I did some analysis of the modlog and found this:
Ok, bigger instances ban more often. Not surprising, because they have more communities and more users and more trouble. But hang on, dbzer0 isn't a very big instance. What happens if we do a ratio of bans vs number of users?
Ok, so lemmy.ml, dbzer0 and pawb are issue an outsized amount of bans for the number of users they have... But surely the number of communities the instance hosts is going to mean they have to ban more? Bans are used to moderate communities, not just to shield their user-base from the outside. Let's look at the number of bans per community hosted:
Seems like dbzer0 really loves to ban. Even more than the marxists and the furries! What is it about dbzer0 that makes them such prolific banners?
Raw-ish numbers and calculations are in this spreadsheet if anyone wants to make their own charts.
Well it makes complete sense. ML, dbzero and the furries are instances that committed to upholding their code of conducts which moderates and bans people for antisocial behaviors like transphobia and racism for example, while instances like world and sjw are known to rarely if ever ban or moderate people for things like that to the point instances like beehaw had to defederate from them so they wouldnt get swarn by their unmoderated users
On world big communities you can get your comment removed for the word stupid but are allowing someone to say most palestinians was not forced to leave during the nekba or claim that israel never target civilians despite all the proofs saying otherwise
Their umbrella for antisocial behaviors is pretty extreme though. For instance the defederation you're talking about, I believe it was because the sjw admin wouldn't ban a user who said "trans women should be allowed in all sports, but the Olympics is a different case because small advantages matter much more there." You can think that's right or wrong, but I don't see any universe where this is transphobic.