Just to echo stuff already said here.

I checked out Lemmy a few months after the big reddit refugee wave. Saw some posts about defederation drama. Decided to take a look at the list of banned instances (Love that feature!). Opened a few and immediately knew most weren’t for me, but I’ve never shied away from digging around forums full of awful people or psychos. The “We are not who you think we are!” in the pinned thread caught my eye. Read the post and was pleasantly surprised at everything I saw. Decided to stick around for a bit, been enjoying it so far!