Lemmy has recreated forums with additional steps is how I put it. Nothing to do with the tech but fragmentation. My front page is just 10 or so different posts reposted in some form or another 5 servers each with their own version of the sub.

Most of the calls I’ve seen to defederate haven’t been because of an instance’s content, but rather because of an instance’s users being the problem.

E.g. hexbear getting the boot during the period where some of its users thought it was hilarious to brigade other instances and spam giant emojis of a well endowed pig shitting on itself.