As far as I know, lemmy.ml and hexbear are the only heavily communist and censorship prone servers out of the top twelve. They were here first, but we really need to stop perpetuating the notion that they represent or dominate Lemmy as a whole, along with the idea that they represent a typical moderation experience on this platform.
I feel like the numerous well-moderated instances don’t get enough credit. The actions of lemmy.ml moderators tend to shape the narrative about Lemmy moderation, which is unfair to other servers and repels new users from the platform. Other instances aren’t perfect with moderation either, but at least they generally try to moderate in good faith and with some degree of neutrality, which is the most you can really ask for.
The primary influence that remains is lemmy.ml still hosts a disproportionate number of major communities, but that’s slowly changing.