Well, it depends on what they want. There are different platforms in the fediverse that work very differently. Mastodon and Lemmy/PieFed can interact with each other, but it's always painful. For Lemmy/PieFed I'd recommend they look for an instance that has a local feed that fits their interests. Ideally an instance that is federated with most large instances, otherwise it gets a little too boring.
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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Ask Lemmy
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!main@sh.itjust.works they are very new-user friendly, diaspora: idfk its dead, mastodon: official instance, peertube: peertube.wtf with official app to do federation stuff
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Recommend:
Avoid:
- Lemmy.ml (Tankie fascist koolaid. Unless you enjoy being gaslit and manipulated similar to Trump and his fascist thugs, this should be avoided like the bubonic plague)
- Lemmy.world (sorry guys but seriously please reconsider accepting literally everyone for users; it's crazy how much spam and nonsense is coming from your instance)
hexbear, lemmygrad as well. hexbear make themselves sound"cute" to hopefully trick people into engaging in thier instance, when in fact they are tankies.
Fyi, you might to clarify that new users should avoid hexbear and lemmygrad.
If someone only skims through the comments, yours can read as an endorsement, especially since the user you replied to had endorsements at the top of their comment
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I live in the PNW. I picked an instance in the PNW. Sometimes I see local news, and often I read comments from people within a few hour drive. It's nice to have a small, local community here, while still having access to the rest of the world together. So I guess recommend picking the largest instance in your region if you don't have any other preferences.
The one I am on is from that area, even though I'm in the upper midwest. I just picked it because they don't block anything, didn't defederate any communities or anything. Hands off, fast enough, here to stay they say.
I had no idea this was a local instance. Neat!
I'm on Lemmy.zip and someone said that I would fit into that community. Would I recommend it? Yes.
Seconding .zip! I haven't had any qualms with it since joining a few months ago
Zip is awesome! I switched over to db0, but simply because of a technical glitch on .zip like a year ago now, which was rapidly fixed by the admin.... and I was too impatient to withstand not being able to post, lol.
A+ instance imo.
What's awesome about it?
Great head admin, good variety of local communities, great users?
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I also recommend lemmy.zip or piefed.zip
As far as I understand, lemmy instances are sort of a community with communities inside. It seems that each isntance has their own like minded userbase. .world has basich mix of everyone due to popularity, .ml holds strong beliefs politically, blahaj.zone is more progressive in gender identity, piefed.social is more mainstream decentralized instance. And of course there are more I didn't mention.
I am on dbzer0 because I am into selfhosting and sailing the seas. It fits me well. Tied to one instance doesn't stop me from engaging on other instances except the ones I blacklisted.
Check the instances and their descriptions and find something that fits you.
db0 is also pro-GenAI, which seems unfortunate to me.
You can do what I do and just block the genAI art comms.
No harm, no foul, I just am not interested in the content.
While I can't say for certain, I would strongly suspect that a lot of the people in those comms are self hosting their LLMs/Image generators, if that makes you feel any better.
But uh, there are a variety of nuanced stances on LLMs and such, amongst the other m@teys I've talked with.
Its... not like we're all super duper no holds barred put AI in everything advocates.
A lot of us are... quite a lot closer to 'Butlerian Jihad NOW', lol.
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db0 and sh. are my viiiibbbbbee
db0 wants to ban feddit communities because they believe that mods not letting death threats pass there in moderation passes as zionism.
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I think the best thing is to choose one and hang around and if you like where you land then go forward but once you learn how to look them over and what makes them different then evaluate and decide on one and make a new account that becomes your main.
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https://lemmy.sdf.org/ has some pretty unique content, even from the normal fediverse. I like the users there. See !funhole@lemmy.sdf.org and !unix_surrealism@lemmy.sdf.org
When its up peertube.wtf is great for discovering peertube videos. I use it to find things to post on !peertube@lemmy.world
I like to spend my time on piefed. Its my favorite "threadiverse" software atm. I spent snd contributed code to lemmy for about a year but jumped over to piefed. Its fun and fedi interop was better at the time.
For everything else fediverse.party for fun software and instances!
I was wondering why we suddenly had so many astroturfers, shills and bots creeping in and fucking up all the conversations. It used to just be dumb but earnest tankies, now we got all kinds up in this bitch.
I don't know which ones are bots. I assume nothing is a bot. I don't know about any bots. I don't know if I've ever seen one. Are you a bot? How do I know?
You're going about it wrong, assume everyone is a bot, because it's very, very hard to tell now. You cannot tell if I'm a bot.
The best tell is honestly if someone makes a stupid argument, because there are more bots than people making stupid arguments against objective reality and basic human empathy and community and progressive politics, or making radical and dumb far-left calls for revolution, violence or demanding recognition for some obscure and controversial marginalized group to the exclusion of everyone and everything else.
If you understand what they're trying to do with bot armies and shills working to move culture, you can recognize it a lot easier.
There are also no small number of people who have read these stupid arguments and have unknowingly sided with a bot because it sounds "inclusive" or like proper progressive stances, but haven't used critical thought. I count them as bots also.
if I assumed everyone was a bot, I wouldn't be here talking. it would be a waste of my goddamn time. it would be boring
if I assume that everyone with stupid political views was a bot, then I'd just be an idiot
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Personally I’d really like to see more servers physically located in privacy and free-speech friendly places like Switzerland and Iceland (for example). I’m not sure why you’d want to have your social media hosted anywhere else.
Liked the name.
My own! I feel like I run it pretty well, I certainly trust myself with my data than others. But otherwise, id probably recommend lemmy.zip or piefed.social
I’m leaning towards running my own too.
+1 for Hexbear, check it out if .world is too liberal for you. This place really feels like reddit, but somehow even more Dem apologist
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I'd like to plug the fediverse servers that I'm hosting for the traveller / digital nomad niche over at keyboard vagabond
https://piefed.keyboardvagabond.com/
https://mastodon.keyboardvagabond.com/
Hexbear, pretty chill community that is overtly pro-LGBTQ and inclusive of all kinds of leftists.
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Go for a smaller European one, the one I’m on is in Finland. Me, I like Finland, the fins are sexy. And why only use one instance, you can have a user on several, that way ~~you can downvote your own posts and discuss with a person that is as intelligent as yourself (mainly because it actually is you!) I mean:~~ you can try out the audience and communities, which are different on all servers.