Please understand that plenty of us do not judge people based on instance at all. I genuinely don’t care.

there’s always going to be this stigma against .ml users due to how the .ml instance was formed and how the general userbase behaves.

the good news is that you are always free to switch instances if you find out that you dislike the instance you are currently on. while your posts, comments, and “karma” won’t transfer, you can transfer everything else such as the communities you follow, your settings, and your blocklist.

FWIW, I left .ml after about a year (and around a month ago) because there were just enough threads shit flinging and just enough posts like below, and just enough people who would dismiss any argument based on seeing .ml that it annoyed the shit out of me.

Not for how anyone at .ml ever treated me. (And FTR I’m not a communist)

So I’d say how much you worry about it is up to you, but switching instances is also pretty easy.

didn’t you know that signing up for an instance is actually evidence of thoughtcrime?

Just drop them like it’s hot, lose nothing of value. There is probably an instance local to your nation or you can use .world which is a generic nonspecific Lemmy except they defederate from Hexbear and Lemmygrad because those instances spam so much bot content trying to convince users to off their families and neighbors.

It takes nothing to create a new Lemmy account. And there are tons of instances that don’t have authoritarian admins.

You’re not expected to know.

Just sign up somewhere else.

All accounts are throw away.

Don’t worry much about your instance. .ml is fine, but Lemmygrad.ml in particular is a very strange place. Have a look if you want to read what non-religious people hostile to the United States/West think. Sometimes they make good points but they’re such fundamentalist assholes about everything.

Just remember that a lot of people on here also used to be the most annoying redditors. Their opinions are worthless.

Most of us don’t judge users but we are internally vocal about our own social challenges.

.ml is a big instances and people coming from the old web find such attractive, it feels like “the official one” we are well aware.

The have been attempts to advertise avoiding those but were not exactly a well coordinated organization.

Regardless the ideology of .ml and others big instances pose a problem in centralized power. Lemmy works best as many tiny servers organically building a network of content and ideas.

All of Lemmy is accessible as long as your instance is federated (almost all) however some may defederate from those problematic big ones, limiting the posts you can see.

You wont lose much by changing instance right now. There is no karma or rewards associated with your account. You can also make multiple on different instances with the same user name so you have a backup if your main instance goes down.

The core community is mainly holier-than-thou FOSS types, and you’re surprised that it’s insular?

You can always move to another instance. The instance I joined first is very lovely but they’re a bit heavy on defederation, so half of the comments are unavailable. It’s actually very nice, but fomo is too strong with me. When I feel depressed by humanity, I switch back to that one again and feel better, not seeing all the bullshit.

you accidentally joined a gang of fascist supporting scum.

the answer is simple, join a different instance and abandon the pieces of shit.

of course you don’t have to, but when someone calls you a “scumbag fascist supporting simp”, don’t get mad.

Same