Expectations, Censorship, and The Instance

Hello! I'm relatively new to the Fediverse, and still getting to know how it all works as a long-time lurker from Reddit. I've noticed that some posts and comments have censorship, where the b-word, r-word, and others are replaced with "removed" regardless of context. I was wondering if that is a setting I missed, or determined by being on the *.ml instance, or otherwise. Additionally, I've noticed that I don't have access to the same communities as my friends on *.world, and was curious if there was a list of differences or communities that might be censored for some reason. Any tips on where to go to figure this out would be super appreciated!