I joined this one because I just followed the obvious ways to sign up after looking up what Lemmy was about. I didn’t know about instances until I tried to sign in and had to find mine.

Is there a way to mess up making an alt by joining an unfit instance? From what I’ve read, it doesn’t really matter outside of an instance going down and your profile going with it.

Any help is appreciated.

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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    2 hours ago

    the tankies, like another user mentioned, are very hyper-political authotarian with a “left wing narrative”, if you imagine conservatives, this would be the exact opposite(with the exact same authotarian nature).

  • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus
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    2 hours ago

    Don’t worry too much about the instances, for the most part they are not that important. There are a few outliers tho:

    • lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net are politically in the Authoriarian Left extreme. Unless you either are politically close to them or like getting dunked on by people who think China and Russia are Heaven on Earth, don’t go there. Sadly the main devs for lemmy are situated on lemmy.ml.
    • beehaw has a curated experience by blocking any instances which do not verify registrations (including the largest one at lemmy.world) and a different discussion culture than most. It’s a very chill place tho.
    • and then you can also join instances that use PyLova (a fork of PieFed caused by … not cool actions by PieFeds dev, especially ironic since PieFed already exists partially because of lemmys roots on lemmy.ml), e.g. quokk.au. These give you a different interface and features, while giving you the same access to content.

    There are also a bunch of outlaw instances, either far-right or tolerating CSAM. These you can only stumble upon if you actively search for them - they are defederated in a pretty coordinated effort, simply because due to the way lemmy works, their content would be replicated, creating a legal nightmare, and of course no respectable admin wants to touch that stuff.

  • TheFogan@programming.dev
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    6 hours ago

    Pretty much it’s like an e-mail service overall. obviously for the “MOST” part you can join any instance and it will let you view content on almost any other instance.

    Like say beehaw I believe defederates from instances that don’t have verification steps at the start.

    instances like, lemmygrad, hexbear etc… are considered tankie, so a handful of places defederate them. and I believe a few like that tend to lean right and get defederated by most.

    Edit: fixed misassumption on what hexbear was,

    • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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      6 hours ago

      “considered” lol

      Nobody would be surprised if it leaked tomorrow that they’re literally operated out of the Kremlin or military city Beijing.

        • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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          4 hours ago

          Yup, Red Fascists who support Russian invasion of Ukraine and think China owns Taiwan and definitely aren’t committing multiple genocides within their territories. The pretend to care about worker solidarity and international peace while they promote Donald Trump and oppose NATO. They pretend to care about civil rights but they oppose liberalism and they think Trans people are a western psyop.

          Here is a megathread detailing their behavior, hosted on lemmy.world but posted to the community [email protected]

          https://lemmy.world/post/29072279

          • Michael Douglass@thelemmy.clubOP
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            3 hours ago

            I think I should probably just keep the alt in this general instance. I’m not looking for political talk or niche interest spaces. I just want to find a consistent and dependable place for mainstream topics.

      • TheFogan@programming.dev
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        6 hours ago

        ah got it, kind of never really dug that much in, just see it mentioned as extremist, so admitted getting some flipped going off of vague info

        • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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          6 hours ago

          just see it mentioned as extremist

          from my understanding the community formed after /r/chapotraphouse was banned for people john brown posting a little too hard.

      • TheFogan@programming.dev
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        6 hours ago

        The super simplified version of it is.

        some instances block other instances. Either due to political differences or because too many spammers are in one etc… Bottom line, if it’s not linked or blocked, you won’t be able to see posts to them, and people on those instances won’t see posts you make from your own, (creates kind of a shadow ban, where you think you are posting, but no one over there can see it).

        you can see if you go to

        https://thelemmy.club/instances

        you can see a list of instances they’ve linked with, and blocked.

        compare that to say beehaw

        https://beehaw.org/instances

        You’ll see there’s a big difference in what they do and don’t federate with. Which could be good or bad depending on how you look at it.

        If you have a community or 2 that you really care about, it’s worth checking to make sure their instance you want to post to and read the posts of, is friendly with the one you don’t

        • Michael Douglass@thelemmy.clubOP
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          6 hours ago

          I want to make an alt for music, video games, general television, and anime. Do I just search those terms and check their sidebars?

          • TheFogan@programming.dev
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            6 hours ago

            90% of instances should be fine, but, if in doubt while you are using this one, do a search for communities for the topics you care about, and either join the community that has the most of what you want, or check their linked/banned list to know which ones not to join.

  • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Id say what are your preferences… If you want mainstream for main stuff, Lemmy.world. if you want piracy or anarchy, lemmy.dbzer0.com is great. If you are from Canada Lemmy.ca is good. What’s bad? Opinionated. .ml is large but has backlash, .hexbear sees a lot of backlash, but not knowing you… It’s open game

      • misery mansion@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Just join any instance and then subscribe to communities that relate to those interests. You don’t have to browse All or even Local.

        You can do this with the account you’re posting with right now it you want.