Okay, thanks for the instance rule clarification.

I still have a hard time getting terribly upset from the content shown on the post. Like, if someone were to write a bot that built a list of comments calling someone a “moron”, say, then build a list of which were removed and which not and who the target was, and one found that 90% of “moron” comments about, say, Putin were removed, but only 10% of comments about people as a whole, that would be a much more convincing argument for me buying that the rule was simply being used as justification for arbitrary removal.

But in this case, I think that it’s hard to say that the comments didn’t violate that instance rule. I mean, what it’s showing is that they have an instance rule and an instance admin removed content that appears to me to violate the rule. I would not personally, were I admining an instance, write such a rule. But I think that it’s very reasonable for there to be people out there who want to have such a rule, and are not trying to use it surreptitiously to push tankie stuff. Beehaw.org has a similar rule (“be nice”), for example. This isn’t to say that dessalines or other instance admins don’t abuse the rule in the way that you mention, and if they do, I can understand objecting to that…but I don’t think that the submitted screenshots demonstrate that.

EDIT: And just to be clear, this also isn’t to argue that lemmy.ml doesn’t have objectionable admin or moderation activity. I avoid lemmy.ml communities myself.