how do we report problematic instances?

Reporting isn't good. I do think users should have an ability to block instances for themselves. (you can do that right now if you run your own instance)

yeah, users need more control, instances need the ability to defederate due to anything crossing legal lines in thier jursdictions, but right now its used for more than that simply because it works well.

users should have control over blocking not just communities but entire instances if they please and meta on posts/communities should be correct so instances can show users SFW public pages for non-members (aka the general public)
- Users should absolutely have mute/block/privacy controls. These should be used to build the community they want and see what they want to see.
  
  Users should not be left to "fend for themselves" against abuse/hate/racism having a platform.
  
  A person of color should feel safe.
  Women should feel safe.
  LGBTQIA+ should feel safe.
  BIPOC should feel safe.
  
  They should be able to login, find their community and participate without needing to deal with DM's of lynchings, being publichly shamed with racial slurs. Power belongs to real community and real engagement, not abusers.
- The good thing is you can always run a tiny instance for just yourself and not defederate with anyone if other communities defederate too aggressively.

Let me guess: exploding heads?

yeah
Yeah, that was my guess. I just blocked them individually and that solved it. I wonder if they’re the only user on that instance.

Lemmygrad? A lot of instances ban it, message the admins directly

While I understand your wanting to ban such a community, I think moving away from that type of action is a good thing. It's all about personal freedom. I have some instances blocked already but I would never decide to do that for everyone because what gives me that right? Speak out against them. Make your views know. Denounce, Rage, never quit. But never censor. Freedom of information and choice is the end goal. Banning a topic is what leads to radicals because they have no outlet for their insanity.
- Nonsense, their outlet is staying on the shithole instances, not forcing the rest of the world to see it.
- I feel like the recent history of the world proves this not to be true
- By "ban" they mean defederate from. They're not banning an instance from the Fediverse, the instance that's defederating from the other one is just choosing not to interact with or have to see them anymore. So your rhetoric here is misapplied, because one instance defederating from another isn't silencing the latter for anyone else but the instance that made that choice. It's not analogous to restricting freedom of information or personal freedom at all, on fact it's precisely an exercise of personal freedom: freedom of association! It's more equivalent to just leaving a club and never coming back or hanging out around them anymore. Yes, it's done on the whole instance's behalf, so it effects more than just one person, but thats why random instance members can't defederate an instance they don't run from another instance, there's a decision procedure to make sure it represents the wishes of the instance as a whole.
- I know, I was just telling him how he would tell them. It is very important for people to know how to report something
- I agree. A bad opinion/agenda that is denounced with logical reasoning and compassion will do far greater good than simply censoring. The potential future followers of that bad opinion/agenda would maybe be swayed by a superior view point if they saw the majority of comments were opposed to it.
- It's not censoring, they can still go and subscribe to something even if it's defederated afaik. It's just not shown by default, which sounds like a great idea for instance owners that want to protect their users or curate the overall atmosphere. Or they just create an account there if they disagree with the decision.
no, not lemmygrad

You should discuss it with your own instance admins.

The best solution is de-federating their connection to that instance but it is done for everyone on an instance so it’s not a small decision.

This is just so far as I understand, I may be very wrong on how this works.

defederation should be kept to a minimum and saved for big offenders only. I think best option is for lemmy to have an option to hide posts from some instances on a per user basis.
- I agree with this. Everyone keeps saying that it doesn't matter which instance you sign up with, since everything is federated. But my biggest concern is thriving communities potentially getting cut off from the rest of the fediverse because they unluckily got created on an instance that has a bad reputation for something completely unrelated. Allowing users to individually hide entire instances for themselves seems like the better approach.

You can limit yourself to Local, which will only show you communities from your own instance.

Also, when you see a clear case of someone acting in a shitty manner you can report them. This report doesn't just go to the community's mods. It also goes to all the admins of all instances involved (your and their accounts', and the community's instance) as well as to the top admins. But be warned that it's not anonymous (your username appears in the report).

You can also open a discussion with the admins and users of your instance. Your admins can block other instances, but that will apply to all users of your instance.

I'd suggest just to be patient though. Usually fascist instances tend to get banned and defederated.

Or you can find an instance that is already defederated from the problematic one.