What does it mean when it says "This profile has been hidden by the moderators of [instance]"? I'm pretty sure it indicates something about the instance that profile is on, not that account personally, but *does* it? I think this message could be clearer! #feditips
@Betty it could go either way; moderators can hide specific profiles OR entire instances and the software doesn't distinguish the two
@Lady but what is the uh. Intent? Like, is the idea that the profile itself is so offensive seeing it might offend, or, like, they toot so much that syndicating their toots is too hardware intensive??
@Betty typically the reasons for silencing are one of the following:
1) admins actively don't want the account showing up on the public timelines, maybe because:
• account does not follow instance guidelines regarding things like CWs
• account makes posts which are considered spam
2) the instance (of the account) is not well-moderated, so admins can't guarantee the quality of the account (in this case, they probably haven't ever even looked at it individually)
in either case, if the account was known to be a problem it would be blocked, not just hidden, and you wouldn't be able to see it at all. it's more “we can't guarantee that this account will conform to the expectations you might have of other accounts on this server, because it's hosted somewhere else with different rules / worse moderation”
@Betty for example there are politicians on here who make untagged posts about politics. i might silence that politician because i expect posts about contemporary u.s. political events to have a CW. that doesn't mean i disagree with the politician or think people shouldn't follow them, but they don't conform to instance norms so i don't want them showing up in the public timelines. that way when someone checks the timeline they can rest assured that they won't see that content without an appropriate CW. they can still follow the politician directly if seeing their posts is important to them.
@Lady thank you, this is the level of explanation I needed!