpose all along…