Lemmy isn't immune, I had a recent encounter that rubbed me wrong recently in a redditish way. It's quickly gone downhill here, I'm sure before too long, just like reddit I'll turn to lurk only then go away as the posts themselves become mostly intolerable.
I've been feeling like it's been getting better, not worse. But maybe I'm not engaging in the posts where my thoughts are seen as controversial anymore.
Possibly, it's a shark tank, be positive, never any nuanced opinions, keep swimming forward in the pack and you are ok. Any blood in the water and you get torn apart. Most people are genuinely nice but the amount of terrible and loud people online is frightening and/or depressing.
I can agree with that. I think the discussions in the niche communities are way better than the ones happening at the top of my All feeds so I would encourage anyone to just stick to their favorite communities, understand what is or isn't acceptable there, and just lurk in the big communities.