Re: "dangerous for democracy". That's a little hyperbolic, don't ya think?

I don't support defederation. I think the calls for defederation strictly arise from political clashes that boil out of control and people that don't remember the Internet-that-was, before Reddit. "Free speech absolutist" wasn't a thing because no one pictured their little forum as mattering that much. Forum moderation wasn't about enforcing a specific world view or preserving an echo chamber, it was about preserving civil discourse. And since I'm typing this out I might as well add that I think if I was to dust off an early 90's or 2000's mod hat, I'd do the following:

• Referring to other commenters as reddit refugee/hexbear/liberal/grad/imperialist/shill/anti-westerner 's is a 3 day ban
• Bringing up the Iraq War, Tienanmen Sq, etc is a 3 day ban. Not some conspiracy to bury the truth. It's because everyone's friggin' heard it already and we definitely don't need more of it.
• Lazy whataboutism is a 1 day ban. This is vaguely defined for a purposeful chilling effect.
• War Is Bad. When not the topic of the article, fantasizing about a US-Ruso conflict/popular uprising/Taiwan invasion/WW3 is a 1 day ban.

What do people want this place to be? A place where all sides can meet (if they strictly behave)? An echo chamber? A raging angry gladiator pit? Like I said above, as a major Lemmy instance, this place should be downright boring and the extremists can retreat to other instances better suited to their anger.