Federation
Federation between instances is the default on the Fediverse, and Hachyderm federates broadly. The cases where we don’t are uncommon, and they follow the same principle that guides the rest of our moderation: we look at impact before intent. Rather than maintain a list of criteria or counts, this doc describes how we think about these decisions and how to reach us if a situation changes.
Where our rules apply
Hachyderm has rules for what members agree to when they join. Those rules describe what we expect on Hachyderm, and they’re enforceable here because we can have conversations with our members, adjust for context, and use the user-level tools the platform provides. They aren’t a contract with the rest of the Fediverse. We don’t expect other instances to share our rules, and we don’t apply our rules outward as a standard for them to meet.
Federation decisions sit in a different layer. They’re not about whether another instance shares our rules. They’re about whether the connection to that instance brings an unsustainable amount of harmful content or behavior (targeted harassment is one such pattern) to our members.
What we look at
We don’t try to read the intentions of other instances or their members. We look at what reaches the people on Hachyderm and how it gets there.
Harmful content can travel onto our timelines through a federated connection in many ways. Some normal Fediverse activity can cause harmful content to surface on Hachyderm regardless of intent: likes, boosts, and quote boosts will all do this. The connecting instance doesn’t have to be the source for that to happen. When that pattern is sustained at meaningful volume, we weigh whether the connection is sustainable for us.
The content itself has to be visible enough for the situation to be a clear one. We don’t act on isolated incidents, or on content whose harmful nature isn’t apparent from a typical interaction.
What we don’t expect of other instances
We don’t expect other instances to match our decisions, to use any particular tooling, or to work on the same timelines we do. Most moderation teams on the Fediverse are volunteer-run (including our own). In all cases, what is possible inside a given community depends on the time, expertise, and capacity that team has.
The decisions described above are about whether a given pattern of impact on Hachyderm is sustainable for us. They aren’t a judgment about whether another instance is doing its work correctly. Two thoughtful teams can look at the same situation and reach different conclusions about how to handle it.
If we’re not federating with your instance
Federation decisions are reversible. If an instance’s situation has changed, or if we’ve been working from outdated information, we’re happy to revisit.
Inter-instance moderation conversations happen by email. The most direct way to reach us is admin@hachyderm.io. We don’t handle these conversations through public posts, tags, or DMs. Those channels aren’t well-suited to the care these situations need.
We acknowledge that there are no easy answers about communication between instances. The way we handle this is by being self-aware that our outbound communication will vary depending on what’s available to us. The goal in that variation is to support outbound communication where we can do it well, and to apply appropriate caution where we can’t.
Because our decisions are about impact rather than intent, there isn’t a single specific thing an instance has to do to change one of them. For clear-cut cases, we’ll name what we need directly. For more complex ones, we’re happy to describe the outcome we’re looking for and share what we’ve seen work in similar situations. Either way the goal is the same: some change to the impact our instance is experiencing. When nothing about the situation has shifted, there usually isn’t anything new for either side to work with.
If you have questions about a specific decision
If you’re on Hachyderm and you’ve noticed that we’re not federating with a particular instance, email is the most useful place to bring that question. admin@hachyderm.io reaches the moderation team directly, and we’ll share what we can about the shape of the decision and what we observed. Inquiries from elsewhere on the Fediverse reach us too. We engage with them as we’re able, and where another moderation team is involved we’re often happy to correspond with them directly as well.
Email is where this work actually moves. Public posts, tags, and hashtag campaigns about a federation decision are visible to us, but they don’t reach the conversation that resolves the situation. We may already be in conversation with the remote team, but that isn’t always something we can speak to publicly. Public campaigns also tend to slow down the work they’re trying to speed up: moderation teams are usually volunteers with limited capacity for simultaneous tasks, and a public pressure thread becomes the thing that capacity goes to instead of the resolution.
Similar to other moderation work, what we can share about federation decisions has some constraints. Specific situations can involve individuals’ data, legal considerations, or details that affect the safety of the people involved. Where it’s relevant, we’ll check with the remote team about what transparency is possible from both sides, and we err on the side of caution where there’s uncertainty. Within those constraints, we share what we can, and we’re straightforward about where we can’t.