If you’re having trouble visualising the power differentials designed into federated systems, think of this scenario:
You have an instance of 1 person. An instance of 1 million people decides to block your instance.
What have they done?
They’ve blocked 1 million people from interacting with you.
Now let’s reverse the scenario: You, with your instance of 1, decide to block an instance of 1 million.
What have you done?
You’ve blocked 1 million people from interacting with you.