They defederated because they were both large Lemmy instances with zero review process for joining users, and they’d rapidly starting acquiring bots and bad actors. Because of federation, these accounts could interact on Beehaw’s server like they were locals.

Beehaw on the other hand, has a human-powered review process for signup. It isn’t strict, but it keeps out bots or low-effort users. Beehaw’s community goal means that reducing the amount of bots, bad actors, and low-effort users on the platform is a priority for them. Their moderating is also human-powered, and very involved - not outright banning/blocking. They reach out to users to discuss their content’s intent, and issue warnings/requests personally as needed.

That level of moderation is fantastic for fostering community and is compassionate for ignorance and error; but it isn’t scalable when being hammered by bots and an influx of new accounts. Beehaw’s only protection from instances that shelter bots and bad actors was to defederate from them until those instances were able to address them somehow.

The Beehaw admins have reached out to the admins of the other instances; their hope is to find a solution that reduces the amount of bots and spam accounts creating on .world and .works. They don’t want defederation to be a permanent solution, it’s just the only feasible one they had.

Already seen some screenshots from people trying to reddit in their mobile browser, despite being logged in. Their popup had the classic ‘View in App’, but the ‘Continue in browser’ was replaced with ‘Take me outta here’ or something to that effect, and would take them to the previous page in their browser.

I can appreciate this distinction on NSFW content without a logged in user, because of concerns with age verification. But it seems some users were part of a selected testing group to migrate users into the app almost completely.

Considering that Firefox browser can block ads on reddit (and that browser reddit still runs better than app reddit) there’s definitely pressure for Reddit to drive users to their app with a stick. They certainly don’t offer carrots.

And while I’m at it, here’s the filters to add to your uBlock Origin’s MY FILTERS settings to block YT’s blocker:

youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false)

youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0)

youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, [])

youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)

The more ad-riddled they make the platform to try and monetise users, the more they make adblocks necessary to even be usable.

I didn’t use to both with adblockers. I didn’t like ads, but they didn’t affect me enough for me to go through any effort blocking them.

Now I use blockers everywhere, on every platform. Even for creators I like, because I know how little they actually make for ads - so how bout instead of watching 12 hours of ads so they can get 2c, I just send them a dollar or buy their merch every once in a while to not watch ads at all? Etc.

Ads could have had a place. There are ads that serve a purpose, that have minimal disruption but still give businesses a way to develop awareness for those who might want to use them.

Movie trailers (including when they stopped trailing movies and started leading them) are examples of ‘acceptable ads’ to me. When I purchase something from a store and they include a printed card from their sponsor. When sports teams have logos for being sponsored. A work van with the business logo parked while out on call. Etc.

But the internet’s online ads? Email spam? Telemarketing? These are forms of advertising that are actively hostile, and they’ve become the default. So now a user that wants to be on the internet at all is best served by block all ads, including the ones that would’ve otherwise been reasonable.

Google will never make me feel guilty for blocking ads when they’re already making their search engine unusable, too.