You're confusing me a bit too tbh.

seeing this sort of thing

What sort of thing?

since the federation

I checked hexbear before the federation and found it to be mostly an awfully friendly and kinda cool place, so I was excited. But now I see so many paranoid hexbear users talking about "the federation" as if it were some kind of historical event with great significance; almost like how Palestinians talk about the Nakba. Why is that?

Showing that China is doing similar things to the US doesn’t seem like a strong argument if the thing the US is doing (in this case indefinite detention without trial in a horrible prison) is bad.

I don't really understand what you mean. Even the best liberal super-democracy (let's say Switzerland) will detain you if they suspect that you have given out state secrets to foreign countries. Literally every country will. That was kinda the point of my comment.

Secondly, I was not trying to show anything; I was just wondering what those people were missing during their (not indefinite) imprisonment. They're all free now, including the ones with data missing. And I didn't research the reasons for their imprisonment, use a search engine if you want to know more.

Is the idea that post-federation there’s users who don’t view the US as doing bad things?

You know that there have always been and that there always will be users with that view, so why even ask that question; and why ask it with "post-federation"? it honestly gives the impression you're in a cult, no offense.