In the graph above I've arranged the 28 Threadiverse instances with at least 200 monthly active users (MAU)—orange instances running Lemmy, green Piefed, and red Mbin—on the basis of which instances they defederate.

Each instance has its MAU count listed below it, sourced from the latest MAU figures at Fediverse Observer, with adjustments made to the totals for Piefed (due to undercounting by outdated instances, as noted here; I used @Vicinus@piefed.zip's suggested estimate of 7,200 Piefed users) and Mbin (due to tardigram.com having a duplicate listing).

After adjustments, there are an estimated 43,287 monthly active Threadiverse users (35,184+7,200+903), of whom 87.84% are on the 28 largest instances. The percentages listed alongside the MAU figures correspond to each instance's share of the total MAU count.

Defederation data was sourced from Federation Checker. The tool doesn't support Mbin instances, so I left fedia.io in its own category. If any defederations are missing, feel free to let me know. Ideally such a chart should also include community blocks to better illustrate which instances block what, but that data doesn't appear to be as easily searchable.

I also noticed cases of some instances being listed as being defederated by another instance, despite not appearing on the defederation list for that instance (i.e. reddthat.com and lemmygrad.ml are listed as being mutually blocked, despite neither having the other on their block lists). In testing that federation, I noticed that !wholesome@reddthat.com did not federate to Lemmygrad while !memes@reddthat.com did, so clarification on that matter would be helpful.

While I'll update my generalized chart as needed to correct errors, perhaps at some point an automated federation mapping tool similar to the one feddit.de formerly hosted could be developed to more completely illustrate instance federation.

https://files.catbox.moe/218n2l.svg

Looks like something is going wrong with the Lemmy media proxy.

This is cool, thanks!

Replaced the catbox SVG link with a PNG upload for compatibility purposes, so hopefully it displays better now.

I say, I really don’t get why so many people stay over on Reddit.

This might be a micro version of the actual future internet, where we walk away from the global model and split it into ideological countries who believe the best way forward is to stop talking to the other group.

We’ve come a long way from drawing artificial lines on maps.

The fediverse is great if you fall into the like 5 interests that are pretty well represented here.

But if the communities you wanna engage with aren't really active enough for potential posters to not just forget they exist, or you don't really want to be on a platform where 75% of the front page is news or memes about the state of the world politically, its not neccisarily a great replacement to reddit

For me it happens to cover enough of my bases, but I can get why it wouldn't for many people.

You can still choose one that talks to everybody else. In fact, this graphic might be a nice tool for new users who want advice beyond "Just choose any instance, it doesn't matter" or "Just use lemmy.world".

Wouldn't it make more sense to indicate federation with an arrow and defederation with no arrow?

Interesting that so many instances have defederated from fedinsfw.app. What's that about?

Wouldn't it make more sense to indicate federation with an arrow and defederation with no arrow?

Unless an instance chooses to defederate from another, everything is federated by default; indicating that with arrows would result in a very messy graph.

Interesting that so many instances have defederated from fedinsfw.app. What's that about?

Fedinsfw.app, like lemmynsfw.com before it, is an instance dedicated to hosting NSFW content. As such content can be off-putting for new users, and only a subset of users are interested in seeing it, some instances choose to defederate from instances dedicated to it. While I'm broadly against defederation that results in a fractured Threadiverse, in this case doing so is probably more helpful in terms of new user retention than it is harmful (users can easily have separate accounts on SFW and NSFW instances or choose an instance that maintains federation with both).

Do sharing a circle mean defederated or federated?

I don't know if this is better or worse. I do like the selectivity of it, though, where you're free to join or privately defederate instances

Federating nsfw can bear legal issues. Although I believe Feddit.UK has entirely disabled access to NSFW

yaaasss feddit.uk #5 spot come on lads get in

I say, I really don’t get why so many people stay over on Reddit.

This place fuckin sucks man? It's pretty much reddit for left wing progressives who specifically care about left wing American* politics, linux, and not much else

Arrows mean defederated. Circles mean everything within that circle is defederated from the target instance. (It took me a while to figure that out.)

Sorry for the confusion; I'll try to make it clearer next time.

