In the past week and a half, I've noticed Reddit behaviors starting to try and poison all of the places that people are taking refuge in to get away from the toxicity, myself included. They've started to DDoS Lemmy for a while, which is a Reddit thing to do and what they're notorious of doing whenever they feel they don't like something.
And now they've been trickling in numbers, these incredibly toxic users that behave as they would on Reddit. The reckless shitposting, derailing open civil discussions with unfunny and irrelevant jokes. The downvote brigading and banding together to get you banned. This exact thing has happened to me on Lemmy, that I had to leave because the toxicity was gradually building.
We should reject Reddit toxicity in general, tell them they don't have a place here or anywhere. They know where they can dump their shit in, but they feel that because they've made mountains of it, that they've got to come over to other places and do it all over again.
I left Reddit because the toxicity levels have gotten unbearable. I really am yearning for a place where I can talk in and not be antagonized. I'm sure others are too.
I actually agree with OP. Maybe DDOS-wise it's very instance-specific but in terms of toxicity, it's very apparent across federated content. I mean, there are some pretty bad behaviors on lemmy.world communities already.
One option is everyone starts calling out assholes for their behavior and otherwise not engaging. It probably won't change their behavior but it'll at least annoy some enough they they'll leave.
Just called one out recently. I agree everyone should be vigilant, but I also recognize what OP is saying reflects my experience (at least the toxicity part).