tldr: dmv.social is closing on April 14th. Going forward, the instance will be read-only until the termination date. I apologize for the short notice, but I am setting this read-only to prevent abuse.

I set up a Matrix space for the heck of it in case I decide to open things up again: https://matrix.to/#/#dmvsocial:matrix.org

What do I do?

If you are a dmv.social user, consider signing up for another instance. A few that I like include:

If you go to your Profile on the website, there should be a link to export your subscription list. You may import this list to other instances. Do note that some instances aren’t federated with everyone, and instances have varying SFW/NSFW policies.

If you wish to start a community for anywhere in the DMV area: I will create a post on the big communities here to help spread the word. Send a private message to @dmvsocial@dmv.social by March 23. I will compile a big post on all of the major communities here after March 23 linking to alternative communities.

If you are a server host where dmv.social communities have federated to: I have locked all posts and communities. You should not have to worry about spam. Feel free to delete the communities after April 14th.

Thank You.

I’ve received about a half dozen unsolicited “thank you” DMs over the last few months. Genuinely, the unsolicited "thank you"s have been uplifting.

To the few users on this instance: thank you for making this instance your home on the Threadiverse the past several months. I’ve received a few private messages thanking me for running this and providing a SFW-gateway to the Threadiverse, so I hope I reasonably delivered up until this point.

To everyone else: Thanks for the upvotes, the downvotes, the subscribes, occasional comments, and lurking :)

Will you be back?

Maybe. If this does return, I want to give it 6-12 months. If you’re interested about this returning, bookmark https://dmv.social and check back in 6 months. In the mean time, I’ll post an update to the Matrix space: https://matrix.to/#/#dmvsocial:matrix.org

I still want to provide a federated social network for this area, I’m just not really confident now is the right time.

OK, cut the b-s: Why?

I want to make a few things abundantly clear so there’s no unnecessary speculation:

  1. This was not a financial decision. The server hosting costs were $55/mo, which were extremely easy to manage.

  2. This was not done because dmv.social is still on the smaller/still-growing side. I’ve spent years building communities elsewhere, anyone would be unreasonable to expect something to take off in less than a year.

  3. I’m not playing the blame-game and putting this on the Lemmy devs. They seem like busy folks adding stuff in and I appreciate that releases have been pretty damn seamless from a server-administration side.

  4. This was done entirely because of my concerns about being a server host on the Fediverse. 99.9999% of Fediverse folks are wonderful people. The remaining 0.0001% are urinating in the pool, so to speak.

I’ve been weighing this decision for the last 2-3 weeks. I wanted to build a mod bot to get ahead of the malicious images problem other hosts had since I didn’t want that crap coming here. Common sense eventually kicked in, and I realized that the risk of liability just isn’t something I want to deal with.

Last year, a few other instances had malicious images posted. The admins and mods of the communities were quick to remove it and explain what was going on, but that was a huge wake-up call that “wow… this is… dangerous.”

A few months later, this seemed to happen again.

Now fast forward to several days ago, there was the incident on Mastodon where someone tried to shut down Content Nation by sending CSAM their way.. This event was pretty much the final straw with my confidence level in the Fediverse and the risk of images.

Quite frankly, this is disturbing and I just don’t want to deal with the possibility of this crap.

This behavior on the Fediverse is extremely problematic and I can’t be the only server host where this isn’t sitting right.

Anyways, I can ramble on more but I’ve typed enough.

  • sunaurus@lemm.eeEnglish
    12·
    8 months ago

    Hey, sorry to hear about the stress, trust me when I say that I completely understand.

    Maybe this won’t change anything for you, but just in case, I would like to point out that there is a new feature recently implemented in Lemmy, which will allow instance admins to control how federated images are handled. AFAIK, this feature should be included in the next upcoming release of Lemmy.

    (The new feature is a configration option called image_mode, and it will allow you to either keep storing federated images as before, OR just proxy federated images through your servers without permanently storing them, OR not pass federated images through your servers at all)

    • dmvsocial@dmv.socialOPMEnglish
      6·
      8 months ago

      First, thank you for your work for helping tackle a number of the federation issues (and other bugs!) in Lemmy! If anything, I’m more concerned about the broader Fediverse where there are people who think spreading CSAM is okay.

