You can see more content on .ml, because .ml is federated with Hexbear, Lemmygrad, and the other instances like shit just works, lemmy.world, and so forth.
If you want to see a lot of content, it's a good instance for that.
If you want to post what you want to post, it is not a good instance for that, though. They'll straight up delete your comments for expressing certain views, and there's a bot that will edit your comments to remove certain curse words from them.
I have never had a problem, personally. If free speech is an absolute concern, then db0 is probably a better spot, or maybe Lemm.ee.
The swearing has never really been something I care about.
As for Lemmy.ml itself, I enjoy scrolling by local and I like that scrolling by all shows me far more content than if I had a Lemmy.world account or similar.
I received a ban for my comment on this thread, down at the bottom. That's not like way out at the margins of acceptable speech; it's literally just what I think and the reasons for it.
They're not shy about it: Saying Joe Biden did something bad is allowed, saying he did something good will earn you a ban. It's a one viewpoint instance. If you don't have any opinions that conflict with that viewpoint, then I guess that's fine, but to me I don't see the point.
The double standards are blatantly obvious, criticizing the CCP in basically any way is "xenophobia" but criticizing the US government is almost a participation requirement
Db0 is the tits, no complaints from me whatsoever. I was indeed mad about the censor but it wasn't the sole reason for my move from my old .ml acct during the reddit exodus, db0 started existing and was simply a better fit for me.
I can attest to this as well, db0 is a good alternative. And I got a little upset the first time I commented a swear, the redaction actually made it funnier though. Not really something to be bothered by tbh.
The volume of posts when sorting by all from .ml is much more varied and there's a lot more of it.
Is ml on many defed lists? I dont think it is, lemmygrad.ml is heavily defeded. I switched to lemmy ml a while back because of world having issues and find it okay, the porn is off my feed, but basically everything else (including hex and grad, unfortunately) is in, could be that im missing something, but none of the big instances afaik.