This article examines the concept of defederation in the context of decentralized social media platforms. It uses the analogy of two cities connected by a bridge to illustrate the complexities of severing connections between servers with differing moderation policies. The article explores the potential benefits and risks of defederation, highlighting the challenges of balancing free speech with safety and community accountability. It discusses the practical considerations of implementing defederation, including the lack of information sharing and automated tooling for smaller servers, and suggests ways in which commercial servers can contribute to a more robust and secure decentralized social media ecosystem.

Metadata

Summary

  • Defederation is a moderation tool on decentralized social media platforms that allows servers to cut ties with others.
  • It's a complex issue with trade-offs between speech and safety.
  • Volunteer-run servers have limited resources to moderate content and benefit from the wider network.
  • Commercial servers have more resources and should be sparing in their use of defederation to avoid harming smaller servers.
  • Transparency and information sharing are crucial for fair defederation practices.

What makes this novel or interesting

  • Explores the nuanced challenges of content moderation in a decentralized environment.
  • Offers practical recommendations for both small and large servers.
  • Highlights the growing importance of defederation as decentralized social media gains traction.
  • Provides real-world examples of defederation in action (Gab, Meta/Threads).

Verbatim Quotes

  • Defederation Defined: "On decentralized social media, federation comes with the option of defederation, a moderation function that allows a server to cut off communication with another server entirely."
  • Governance Challenges: "How should defederation decisions be made to balance safety, community accountability, and free access to speech?"
  • Open Internet Vision: "The internet was built on principles of openness (. . .) In practice, things have played out differently (. . .) walled off within distinct platforms."
  • Protocols, Not Platforms: "A key rallying cry (. . .) has been (. . .) to build protocols rather than platforms."
  • User Choice: "Proponents of decentralized social media point to how these technologies increase users’ choice and control over their own experience."
  • Account Portability: "User choice also comes in the form of account portability: people are not locked in to maintaining a presence on one specific server, and in some cases, they can bring their posts or followers with them if they move to another server."
  • Moderation Challenges for Decentralized Platforms: "Trust and safety in decentralized spaces can be challenging given platform design and resourcing limitations."
  • Accountability Shift: "Another unique aspect of defederation is that it reframes existing models of accountability, making servers responsible for the overall conduct of their members."

How to report this in the news

Decentralized social media, unlike Facebook or Instagram, is like a network of independent towns. Each town sets its own rules, but they're connected by roads. "Defederation" is like one town closing its roads to another due to disagreements, like noise complaints or safety concerns. This protects the town, but also cuts off access to trade and communication. Experts are discussing how to balance these benefits and drawbacks as these networks grow.

Detailed Recap

for Trust & Safety Professionals

Defederation Mechanics:

    • Defederation is a two-way blocking mechanism that prevents communication between servers.
    • It’s used to address harms ranging from large-scale spam campaigns to targeted harassment.
    • Individual servers and collective groups can employ defederation.
    • Examples include Mastodon instances defederating from Gab and a preemptive pact against Meta's Threads.
  • Governance & Accountability:
    • Defederation empowers server administrators to define the boundaries of their networks.
    • This creates new forms of accountability, where servers become responsible for the conduct of their users.
    • Traditional models primarily hold individual users accountable.
  • Challenges & Considerations:
    • Defederation presents practical challenges, including the lack of information sharing and the burden on moderators.
    • It can be difficult to determine the origin of harmful content and defederate appropriately.
    • Lack of appeal mechanisms can be problematic.
    • Commercial servers, with greater resources, should be cautious with defederation to avoid harming smaller servers.
  • Balancing Speech and Safety:
    • Defederation introduces trade-offs between free speech and safety.
    • Large server defederation decisions have significant consequences due to their scale.
  • Recommendations:
    • Larger servers like Meta's Threads should share defederation information publicly and be more transparent about their reasons.
    • This data could be a valuable resource for other servers.
    • Commercial servers could also help by open-sourcing moderation tools or offering them as a service.
    • Initiatives like ROOST aim to support smaller servers with moderation tools and strategies.
  • Allowlist Federation:
    • An alternative approach where servers actively choose who they federate with, focusing on trusted partners.
    • Suitable for communities prioritizing privacy and tighter control.
  • Legal & Policy Context:
    • Network-level decisions like defederation are not well-documented, posing a challenge for compliance with regulations like the EU Digital Services Act.

