I found that things became much more pleasant on here when I blocked hexbear. I recently blocked lemmy.ml as well, but I may reverse that if I find that I’m missing too much good content.
I’m open to other ideas on how to mostly avoid people who love conflict or argue in bad faith.
I haven’t blocked an entire instance but I do have a list of communities I’ve blocked.
Other than that, I just block the user, not the instance.
I don’t know enough about Lemmy to block anything yet.
You should block Hexbear because its just a broad daylight CCP advocate forum trying to incite political extremism and violence in English speaking countries.
Lemmy ml isn’t all bad but they federate and align themselves closely with Hexbear.
I don’t know how to block a whole instance, but in reality I’ve only seen the communities that I’ve subscribed to and some other lame stuff… I’ve blocked all the shitty specific meme communities and web comics though. Call me a cynic.
Blocking an instance is a basic option in the web interface for lemmy in the blocks section of your settings. Its at the top. Blocking an instance does not block its users, it just blocks the communities from showing up in your all searches
Yeah, at the API level, instance blocking is really just “block all communities from that instance”.
I think some 3rd party UIs extend the behavior of instance blocking to also hide posts/comments from users of those instances, but I don’t think the default UI does.
I thought hexbear was far right. .grad is the full-on tankie instance.
Far right, CCP cuck, same difference. They at least claim to be the “true left”.
Says user Delightfully Divisive
Lemmy.ml and hexbear were the first two I blocked and have zero regrets.
I blocked a few others because the content didn’t interest me and my preference is to browse on All instead of Subscribed so I can find content in communities I did not know existed. For example I blocked lemmynsfw because I didn’t want the content to come up while browing in public.
I wish there was an additional option to block all users of an instance separate from the instance block that applies to communities.
I wish there was an additional option to block all users of an instance separate from the instance block that applies to communities.
I have thought about that and wondered: how would child comments under a blocked user be handled? If I was on Instance_A and able to block Instance_B to no longer see comments from those users, what about the other Instance_A users (who have not blocked Instance_B) who reply to Instance_B comments on an Instance_A thread? Would I still see those Instance_A comments, and the Instance_B comments in the comment chain just appear blank or something? Or would the entire comment chain, starting at the Instance_B comment, just not get displayed to you at all?
In my experience all comments in the chain after the blocked user are not displayed.
I just blocked individual hexbear and lemmygrad users that were annoying (posting pig anuses or dogpiling/gish galloping/whatabouting). Took a lot of blocking, but a few hundred blocks later later, most of the hexbears and tankies left are pretty chill. I don’t want to end up in a bubble and only hear opinions I already agree with. I think I did block one far right instance entirely, cause I don’t value the ideas of bigots and fascists. Can’t remember who it was though.
I don’t want to end up in a bubble and only hear opinions I already agree with. I think I did block one far right instance entirely, cause I don’t value the ideas of bigots and fascists.
Hmmmmm
If you’re on a road trip, and you can’t agree on a destination, then arguing about the route to get there is pointless.
in this analogy, the “destination” in question is whether or not women/lgbt/blacks/jews/etc deserve rights. No point in discussing healthcare policy with someone who thinks women should be property and gays should be executed.
Yeah, tankie bullshit deserves to be heard because of an open mind, but not fascist bullshit.
Both are bullshit and should be blocked.
well, it’s not the first time I’ve been called a communist for saying that people deserve rights.
I wish there was an additional option to block all users of an instance separate from the instance block that applies to communities.
There is an option for that, its called Defederation
I want to block the users as a group even if the instance at which I am registered does not defederate.
Some apps let you do that. Sync, for example, let’s you block instances (users included) on the client side.
Not to kinkshame/judge (while judging) but lemmynsfw is super weird. There’s like 50 celebrity or more communities all ran by one guy who uploads like one picture or 50 in a row. I just browse by all but the NSFW filter protects me from seeing a celebrity every 10th post.
That’s why I run 2 different Lemmy apps. One for work and regular browsing. And a second one for those fun NSFW times.
Politics and News on .world. They seem to think that everyone that doesn’t agree wholeheartedly with whatever their politicians say is a fascist. They’re unable to discern left from right.
Are you saying when you disagree with one of said mods there’s some kind of downvote campaign for your posts for a certain amount of time?
Sounds like it, squid acts an 80’s movie mall cop. So him having alt accounts to downvoted people wouldn’t surprise me. I banned him a few weeks ago. My feed immediately improved.
I blocked him a couple days ago finally. He’s a hateful prick, glad to be rid of his nonsense.
I’ve blocked so many communities I wouldn’t know which specifically and my client doesn’t show this info but basically any hentai or political ones.
I have post and content filters and my lemmy experience is amazing. I omit anything containing: trump, elon, yiff
I have a huge number of content filters, basically stopping just short of blocking the words “left” and “right” but trying to block everything else political.
What I wish I could find a way to do is pick by post language - I have nothing against a user/community, I just don’t speak (usually) German.
Same here
musk, elon, altman, X, sailor, Trump, kermit, ceo, taylor, spez, reddit, layoff, remote work, stewart, oliver, protest, fox news, boeing, lqbtq, lgbtq+, columbia, abortion, republican, campus, gop, kristi, air defence report, trans, transphob, helldivers, heathcliff, stack overflow, stackoverflow, return-to-office, police, cop, israel, palestin, gaza, rafah, genocide, pride, trooper, sheriff, windows, billionaire, c.e.o., microsoft, desantis, canvas, vance, project 2025, crowdstrike, maga.
Then also around 600 communities and probably atleast 400 users blocked. Each list grows by the day.
Kermit? Did the frog endorse genocide again?
I don’t block hexbear or ml because I like seeing their takes. Even if I disagree with them most of the time, it makes me think about my opinion more critically.
