You don't need a VPN when you use tor. In fact, it's probably less secure since it's going through a private server that might have a government black box hooked up. Also, no FBI or CIA agent is ever gonna tell you to use tor???
This guy has been spamming garbage everywhere. sh.itjust.works is a terrible instance with no moderation and this quality of post is pretty normal from users there. I don't know why they haven't been defederated en masse when other less spammy/disruptive instances that actually contribute to discussions have been.
I didn't say "defederate them"; I said that I didn't know why other instances were defederated when that instance is worse. I intentionally didn't say defederation is bad or good because that's irrelevant.
Also, different people have different views on defederation and its relation to the Fediverse. In my experience, curating away from content harmful to your users is important to creating healthy communities.
There's also a lot of racist spam from that instance. I've seen multiple images targeting Indians with toilets and excretion, especially on !memes@lemmy.ml.
Honestly, your instance has gotten worse over time in that regard too. Lemmy.ml used to be one of the better instances in that regard but the influx of Reddit users caused quality to crater and weird propaganda-ish pro-America/pro-capitalism stuff (and, not coincidentally, more racist/transphobic stuff) to start flowing from .ml. Probably not anything worthy of any block/defederation because ml still has decent content and a lot of good users but I sometimes am surprised by the stuff that comes out of there.
When using Tor over VPN, the data going through the VPN's server is already encrypted for Tor, but your IP is visible to the "black box". Your anonymity should theoretically still be in effect even if someone reads your traffic.
When using VPN over Tor, the data itself isn't encrypted by Tor anymore, but the IP isn't your original IP, but the exit node's. Your anonymity depends on how you paid for the VPN (Monero > Cash by mail > Credit card).
There is no evidence that the Tor network is compromised by the US government. It's an open source network run by many volunteers all over the world. No FBI or CIA agent is ever gonna tell you to use Tor.