You're presenting a false dichotomy. Of course, there will be mistakes. And of course there needs to be moderation. But I support the moderation similar to HN, it's about politeness and respect. As long as you're respectful, you can say your piece.
Also, X does provide community based fact checking too, which works best when there are representatives from all sides participating.
Having participated in the notes system, it largely became another ideological battleground and was too slow to add the, by and large, accurate notes in the end. The majority of views and reactions had already happened
One of the appealing aspects of Bluesky / ATProto is that there can be multiple fact checkers that users can subscribe to, which can have differing governance models, policies, and operations. Within the app, you can decide which ones (more than one even) at an individual level. This means we can have competition, but also echo chambers. It will be interesting to see how it works out
You are more than free to talk with Dang about any given flag you disagree with. He puts up with it much too kindly. That alone is a grace reddit never gave me.
Downvoting is a user action. There's no real gain to blame the entire community for their individual action against a single comment. Feel free to inquire if you really need to, but half the downvotes I see are pretty explicitly breaking the guidelines.
Also, X does provide community based fact checking too, which works best when there are representatives from all sides participating.