Filters out conservatives pretty well and stops bots because it requires the user to read.

The .ml admins (and devs of Lemmy the software) are from that crowd, basically. If you don't like it, try another instance.

Edit: .ml is for Marxist-Leninist, even. There's no connection to Mali.

Welcome. Admins and mods of every instance, not just ml are very trigger happy to enforce their opinion. Going as far as fully disabling users accounts. Not by using an automatic word filter though.

Each instance has different political opinions you need to agree with. This one likes communism. Upside is no email verification required, so it is very private.

Lemmy is much more wild west than moden Reddit. Similar to old Reddit. Enjoy the ride.

That depends on the instance you are in.

Main Lemmy devs are communist and aren't shy to enforce their views, which gets reflected in their instance, lemmy.ml, which is considered to be fairly tankie.

However, as Lemmy is federated, you can join any other instance and view whatever interests you without having to recite political literature to sign up.

In fact, the most popular instance is actually lemmy.world, which is not politically affiliated; although it defederated from certain instances, which might make you feel limited. I found lemmy.today as a way to be connected with anything and everything, from Hexbear to Beehaw, to, well, Lemmy.world

This wasn't around when I joined. I suppose this serves two purposes:

• Stop conservatives from joining the instance.

• An additional filter to make it a bit harder for bots to make accounts.

I think that's killing two birds with one stone.

If you have an email address, you're already used to the federated service pattern. When you sign up for a gmail, you're making an account with Google to be able to send emails to anyone else with an email address. And there's nothing stopping Google from making you fill out a "sketchy" application to get an account.

On Lemmy, each instance has its own set of rules, and if you don't like them, you just make an account on a different instance.

As far as censorship, each "community" (analog to subreddit) lives on a certain instance and the rules of that instance apply.

Edit: also on the topic of communism, however you feel about communism in the physical world is irrelevant when it comes to the digital world. Free and Open Source Software makes the world go 'round, and is often communist in nature, even if done unintentionally. The pattern of people developing software for their own purposes, and then sharing it freely with others is the purest form of "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." That said, running an instance isn't free, so make sure to kick your instance a few bucks if you appreciate their work.

it's not sketchy, it's basically a captcha to keep down automated bot sign ups, and they link to that document in particular, i assume, because the devs are marxists and figure folks who are vehemently anti-communist would refuse and thus keep down their moderation load.

Ikr? I'm honestly tempted to go back to reddit, but the privacy concerns ick me out

.ml is treated as a bit of a bogeyman around here - most of my interactions with their instance and users has been good. I realise this could be different for others. But, yes, they are Marxist-Leninist so, obviously, their opinions and content will be closely aligned with their political philosophy. In my personal opinion and experience .world seems to have vacuumed-up a tremendous amount of people from the other site you mentioned (Robbit?). Their netiquette seems to have not changed. Also, myself and some others have noticed that on .world it’s not unusual to see comments that express views from outside what the majority believe get deleted. Fortunately the “mod logs” are public record so you can see why comments were deleted, whom by and what the original post/comment was. (I guess with the exception of illegal content that has to be scrubbed) I hope you enjoy your time here. Welcome.