13h ago

Are "fake bans" on Lemmy a thing? My friend got perma banned from several instances, and he can still comment in some communities belonging to instances he's supposedly perma banned from.

Hence why he's saying he was "fake banned". If I go to his profile on the instances he's banned from, there's a red "banned" icon next to his username. He was perma banned from the instances and perma banned in the communities of those instances he commented in (modlog shows he was perma banned from a bunch of communities all at once). But he can still comment in communities belonging to the instances he's banned from, ones he never commented in before.

Does this mean fake bans on Lemmy are a thing? Or are we both misunderstanding something here?

Just in case it's relevant, he's banned from dbzer0, lemmy.blahaj.zone, lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, and sh.itjust.works

13 comments

So, when you post to a community, you're posting to the local copy of it. Your host then forwards that post to the site that houses the community. When you're banned from a remote site, nothing interferes with this process until the local host forwards things along. By that time, you've already posted.
Now, the site that's housing the community is responsible for federating content it receives back out again, so while you can continue to post to the community locally, those posts won't make it to any other copy of the community. But because each instance's copy of the community is quasi-independent from each other, you can, IIRC, still engage with other local users in that space.

Put simply, Lets say hypothetically he's like you on lemmy.cafe.
and we'll say he's posting to to lemmy.world/c/memes which he was banned from.
His post will show up to lemmy.cafe users connected to memes... but his posts will only show up on the lemmy.cafe version of memes. When cafe federates back to world, world will just ignore the posts and not share them.
In addition they won't be seen by, lets say programming.dev here, while it hasn't banned this person, it's looking to world for it's copy of the community, which will not have your friends posts.
- Interesting.
  So posts and comments from a remote instance first go to the communiy’s home instance, before they are then further propagated out to other remote instances?
  And that’s where this filtering of banned users would happen?
  
  Also, if your instance admins banned a mod from your instance, their mod actions wouldn't be shown to your instance. So, a mod could remove your comment, or ban you from a community, and you wouldn't notice it on your instance's local copy, but your comments would never show up to the community (only users on your instance will see it).
  
  That's my understanding of it, I'm not an expert so.. I'm only giving 70% confidence in my answer.

Fake bans aren't a thing, but banning from an instance doesn't necessarily ban them from all communities (just the ones they've interact with up to the time of the ban).
This means someone on instance B, who is banned from instance A, can still interact with communities on instance A via instance B if instance B was not informed the person was banned from the community.
However, a user from instance B, banned from instance A, interacting with a community on instance A via instance B will not have their content federated via instance A (the home instance of the community). Thus, only other users on instance B should be able to see that user's submissions.
Clear as mud?
Edit: Maybe I can clear it up with an example.
Let's say you and your friend are both on lemmy.cafe. I see your friend around in the Lemmyverse from my instance, and they're violating a bunch of my local rules to the point they merit a ban. Your friend has not interacted directly with any communities on my instance, so when I ban them, no community bans are federated.
You and your friend are both subscribed to, say, !30rock@dubvee.org. Even though your friend is banned from my instance, they can still post/comment there from lemmy.cafe since that instance has no idea they're banned from mine; non-local bans aren't federated, and since they hadn't interacted with that community prior to me banning them, no community bans were sent out.
However, none of the posts/comments they make to lemmy.cafe's local copy of that community will be federated by my instance (where the 30 Rock community lives). Thus, only users on lemmy.cafe can see what the banned user has posted.
- Hold on.....carry the 1.......divide by pi.......extrapolate the proton particles.......
  ........what were we doing again?
  
  I had to explain it generally / "in a nutshell" since OP didn't provide any example data.
- lol !30rock@dubvee.org
  A post from there came up in my All feed and that’s how I figured out I was instance banned from dubvee. They instance ban you for nothing on there.
- just the ones they’ve interact with up to the time of the ban
  I got banned from 10 communities on your instance (with no stated reason/expiration) and I'm pretty sure I haven't interacted with most of those (EDIT: I'm remembering some now, though those were from months ago). So I'm not sure if I got marked by some bot or just said something some mod disagreed with.
  This is not an appeal though as I don't care beyond a casual mention.
  EDIT: Actually it is an instance ban, with everything (no matter what instance/comm) purged.

On lemmy, a ban can be a few different things:
Banned from the instance your account is on. This means you have to make a new account, usually on a different instance.
Banned from a different instance than the one your account is on. This means you get banned from communities you’ve participated in on that instance, and that instance will no longer federate with your account. You might participate in new communities on that instance, and people ~~not on that instance~~ on your instance will see your comments, but people on the instance you were banned from and other instances won’t see them. From the perspective of that instance you don’t exist anymore.
Not banned from any instances, but banned from individual communities. You can’t post in that specific community but can still interact with the instance that community is on.
Like someone else said, clear as mud, lol.

Go to a comment you think shows he's "fake banned" from.
Then go look at it from that instance instead of a 3rd party instance.
Their comments won't show there, so they won't get any engagement from people viewing from that instance.
Because they're making the comments on that 3rd party's copy, but it doesn't federate to the main one that they're banned from

The ban didnt federate for some reason.
It's like you keep sending letters to a pen pal that already mailed you a "Stop Sending Me Letters", but you didn't receive it. So you still think you are on speaking terms, but they are shredding all your future letters.
That's what's happening.
Edit: Its actually more like they told the post office to just shred them, so they don't even know you are still sending letters.

13 comments