mastodon - Link to source

Should users on a server be able to opt out of having their content shared by the server to a relay?

#EvanPoll #poll

  • Yes (57%, 92 votes)
  • Yes, but... (18%, 30 votes)
  • No, but... (8%, 14 votes)
  • No (14%, 23 votes)
159 voters. Poll end: Friday, June 5, 2026, 8:34 PM

#poll #EvanPoll
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

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Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

@Brendanjones So, now that the poll is over, here are some reasons I can think of. I'd still love to hear your ideas, btw.

- User safety. The user knows that a troll server is subscribed to the relay, or it's an open registration relay, and a troll server *could* subscribe. They want to make sure their content doesn't go out to instances dedicated to harassment.
- User control. They just want to know they can turn the tap on and off if they need to.

@Brendan Jones
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

@Brendanjones There are lots of other ways to do this better, by the way: followers-only posts, quiet public posts. But a lot of people want to post with the Public flag locked high, and still decide who can and cannot read their stuff.
@Brendan Jones
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Brendan Jones

I didn’t vote because I didn’t feel I had an informed answer. But now I’ve read the reasons you added post-poll, I’m not sure I see a meaningful difference between a relay and a server in this instance. If a troll finds my post through a relay, I can still block them and their server, right?

If that’s the case, my vote would be ‘no’.

in reply to Brendan Jones

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Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

so, the answer to your question is usually no. If your server uses a relay, and their server uses the same relay, your content will keep going to their server, regardless of your blocks. Here, "opt out" means "having any control over what goes to that server."
This entry was edited (Saturday, June 6, 2026, 4:14 PM)
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Brendan Jones

This sounds like a problem with the Fedi block model, or of relays not respecting the block model. Good Fedi servers should respect blocks, and I’d include relays as servers there (even if they’re not technically servers). Bad servers get defederated, and the same should happen to relays.
This entry was edited (Saturday, June 6, 2026, 4:19 PM)
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Tim Bray 🇨🇦

We currently say nothing about how far a post might travel, because the nature of the federation protocol means it's an insanely complex. People should really assume that anything they post will be, in effect, public. The degree to which running a relay changes that would require a thousand-word essay which would probably have to omit some of the finer points.
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

gotosocial - Link to source

modulux

Yes, but making it technically meaningful given the limitations of the protocol is difficult. However, if people want their posts to be limited to the sort of organic travel they can envision having them, it should be possible for users to make this known, and for good actors to respect this.
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Justin Fitzsimmons

If you don't want to share, don't post.

You can't post a letter on a public bulletin board and then get upset if a lot of people read it.

There are plenty of communication methods that allow you to control the audience with a great degree of specificity and privacy; use one of those instead.

in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

calckey - Link to source

crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts

For example

If I’m interested in horses, I might subscribe to that.
But if the creator thinks they can ‘treat’ me to their second favourite topic – spiders – without asking, that’s going too far.

You shouldn’t assume that everyone is just as interested in the topic as you are.
In our culture, that’s intrusive and is considered spamming.

For me, that would be a reason to unsubscribe from the newsletter and block the address

@fasnix@fe.disroot.org

@flo
in reply to crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

@crossgolf_rebel @fasnix I don't understand the analogy.

If you've got an account on a server, and the server admin signs up for a relay from relaylist.com/ like relay.toot.io, for example, should you as a user be able to keep your content from going to relay.toot.io?

It sounds like you think people should have that level of control, but you answered "definitely no", which is surprising.

Relay List - Connecting the Fediverse

A regularly updated list of relays for use with Mastodon, Misskey, Pleroma and other ActivityPub servers.
relaylist.com
@crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts @flo
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

calckey - Link to source

crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts

It’s my mistake.
I mixed up your two threads – sorry.
My ‘no’ refers to the mailing list.

In this vote, my question is more about what kind of relay servers we’re talking about. I don’t see tags.pub as a relay server.

I’m more in favour of: all rights to the users

in reply to crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

I wasn't asking about tags.pub.

Most relays don't have a way to opt out. Is that OK?

