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.


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.
For all my criticism against Quokk (like banning users for being Marxist Leninists), Zionism isn’t one of them
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.
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.
Lol the chief propagandist with his walls of text about how everything is a CIA colour revolution. Yeah mate, trust your sources so much 🤣
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.
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.
Also the !world@quokk.au community harbors imperial shills like @Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org, @Scotty@scribe.disroot.org., @Sepia@mander.xyz, and @tardigrade@scribe.disroot.org.
cc mods @Deceptichum@quokk.au & @Grainne@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Pretty sure that’s by design, given that deceptichum capes for Nazis as long as they oppose the Soviets.
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.
“Genocide denial” isn’t a magic spell. Do you not deny the genocide of white South Africans?
Is this like the Tankie “gotcha”, some right wing drivel therefore everything else we don’t like must be false.
“Genocide denial” is a liberal “gotcha” 🤷 Maybe stop acting like a lib on an ostensibly anarchist instance.
Genocide denial includes Zionists denying the genocide of Palestinians. Or do you think that’s a lib take too?
Better ban yourself, unless you think “White Genocide” in South Africa is a real thing. The west often uses atrocity propaganda to discredit its enemies, such as claiming Hamas wants to “kill all Jews.”
Good to know, I’ll send them your way if I see any.
If you have names, please let the Quokk.au admins know. Quokk is an Anarchist-Flotilla instance.