It’s one thing to have differing views, but I’ve seen enough attempted reddit migrations to be relieved that the popular communities in the fediverse so far haven’t been about crazy racist stuff or other extreme right bullshit.
I am also glad that I’m getting away from reddit’s general political shitposting, which was more left leaning. You couldn’t have any proper discourse on there, and even I with my generally more left leaning views recognized that.
Yep, the Fediverse can totally provide that. Self-hosting puts you in total control. I’m just making the point that free expression cuts both ways. Each instance is a free association of members who consent to that instances CoC. Each community/magazine has a home instance, and by joining that community you are also consenting to abide by that instances CoC.
This does mean that in effect you can be banned from either the community or your home instance.
Flip side of all this, is you have a bunch more variety of instances. You should be able to find one where you are comfortable, but still be mindful when participating in wider communities. You’re visiting someone else’s house in effect.
Finally, instances can de-federate if they don’t want to deal with another instances nonsense.