(If you want to block or mute individual accounts, please see the Blocking and Muting Accounts on Mastodon guide.)
Ordinary individual users can’t fully block entire servers on Mastodon. The only people who can fully block servers are the server admins, through a process called defederation.
But what about the “block domain” option? Doesn’t that block servers?
The “block domain” option that ordinary users can access does the following:
- Removes all your follows and followers from that server
- Stops you seeing posts and users from that server, although you may still see users in profile search results
- Stops people from that server following you
- May or may not stop people from that server seeing and interacting with your new posts, depending on what software their server uses
- Does not stop people from that server seeing your profile
- Does not stop people from that server interacting with your old posts, but you won’t see these interactions
…in other words, it’s a bit of a mess and not a proper full block.
So, if I’m concerned about a particular server, how do I fully block it?
If you’re an ordinary user, you have two options if you want to cut off communications with a specific server: Talk to your server’s admin and convince them to defederate the problematic server you are concerned about, or move your account to another server that has already defederated the problematic server.
(There is also the third option of creating your own server, and having access to admin-level blocking tools is is one of the reasons why many people choose to run their own servers.)
If I move to another server, how do I find out if it blocks the server I’m worried about?
To see a server’s defederation list:
- Go to its website and click Learn More or ⋯, which takes you to its info page.
- Scroll down the info page until you get to the section marked Moderated Servers, and click this to open it.
- Scroll down the list until you get to the server you’re worried about. If it says “suspended” next to its name, that means the server has been defederated.
Note that for safety reasons some servers hide their defederation list, or obfuscate the names. If you are unable to see the defederation list, try messaging the server’s admin to ask if they have defederated the server you’re worried about.
Help! I accidentally used the “block domain” option and now I’ve lost follows and followers from that server! How do I get them back?
If you’ve blocked a server accidentally, see this guide for how to get back your follows and followers from that server.
How do I see my existing blocked domains?
- Log in on your server’s website or web app
- Go to your profile page
- Click ⋯ and then select Blocked domains