Yes, blocking is absolutely common. What is uncommon is for a developer to purposefully hide a blocklist and not allow it to be changed by the admin who is spinning up the service. The issue is that it was undocumented and blocked many people who liked the interface.

I think beehaw is a great choice. When I came to blahaj, it was between here and beehaw, and I still am subbed to a bunch of beehaw communities. I am unsure about what sites beehaw is federated with and not federated with, but they strike me as level-headed and unlikely to be blocking anything that shouldn't be blocked, I would think.