Voat was absolutely and unabashedly for free speech until the bitter end. I intentionally tried to get my account banned for a few years, when I first started, by consistently posting the most belligerent and extreme opinions I could muster. Nothing ever happened. I made a few enemies, at first, but by the end everyone more or less came around and it was pretty chill. This led to A LOT of genuine discussion and research. That doesn't really happen here, anymore, because we all have to walk on egg shells.

If I called people "niggerfaggot" (that's what voat ogs called each other, as a form of comradery/endearment) around these parts, you will quickly piss off the wrong jannie and have your account nuked. That just didn't happen on voat. Not until it went sideways. The point was that the substance of everyone's comments were what mattered, not whether it was delivered politely enough. I remember 4chan tried to raid us, once, and we didn't even notice until after the fact, because they just blended right in lol