Not sure if it works for this specific gDrive error but usually when I wanna download something but Drive won’t let me I add a shortcut to it in a folder in my own gDrive account alongside a dummy text file, then I right click on the folder and download the whole thing as a ZIP.
Isn’t that a problem with specific instances/federation rather than the software itself? There are some hateful right-wing Lemmy instances too but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for you as the instance you use has probably defederated from them.