I am interested of self-hosting my own instance but one the issue I have is:

  • Price for renting server and buying domain name. Mainly, I have low income.
  • Unsure if it be single-user instance or if I want multiple people on my instance.
  • If my instance is for multiple users, if I be the best fit for moderation as well, pitching it to non Fedizen (whatever you call people that use the Fediverse) as well as the theme of the instance as it would effect my Fedi software of choice (eg. Friendica, Mastodon/Glitch)

I just worried that I try just do it immediately without planning things out or have whatever things in mind which might otherwise help me know what’s the best choice and not be upset that I wasted my time and money on something that didn’t work out for me.

  • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    I am not sure OP is asking about hosting a Lemmy instance though. They mention non-Lemmy fediverse software.

    However I think you misunderstood how proxying works:

    Note that this has been drastically reduced with the image proxying, where if someone on say, .world posts CSAM it’s proxied through my server but not hosted by my server. So, liability is still a thing, but as long as the admins of .world take action then i’m protected with them. If proxying is disabled then the CSAM would live on my server too - and that means I’m legally required to report it.

    It is actually pretty much the oposite of what you describe. The image proxy in Lemmy is a user privacy feature, but it comes with the downside that the server does indeed download and temporarily stores all media that are requested through it.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      It’s halfway between us. Without proxying images are pushed into my server and I end up hosting them indefinitely, requiring me to manually review and remove something if it’s removed on another server. (Moderation actions like that from what I understand are still not federated, although maybe that has changed in one of the last updates).

      The proxy feature is a privacy feature, but for us admins it also works from a liability standpoint. If proxying is set to ProxyAllImages, it will send the image URL down to pict-rs. From there, pictr’s will cache the image based on time that you set. So yes, it’s stored temporarily in Pict-rs for quick retrieval, but then I time out after a day also, so if something was banned I hosted it for max a day before it was purged. It removes me manually needing to manually trace back to events that happened a month ago and wiping it from my S3. If my S3 was searched you’d find images from today, and a bunch of images of Taylor Swift.

      So you’re not wrong, but it switches it from “Image is pushed to my server and there indefinitely” to “Image is requested from someone on my server (very few of us) and is there at most a day”

      • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        Hmm, afaik other than some generated small thumbnails no remotely sourced images are stored on your server when you turn off the proxy. At least in theory, but the entire Pictrs integration in Lemmy is such a mess with random unexpected behavior that at this point I am hesitant to claim that no remote images ever get stored (there seem to be alternative code paths for specific image hosts like Imgur and crap like that).

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          I read the source code, the proxy essentially just hands all the responsibility down to pict-rs. Then pictrs has that environment variable where you can set how long-loved you want the thumbnail to be.

      • Shadow@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        We dont proxy on lemmy.ca yet, but I assumed thumbnails would still be stored in pictrs like usual? I thought it was just the actual image links that got proxied, and thumbnails were still dumped in like usual.

        We turned on cloudflare’s CSAM scanner and remove anything it flags for us.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          They are but there’s an environment vatiable to set how long it stays in cache. Cloudflare actually just ended their csam auto submission, at least the auto reporting. Does it still at least flag it?

          • Shadow@lemmy.caEnglish
            2·
            2 days ago

            Yeah it emails us and pops up a thing in the ui where we can mark it as resolved

            • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
              1·
              2 days ago

              oh that’s good to hear, I’ve never had anything pop up on mine, I’m sorry something has for yours. While I have you, do you have a script or anything you use for removing the flagged item?