>I also think that federation is a terrible way to run a social network

How come? I was a little put off by the federated nature, but it doesn't actually get in your way once you're in. I expected it to be more siloed but it's not. Discoverability actually seems better than twitter bc people sort themselves into nice buckets. It's a little like if "ML twitter" was an actual thing rather than just a collection of accounts.

I am also into the idea of opting in to mod/admin policies that suit me, and I've become pretty skeptical of centralizing after this whole fiasco