.ml very often features criticism about Russia and/or China without being removed. Case in point the Tienanmen square posts yesterday and today.
Ah yes... So much criticism there... Totally allowing outside viewpoints! No overzealous modding happening here! the entire comments of the linked thread is all pro-china going, with many outright claiming that tiananmen square didn't happen or were a creation of western media.

The other thread named the same thing (cross-post) completely deleted. Notice that "delete" or "removed" isn't in the modlog. Exactly as OP has stated that admins are doing on some instances.
This is the primary reason I have my own instance. Power tripping mods and admins cannot remove content from my server. I can view all the comments I like WITHOUT the interference of those people. Make my own choices rather than having them made for me.
Now those newer perspectives aren’t per-se correct. Many times you will find Tankies. Had one guy try to deny the Uyghur concentration camps. But I didn’t get banned for disagreeing with him because my replies didn’t consist of “lmao ur a tankie”.
And yet, I've been banned from lemmy.ml for saying, verbatim
"Because being critical of a Russian company = racism. At least according to lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml users." in response to someone else asking why "how is not liking Kaspersky, in and of itself, racist or xenophobic?". So much "Xenophobia" packed into my answer right? Considering that ban was handed out by dessalines himself. I'm going to have to agree with your "Many times you will find Tankies" statement, and that's because nearly the whole of lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml are all tankies.