Moderation of posts on originating instance is not federated out. #570

ryan_a commented 2023年07月02日 06:47:34 +02:00

This is different from issue 521 which seems to relate to moderators themselves.

Original post on kbin.social was removed by a moderator.

The federated post on my instance remains.

This has some serious implications regarding e.g. hate speech or spam attacks. Even if a magazine on a particular instance has the world's best moderators who can contend with such things, the offending threads/comments may well remain on a federated instance, which would then require its own moderators on even a federated magazine to remove that content. At worst, this means a magazine with significantly large traffic, requiring serious moderation, could only really be usable on its home instance.

This is different from [issue 521](https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/issues/521) which seems to relate to moderators themselves. [Original post on kbin.social](https://kbin.social/m/BestOf/t/113539/Subbed-show-me-the-best-stuff) was removed by a moderator. [The federated post on my instance](https://the.coolest.zone/m/BestOf@kbin.social/t/5924/Subbed-show-me-the-best-stuff) remains. This has some serious implications regarding e.g. hate speech or spam attacks. Even if a magazine on a particular instance has the world's best moderators who can contend with such things, the offending threads/comments may well remain on a federated instance, which would then require its own moderators on even a federated magazine to remove that content. At worst, this means a magazine with significantly large traffic, requiring serious moderation, could only really be usable on its home instance.

cooperaj commented 2023年07月02日 11:23:05 +02:00

So at best case scenario (and assuming ActivityPub lets us - does Lemmy do this?) we could probably only federate out the moderation from the magazines orginating instance.

My question though would be, what if the rules of your instance do not consider the moderated post to be needing moderation? To be honest, I'm not sure it's much of one but I think it needs some consideration.

So at best case scenario (and assuming ActivityPub lets us - does Lemmy do this?) we could probably only federate out the moderation from the magazines orginating instance. My question though would be, what if the rules of your instance do not consider the moderated post to be needing moderation? To be honest, I'm not sure it's much of one but I think it needs some consideration.

ryan_a commented 2023年07月02日 19:07:32 +02:00

Magazines are centralized - ergo, moderation must be centralized. If one instance does not like the moderation of another instance's magazine, they are free to create their own magazine.

Take a hypothetical instance I admin, in which I have a user who subscribes to @BillzLegalWarez@instance.com . Turns out not everything on there is legal, and that user who subscribed just wants to read and not moderate. The onus is now on me, the admin, to:

1. Have realized that BillzLegalWarez is now federating over to me
2. Find moderators to actively moderate BillzLegalWarez to prevent illegal goods on my instance
3. Alternatively, block the magazine from my instance itself (if possible - I know magazines can be blocked user-side anyway)
4. If I can't do that, block the whole instance that hosts BillzLegalWarez

Scale that up to even 100 users, subscribing to god knows what. I can't just have magazine moderators, I need entire instance moderators to check for these new magazines, make sure they have moderators, etc.

On kbin.social -- 49,000 users. 211 pages of magazines at 48 magazines per page. Less than half, but still a very significant amount, of those are federated. Who's moderating them locally? Who's preventing something excessively illegal from showing up, even if it's been purged on the originating instance?

I realize this is not an easy problem to solve, but I would hate for it to be raised only after all those bots on lemmy execute some coordinated spam attack, or some loser thinks it would be really swell to spam a well-trodden magazine with gore or abusive images. This is what I would consider an active risk.

Edit: An addendum. Instances should have the ability, of course, to remove things above and beyond what has been moderated on the home instance. Admins should always have full power of what shows up on their instance - I am not arguing against that. But the initial moderation should federate out.

Magazines are centralized - ergo, moderation *must* be centralized. If one instance does not like the moderation of another instance's magazine, they are free to create their own magazine. Take a hypothetical instance I admin, in which I have a user who subscribes to @BillzLegalWarez@instance.com . Turns out not everything on there is legal, and that user who subscribed just wants to read and not moderate. The onus is now on me, the admin, to: 1. Have realized that BillzLegalWarez is now federating over to me 2. Find moderators to actively moderate BillzLegalWarez to prevent illegal goods on my instance 3. Alternatively, block the magazine from my instance itself (if possible - I know magazines can be blocked user-side anyway) 4. If I can't do that, block the whole instance that hosts BillzLegalWarez Scale that up to even 100 users, subscribing to god knows what. I can't just have magazine moderators, I need entire instance moderators to check for these new magazines, make sure they have moderators, etc. On kbin.social -- 49,000 users. 211 **pages** of magazines at 48 magazines per page. Less than half, but still a very significant amount, of those are federated. Who's moderating them locally? Who's preventing something *excessively illegal* from showing up, even if it's been purged on the originating instance? I realize this is not an easy problem to solve, but I would hate for it to be raised only after all those bots on lemmy execute some coordinated spam attack, or some loser thinks it would be really swell to spam a well-trodden magazine with gore or abusive images. This is what I would consider an active risk. Edit: An addendum. Instances should have the ability, of course, to remove things above and beyond what has been moderated on the home instance. Admins should always have full power of what shows up on their instance - I am not arguing against that. But the initial moderation should federate out.

man-van-aarde commented 2023年08月14日 12:51:18 +02:00

This needs to urgently be fixed. How can we federate out any content if moderation isn't also federated?

