That was a coordinated attack that happened for a brief period. As a guy who runs his own home server, trust me when I say it was a nightmare for all involved.

That's over, now that there are strong protections in place to prevent those sorts of attacks.

Also, if you're trying to just use something between friends and family you can always turn off federation (E.g. Have matrix act just like the alternatives where you have one network and are only communicating with local accounts).

So glad I don't have to wake up every morning and purge all remote media from the prior evening 😂