Thanks to OP for sharing this cautionary tale and thanks to everybody in here giving helpful advice.

I would like to self-host everything but y’all are scaring me off email.

Here’s one way that liberal fascism maintains control:

• Maintain control of everything
• If control is lost, create mass hysteria about “social media”, “kids,” “addiction”, “islam”, “immigration”, whatever, etc.
• Steamroll everything.
• Regain control.

It’s how they got TikTok, etc. It’s how they’ll try to get Lemmy, Linux, VPNs, etc. The wild part is how many lib “allies” will fully support this.

Yes, it’s a trap like everything else. It’s another front in the struggle.