The beehaw.org/sh.itjust.works defederation is really one-way. Beehaw defederated from us after some exceptionally bad trolls were operating from sh.itjust.works in 2023. IIRC, they requested that we also defederate from them to really make sure the split was made. We honored their request.

We would happily reconnect if Beehaw decided they want to federate with us again. If not, then that's fine; they have a right to associate with whomever they like.

I believe infosec.pub temporarily defederated from us around the same time for the same reason. It was a rough time.

Hmm, piefed.ca is supposed to follow the lemmy.ca defed list, I'd expect both to be the same.

Use of colors for software is confusing, since I expected it to be based on the % or something. A legend would be clutch for those of us that look at pictures and get confused, then read the text...

I'll design a legend for the next version for clarity. Piefed.ca and Lemmy.ca are both in the same section in the graph, similar to Piefed.zip and Lemmy.zip, but maybe I'll think of a way to format jointly managed instances for the next version.

I'll adjust the graph by the next version to account for it as an exception.

I thought the % underneath was the number of users who couldn't see that instance, but I guess it's % of the active fediverse users?

Yes; the percentage underneath an instance is its proportion of the overall Threadiverse userbase. The percentages on the large arrows are the sum of the userbases within the associated box, indicating the extent to which an instance is defederated (somewhat of an underestimation, given that 12% of users are unaccounted for).

Damn, I thought blahaj would have more defederation. Place is just as toxic as hexbear.

Kinda eye-opening, thx for making the chart. I hadn't realized it had gotten this bad. In my opinion, defederation should only ever be used to combat spam, not because of ideological differences or disputes between individuals.

One of the most common tips for people looking to switch over from Reddit has been that the instance you choose doesn't really matter. But it clearly does. Choose the "wrong" instance and you may suddenly find yourself cut off from a sizable portion of other users because someone else decided they know better than you what you should and shouldn't see.

I'm lucky to be on an instance that has "only" defederated one instance in this chart (lemmygrad.ml). I don't really follow the drama around here, so I have no idea why that instance is banned. All I see is that there are 558 active users I'll never be able to interact with just because someone I don't personally know (my instance admin) made that decision at some point.

Wasn't there just a big drama because some app developer built-in their own opinionated blocklist into their app or something? How is this any different?

My point being, why not leave these kinds of drastic decisions to individual users, who can and should block whoever they want, instead of dividing threadiverse into silos at the instance level?

Note that defederations with smaller instances (representing 12% of users) are not represented here, so there are even more defederations than what is listed here. Hopefully that will come across better with more data in the next version of the graph.

As requiring new users to implement multiple blocks off the bat can be a big ask for those still on the fence about leaving Reddit, defederating known NSFW, troll, and tankie instances can improve new user retention. For those who prefer more hands-off moderation practices, specific instances can cater to them, but I think a more tailored experience is better for users arriving from Reddit.

While it would be nice if there were more activity, when the alternative is the ever-enshittifying Reddit, our best option is to contribute what we can here, be as welcoming as possible to new users, and block any content that isn't interesting to achieve a personalized feed of one's preferred content.

I'm not so sure, I'd rather have a prepopulated blocklist that I can further configure myself, as opposed to instance level blocks that I can't reverse.

Just like in real life, one must grow and sometimes create the communities they want to be apart of.

I think the main issue is that this isn't communicated clearly. Most people joining a random instance listed on join-lemmy.org won't know what defederation means and they have no way of knowing that by choosing that particular instance they'll be cut off from a certain number of other users.

You can always post eco-fascist Australian memes if that's more your thing

I like the info, but why are you calling it the threadiverse?

Is this somehow the official name and I just never heard it called that in the 3 years I've been here?

Is this meta propaganda?

Are instances getting dethrederated?

"Threadiverse" is an all-encompassing term for intercompatible thread-based Fediverse software, aka Lemmy+Piefed+Mbin. It has nothing to do with Threads, a platform that all instances should defederate from.

Cool, honestly didn't know.