      I’m actually really happy to see that the image_mode lets you disable federated images, that should be a big relief to instances with fewer resources to deal with (in case any other instance admins see my post, please give consideration to using it).

  • TheDailyChase@dmv.socialEnglish
    7·
    8 months ago

    So long and thanks for all the fish. A DMV place was a great idea, even if I’m just lurking through!

  • Aarrodri@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    8 months ago

    Damn man. Sorry it came to this. Hopefully you will be back. Appreciate your efforts sincerely. Regret not being more.active in the community.

    • dmvsocial@dmv.socialOPMEnglish
      4·
      8 months ago

      Hey, thanks for being a part, even just subscribing and voting! I promise you, activity had absolutely nothing to do with this.

      There’s a lot of risk to take on by hosting images online, possibly hosting federated images, and whatnot. I just don’t want to personally assume the risk that entails. It’s a very large part why registration on this instance was pretty locked down from Day 1 and why it’s had a strict “generally SFW” policy.

  • sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net
    5·
    8 months ago

    I’d like to pay respects, dmv.social looks like it was a great instance.

    I completely understand where you’re coming from, bad actors are one reason why I’ve disabled sign-ups – in my case it’s more due to spam, but the attack you’re talking about is also something obviously worth worrying about.

  • neptune@dmv.socialEnglish
    4·
    8 months ago

    Thank you! It’s been real! Probably better for my anonymity to make a new account eventually anyways.

    • dmvsocial@dmv.socialOPMEnglish
      3·
      8 months ago

      Thanks for choosing this instance! Sorry about the abrupt closing announcement, but I guess on the bright side a nickname refresh isn’t that bad 😅

      • neptune@dmv.socialEnglish
        1·
        8 months ago

        Will my account and all it’s comments/posts disappear? Or will users and the instance just stop working?

        • dmvsocial@dmv.socialOPMEnglish
          2·
          8 months ago

          So the initial plan was just to take down the server and leave comments/etc up on other instances. Your account would effectively become frozen when viewed from other instances.

          I didn’t want to make an announcement yet since I haven’t gotten a script ready, but I’m intending on running a script to at least purge my user account contents and give a week or so for the deletes to federate.

          If I get it working this weekend, I was planning on offering to help purge data from people who were privacy conscious.

  • nieceandtows@programming.devEnglish
    3·
    8 months ago

    Thanks for the detailed write up. That sucks, and I feel angry because of what “trolls” do, and how that works out the way they planned to achieve what they want. Hopefully Lemmy matures enough to make these things impossible to happen.

  • Atyno@dmv.socialEnglish
    3·
    8 months ago

    Aw dang, I just joined recently too!

    Well, at least there isn’t too much built up on this account anyway, it’s been an interesting introduction to Lemmy in general.

  • MysticKetchup@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    8 months ago

    Well thanks for it so far! And if it comes back up I’ll happily be back.

    I totally understand your reasons. I feel like a lot of Fediverse applications are not ready for bad actors, whether that’s trolls or spammers. People (justifiably) want a decentralized internet but that depends a lot on individual volunteers spending time, money and putting themselves into possible legal trouble in order for that to work. I want the Fediverse to succeed but in order for that to happen people need to take these problems seriously and plan for them before they happen.

  • Eddie Trax@dmv.socialEnglish
    2·
    8 months ago

    This is really sad but I can’t fault you at all for this decision. I’ve seen these images before and have always thought what a scary thing this has to be for an instance owner.

    I just wanted to say that you have done a great job and I really enjoyed this instance. I grew up in the DMV and this felt like a little niche family I was a part of. I always thought this instance had great growth potential and I hope things improve in the near future where you feel safe enough to return.

    Full support as always and thanks for all the hard work. Gonna miss it!

  • beirme58@dmv.socialEnglish
    2·
    8 months ago

    Damn ok. I appreciate all of your hard work to create and maintain this little community. Best of luck in the future!

  • Klanky@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    Oh man, I’m a MD resident and sorry to see this one go. Really appreciate all your hard work!