Agreed, and I think defederation from Lemmy.ml is overdue.
They're a toxic mouthpiece for authoritarian governments pretending to be communists, especially the CCP but also the Kremlin. They're the reason I won't even admit to anyone that I use Lemmy.
I had an old account I abandoned because they followed me around and downvoted everything I posted. Most of it was funny memes I was posting to help Lemmy grow.
They're the same trashy people as Hexbear but with a nicer mask and surrounded by legitimate users who don't realize what's going on.
the political beliefs of the Lemmy developers never harmed any of the several opposition communities or servers
Hard disagree. Lemmy is full of authoritarian propaganda, and they're quite happy to abuse and harass users. The devs might be on lemmy.ml instead of Hexbear, but they're on the same team spreading their propaganda with a ML facade.
I've been told I'm "going to get the wall" (i.e. they'll execute me against a wall, a death threat) and had an old account followed around with them downvoting everything I posted until I just abandoned it.
I still use Lemmy but I won't even admit I use it unless it really cleans up a lot of the misinformation and hate, and I see certain devs as central to this problem.
I'll happily move to a new platform to avoid them.
It's not a hobby, they're paid by the CCP/Kremlin.