In a federated social network, the "best" way to operate an instance is to be apolitical only if you want to be apolitical. But there is no mandate to do that.
The entire point of instance-based federation is that you can have "political"/biased/single-topic instances, and people that like that can chose to participate.
It must be acknowledged that most people do not want to hear from the complete spectrum of viewpoints.
>It must be acknowledged that most people do not want to hear from the complete spectrum of viewpoints.
I'd phrase it differently. I'd say most people online are incapable of hearing from the complete spectrum of viewpoints.
Because moving around the real world, talking to strangers for various reasons, you will end up hearing things you don't like. There is no way to de-federate from them. You just have to deal with that. And people online have a tendency to be very spoiled on this front, to want to custom tailor the human experience so there is nothing negative in it. This is a fake experience and not at all representative of humanity.
Let’s be honest here - the “different viewpoints” we’re talking about isn’t just differing taxation policies.
I do not want - in real life or on the internet - to hear from pro-pedophilias or the pro-ana crowd. Any space that welcomes and encourages those people is not a space that I want to be in.
We “defederate” in real life all the time. If a bar in town becomes known as “the nazi bar”, I won’t go there. If my favourite cafe adds a shooting range to the side, I’ll stop going there.
The entire point of instance-based federation is that you can have "political"/biased/single-topic instances, and people that like that can chose to participate.
It must be acknowledged that most people do not want to hear from the complete spectrum of viewpoints.