>
But if the people on the safe space instances are happy with that, and the people on the free speech instances are fine with that, then what's the problem?I don't think people on either side are fine with that. Most just keeps their heads down. It's mostly fine if you're not into engaging into politics overall, but it does get annoying when, every couple weeks or so, some event happens that turns half your feed into inane political drivel, and you can't even comment on it for the fear of getting kicked out of the instance.
The main reason I'm talking about this is because I dislike false advertising, and the most touted feature of the Fediverse - the ability to individually choose who you peer with - isn't actually usable. It's a bit like gimbal lock[0] - technically you still have three axes of rotation, but in practice, the system reached a state in which it lost one degree of freedom. Yes, you can theoretically choose who you peer with - in practice, you'll either align your blocklist with the main branch or end up on everyone's blocklist.
> If you really find it upsetting, you could set up your own instance which won't be on anyone's defed list yet, then just be careful not to post anything that will piss off either side.
That's what I'm already doing as a user of a large instance; setting up my own instance has the same risk profile of getting kicked out, for a lot of extra work involved with maintaining an instance. And note that just being "careful not to post anything that will piss off either side" is not enough - you have to be careful to not follow (as a user) or federate with (as an instance) or keep users that follow (as an instance with many users) the instances on the "unwanted" list, or else you get banned/defederated by association.
----
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbal_lock