R7r721·Sep 2, 2018
I am actually not sure how widely this blocklist is used, I just randomly stumbled upon it (via https://github.com/tootcafe/blocked-instances).
In Mastodon and the challenges of abuse in a federated systemtootcafe
blocked-instances
Communication & Social2017–2018
tootcafe / blocked-instances
blocked-instances
List of Mastodon instances blocked by toot.cafe (MOVED)
5Distinct people
6Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
55GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
List of Mastodon instances blocked by toot.cafe (MOVED)
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by month6 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2017-12-18 22:09:13 UTC to 2018-09-02 11:03:05 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2017 | 2017-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Jan 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 2018 | 2018-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2018 | 2018-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 2018 | 2018-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| May 2018 | 2018-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 2018 | 2018-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 2018 | 2018-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 2018 | 2018-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Sep 2018 | 2018-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
6 sources> I'm pretty sure that "deeming supporting national borders as 'hate speech'" is a fringe position
I'm not sure if you use Twitter or live in the bay area but it's relatively common in both these places. Even TechCrunch UK recently described supporting Brexit as a racist position.
> Filtering what you see and share with others isn't inherently wrong.
Totally agreed, but the mischaracterisation of networks supporting free speech as a place where "It's OK to be a Nazi" is. It's also not particularly original, with similar arguments being commonly used by most totalitarian regimes.
That said, the 'nazism is OK on those instances' may have been accidental (or perhaps just unthinkingly partisan) - I've sent a PR with a fix: https://github.com/tootcafe/blocked-instances/pull/22
In I inspected the mastodon.social websiteNice review, I will consider some of those things when building sites now.
After reading your post and then reading more stuff, it appears that Mastodon is going to become the Gab.ai for Leftists.
Which seems to be ironic in a way.
The internet cannot be controlled if it is to remain free and open. Creating censor lists like this here https://github.com/tootcafe/blocked-instances
,is no different to traffic shaping that ISPs do and what the FCC in America has done.
Effectively they have created BBS boards with a bit more tech and have isolated them.
If this sort of mentality continues we are going to have a segmented internet as a whole, where mega corps rule.
Imagine a hellhole like this:
-- Connecting to Monsanto ISP
-- Connected <<you have 1 hour of usage left>>
-- Type "www.reddit.com"
-- Coca-Cola DNS, im sorry I cannot resolve that
Read the rest
domain for you, please buy another Coca-cola.
-- Buys Coca-cola
-- Connection to www.reddit.com blocked, it is now under the federated space of GlaxoSmithKlein, who are in competition with the Monsanto Liandri Corporation.
-- Goes to connect to www.guardian.com
-- Hit with adds for Monsanto weedkiller, and GMO sweetcorn.
> https://github.com/tootcafe/blocked-instances
Wow. tootcafe, according to their own page, blocks any instances where free-speech is tolerated. Not threats, or harassment, just social views they deem unlikable.
In I inspected the mastodon.social websiteKind of off topic, but like the author I was looking at Mastodon yesterday (reading the ruby code, ha ha!). One thing struck me, though. The documentation seems to imply that it doesn't matter what instance you're on and to simply look for an instance that has people you get along with. However that doesn't seem to be a good idea in some cases and I'm wondering if I'm wrong.
Some instances are blocked by other instances. And even though some are only "silenced", if you happen to join an instance that is blocked by a lot of other instances, then nobody will see what you are writing. For example, I joined mstdn.jp because it's in Japan (which I am as well), and it's popular. I thought it would be convenient to join that instance because then I can follow more Japanese people and improve my Japanese. But then I found out that mstdn.jp
Read the rest
is blocked by some other instances due to fears over lolicon material (it hasn't shown up in my brief troll of the federated feed, so I wonder how prevalent it actually is -- also, I wonder if my information is old news and it isn't actually blocked by people now...).
So potentially anything I write will never show up in the federated feed in those other instances (and may be completely blocked by other instances). So I should pick a different instance. Sounds easy, but which one?
The problem is that (as I mentioned earlier), I want to follow content on the main Japanese servers. So I need to find a server that doesn't block those servers entirely. Except there doesn't seem to be any way to find out exactly what servers people are blocking (except for a handful who helpfully tell you that they are following the tootcafe blocklist[1]). That kind of solves my particular problem because the main Japanese servers are not blocked on that list.
But, for me it illustrates a pretty serious problem. How do I know that the instance I'm on isn't blocked by the majority of the fediverse? If I'm writing and I'm interested in a wide variety of people reading what I'm writing, how do I ensure that I position myself in the right place? And if I like an instance (regardless of a lack of moderation that is causing it to be blocked by the world), how do I remain connected with the people on that instance without maintaining a presence there?
It almost seems to me that I really need multiple accounts on multiple instances to ensure that I can get what I want -- but since the client is tied to the instance (as a web sever), that's a difficult trick...
Sorry for the length (for people who got this far). My ideas are still a little unformed.
[1] - https://github.com/tootcafe/blocked-instances
The administrators of popular mastodon instances share "block lists" manually. That's the level of coordination.
Shared lists:
https://github.com/tootcafe/blocked-instances
https://github.com/MastodonBlocklist/blocklist
https://github.com/ticki/mastodon-blacklist
and others
In Enforcing New Rules to Reduce Hateful Conduct and Abusive Behavior