Asklemmy

It's hard to balance it, especially with external factors. I think a particular issue is that, in my experience, most of the people seeking 'free speech' platforms are those who get banned from other places. And that also plays into the platform audience: I honestly believe you tolerate a very wide range of views on the platform, but the userbase and culture will lead some groups of people to like the community and others to dislike it. Contrast somewhere like gtio.io which (currently) doesn't have a monoculture of narrow political views, with conversations about pro-communism, racism, age-of-consent and both "left" and "right" libertarianism existing in the same place, but they are not 'free speech' site at all: they explicitly enforce civility, for example. You won't get racists or tankies other exclusionaries spamming mindless insults and slurs to dissuade people who don't want to be around that, pushing the community in one direction and leading others to find more comfortable spaces. Hatred is a price of free speech, and one that keeps most less extreme people away, and leads the most popular in-group to near-monopolize. A Muslim would probably leave Lemmygrad or Wolfballs pretty quickly, but the de-facto in-groups would feel welcome, regardless of moderation and platform censorship.

I am curious as to why you say free speech would be better without anonymity: anonymity removes reputational and (significant) social filters that lead to self-censorship or harassment. Anonymous imageboards have been infamous as free speech havens, even the ones with significant censorship. That said, they have added moderation hurdles with commercial spam, illegal content and ban evasion.