it's all fun and games to pick what instances you federate with until you end up scrolling timeline, seeing one of your friends talk about an instance. you sit there knowing that you can't blindly believe anyone, and you should give instances the benefit of the doubt by checking the instance yourself. this is all great, especially for instances that were being talked about due to an isolated incident. when it is not great is when you end up reviewing a pro contact pedophilia instance trying to find receipts while loading up usernames with things like "child porn" in the name. reviewing things for receipts and going "what the fuck". not to mention that these instances in particular hide all users with 401 errors if you go to the site itself (which i mean, i have to do that too in order to find bubble and other pieces to collect as "evidence"). nothing like going to the federation panel, viewing user by user to collect enough dirt until you're absolutely mortified and can fediblock without a question or approval by anyone else in the mod team.
@puppygirlhornypost Honestly, being trigger-happy on the defederation button with instances like that is self-care, there's very little saving grace to these "no rules" instances with an intentionally restricted public-facing side that clearly put very little to no care into safety
throw back to the time my Spanish class turned into English lit mid semester and I was tasked with talking about a phobia. I said I was xenophobic because I was afraid of change unaware that there was a vastly different political implication that didn’t align with the definition