To add some context, Voat soared in popularity as Reddit closed down some hate-focused subreddits such as /r/fatpeoplehate. Predictably, when your user base is made up of almost exclusively people who are fleeing Reddit because Reddit wouldn't let them hate people loudly enough, things go downhill, especially if you're positioning yourself as a "free speech absolutist" alternative with lax moderation policies.

I'm hopeful that Reddit alternatives which get popular now are getting an influx of more moderate users, who are fed up with Reddit's management's terrible treatment of developers (and overall bad direction lately with the redesign and pushing website users to use the app and generally chasing profit over all else). Sort of like how Mastodon got an influx of mostly decent users who are fed up with how Twitter is being run by an incompetent chud.

EDIT: But to be clear, what these Reddit alternatives are trying to do is still extremely difficult. They have a better starting-point than Voat, so I give them better chances to not end up as cesspools, but nothing is certain.