All else held equal, I’d guess that someone on a .ml instance – which is chosen to refer to “Marxism-Leninism” --is more likely to be far left, just as someone on pawb.social is a furry, lemmy.blahaj.zone to be trans, or aussie.zone to be Australian. Does that mean that everyone on all of those instances are any of those? No, of course not.

And lemmy.ml was the second-largest instance during the outflow from Reddit, so a lot of people just grabbed it.

Personally, in choosing an instance, it probably wouldn’t be the one I’d choose. I also wouldn’t pick it because it’s gonna be where the latest release gets put into production first and you’re liable to crash into any issues – lemmy.world admins, for example, are far more conservative, did minimal patching to fix critical bugs rather than jumping right on 0.19, and their userbase avoided crashing into the broken 0.19 releases. On the other hand, if you’ve established an identity on lemmy.ml and are otherwise happy with it…shrugs

Some instances, like hexbear.net or lemmygrad.ml, are far-out-there enough that some instances might defederate with the instance, which I think is probably a bigger concern. I don’t think that that’s nearly as much a risk with lemmy.ml.

If you’re on lemmygrad or hexbear I will immediately dismiss pretty much anything you say and assume you aren’t worth interacting with. Otherwise I don’t put a lot of stock into what instance a user belongs to. Sometimes your instance can indicate that you have certain interests (technology based instances, startrek.website) or how you identify (blahaj.zone, pawb.social, etc).

I have a lot of issues with the admins of lemmy.ml, but I don’t think the users are inherently problematic. The server itself is advertised as being for privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, so I think a lot of people join without realizing the admins enforce their explicitly communist viewpoints that sometimes border on being pretty tanky.

Lemmy.ml is basically Lemmygrad trying to look more neutral, but actually is the same thing. That’s why I block all lemmy.ml communities that I come across. As for users I might not inherently judge them, but I do keep a close eye on them in regards to potential political statements being made, because of how many of them I’ve seen making bad faith arguments, or straight up spread disinformation and other bullshit.

I don’t judge users like that unless they’re from some actually nasty instance. Lemmy.ml is somewhat politically aligned like you said, but it’s still generally a “normal” option, with lots of “normal” users.

You can create more accounts elsewhere to see if your experience changes, but I think ml should be okay.

Edit: And I don’t think carefully choosing an instance is that important. You can always go elsewhere. Just read the rules and if they seem ok, go for it.

When I joined Lemmy it felt so nice. It felt like the early Internet; all the bullshit I got used to on Reddit, it wasn’t here. It was like feeling at home.

Nowadays, whenever I see toxic bullshit and sedition disguised as leftism, it’s someone from lemmy.ml; my Lemmy-experience got a lot better after blocking the lemmy.ml-instance. But I will start blocking more aggressively and I hope things get better after the US-elections.

People, myself included, aren’t fond of lemmy.ml because it pretends to be a privacy-centric instance but it’s actually run by people who defend any and every criticism of Russia and China under the guise of critiquing capitalism.

They commonly say that any bad news about China or Russia is western propaganda while everything from their state-run “news” platforms is gospel.

They’re unable to say that two things are true at once, like capitalism is a pure shit system AND China and Russia are fucked for a million reasons specific to them.

People get banned from their server for saying that China is anything but a utopian dream.

And then, yes, people unfairly assume that you must be cool with all that because you’re using their instance. If you’re not married to the idea of staying there, I’d suggest deleting your account and using a different instance.

why is everyone judging me for the people I choose to associate with?

On one side you’re expected to register to an instance that suits you; like, anime fans in ani.social, people interested in LGBT+ topics in blahaj.zone, so goes on. And there’s that common knowledge that, if you feel out-of-place in an instance, you can register to another.

On another, people know that plenty other people don’t know (or don’t care) about instances. And sometimes you get really clueless posters, specially recent redditfugees.

So yes, you’ll be judged by some people. Not by everyone. (Personally I use the user’s instance as a heuristic factor on the type of user that I’m dealing with. But on its own it’s simply too little info to conclude anything.)

Now, regarding specifically lemmy.ml: I was part of that instance for a few years, so be aware that you might run into problems later on because the admin team there is prone to enforce hidden rules. Still, I don’t expect you to be judged based on any “strong” stereotype regarding that instance, as it used to be the flagship instance, so you got plenty “random” users there.

I signed up for the first one I saw, and subscribed across instances without ever considering that people might care where you came from.

People are going to judge. I try to not to be like people.

Short answer: yes
Long answer: some of us even have entire instances blocked

lemmy.ml is not just far left, it´s full of fucking tankies. Because of that you might be considered a tankie when using an .ml account. I recommend making an account on a more neutral instance.

Fuk em.

Edit: if people are judging you based off what server you are in, unless it is an openly hostile instance, their opinions are most likely not very valid.

In your settings you can export a file containing all the communities you have subscribed to. Import that file in the settings of your new account on a new instance and then carry on :)

Yep. If I see someone from hexbear, anything they’re saying I immediately ignore. Lemmy.ml is full of assholes, but they don’t advertise it that way so a lot of decent people are on there too. You can’t really judge an individual just because they’re on lemmy.ml imo.

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