Trying to wrap my head around the fediverse. Is each instance like another person with a server? Could that person just shut it down whenever they wanted to?
Are there any companies that have invested in hosting Lemmy/ other fediverse servers?
Sorry I’m sure I messed up some of the terminology, I hope my questions make sense! I love the idea of the fediverse as I understand it, but I like to dig into these details.
More than the developers of Lemmy, you’re putting your trust in the instance owner/admin. Even if the site says “v0.19.3” at the bottom, there could be any code put in there by the server admin. This can be for better or worse, for example in lemm.ee the admin has frequently included code improvements that have made this instance more resilient than others. I’m not aware of any instance including malicious exploits, but in theory this would be possible. If one was caught doing this it would likely be defederated by others.
Yes. However the instance admin and server admin might be different people. The server admin is probably also an instance admin, but some people might only be instance admin.
Yes, the server admin has complete control. Instance admin have control within the instance, they can remove just about everything but they can’t quite flip a switch and turn it off.
Facebook/Meta came in with Threads, but most instances refused to federate with them. I think the BBC also set up a Mastadon instance, they ran a trial which has either been extended or made permanent. There may be others, but the whole point of federation is that anyone can make an instance, be they private individuals or corporations. The big downside is that any instance then becomes another place to remove your content from - but really this is true of any website, which might be scraped by a 3rd party.