Yet.
Lemmy is left-leaning because the vast majority of its users are Reddit refugees, and Reddit is left-leaning. There is no other reason.
As someone around before the Reddit diaspora, I disagree. It was very left leaning before with a significant population of communists and socialists. The Fediverse dovetails perfectly with the communist dream: not doing things for profit, but instead for the common good.
Since the Reddit influx, I’d say it’s actually less left leaning. Questions to the effect of “why so many goddamn commies” were not common.
I’m a reddit refugee, but the increase in the ‘why so many goddamn commies’ has been noticeable in my short tenure here. Also the astonishment that standard neolib ideological utterances are met with considerable pushback is a feature.
Do note that I said “vast majority.” Would anyone argue that most of Lemmy’s user base doesn’t consist of ex-Redditors? Weren’t there about 1200 people on Lemmy as recently as a few months ago? Lemmy is basically now an open-source subreddit for memes and anti-Reddit brigading, with occasional tech news links from Beehaw. It probably wasn’t that before, but that was before.
As for the roots of the platform being communists and socialists, who are more to the left than ex-Redditors, I can’t argue that. Reddit is mostly young American liberal democrats, and that’s not communism. So I’ll take it back.
Really though, I’m unsure why I’m even posting. Maybe it’s because the OP’s premise seems so ridiculous and reminds me of the kinds of posts I see on Reddit? With posts like this, generally from the young and uninformed, I sometimes get triggered into commenting.
