Should I avoid communities on lemmy.ml?

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.

Yes.

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

In circumstances where similar communities exist on multiple instances, I would subscribe to all of them at first—but pay attention to differences in moderation and community norms, and unsubscribe from communities you’re less comfortable with. I wouldn’t judge a community on the basis of its instance without trying it first, unless the instance admins have unusual rules they’re imposing on all their communities.

.ml is unavoidable for some niche tech communities unless you make your own with blackjack and hookers, but for example, Linux has !linux@lemmy.world, !linux@programming.dev, !linux@sh.itjust.works, and !linux@sopuli.xyz. Privacy has !privacyguides@lemmy.one, !privacy@lemmy.world, !privacy@lemmy.ca, and !privacy@programming.dev.

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.

.ml is fine for anything other than politics, as they will ban over the slightest hint of criticism of China and other communist authoritarian countries. Especially calling anyone a tankie.

But the trchnical and other non-political communities are pretty similar to any other instances communities.

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

Should you?

Depends on your tolerance for Stalinists and Maoists. I don't think you have to but I have. Thanks to Dessalines and co for making Lemmy but if you're going to enact or enable shithead mod rules you're going to drive people away.

On the plus side, there really aren't any cryptofascist accounts that survive for long on .ml, and you certainly can't the say the same for .world and .ee, so there's at least some benefit to it.

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.

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.

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

Yes, blocking them is a good start.

Generally, if you lean left and partake in anything leftist, you're going to run into the far left, the authoritarian left.

.ml is good to remind you of that kind of interaction. It isn't always a bad thing, but people that engage in identity politics are very often monomaniacal. Not always! But often enough that it can get tiring. .ml runs high to individuals that practice identity politics, with the politics being authoritarian left. This means that our can be boring as fuck because people that think like that tend to never be able to stfu about it, they'll wedge it into anything.

But the whole instance isn't like that. If you avoid the political communities, and avoid politics in general, you don't scrape up against the ideologues as often. Now, lemmygrad? That place is batshit across the board lol. .ml is definitely hard left leaning, but you can talk about other things, and the users aren't all going to bring their ideology with them into every conversation. Some do, but not all of them.

My advice is to hang back and observe .ml communities before interacting on them. The more on topic a community stays, the less likely you are to run across the crazies

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 !fediverselore@lemmy.ca.

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.

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

Yes.

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.

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