[bisby]

There is a concept of a federated timeline, which does get synced to your local instance. If you follow someone on a remote instance, that instance feeds content into your instance so it can be loaded.

[StavrosK]

It syncs the people you follow, right? So presumably the only additional content on your instance is content from the people you follow, which should generally be low-risk.

[metildaa]

You can also block just media if an instance is known to host images that are illegal in your country or your users don't want to see (silencing is a better option for the latter tho).

[bisby]

I believe once you follow someone, you become federated with their instance. and you potentially receive all content from that instance... I think?

there are also admin controls for managing moderation and federation.

[JoshTriplett]

I still don't want to host anyone else's content, for much the same reason I'm never going to have an unmoderated comment system on a site.