People talk about free speech like it's some goal, but in reality all people seem to do with it is make fun of fat people and post stolen naked pictures of celebrities.
When confronted with the fact that this isn't acceptable behavior, even if you specifically don't ban them, they will threaten you with death and ddos your site.
"Voat has been under constant DDoS [distributed denial of service] attacks almost since Day One. At one point, our servers were shut down by our ISP without notice. We even received death threats."
Instead of lowering the bar and getting surprised when people fling shit, Imzy is trying the opposite.
Will it work, no idea, but free speech as much talk as it gets doesn't work out as well as some people like to pretend it does.