That seems very contradictory to me if it’s true, but I’m still trying to make sense of it, so maybe there’s something I’m missing.

Basically they are trying to keep the propaganda machine going, it won't make sense.

Yes, absolutely. They can do whatever they want on their server, including censoring opposing political viewpoints. I can say I think that’s a bad thing to do, because to me, using control of a platform to censor your opponents’ political viewpoints is in fact very bad. I mean if they actually do support Russia and the CCP, then I guess it’s not surprising if they’re okay with censoring opposing views, but to me, it’s wrong. They can do it – people can do a lot of things – but it doesn’t mean that every thing a person can choose to do is right.

Just to be an ass: there is no absolute right or wrong, to them we are in the wrong and should submit to their ideas, to us they are wrong for trying to censor and limit discussion.

This isn’t that though. The phrase is “prior restraint.” If I go out and accuse someone of something, and it’s not true and they sue me for libel and prove me wrong and I’m punished for it, that’s consequences. If someone’s not allowing the accusation to exist in the first place, that’s not free speech with consequences, that’s someone controlling and approving beforehand what I’m allowed and not allowed to say

Oh right, then it was a phrasing problem as we agree on that.

if you did that with that amount of power, what are you going to do if you wind up later on with more power?

I mean... just look around and there are many examples and multipying.
At least for this context, it's not so big because the users can ditch that instance and register at a different one, if they actually get extreme they'll just get defederated or if they defederate too many instances they will isolate themselves and the server software can be forked, so there's at least some safes in place.

Have you considered asking them, at lemmygrad, and get first hand answers instead of "please someone explain how those other people ou there think"? There's room for multiple layers of misunderstanding there.

Luckly lemmy.world federates with them, maybe someone with more knowledge and confidence in history than me will pop up. But feel free to ask questions there. We are friendly.