If A defeds B, then A no longer sends new posts to B, accepts comments or posts from B users, or receives new posts from B. Any comments from B users on A's old posts (made before defederation) are no longer acknowledged by A.

I think A users can still interact with B's posts, but then I haven't seen any beehaw users in forever. So perhaps not?

C can obviously still interact with both A and B posts normally. On posts from C, both A and B users can still interact.

So, in short defederation creates a hard wall preventing interaction between A and B. The only way A and B users can interact is on C.

It's unfortunate as beehaw would have benefitted from a uni-directional defederation (i.e. preventing .world users from posting on beehaw, but not preventing .beehaw users from posting on .world. Unfortunately, it's both.)

[–] gullible@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

It may have changed in the last few months, but I specifically recall seeing hexbear user comments on lemmy.ml posts well over a month after the one-sided defederation while on my sh.itjust.works account. I checked from at least 3 separate instances, lemm.ee, .world, and .works, as it was more than a little confusing for me. That’s also how I learned about spotty comment federation.

[–] FlihpFlorp@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

So it is a two way wall if only one side defederates