I noticed that some instances seem to sort of shadowban users from what I presume is any instance not on a whitelist.
This might sound like it might be regular defederation at first, but I can see or interact with their content just fine from my all feed while anytime I attempt to interact with communities on there in any way literally nothing happens, as if my contribution were invisible.
No replies, up or downvotes, no deletion or ban. Just shouting into the void while everyone around you (from that or other whitelisted instances) is having lively discussion.
Granted there is also the possibility that my contributions were uninteresting but my general experience is that people love to argue, or at least downvote whom they disagree with.
Is this a thing I should be aware of? That some federated instances have unilateral shadowbans in place?
Good mods/admins send a message along with their banning/removals. If you add /u/GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip to the end of any Lemmy domain you can see your profile on that instance. Scroll down, tap modlog and search for your name if you want a timeframe/reason.
Good mods/admins don’t exist on Hexbear or similar bullshit.