This instance gives a clue maybe?
https://fedidb.org/network/instance/lemmy.wiuf.net
It looks like it's only a day old and it has 11k users. There isn't any content on it either. There are a few instances like that, you can see them here: https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy. They all have low MAU, 10k or so users, and low Status Count.
Quite a few are showing about 10k new users in the past day or so. Probably they're small instances without bot protection or instances made to support bots.