This is bunk.

Most people haven’t spent any time moderating online communities, so they don’t have to test their beliefs against reality. This is fine, frankly you saved yourself being stuck in a fractal hell scape.

However holding to this idea that the “opposition” was deplatformed, is superstition.

I’ve seen communities start with 0 moderation, and become wastelands filled with hate speech, misogyny and harassment. Which then forces moderation to be introduced.

This happens so often, that this happened to the hate groups who were kicked off of Reddit.

Communities have celebrated the introduction of moderation, and celebrated the imposition of rules that mean you can’t be harassed, attacked and targeted.