I think that was just growing pains. It's unreasonable to expect a community as small as Lemmy was beforehand to immediately moderate itself like a large community when they grow as quickly as Lemmy did. It takes time to build the systems and fill positions. The amount of hate content has been dropping consistently. I barely see any hate posts and far fewer hate comments. Excluding when I make the mistake of treading into Hexbear but that's just cause I'm stupid sometimes.