I’ll disagree on Mastodon being unique given it’s an animal and a band - for a long time in its history it was always under those. It’s been helped on the search results front though given it’s increasing popularity (and I’m guessing yet another new surge due Twitter’s rate-limiting). In time once Lemmy continues to grow, I’m sure it’ll get pushed up in search rankings as well.

The absolute hypocrisy of sh.itjust.works banning lemmygrad, a communist instance dedicated to the working people of the world and the antithesis of fascism, yet allowing the potential for fascists to find a community on their server.

People who complain about “censorship” and “authoritarianism” while espouting the benefits of “freedom of speech” are exactly the type of people you don’t want around.

If there’s been discussion on lemmy.ml about this topic, I haven’t gotten around to seeing it. But from what I’ve noticed from witnessing this type of discussion all over the web is that these calls always come from either the most reactionary users or enablers i.e. those that would rather sit on the sidelines and either let it happen or put up a weak front because they have a right to “free speech.”

Unfortunately, this libertation-esque ethos runs deep in so many online spaces, where they’d rather have vague notions of freedom that obviously benefit them at the expense of others. Spaces like lemmy are not for them, and while there’s nothing lemmy can do about it, going against the grain and purging that type of vitriol is the best way to keep it from turning into the shitholes ranging from Reddit’s “enlightened centrism” to outright fascist spaces like *chans or gab.