Feels odd for admins be able to prevent users from seeing content
My understanding is those admins aren’t just allowing users to view it but also allowing copies of the federated data to be stored on the server those admins are responsible for, so for certain types of content it seems really important to be implemented in this way.
Good point and I agree with the downsides. Giving admins more granular ways of hiding content sounds healthy.
There’s also the important distinction between admins finding opinions on the other instance “disagreeable” and muting vs. illegal content in the instance server’s jurisdiction and those of the admins. Defederating the whole instance does seem harsh if the problem is within specific communities only and doesn’t deal with illegal content.
Difficult problem!