As a result, our instance https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/ got 625 new user registrations (of which 536 where accepted) in the past 24 hours! And the registrations are not abating even now. We still get like 10 new ones per hour!
I suspect this is probably the largest advertisement, for lemmy specifically, since the main reddit blackouts 1.5 years ago.
Have your own instances also seen an influx of new users?
Account Settings (not Profile), Import/Export Settings, Export to file then repeat with Import on new instance. It transfers subscribed communities and block lists, so if none yet then no need to bother. Edit: there is currently no way to transfer over your actual content (posts, comments, likes & dislikes) and DMs sent to your old account will not follow you over to the new. The only thing you can really do then is transfer your settings to help you start over more quickly in the new place.
For piracy, lemmy.dbzer0.com might be the best, for leftist politics definitely slrpnk.net, for science mander.xyz, and so many other themes but there’s a ton of hidden factors there like uptime stats, stability via number of admins, etc.
For simplicity’s sake: a USA general instance I highly recommend is Discuss.Online, or for European sopuli.xyz.