This would allow unknown instances to federate, but simply be silenced by default, giving the administrator(s) a chance to determine whether new instances are safe and whether their content should appear on the public timelines without breaking federation.

That seems like a solid solution, from my understanding of the interconnections involved. At least, in terms of admins not wanting unwanted stuff in their public timeline without warning or option.

I don't know that link is to the right issue (I feel fair sure it's not), so I couldn't go look up the exact original phrasing, but as for:

some kinda review process with every single other node

Each one kind of does though -- a ton of users interact and either report them or don't find them objectionable, and if the former, then the admin has to also notice this, and be in a position to do something about it (by talking to the other admins), etc.

But if something less overtly awful than NAS or shitposter.club decides to drop a deuce in the stream, admins don't have a 'choice' about it until enough users notice AND they're back at the keyboard, and then the turds are already publicly there.

Presumably if admins are overzealous in not unsilencing instances, that'd become obvious over time -- but that would do less active damage to the existing small and medium instances, IMO. :\

I don't know that link is to the right issue (I feel fair sure it's not)

This should've been #3880. Fixed in OP.

Aha -- thank you! ^_^

Whitelists go against the spirit of decentralization.

I could agree that everybody using whitelists may be, but some people having the option of a whitelist isn't necessarily. Some places, it doesn't really matter if someone takes a dump in it (a big river) but other places start getting used as a toilet, suddenly it's affecting things quite a bit (small/medium instances of specialized natures come to mind).

But if it's not preventing federation overall, and it's not even the default option in place, it's arguably just another tool -- and some instances are probably going to end up effectively whitelisting clumsily anyway if they don't have a way to do it (or 'greylisting') if they're trying to keep out random crappers in their public timeline.

At least, that's my take on it.

Some places, it doesn't really matter if someone takes a dump in it (a big river) but other places start getting used as a toilet, suddenly it's affecting things quite a bit (small/medium instances of specialized natures come to mind).

This is the best analogy of the Internet I've ever seen -- I'm stunned.

+1 for this idea, and I wrote an open letter a while ago expressing my sentiments about these kinds of systems in more detail - http://telegra.ph/An-open-letter-about-whitelisting-and-greylisting-07-23

It's gotten to the point where I no longer even recommend Mastodon to my friends, especially for author friends that are trying to build a brand image. I get admins should be able to theme their own channel, but it's entirely a different thing to allow people to dogpile and swamp people's moderation tools with frivolous reports.

I simply don't have to worry about that kind of childishness on GNU Social or Pleroma. Mastodon in frankly embarassing in its inability to prevent harassment.

It doesn't even REALLY protect minority groups like it claims to, but choosing to other some trans people and not others. When I can avoid being descriminated against even on Diaspora (a very right wing distributed network) that should tell you something.

Freedom of Speech, means not prioritizing some Trans person voices over others. Both the positive and the negative.

I feel like this response may just have been to something else and not actually intended to be here, but out of curiosity, is LWFlouisa also your username on Masto and other types of accounts?

Maybe I should have posted this here. (#3880 (comment))
For organisations that are not a group of friends, GDPR steps in within the EU at least and this problem with white-/grey-/blacklisting needs to have validity, or Mastodon wont even be able to be considered.
Unless mastodon is actually only meant for groups of friends.