Experimental: Fact Extraction

Generated by Claude 3.7 Sonnet using this prompt: 

Please go through the article one paragraph at a time and extract key dates and data points. Then group them into logical sections with bullet points, such as: 
* "Timeline" for all events mentioned, ordered from oldest to newest; 
* Key Stats for any numeric data provided, indicating the corresponding as-of date; 
* Key Players (any person or organization or entity mentioned and a short phrase as to why they are noteworthy); 
* Key Regulations (any legal related matter and a short phrase explaining what it is and when it went into effect);
* Key Concepts (any terms that are not known to mainstream audiences, with a short definition).

Before providing your response, please fact-check first by confirming each specific data point that involves numbers, dates, and timing, and correct yourself as needed.

Timeline (Oldest to Newest)

  • July 2019: Gab joined Mastodon, the biggest decentralized social media platform at the time.
  • Mid-2019: Following Gab joining Mastodon, a majority of existing Mastodon servers quickly defederated from Gab.
  • Late 2019: After being isolated through mass defederation, Gab defederated from Mastodon months after joining.
  • February 2024: Bluesky became publicly available.
  • June 2024: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace conducted a workshop with eighteen experts to explore governance challenges related to defederation.
  • December 16, 2024: Meta's Threads reported having 300 million monthly active users.
  • March 14, 2025: Various statistics referenced in the article (e.g., Bluesky user count, fediverse user count).
  • March 25, 2025: Publication date of the article.

Key Stats (with As-of Dates)

  • 18,000+ federated servers across decentralized social media (as of March 2025)
  • 33+ million users on Bluesky (as of March 2025)
  • 300 million users on Threads (as of December 16, 2024)
  • 14 million users on the fediverse (as of March 2025)
  • 9,000 servers on Mastodon network (as of March 2025)
  • 800+ servers joined the Fedipact to preemptively defederate from Threads (as of time Meta announced integration with ActivityPub)

Key Players

  • Gab: Social network that joined Mastodon in 2019, leading to mass defederation.
  • Mastodon: Biggest decentralized social media platform when Gab joined in 2019.
  • Eugen Rochko: Mastodon's founder who described Gab's philosophy as using "free speech absolutism as an excuse to platform racist content."
  • Meta: Company that announced integration of its Threads product with the fediverse through ActivityPub.
  • Threads: Meta's microblogging product with 300 million users as of December 2024.
  • Bluesky: Major decentralized platform that became publicly available in February 2024.
  • Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Organization that conducted a workshop in June 2024 with eighteen experts.
  • Mike Masnick: Advocate who championed building "protocols rather than platforms."
  • Nathan Schneider: Author of "Governable Spaces" who described the feudalistic nature of social media platforms.
  • Hachyderm.io: Example of a server running Mastodon microblogging software.
  • Flipboard: Social news service in the fediverse.
  • WeDistribute.org: WordPress blog in the fediverse.
  • podcasts.cosocial.ca: Social audio service running Castopod software.
  • Social Web Foundation: Actor working to create a diverse, sustainable future for decentralized social media.
  • ROOST: Initiative working to help smaller servers identify and curate tools for moderation.

Key Regulations

  • European Union's Digital Services Act: Regulation that makes appeals a major reporting requirement, though these network-level decisions are not well documented on decentralized networks.
  • LOLA standard: New standard that may allow users to bring their content with them when moving between servers (in development as of article publication).

Key Concepts

  • Defederation: Moderation function that allows a server to cut off communication with another server entirely.
  • Fediverse: Portmanteau of "federation" and "universe," referring to services using the W3C's ActivityPub standard.
  • ActivityPub: W3C standard protocol used by services like Mastodon, Threads, and PeerTube.
  • AT Protocol: Communication protocol on which Bluesky operates.
  • Nostr and Farcaster: Other communication protocols in decentralized social media.
  • Fedipact: Group of servers that promised to defederate from Threads when it joins the fediverse.
  • Allowlist federation: Approach where servers develop lists of approved servers to federate with and deny all others.
  • "#fediblock" hashtag: Used on Mastodon for information-sharing about defederation decisions.