Bots will sometimes recycle old comments, so even if they’re normal sounding they might not be authentic. And with LLMs now you might not be able to tell the difference. Could be Reddit being bullshit or could be them correctly identifying inauthentic behavior with some behind the scenes searching and metrics.

I’m in the US and was specifically drawn toward European instance because my (admittedly very lightly informed) understanding is Europe just has better laws on internet freedoms. IIRC a US-based Mastodon instance (Mastodon maybe?) was seized by cops at one point for pretty questionable reasons. Our legal system gives far too much power to police and corporations to enact spurious searches and punishment.