Hard agree. The Fediverse would be much healthier if more instances defederated Hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml. They constantly spread propaganda for violent dictators.
I find Lemmy.ml users tolerable, mostly. At least, not significantly worse than other instances. It's the admins and mods that concern me. It's why I avoid .ml communities like the plague.
As much as I don't want that to be true, you're not wrong. I've been banned in .world for reporting an obvious troll. I've had comments removed for asking what the weather is like over there. I was told I was calling them a russian troll and that's against the rules. BUT, then I get called a troll in the same instance by someone from .ml and no removal of the comment, no ban. Free to say as they please. Lemmy has a serious mod problem.
Part of it is a campaign of victimization by .ml types. They take every opportunity to throw tantrums and insist the mods are biased against them, so the mods then have to treat them with kid gloves to appear 'impartial'.
It's the same trick Republicans and other fascists in the US use.
It's crap though. They spread misinformation and lies and nobody does anything about it. IF you call them out on their bullshit, they ban you and remove your comment. I blocked the three biggest offenders but then they have people going to .world and talking the same shit. It's disappointing. It doesn't look like the mods are impartial, it looks like they are on the side of .ml. (the obvious trolls)
I know it's not all mods, some are great, but there are some bad actors out there that are making the good parts of lemmy look bad.
Because there is a nonzero chance that Russia is funding Lemmy development and lemmy.ml as a propagandist training ground.
Yes, I know that sounds insane, but the official donation tally is like $2300/m for lemmy.ml and Lemmy development, which means they either have some other funding or Dessalines is just choosing to be the poorest software engineer on the planet because he is just that cool.
That would not surprise me if true. I'm also noticing an oddly large amount of people I've blocked commenting in this thread.
I can't read their comments without going to a different app, but I usually only block people spamming bullshit or when they throw a lot of slurs at me.
which means they either have some other funding or Dessalines is just choosing to be the poorest software engineer on the planet because he is just that cool.
Could just be a day job, or has he claimed to be working on Lemmy full time?
Then host your own instance or join a different one. You're free to do that. Defederating from instances that consistently produce trolls, authoritarian apologists, and mods who pick and choose who is bound by their rules based on their ideology is well within the rights of the instance owner.
Blocking an instance in the user settings just hides communities from that instance in the community search. Defederating hides all communities, posts, comments and user from that instance. It's not implemented the same way, probably on purpose, because the Lemmy devs (who btw are the admins of Lemmy.ml and Lemmygrad.ml) know that half the Fediverse would just block them.
I have the "boost for lemmy" app, it has wildcard filters. I used to to get rid of feddit, after about 20 of their users spammed me with slurs for not speaking german on an australian instance