I don’t see a lot of the things you’re trying to avoid on my instance. But I almost always browse “subscribed” and mostly have no idea what’s going on in communities I’m not subscribed to.

I’m currently unable to find a minimum age requirement on my instance, so she could try that. I’ve never given this topic much thought because Lemmy didn’t exist when I was a minor…

The fediverse is somewhat inherently a low-trust environment. Centralized social media (including traditional web forums) has only one database of users, so its administrators are able to keep track of similarities (in geolocation, email addresses, style even of deleted posts, etc.). Here every instance has its own database of users; if you register on another instance, it will be very difficult for anyone to figure out you’re the same person.

The fediverse is also still obscure enough that mostly it’s still a relatively high-quality place and this has mostly not been a real problem. You should join an instance, and communities, that moderate to give you an enjoyable experience. What that means varies according to person; I don’t mind the things you list very much, but am very glad I have not gotten any messages from fediverse chick Nicole in a while by now.

no, I agree with the above user that it would be better to federate images too, for at least the following reasons:

• redundancy: see the OP
• privacy reasons: images loaded from other instances inform the other instance that one is viewing those images, do you trust all of them?
• censorship reasons: some lemmy instances are blocked in my workplace and I can never look at images from them when browsing at work; others may be blocked in entire countries

If I’m not mistaken, Mastodon already does federate images to other instances, so it isn’t unheard of.

this is your brain on it being ok for governments to regulate the Internet :(

I know that instance had a policy of trying not to defederate from anything (unless very necessary). Is there another instance like this that will not be shutting down?

I think that instance is defederated by some instances? Check that first.

Any given instance (A) knows about all communities that have at least one subscriber on A. Maybe it doesn’t have any subscribers on the instance you’re trying to see it from yet, in which case try subscribing to it by searching for its exact name.

No, they are different pieces of software connected to different databases. They are run by the same company, but my understanding is Instagram is mostly about photos while Facebook has a wider variety of purposes (none of it it serves very well), eg microblogging, discussion groups, company pages, and others too.