Well I don’t know what happened exactly with that particular user but I can give some basic info on the instance. Beehaw was initially one of the major, most popular Lemmy instances (not sure if it still is or not), but in their attempt to create an ultra safe space, they decided to suddenly and without warning defederate from some of the most major instances (lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works). They seem to want to cultivate an environment akin to Tildes…they want a small userbase that is locked down to their own beliefs.

There is nothing inherently wrong with their philosophy on how their instance should be run…but for me what left a bad taste in my mouth was the suddenness of their actions. If they were a walled garden and semi-closed off from the very beginning (a la Tildes), it would have been totally fine in my eyes imo. But to suddenly ban large swaths of users from participating without warning when they were one of the largest instances just left a very bad taste in my mouth and I don’t agree with the way they did things. Communiites like chat@beehaw.org were among the most popular communities on Lemmy, for example, and I enjoyed participating there. But then to suddenly be banned without warning because I am on a growing instance really just made me a bit frustrated with the way they were handling things.

But as I said in my earlier comments…to use that particular slur with them is completely unwarranted imo. But I do understand people’s frustration with them. I’m frustrated too. But life will move on and different communities pop up and fill the void.