Which is exactly what worries me. I don’t want other people deciding who I can read and who I can’t. I don’t want other people deciding what voices should be heard.

This just seems like the creation of another echo chamber.

Well, turn the automagic updating of the banlists off then. It's configurable, but it's not the default because most people are not interested in seeing the posts of (as an example) people who upload kiddie porn, nor do they want that on their hard drive in the off chance the FBI comes by with questions.

So the possibility of highly illegal content justifies a block list which perhaps includes mainly blocking unwanted political opinions? That argument sounds familiar.

I think the point is that the blocklist is optional. If you don't like it, don't use it. Or make your own that is more directly tuned to your tastes.

It's the default, and I guess people mostly won't notice if it blocks too much. So the effect would be pretty similar.

>I have also noticed that in some cases....user blocks are being replicated to an instance I run. I have this huge and ever growing list of banned users on my single user instance in lemmy. ANd I have no idea who is banning and why...I doesnt seem to affect me...but its odd

IIUC (and I may not) there are blocklists that are shared between fediverse instances that, depending on the configuration, are automagically updated/applied on a regular basis.

Perhaps that's what's going on with your instance?

Edit: Modified comment to address GP's specific issue.