It's actually pretty hard to run an online platform that sets the bar at "free speech" and not have it kind of suck.
Trolling is free speech, being a jerk is free speech, hate speech is free speech, pornography is free speech. Any forum that sets the bar at "free speech" is going to be filled with the dregs with depressing speed. There's a reason why Gab never really gained serious traction.
I don't think it is impossibly hard. The platform can just let users pick what they want to see. E.g. be it trolling, hate, or pornography (search engines already do the latter).
Another concept is just following a set of moderators.
There seems to be a substantive difference between search engines and social media networks in this area, probably because search engine users don’t interact with each other.
Distributed social media might solve this problem, but to be honest I don’t know a single person in my life on one. And I’d never heard of Secure Scuttlebutt before.
Trolling is free speech, being a jerk is free speech, hate speech is free speech, pornography is free speech. Any forum that sets the bar at "free speech" is going to be filled with the dregs with depressing speed. There's a reason why Gab never really gained serious traction.