I avoid it because I don’t like authoritarians and genocide denial. But you do you.

I personally refuse to participate in an instance that will ban me from FOSS communities because I mentioned Tiannmen square on their news community.

Their modding practices kinda kill flow of ideas as the people who dislike CCP also like privacy lol

Yes.

I won’t subscribe, post, or comment in ml.

.ml is unavoidable for some niche tech communities unless you make your own with blackjack and hookers, but for example, Linux has [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. Privacy has [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

Having checked the mod logs I avoid anything from there. They regularly show up a deleting insightful comments - I thus wish to ‘punish’ the instance by ignoring is. I hope that makes it less valuable to everyone who uses it.

alone I’m almost nothing of course but others are like me and together .ml is the worse.

The mods of .ml are pro China/Russia authoritarianists, and will ban you for posting comments that disagree with them. I’ve received a ban for discussing my experiences teaching Taiwanese and Chinese students, because I described the way the Chinese students reacted in the face of evidence that Taiwan is a self-governing sovereign state as “brainwashed.”

I was banned under rule 1, which is listed as being polite and civil. Trust me when I say I have said far more less polite and civil things directly to mods, so it’s concerning that politely expressing real lived experiences that contradicts their opinions on Chinese authoritarianism is what counts as being rude and uncivil around those parts.

I haven’t blocked them. Many of those communities include the founders/creators of Lemmy, so to block the community feels disjointed from the app, to me. But I think twice about wasting my time on individual conversations in or from people in .ml.

If you don’t want to see communist content or participate in discussions about communism, I’d suggest blocking it. It can get quite annoying.

Other reasons to avoid, besides those already mentioned here, include that you will not be allowed to say things offhand about countries such as Russia or China or North Korea with your same account even in communities located on other instances. You either comply FULLY, even when elsewhere, or else you are banned from the entire instance. You can read more about such practices in communities like [email protected].

Also a lot of other “not extremists” have blocked that instance altogether, so besides having access to your community able to be yanked out from under you at any time (far more than usual I mean), you also will miss out on interactions with those other people. You will be willfully choosing to remain inside of that echo chamber, which is such to a significantly higher degree than the vast majority of Lemmy overall, and legitimately much higher than even Reddit (no joke, again, read for yourself the stories in that and other communities). Whereas if you choose a community not on Lemmy.ml, then you can still interact with people from that instance, just elsewhere.

Also, you could be told that the mod hopes to kill you someday. Sadly, I’m not joking there either (some selected quotes: "nono I don’t want to shoot for pointing that it’s a game, I want to shoot you because…”, and then later tripling down still further, e.g. stating “I hope you die soon.”).

See e.g. https://lemmy.world/post/22359447.

Depends on how you feel about communists

As far as far left instances go, ml is actually pretty unspicy, despite the bee in their bonnet people got.

So like, if you can’t stand hanging out with em pinko commies, avoid it. If you’re fine with that, don’t.

If you are asking, you probably know the answer for yourself.

I would recommend completely ignoring what Instance people/communities are hosted on

Personally, I don’t think so. Like you point out if the Marxist Leninist instance has content you enjoy then why would you avoid it? - perhaps just don’t get into overtly political discussions / arguments.

You don’t have to be trans to visit or use a trans instance, non-anarchists can be on the anarchist instances, but do remember where you are and, most importantly, that you’re a guest/visitor and try to act accordingly. The same advice goes for .world

I’ve had no problems wherever I’ve gone - so far.

I find that mods on .ml are less likely to ban you for common sentiments in America. .world is just Reddit 2

Idk ive personally been censored more on world than ml but ive also faced my fair share of censorship on ml as well

A variation of this post pops up with ridiculous frequency on Lemmy.world. Just go find out for yourself what people are like on those other instances, instead of asking for 3rd party opinions here.