They didn’t spring up from nothing, it’s a r/CTH (sub responsible for a lot of trolling and brigading) successor instance. We don’t have to pretend to not know who they were on Reddit, especially when statements from their admin still support “war on liberalism in the Fediverse” and won’t punish users banned from other instances “for being an asshat”. It walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and literally came from a duck. We can put two and two together.