You've got a terminology problem.

Free speech has become a coded term.

It shouldn't have, but it did. Now, when people say they want "free speech" they don't usually mean that they want all speech protected. They mean that they want specific kinds of speech protected.

Those kinds fall afoul of the "tolerance paradox" because the people crowing the term around are specifically the neo nazis, gay bashers, extremists and kkk friendly sorts.

So, if you find a "free speech" instance, that is exactly who will dominate the instance. That's just a fact now. Every instance that has laid claim to free speech gets taken over by those people.

As such, defederation is the only realistic option because those same people refuse to follow the rules on other instances. It has happened recently with hexbear. It had previously happened with exploding heads. And, frankly, it was always the case with lemmygrad, though they were usually not as bad about ignoring rules elsewhere.

The other type of thing you get on "free speech" places is kiddie porn. Sometimes just the drawn kind, but sometimes the real stuff.

Being real with you? You will not find an instance that allows hate speech that isn't dominated by it. Period. It doesn't exist. If you specifically enjoy that kind of thing,, that's on you. But that isn't the same thing as people having a different opinion. That's people wanting other human beings to be anything from oppressed to eradicated. If that's something you think is just a matter of opinion, you might as well head on over to exploding heads because you aren't going to last long anywhere else. You'll get banned from most places by virtue of trying to defend hate speech.