Probably that. Actually if your server receives the reply for any reason, it displays it, usually. There isn't a mechanism to fetch replies, so this is a kind of accidental filtering, while ATproto is the opposite and tries to make everything globally visible.
I use my own server with only me, so it only receives replies because I'm following the person who replied or their whole-server feed.
I use my own server with only me, so it only receives replies because I'm following the person who replied or their whole-server feed.