Threadiverse Major Defederations Graph

2026-07-28 23:15 UTC

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the latest MAU figures at Fediverse Observer, with adjustments made to the totals for Piefed (due to undercounting by outdated instances, as noted here; I used @Vicinus@piefed.zip’s suggested estimate of 7,200 Piefed users) and Mbin (due to tardigram.com having a duplicate listing).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

Replies (8)

@kingofras@lemmy.world 2026-07-29 00:26

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.

Open ##4390821
@JRaccoon@discuss.tchncs.de 2026-07-29 03:09

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?

Open ##4390849
@CubitOom@infosec.pub 2026-07-29 03:39

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?

Open ##4391408
@birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-07-29 06:47

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

Open ##4396047
@Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-07-29 07:17

Well that’s a confusing graph.

Open ##4400111
@MonaySimpson@lemmy.ml 2026-07-29 22:04

What’s the number and oercebt next to the arrows though?

Open ##4406485
@nanometer1625@thelemmy.club 2026-07-30 03:59

This looks like a job for… The Defedestrator

Open ##4409386
@Jayjader@jlai.lu 2026-07-30 04:49

I could have sworn that hexbear defederated from jlai.lu. there was a whole spat between our instances a while back.

Open ##4414638