In the graph above I’ve arranged the 28 Threadiverse instances with at least 200 monthly active users (MAU)—orange instances running Lemmy, green Piefed, and red Mbin—on the basis of which instances they defederate.

Each instance has its MAU count listed below it, sourced from the latest MAU figures at Fediverse Observer, with adjustments made to the totals for Piefed (due to undercounting by outdated instances, as noted here; I used @Vicinus@piefed.zip’s suggested estimate of 7,200 Piefed users) and Mbin (due to tardigram.com having a duplicate listing).

After adjustments, there are an estimated 43,287 monthly active Threadiverse users (35,184+7,200+903), of whom 87.84% are on the 28 largest instances. The percentages listed alongside the MAU figures correspond to each instance’s share of the total MAU count.

Defederation data was sourced from Federation Checker. The tool doesn’t support Mbin instances, so I left fedia.io in its own category. If any defederations are missing, feel free to let me know. Ideally such a chart should also include community blocks to better illustrate which instances block what, but that data doesn’t appear to be as easily searchable.

I also noticed cases of some instances being listed as being defederated by another instance, despite not appearing on the defederation list for that instance (i.e. reddthat.com and lemmygrad.ml are listed as being mutually blocked, despite neither having the other on their block lists). In testing that federation, I noticed that !wholesome@reddthat.com did not federate to Lemmygrad while !memes@reddthat.com did, so clarification on that matter would be helpful.

While I’ll update my generalized chart as needed to correct errors, perhaps at some point an automated federation mapping tool similar to the one feddit.de formerly hosted could be developed to more completely illustrate instance federation.

    • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      7 days ago

      Since defederating is essentially an explicit block list and is directional, my assumption is that the groups that are circled have defederated from the things they’re pointing at. I could be wrong.

      Map needs a key/legend.

      The red circled stuff seems to be only one possible option, but isn’t visually very distinct, and the red circle shouldn’t be broken like that, just make sure the lines are all visible.

    • mehquestion@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      Yeah, as someone who is struggling to understand the concept of federation…this doesn’t help me at all.

      I guess what its saying, if you’re on lemmy.world, you can’t access content on lemmy.zip?

  • JRaccoon@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    0·
    8 days ago

    Kinda eye-opening, thx for making the chart. I hadn’t realized it had gotten this bad. In my opinion, defederation should only ever be used to combat spam, not because of ideological differences or disputes between individuals.

    One of the most common tips for people looking to switch over from Reddit has been that the instance you choose doesn’t really matter. But it clearly does. Choose the “wrong” instance and you may suddenly find yourself cut off from a sizable portion of other users because someone else decided they know better than you what you should and shouldn’t see.

    I’m lucky to be on an instance that has “only” defederated one instance in this chart (lemmygrad.ml). I don’t really follow the drama around here, so I have no idea why that instance is banned. All I see is that there are 558 active users I’ll never be able to interact with just because someone I don’t personally know (my instance admin) made that decision at some point.

    Wasn’t there just a big drama because some app developer built-in their own opinionated blocklist into their app or something? How is this any different?

    My point being, why not leave these kinds of drastic decisions to individual users, who can and should block whoever they want, instead of dividing threadiverse into silos at the instance level?

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          9 hours ago

          Have you visited Lemmygrad.ml? Just click on some of the threads, there’s much less hostility than most Lemmy.world threads. The idea that the commies on Grad are bloodthirsty beasts or something is more a consequence of their wide defederation causing defederated instances to project their imagination, not an actual analysis of how they act.

          • acockworkorange@mander.xyzEnglish
            1·
            8 hours ago

            I’m sure they’re all patting each other’s backs there. But I’ve interacted with them elsewhere and when they are exposed to anything but straight tankie bootlicking they turn vicious. Not a single decent interaction, and I’ve had several.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              8 hours ago

              I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that communists will generally oppose anticommunist viewpoints, and certainly critique non-communist views. Communists also tend to be political activists, so we also care quite a lot, which can often spill out into heated exchanges. This isn’t unique to communists, though, liberals are the same way for views they don’t align with. Therefore, the biggest difference and the reason for defederation is ideological, after all, irreconcilable political differences.

              • acockworkorange@mander.xyzEnglish
                1·
                7 hours ago

                Ideological differences don’t explain the brigading, dogpiling, constant trolling, bad faith arguments. There are only so many times an instance admin is willing to ban single users from a place until they get fed up with a culture of abuse and cut ties with the whole lot.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  1·
                  7 hours ago

                  I haven’t seen Lemmygrad brigading, trolling, or arguing in bad-faith. Active users going into active threads organically isn’t the same as brigading, which is typically associated with coordinated targeting. This can seem like “dogpiling” in practice, but again, this same behavior is exhibited by non-communists, same with what can be perceived as trolling or bad-faith arguments (and anecdotally I see far more of that on instances that aren’t predominantly leftist).

                  In the end, it’s ideology, not specific traits, as ideological differences cause not just communists but non-communists to behave in similar confrontational manners. Lemmygrad.ml aren’t especially bad-faith, trolling, etc, just like Lemmy.world isn’t. Both have distinct ideological identities and this difference caused friction.