That's why I think they're astroturfers. I mean how else are you going to deter people from a political idea without being completely insufferable?

You're absolutely right. I just signed up on .ml because I was a reddit refugee and it was one of the largest instances, and it got the fastest updates. Like a year later, suddenly everyone's talking about me like I'm part of some crazy cult. I bet well over half of .ml users don't even come close to the extreme stereotype, but are considering going to another instance just so we don't get bullied any more. It's likely going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm not even a .ml user and posts like these are pushing me to switch to their instance lol.

It pushes the lemmy.ml users who are normal out while angering and reinforcing the identity of the ones who are extreme.

Sure, whatever. That's what happened on X. The normal people are leaving and the Nazis are stuck in their hate bubble with no normal people to talk to. Let's do that.

Posts like that encourage extremism. It pushes the lemmy.ml users who are normal out while angering and reinforcing the identity of the ones who are extreme.

if your community becomes more toxic when people leave it because other communities call it toxic...maybe its actually toxic.

IMO if I was running an instance it would have already defederated from ml instances.