One of the worst changes on the internet over time was the increase and normalization of dictators at every turn. It’s all done under the guise your usual “won’t someone think of the children” level of disingenuous arguments, but it’s really all about people that shouldn’t have any power getting a tiny amount and abusing it and more broadly about the continued hyper polarization of the populace in general and pushing special interests in some cases.
Content that is perfectly legitimate is getting removed because it doesn’t fit one agenda or another and is claimed to be “bad”. The internet is no longer a place to exchange ideas but a place to pick your poison, echo chamber.
Not that complete anarchy would be the way to go, but right now it’s far too much completely authoritarian garbage everywhere.
I don’t know about this Lemmy business in general, and I’m sure there are instances and communities that are just like how I described, but I hope at least here it can be different.
The benefit of lemmy / federation at least is if one instance is heavily censored there are others to go to as alternatives, and still reach an audience
And the mod logs are public! Goes a long way for accountability.