Yes, there were signs all along the way. Even back in April 2020, they banned users (jasonkhanlar and some others) for doxxing when they posted the name on Bardfinn's reddit profile. Over the next year, they banned multiple users for unclear rules. They had a lack of communication with the userbase and preferred to post on the Discord. I guess it was clear they cared a lot less about free speech than they claimed to.

The silver lining to me is seeing people move to https://votal.net/ because it's decentralized and the best path forward for all of this "contentious" speech.

I agree. I'm not too familiar with how Lemmy works, but it looks like Votal isn't linked to any other instances yet. Maybe it will in the future.

I've also seen users moving to discussions.app.