This seems like a rather new situation. The Github links below seem to mention that other instances were also suffering problems.
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1895
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/pull/1897
It appears like a fix was only made available about an hour ago.
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1895#issuecomment-1629219976
Confusion about federation is not helped by federation not working recently due to a few notable Lemmy bugs (which are now fixed). Hopefully anyone new coming over doesn't encounter any new major bugs.