At least for me its very difficult to make the line between preventing hate speech and allowing the freedom. I’m thinking to launch a lemmy instance, but the targeted audience is very sensitive to religion topics, and i’m sure if i allow it, this could lead to hate speech at some point and may fuel violence. Also, from my prospective, i just want my audience find new good things far from porn, porn sites are a lot, and i don`t want to mix it with other topics that can very constructive.
So please tell me your opinion, if banning these 2 topics can effect the freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech has limits.
You want to protect others from possible hate, dis- and misinformation as well as deescalate in the first place. I do not see that it violates freedom of speech of freedom of religion. People can freely go to other instances if they seek advise regarding those topics or research themselves on the internet.
As owner you can be held liable for actions of your users and if they deliberately spread nonsense and stuff that hurts other people feelings, while disallowing such hot topics you just want to prevent this in the first place.
Censoring would be of for example the ISP directly blocks every access to research and opinions in the first place, which gives people absolute no indicators or possibility to get aware of it. This is not the case here, because you are just another Instance provider and write clearly before someone register on your instance, in public, your rules and code of conduct down. Everyone can see it.
You also do not ban topics, you just decided for your instance that the topics are not your specialty or that you want to avoid possible conflicts because people can get emotional pretty fast.
I find that better than an Instance that is out of control, quickly bad moderated due to e.g. lack of moderators who want to handle such things and even possible infiltrated by people who seek to confuse others or start hate.