I agree: users should have the right to opt out of services that their administrator configured.

This entry was edited (Saturday, June 6, 2026, 12:44 AM)
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

snac - Link to source

Ethan Black

"No", because there's no real point. How far your reach is is already random, and if the relay can see it, you're posting publicly, no? Seems like extra complexity.

Would be cool if the About page on #Mastodon listed the server's connected relays; optionally, like with the Moderated Servers list.

in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

friendica - Link to source

OldKid ⁂

@Evan Prodromou Yes, and furthermore, the administrator of an instance should be able to prevent a relay with which the instance has no direct connection from sharing posts by users of their instance.
@Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

friendica - Link to source

OldKid ⁂

@Evan Prodromou See my post a little further up; it’s also about the legal aspect. However, other platforms don’t make it that easy for people to filter out individuals using specific hashtags and then use that data for purposes such as harassment.
@Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

friendica - Link to source

Tuxi ⁂

@Evan Prodromou
Users in the Fediverse should always have control over their posts. This is especially important in the Fediverse, which is known for its emphasis on self-determination. This becomes particularly relevant when it comes to the automated sharing of posts by bots—especially when it is done by “aggressive” services like tags.pub, which, as it currently stands, does not offer a reasonable solution. I have nothing against relays or bots that share hashtags, but please ensure that the technical implementation respects the will and self-determination of users in the Fediverse. As tags.pub is currently implemented, I believe it poses a significant threat to the entire Fediverse.
@Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Bruce Elrick

I say yes, under my assumption that a relay does not faithfully allow a user the same control of their outbox that their home server does. I might be wrong in that assumption. I also say this in full knowledge that there are also probably many other ways another person could bypass such controls.
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

@me no, it's not that hard at all. Currently the relay interface sends "fat pings" -- it includes the full content object. If it instead used "thin pings", with just the URL of the content, the relay and all the downstream servers have to fetch the content from the source server. That lets the source server enforce server blocks, including user server blocks.
@Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Jonathan Lamothe

@Evan Prodromou To be honest, I haven't looked that deeply into the protocol. I'm sure what you're telling me is true. After all, you literally wrote the book on ActivityPub. Also, this is perhaps not exactly what you're talking about, but as soon as a post federates to another server (because the poster has a legit follower there) the originating server is no longer in exclusive control of the content of that post, is it not?

Unless I'm fundamentally misunderstanding something here—which I'll admit is a possibility—a single misbehaving server could circumvent this entire system, could it not? Obviously, there's the option of defederating such a server, but you'd have to know it's happening first. It's not just about trusting your own server, but also every server you federate your posts to.

Am I way off base here? If so, I'd love to understand how.

@Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

@me no, you're absolutely right. Once the content is delivered to a remote server, it's hard to force it to do the right thing.

It's one of the reasons we're doing e2ee messaging.

github.com/swicg/activitypub-e…

GitHub - swicg/activitypub-e2ee: Coordination of work on end-to-end encryption with ActivityPub

Coordination of work on end-to-end encryption with ActivityPub - swicg/activitypub-e2ee
GitHub
@Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

Hi, all. I think for most services that admins configure, there should be a way for users to opt out or customize. I think relays are a good example; some people only want their content visible to people on the same server or people who follow them or random other people on the same server as people who follow them. (This is the Mastodon default.) They don't want their content relayed for whatever reason. They should have some control over that. So I say yes.
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Roche

I agree that users should have this choice and be able to opt out of a relay. I can also imagine scenarios I might want to opt out of one relay but be fine with another relay. But should a special control be built for relays, that are just one type of ActivityPub server? Or should creators just have controls that can applied to restrict their content from any ActivityPub server?
in reply to Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Jeffrey Haas

In many respects, users that want a more closed experience don't need more than we had on livejournal: Private (only for the poster), Friends, Lists of Friends, Public.

For federated services, "public" gains extra scope that is harder for a user to understand: Server-only, the federation at large.

Providing such scoping services for posts would be appreciated, IMO. But it does raise the question on how to provide better visibility to what "public" means.

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