I am genuinely curious: Was this at least partially in response to the bots over the weekend spamming "JOIN #LIBERIA ON LIBERIA.CHAT"? Because that probably didn't come from libera staff or even from the libera network, for that matter.
I actually can, because (1) freenode mostly had good anti spam software since a while and (2) rasengan and his staff clarified itβs about people moving.