PieFed.zip takes an interesting approach to hexbear and lemmygrad.ml. They do not defederate from either of them, but a new user has those two instances blocked by default, with a message sent to them about how to un-do the block or later to reinstate it if they want. This makes seeing that content an opt-in feature, rather than forcing the only options affecting new users to be defederation vs. full membership. I love this idea - it doesn’t stop people who legitimately want it (that responsibility to decide is on them), but neither does it force users into being exposed unwittingly, as if that content was somehow the same as all others. PieFed’s motto of placing power into the hands of end-users is the only thing giving me hope for the Threadiverse right now.

That said, almost nobody defederates from lemmy.ml, or places such blocks afaik, which exposed new users to being bullied by the exact same people as are on hexbear and lemmygrad who hide behind their ML alts - since obviously to those incels, no does not mean no but instead that they simply need to push forward harder.

I doubt this problem will be solvable anytime soon, but if there is any hope for such, I’m placing those hopes into PieFed.