Remember when Bernie Sanders got dismissed as a crackpot Trumpian conspiracy theorist for suggesting that a multi-billionaire owning WaPo influences its coverage? Much like how most of a glacier is underwater, most of the influence is more subtle than this and has been happening behind the scenes for ages; I’m just impressed with how brazen it’s getting.
Even though small internet forums are politically insignificant in the grand scheme of things, certain behaviors/topics can still be annoying for the people who frequent them. Beehaw as an instance is interested in curating a pleasant experience for their users and are simply following through on that by introducing a temporary break from a topic that’s prone to ragebait until people have had time to calm down.