TL;DR is that Lemmy was originally created to make a Reddit alternative where communists could talk freely after they got tired of Reddit. Both .ML and Lemmygrad were created by the founders and were the most popular instances by far until we moved here.
Despite terrible moderation and really questionable activity, the devs never called ML the official instance and encouraged that people spread out to other instances. It’s still known as the tankie instance today.
TL;DR is that Lemmy was originally created to make a Reddit alternative where communists could talk freely after they got tired of Reddit. Both .ML and Lemmygrad were created by the founders and were the most popular instances by far until we moved here.
Despite terrible moderation and really questionable activity, the devs never called ML the official instance and encouraged that people spread out to other instances. It’s still known as the tankie instance today.