>De-federating based on association is not common

As long as it's possible, it will happen.

And it should. The alternative (forcing everyone to ingest everything) makes the system rife for abuse in all sorts of ways.

You only see the objectionable stuff if you follow those accounts or people who retweet those accounts. De-federation prevents people who want to communicate from communicating.

> De-federation prevents people who want to communicate from communicating.

no, it doesn’t. in fact, it’s far better than any of the centralized private closed off social media liek fb or twitter.

it absolutely does not stop you from joining any mastodon server you want to join.

It does in certain places, as I said, but the big mainstream servers don’t do it.