PieFed dev here.

The screenshotted post is very misleading. As you'd expect from a hexbearian. It is not a baked-in ban.

Hexbear is mentioned in the PieFed source code, as an initial default value for the defederation list. That list is quite long and includes various instances that have been a source of trolls, CSAM and spam in the past (mostly Mastodon instances). As part of the normal setup process it is assumed that instance admins will review that list and alter it as they see fit. They can change it any time by going to instance.tld/admin/federation.

Do not take anything a hexbearian says at face value.

Why bother with the 1 way federation, though?

It's just a default block on grad and hex when creating a new instance which can be toggled off. Keep coming crying with your ALTs Tankies no one wants to deal with your incessant propaganda.

Fediverse wide

Do they think they have influence beyond the ML instances?

Not sure I dig baking it into the code, that starts walking into the broken by design space. Feasibly the tankies developing Lemmy could do the same to any instance not painted the right shade of red.

I might propose instead a step in setup, or on demand, to select major instances to allow/deny federation from with a description of them. Impossible to keep a list of every new instance up to date, but catching the major hubs shouldn't be impossible.

Edit: For all those who replied along the lines of it being optional not a hard coded block, point noted. I should expect no less misleading a post from a pool of people prone to leaving out vital facts.

My understanding as it being an opt-out default defederation is still a bit grating since I tend to think of software as a neutral tool rather than promoting specific ideals, but it's far better than a fixed in state and does serve some purpose to shield new users from some of the most egregiously bad actors.

Am I missing something? Aside from the "baked in" claim, how is this different from defeds on Lemmy? It's always one way, ie the instance that defeds can't see content from the other instance, but the target instance can still see them.

Based.

The only thing better than this was Nutomic whining that he needs more donations to feed his family (he literally said this) but absolutely refusing to just ask Dessalines to chill the fuck out with the tankie censorship shit.

we need a fediverse-wide boycott of hexbear

I mean I think that is a bad and unhealthy idea. If piefed.social, world or a particular instance wants to set it up that way then go ahead, sure, but I do think it should be up to the admin using the software to decide which servers this should or shouldn't apply to rather than what sounds like an opt-out scheme. I mean sure go ahead, code how you like, who am I to judge, but I'm only saying it in consideration of best practices.

If HB runs into the silly issue again that almost lost them their domain (and temporarily switched to chapo.chat), this code will be a maintenance burden just because of the developer's specific grudge.

I'm saying this as a user happy about the fact that my instance defederated hexbear and lemmygrad, there are cool communities there, but they are an insufferable bunch.

Good luck with that they/them in Russia.