This needs to urgently be fixed. How can we federate out any content if moderation isn't also federated?

admiralpatrick commented 2023年09月18日 13:46:27 +02:00

So at best case scenario (and assuming ActivityPub lets us - does Lemmy do this?) we could probably only federate out the moderation from the magazines orginating instance.

@cooperaj Yes, that is how Lemmy does it.

Agreed. Moderation actions need to federate out.

I run a Lemmy instance and am constantly having to clean up spam originating from kbin.social. While the mods on the Kbin side do take care of removing it on their end, none of those removals are federated. That leaves remote instances fully responsible for cleanup of all of that spam.

I've recently chosen to defederate from kbin.social because of the large amount of time spent cleaning up spam. That wasn't my first choice, and I hate to lose those users, but I simply cannot keep up with the onslaught of spam. Other Lemmy instance admins are considering similar actions.

If moderation actions from Kbin's side were to federate, that would alleviate that burden, and I would gladly re-federate.

>So at best case scenario (and assuming ActivityPub lets us - does Lemmy do this?) we could probably only federate out the moderation from the magazines orginating instance. @cooperaj Yes, that is how Lemmy does it. Agreed. Moderation actions need to federate out. I run a Lemmy instance and am constantly having to clean up spam originating from kbin.social. While the mods on the Kbin side do take care of removing it on their end, none of those removals are federated. That leaves remote instances fully responsible for cleanup of all of that spam. I've recently chosen to defederate from kbin.social because of the large amount of time spent cleaning up spam. That wasn't my first choice, and I hate to lose those users, but I simply cannot keep up with the onslaught of spam. Other Lemmy instance admins are considering similar actions. If moderation actions from Kbin's side were to federate, that would alleviate that burden, and I would gladly re-federate.

man-van-aarde commented 2023年09月20日 08:00:58 +02:00

Moderation is an impossible task when content is federated out, but moderation is not. I'm strongly considering giving up on Kbin if this does not get fixed very soon.

Moderation is an impossible task when content _is_ federated out, but moderation is not. I'm strongly considering giving up on Kbin if this does not get fixed very soon.

ernest commented 2023年09月20日 09:22:57 +02:00

In theory, moderation is federated in both directions. After a post is deleted by a kbin moderator, a request is sent to remote instances that users are following magazine. In my opinion, issues seem to arise during bulk operations (API limits?). It's possible that something broke after the recent changes to the AP services, but there haven't been too many of them. Updates to the lemmy often disrupt basic functionalities, and I've had to make corrections frequently. However, lately, I haven't had the time to verify this, and with the current kbin.social infrastructure, it's no longer a matter of just a few hours to fix. Now, before the release, I plan to thoroughly test federation and write some tests. Moderation reports, on the other hand, do not federate - that will be another item on the to-do list.

https://kbin.social/modlog

In theory, moderation is federated in both directions. After a post is deleted by a kbin moderator, a request is sent to remote instances that users are following magazine. In my opinion, issues seem to arise during bulk operations (API limits?). It's possible that something broke after the recent changes to the AP services, but there haven't been too many of them. Updates to the lemmy often disrupt basic functionalities, and I've had to make corrections frequently. However, lately, I haven't had the time to verify this, and with the current kbin.social infrastructure, it's no longer a matter of just a few hours to fix. Now, before the release, I plan to thoroughly test federation and write some tests. Moderation reports, on the other hand, do not federate - that will be another item on the to-do list. https://kbin.social/modlog

nutomic commented 2023年12月26日 13:18:47 +01:00

Lemmy maintainer here, I just came across this issue. I would like to improve the compatiblity with Kbin in this area. For that I would have to see the json messages which Kbin sends for different actions, like here. Any chance you could share that with me?

Lemmy maintainer here, I just came across this issue. I would like to improve the compatiblity with Kbin in this area. For that I would have to see the json messages which Kbin sends for different actions, [like here](https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/tree/main/crates/apub/assets). Any chance you could share that with me?