Can someone ELI5 what Beehaw is? Their post says that the lemmy instance is just part of a large project, but the beehaw website is the lemmy instance. So what is this project? What makes them special? Google also just shows me their lemmy instance and their subreddit.
Beehaw is trying to be a "safe place" social network. They want to be a social network, welcoming to people, but also protect their community. They want people to be nice, and won't tolerate people being intolerant (racism, homophonic, sexist, transphobic, or bigoted).
I'd argue that In a lot of these things their can be some nuance in all those terms but in Beehaw expect a more absolutionist interpretation of those terms.
I understand what they're trying to do. But to give you an idea of what the result is (in my opinion) - when I mentioned free speech there I was lectured that the term is a right wing dog whistle term. I would describe them as a intolerantly tolerant place - either you ascribe to their absolutionist views or you don't. That is just my experience though.
Beehaws influence has been disproportionate as they were one of the bigger communities during the recent Reddit influxes. They don't want to be the biggest, they want to protect and nurture their own community. I get it but I think it was inevitable that would not work with federating.
That's because it's required to not tolerate intolerance in order to be tolerant.
Free speech is a right wing dog whistle at this point as it's used to justify being able to say whatever people want to say no matter the impact on others. What people who invoke free speech need to realose is that it's protected in public spaces, not in private spaces and it's a purely American thing, even in Canada the freedom of expression doesn't allow people to propagate hate. I don't know where Beehaw is hosted but if it's not in the USA it's even more ridiculous to talk about free speech on it.
That those kinds of situations are exactly why free speech exists: People want to articulate thoughts in front of an audience that is opposed to them. What they are saying may be bad (depending on your PoV), but the fact that they can invoke free speech to say it is important (excl. harmful stuff like hate speech ofc).
Claiming to support free speech when nothing controversial is being said is just cheap talk.