> But you can just roll your own private server

You can run your own private island, but if you want to be "part of the fediverse" then you need to peer with servers in the main network, right? Which means tyranny-of-structurelessness organisational politics, because each admin gets to make their own rules about who they peer with, and so if there are disagreements in the network then you have to pick a side.

Of course not. If instance A does not like instance B and blocks it, there is reason why there can't be an instance C that federates with both A and B.

If these three were the only instances in the world then, yes, A could be so strict it also blocks C because of it's communication with B. But since there are hundreds of these instances and since there is no limit on how many can be created this will not be a problem.

Admins can be dictators on their own instance, but there are a lot of admins to choose from. If a big instance goes sour, it is very easy to migrate to another one.

> If instance A does not like instance B and blocks it, there is reason why there can't be an instance C that federates with both A and B.

Instances will refuse to federate with your instance if your instance fails to block others that they don't like, and the list is steadily growing.

Yes, federating child porn or threats will cause other instances to block media content and perhaps toots from your instance, as other instance admins do not want to babysit filtering what your instance relays to theirs.

> You can run your own private island, but if you want to be "part of the fediverse" then you need to peer with servers in the main network, right? Which means tyranny-of-structurelessness organisational politics, because each admin gets to make their own rules about who they peer with, and so if there are disagreements in the network then you have to pick a side.

Sounds like normal human interaction to me. This is a feature, not a bug as far as I'm concerned.

True enough, but in the same way that mob rule is the normal human interaction pattern and a right to free speech or a fair trial is an unnatural exception.

The issue here is that even if you visit the page of the user if you use a software like pleroma that allows you to see their profile from your instance chances are that it will not display most of their posts. Although admittedly this is more of a Pleroma bug rather than anything else.