I do block certain communities and anyone who posts PPB.
I definitely agree with this. I signed up with ml just because it was a big instance and generally found it confusing when first setting up an account. So far I think it’s worked out because they have good up time and haven’t insulated themselves too much compared to a lot of instances that will defederate at the drop of a hat. Hexbear can be hard to read at times because many users can turn so hateful so quickly, but I do think their perspective can be at the very least interesting even when it is clearly misguided.
I do strongly dislike that every large instance has formed its own stereotype and opinions are immediately dismissed if they are coming from an instance that is stereotyped as having ‘bad options’.
Thanks for not putting blinders on. I was actually banned by hexbear for not being leftist enough but I still make it a point to seek out perspectives that differ from the censorship-happy tribalist hivemind on world. Communist leopards have yet to eat my face contrary to what the libs on world might have me believe. :)
how do i block entire instances?
Click on the “blocks” tab, it’s at the bottom.
thanks!
looks like the option isn’t there on alexandrite, but it works on the regular ui
I don’t block any instances, though I am rather happy that .world decided to defederate with hexbear and .grad. I’m not so bothered by .ml, while they can be a little annoying sometimes, they’re at least usually able to carry on a semi-intelligent conversation. Usually anyway.
That might explain it then. Everybody’s talking about blocking hexbear, and I’ve never had any idea what they were talking about, but I’m on .world, so I guess it’s already blocked for me.
I use world now instead of blahaj just cause I’m a weirdo. But hexbear was federated with blahaj and their users/admins are super irresponsible and rude and called a blahaj admin transphobic
Can someone please explain all the .ml hate? From what I’ve seen, it’s mostly a tech (i.e., not tank!) instance and I haven’t experienced any drama at all aside from other instances hating on us. It seems WAY too overblown and generalized from my experience. If the OP blocked .ml are they even able to see my response here?
the tech side of .ml is why I haven’t blocked that instance. They genuinely care about privacy and FOSS, as is the instance description. When I joined lemmy, I considered .ml for my home instance.
As soon as politics comes up though, the tankies come out in force, and oh boy the temptation to get banned is real.
.world is neoliberal lumpen whole violently reject anything that threatens their politician’s current narrative. They’re not thinking for themselves. They can’t discern left from right, thus reject both with equal hostility.
I believe they.are so far left, they are now right politically. I just blocked the group when I was down voted to berated because I linked an AP article, which they think is a heavily biased source.
I believe they.are so far left, they are now right politically
That’s not how the horseshoe works, lumpen.
If you never browse all, you probably miss it, but anything which is politics or news adjacent is filled with campist brain rot from people who think “socialism” is relitigating the cold war. Then you will get banned for saying things like “remember that time Russia shot down a civilian airliner?” or “I don’t think sexual violence is a right of the oppressed.”
That’s probably it - I’ve only browsed All once or twice when I’ve run out of new Subscribed posts…I must be missing the drama from other random communities.
you can block the instance but when the users are on other communities, it does not block the users
nobody is going to answer your question because its a sealioning like question coming from a user on lemmy.ml
Makes sense - appreciate the response! Regarding your last point, one look at my comment history shows I’m clearly not a troll, but totally get it…I just keep seeing all these posts/comments hating on .ml and having not seen anything myself, it makes me wonder if I’m missing something or if I should think about even switching instances…
There’s some people who trolled like every other day or post but have some perfectly normal takes… sometimes. Consider maggotycumsock or whatever his name is
/me gives a knowing head nod.
until we all learn to separate our identities from our politics from our technology, it will likely stay this way online.
for the record I will second your positive experience report regarding lemmy[.]ml - its diverse, (relatively) active, well federated and technically administered, runs bleeding edge server builds and is mostly drama free. cant think of much else I could ask for from a lemmy instance.
I can see your comment, and I don’t think that everybody on .ml is a troll. They just seem to have an awful lot of them, and I have no idea what the reason is. People arguing in bad faith, etc.
I enjoy reading the comments, but the top comments from most of the .ml-origin posts always seem to degenerate into name calling, and very quickly at that. The criticisms other people have called out further down in this thread sound accurate to me.
And clearly it isn’t just me seeing this, since somebody is downvotimg your perfectly polite posts in this thread. (It isn’t me.)
I usually only block communities, like NoStupidQuestions. There are actually quite a few stupid questions that can be asked, it turns out.
The only other instances I’ve blocked are HilariousChaos for all the spammy/unfunny communities they make and most of the foreign language instances.
HOOORAY SHOUT OUT !🙌🙌🙌🙌
I blocked hexbear and lemmygrad to stop the firehose of kremlin/beijing propaganda cluttering up my feed and that made my lemmy experience worlds better. There’s only so many times you can read “special military operation” used unironically…
ditto
I’ve blocked both of those (or rather, my instance doesn’t federate with them at all). At first I missed some of the FOSS communities on
.mlbut quickly found alternatives elsewhere. There were a few threads in either !fediverse@lemmy.world or maybe !fedigrow@lemm.ee that discussed alternatives to some of those.I also block HilariousChaos since it’s a direct successor to Exploding Heads.
Beyond that, I tend to only block the problematic ones that cater to hate speech/bigotry/etc. I think your home instance (LW) already blocks most of those as well.
I haven’t blocked any instance per-se but I block every community that is either hexbear or .ml
I used a three-strike rule when I first landed here. As in; deny a genocide or uplift an authoritarian despot 3x and your community can go fuck it’s own face.
Took 2 weeks before I stopped seeing hexbear and .ml.
I think I blocked some porn instance but otherwise nothing.
I’m not the kind of guy who must block something I don’t agree with.
Nor am I. I’m also not the sort of person who expresses their comments in absolute terms.
