I noticed that some instances seem to sort of shadowban users from what I presume is any instance not on a whitelist.

This might sound like it might be regular defederation at first, but I can see or interact with their content just fine from my all feed while anytime I attempt to interact with communities on there in any way literally nothing happens, as if my contribution were invisible.

No replies, up or downvotes, no deletion or ban. Just shouting into the void while everyone around you (from that or other whitelisted instances) is having lively discussion.

Granted there is also the possibility that my contributions were uninteresting but my general experience is that people love to argue, or at least downvote whom they disagree with.

Is this a thing I should be aware of? That some federated instances have unilateral shadowbans in place?

  • GregorGizehOP
    4·
    11 months ago

    Since I can see their content just fine it doesn’t appear to be defederation. But if they did ban me and there is no way for me to know, isn’t that a shadow ban?

    • willya@lemmyf.ukEnglish
      3·
      11 months ago

      What’s the instance and community you’re having problems with and I’ll tell you what’s going on. You would know you were banned by viewing your profile on that instance. You can find reasons in the modlog too if they added any.

      • GregorGizehOP
        3·
        11 months ago

        The one I noticed it the most with is hexbear. I know they have a bad rep but I like to keep an open mind and tried a bunch of times to chime in whenever I saw one of their posts pop up on the all feed i felt I had something relevant to add to.

        I also know they are a bit echo chamber-y so I assumed they might have a special hidden restriction in place for non-approved instances. I would be surprised if they actually banned my personal account because I don’t think I wrote anything they might consider controversial.

        But the fact remains that (as far as I understand) my feed would not show any of their content if my instance was not federated with them, no?

        • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.socialEnglish
          7·
          11 months ago

          This could be a long shot, but since your instance is running on a .zip TLD it could be blocked at a webserver level (the whole .zip TLD not your instance specifically) like a lot of admins did when they were launched.

        • willya@lemmyf.ukEnglish
          81·
          11 months ago

          You’ve been talking to yourself for four months.

          • GregorGizehOP
            5·
            11 months ago

            Interesting, how can I see this for myself? I suppose using a client for Lemmy since day 1 made me not learn these basic things and I want to check some other instances where I suspect the same.

            No idea what I did to offend but I guess I can safely block their instance from my feed then. It’s a bit annoying the user isn’t warned or straight up prevented from participating when banned.