@jerome yes that is the expected behaviour, no questions about that.
What breaks my understanding is that follower-only posts are sent, rather than fetched. And since mastodon signs Fetch requests with an instance actor key. I don’t quite understand how a new follower should be able to see older follower-only posts!
@MastodonEngineering

@MastodonEngineering A question about followers only posts and the window of visibility.

Bear with me as I lay out the scenario:
1. I recently sent a post to followers only.
2. A follower replied
3. A non-follower replied to the reply
4. Non-follower sent a friend request, which I approved
5. Former non-follower was able to Like the original post.

My question is about how the former-non-follower was able to see the post.

Was it because there is some window of access?

Because I have a follower on the same server as them and their new follower status somehow allows them to see it?

Or, because the post hadn’t yet been sent to my followers on the same server, so that when it was sent they were included?

Or some other explanation!
I’m very curious as this broke my previous understanding of mastodons federation and visibility model.

cc: @Mastodon, @FediTips

@katzenberger new alt of @Linux_Is_Best is posting about the list again https://mivatter.com/notes/arwndakajb

@lproven good one!

though I should note it failed to learn the lessons of https://perfectmotherfuckingwebsite.com namely adding a few lines of css to avoid the wall to wall text on desktop