I don't think free speech absolutism makes sense. In that case, the platform looks much more reasonable now.
I also read that it's tough in places like Mastodon because there are different mods per server, and they can ban you for even more trivial reasons. They might end up with many servers, few members per server, and each one wary of posting because one might post the wrong thing and can banned permanently. They'll be like echo chambers that are isolated from each other and not a lot of activity.