[jlund]

Let's say I have an account on a federated server and a censor then blocks my ability to access that server from my home country.

While it's true that my friends on other servers might be able to send messages that will arrive on my chosen server, that distinction isn't very meaningful because I am unable to connect and retrieve those messages.

I wouldn't be communicating with my friends until I switched to a new server and rebuilt my social graph.

[seba_dos1]

Rebuilding your social graph is easy - just import the roster and resend authorization requests as needed. The only inconvenience is a changed handle, so you have to point any potential new contacts to new JID.

Also, while it's not specified in XMPP (yet), it's easy to imagine a federated service that lets you connect to any server in the network that then behaves as a proxy to whatever server you have your account on.