The instance seems to be mostly right wing trolls. I know defederating is unpopular but I don't think much is to be lost in this case and it can save the mods some headaches.
Edit: the response on exploding-heads.com to my reporting of transphobia. Courtesy of the "second in command"
Yeah I must confess I recently went over there and agitated them a bit. I just wanted to see what their deal was because I saw a few of them over here.
TLDR they are basically like r/thedonald, libertarian types. Use slurs as a badge of honor. Angry, sad people. Fully in favor of defederation. But I get that it's early days, and defederation is a sensitive topic. I just don't see any path to that server becoming something of value that I'd want to interact with.
I dont see why defederation is seen as a sensitive topic.
Its a great feature, designed for specifically this purpose.
Over time people will migrate between instances and land where they fit. Some people want to be abrasive cunts, and they will land with the other abrasive cunts. Thats great, they have an instance they can do what they want on.
For the rest of us though, we dont want to see their bad faith articles and abrasiveness on our feeds. No one is being limited in their speech, but they might be limited in their reach. If they want to expand their reach, they can join a more broadly federated instance and ditch the bad faith arguments and abrasiveness.
Its the kids table at the dinner party. You can join the adults table if you behave in a way that is suitable for the adults, if not go back and play with the kids and everyone is happy.
The example that introduced me to federation was like an instance getting overrun with Nazis, and everyone deciding to just cut that instance loose; let it float alone as "the Nazi instance" that nobody has to interact with.
I thought that stuff like bad actors and assholes was one of the main reasons for the idea of federation, really surprised how many people thought differently
I think people would be surprised at the amount of instances that have already been broadly defederated.
Its just that the beehaw defederation is the first "big" incident since broader adoption, and thats for very understandable reasons with a roadmap to refederation already in place.
The only people who get angry about an instance being defederated are the types who want to act in bad faith. They know if they join the instance they got defederated from they will be banned if they spruik the shit that got the instance defederated in the first place, so they are angry that no one wants to listen to their shit.
It sucks for legitimate users that get caught up, but if youre a good user willing to participate in good faith, just join another instance and carry on.