It increases division for all the reasons I already outlined. If you don’t see it that way I don’t know how to explain my point of view any better than I already have.

I don’t see any philosophy, I see a list of reasons the developer of piefed believes their platform is better than Lemmy. Yes, each instance can adjust those settings, but they go into it with these heavy-handed suggestions straight from the developer. From the wording, anyone joining the fediverse for the first time through Piefed comes in associating those instances with nazis. I think that’s intentional.

You can’t say if people with alts or who brigade are often caught. And, “often” is not “always,” which means voting can still be manipulated. Hell, even if you caught everyone with an alt, votes can change by community or the time of day. An opinion that gets lauded in one community might be downvoted to hell in another. Better to not have a flagging system, let people have their own opinions without labelling “bad” users.