I'm still going to call it the Fediverse because meta has tarnished the thread prefix

Does the fedia federation list provide you the data you need in order to include them?

https://fedia.io/federation

Things that pop out to me:

1. The Internet was made for porn, both in users and less defederating.
2. The main blocks really are mostly the Triad (grad, hexbear and ml) which I get. I personally don't mind tankies despite the instance I'm on, but they can sometimes echo Russian propaganda that's demonstrably false. Communism as a concept is ok, though.

The Beehaw thing predates me, I heard they're nice people, though. I also agree with the sentiment that more fringe groups and random porn might scare away newbies, so I get why things are the way they are.

Fedia appears to require users to log in to access anything, including federation status?

If you want to complicate the graph further, I believe hexbear federates using an allow list. Blahaj, lemmy.ca, and sh.itjust.works are not on the allow list, so they are effectively defederated. I haven't looked further to see which other large instances may be affected.

While thats true, if my friend whose biggest interests are science informed dog training and animal genetics joins the threadiverse there are not enough people here who genuinely really care about those subjects to actually sustain any of the social connection she's looking for around them.

If my friend who's super into basketball and competitive league of legends join she'd have at least a couple people to talk to, but its fundamentally not what she's looking for to talk to exactly 3 other people who care about the thing she's into.

I try to remember that as much as I love the fediverse and feel at home here, it has real limitations for lots of people, and its okay if its not in a state they can go enjoy very easily. This is a space that I am passionate about and want to contribute to. I don't expect everyone to do labor to invest in a space that isnt their passion just to chat with folks when they have the ability to chat with folks somewhere else, even if that place has bigger picture downsides or harms associated with it.

It's actually impressively clear, I did not think it would be possible to represent all of the details in such a simple graphic. Very nicely done. But I guess anything can be improved with a bit of iteration.

I really like this but I can not figure it out. Would you be willing to make the data available?

On the one hand, I know that the long tail of smaller instances are important to the health of the fediverse, but on the other it seems like it would be fun to see my instances on the defederation flowchart and the alt text leaderboard and stuff. Plusses and minuses, I suppose.

I know theres some work being done getting mastodon and peertube more integrated with lemmy/piefed so it may very well become more like the fediverse was envisioned.

Where you sign in one place and interact with everything the way you want to.

The MAU numbers for instances were sourced from Fediverse Observer and calculated as a percentage of 43,287 for the percentages, but here's a table of the defederation data:

Would be cool, I am not a fan of how Mastodon handles Lemmy posts

Many fantastic instances do exactly that.

But in answer to your question, you may want to research The Intolerance Paradox. In short, when people refuse to follow the rules it kinda becomes spam. Even if you were okay with CSAM or pictures of pigs actively showing the poop falling out of their anuses (sadly, I bet you think I am being hyperbolic here? nope, this is kinda Hexbear's major schtick), the fact remains that it scares away newcomers.

I will note that if you self-host your own instance then you have perfect control over every aspect of your experience, being able to fine-tune it to perfectly suit your precise needs. Otherwise you will want to choose an instance provider that aligns with whatever your needs are. Some people will choose one of the instances that defederates from almost nothing, while others actually want an experience that is more what they are used to and would expect coming over from the overly bot-modded Reddit, i.e. they want (even outright demand) that censorship be done for them.

This is why the instance pickers need to carefully explain what each instance is about, since there is not just one audience with a single set of needs & expectations.

At 152 MAU, it'll make the cut if I expand the minimum threshold for inclusion to 150 MAU instead of 200; the limit was used to make the chart easier to plan, but I think it could be expanded incrementally.

This is what organic growth looks like. It spreads in fits and starts, bits of it clump together and pile up, pieces of it separate and take on life of their own or die. When part of it rots (hexbear) the larger organism cuts it off to limit the spread of disease.

Lemmy (and more generally, ActivityPub) is growing, not like a rose bush, but like a field of grass. Some pieces of it are blooming, some pieces of it are dying, some pieces are adapting to different environments, but the spread is inexorable and the horizon unlimited.

If you want to see what the field is like on the other side of that hill, well it won't just come to you, you'll have to get up and go to it.

Idk, that is exactly how lemmy.zip does it. Fairly straight forward if you ask me.

Graph is very big resolution-wise, it lags. Do you have a slightly smaller one?

Here's a version exported at 150 DPI instead of 300: