That would kill small instances though, definitely personal ones for those who want to run their own. Once places like lemmy and kbin get big enough there is no way they’re going to go through and hand-federate every tiny new instance that pops up. There’d be no way to tell which ones are personal and which ones would be used for manipulation?

That can only be done after the fact, and people can just create new ones constantly can they not? There needs to be a different pro-active defense to watch for the signs of manipulation and counter them as they happen.

Mmm squeeky texture, my favorite.