No it’s definitely there, but you’re right that it seems variable by community.

I don’t think Lemmy has a particularly more hateful user base than any other site, or than the population in general. However, I think the demographics here mean that the handful of Lemmy users who are hateful tend to be so in the same direction. So if there are two positions for some topic, hate for one position will be more common on Lemmy than the other. This can manifest in many ways.

I suspect there are many others, but I’ll talk about the one I’ve noticed. On some of the Christian communities here on Lemmy, all the posts have been downvoted more than upvoted. Kinda makes me think there are a few people who just downvote every post they see on those communities.

I’ve seen it here as long as I’ve been here, it’s the main reason why I’m not on here much anymore. First time I noticed it was when I went looking for Christian communities here and found nearly every post was getting more downvotes than upvotes. Kinda seems like there are a few on this platform who enjoy downvoting people just for being Christians - and those people outnumber those interested in actual conversation on those communities.

So why is Lemmy like this? I dunno, I can only speculate.

Probably just down to less stuff running in the background using up CPU cycles. I can’t imagine it makes a huge difference, but more than nothing.