Anything that doesn’t put the ENTIRE content discovery engine fully in the hands of the users and that doesn’t make content moderation a crowdsourced-only transparent, auditable endeavor is going to reproduce l’ancien régime.

Aren't you just describing Lemmy?

Content discovery is fully in the hands of the users, and content moderation is both crowd-sourced and transparent.

Upvotes, downvotes, and reports are all forms of crowd sourced moderation. The modlog is transparent and auditable. What are you on about?

Do you know how shit Lemmy could be if some hexbear tankies could come into your community and brigade it until they've banned half the users?

Or the flipside, it's a process that involves weeks of voting and you've got CP plastered all over the front page while you wait to reach enough votes to trigger its removal.

Moderators exist to fill a role, that is the need for immediate action. Communities should be involved in decision making around rules, but you need people on hand to take responsibility and keep shit running. The benefit of Lemmy is that if you don't like it, you can go create your own instance or community, without being subjected to a singular owner; that's the issue it was solving, not your terrible one.

Lemmy is not in any way the safe haven it has been marketed as.

Marketed? Lemmy is not a company and there is no marketing department. Generally, what you know about Lemmy is word of mouth from people who used it before you. No one controls the narrative in the end.

Instances are moderated by their moderators. Other instances that would rather not associate with a different instance can withdraw federation. I think the system works fine.