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Voat Is Shutting Down

voat.co

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Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#101

Post by heavyset_go »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #50
ignoranceprior wrote: post #4

Voat was founded as a neutral free-speech platform. After alt-right extremists were booted off reddit, they found a new home there. The site was bombarded by /pol/ chan culture, and after that nobody else of other political persuasions really wanted to join. Kind of like that "paradox of intolerance" meme. Free speech platforms usually end up becoming extremist platforms. I remember going on voat a couple years ago a…

> Free speech platforms usually end up being extremist platforms. ...when the popular platforms stop being free speech platforms. Reddit, in its earlier days, was never dominated by the Voat contingent. They were there, but they were far less extreme there than they were on Voat. And then whenever they would post rank inaccuracies, there were clearer-minded people to point out why they were wrong, in the same place w…

> Reddit, in its earlier days, was never dominated by the Voat contingent.

One of Reddit's most visited subreddits in the early days, between 2007 and 2011, was one dedicated to sharing suggestive pictures of minors[1]. It was chosen as "subreddit of the year" in 2008 and the subreddit was the second most searched term on Reddit[2].

There was definitely a core of users with questionable characters on Reddit for whom "free speech" meant sharing extremist, or at least perverse, content. The Reddit CEO even issued a "memo on free speech" to address the situation[1].

[1] https://venturebeat.com/2012/10/17/reddit-ceo-issues-interna...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti...

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#102

Post by Barrin92 »

_opc6 wrote: post #88

I've said this before and got downvoted for it. But if companies allow extremists on their platforms then the moderates will leave. It's not so much a paradox but a cause and effect.

not really sure why you were downvoted for it. You let nazis openly rant in your bar I'd bet you won't have any normal guests there pretty quickly, it's just a broken window dynamic. Unmoderated, a few bad users will scare most of the civil people off.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#103

Post by faizshah »

1_player wrote: post #60
koheripbal wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the issue is that the average age of Reddit users plummeted. It was in the high 20s, but I've seen some research that puts it in the high teens these days / early 20s. That has a huge impact on the quality of conversations.

And politics have infected every single discussion. Nowadays it's cool to be partisans, decades ago a teenager talking about politics would be dismissed with a "get a hobby, nerd." It is an absolute disgrace how it's become normal. Or that mine is an unpopular opinion nowadays.

Kind of ironic that anti politics discussions seems to derail every HN thread these days.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#104

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

sfblah wrote: post #99
intended wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those days ended fast. I saw it happen. On my forum, that very question was asked, and it wasn’t a philosophical debate. It was an operational one - how do we balance free speech ideals vs actual forum evidence. The framework that fits the evidence and the ideals was 1) we want a market place of ideas to function 2) there is content that easily dominates and sidelines all other ideas. 3) there are Maliciously enginee…

Can you give some specifics of #3 just for color? I'm not interested in debating or trolling at all. I'm just curious what people say that does this. Is it just people cheering for Trump or something?

Tones of statements fall under that header. It can be Trump supporters tallking about election fraud, nazis talking about "race based IQ distributions" or transphobes talking about "bathroom predators"; there's no shortage of these kind of bad faith low effort "arguements". There are mountains of high quality sources you can use to argue against the claims but it takes many times the work than just showing up to "just ask questions" as bigots are want to do.

Having a 0 tolerance policy for these kinds of people makes your space safer for maginalized communities and ends up with better debates/discussions over all since, as i alluded to, these arguments aren't actually in good faith or rooted in any sort of data.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#106

Post by mech422 »

santoshalper wrote: post #11
Thorentis wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As opposed to Reddit where every subreddit aside from those dedicated to alt-right topics has a left-leaning tinge. Every platform has biases. It's just that Reddit chose to ban a specific group, so it's logical that group alone would dominate alternatives.

Society has a left-leaning tinge. Especially society in the age range that reddit caters to. There's no grand conspiracy. Right politics are wildly unpopular with young to middle-age people.

I can't respond to AntiImperialis2 directly anymore, so I'll leave this here...

I don't think that because Boomers and (a lot of ?)GenX tended to grow more conservative as they got older proves it's 'the natural order'.. Millennials are approaching 40 now and the liberal ones I know are still very liberal..

I'd argue that Truman getting elected in 1948 meant that there were a lot 'progressive' older folks back then. Especially since there was a more conservative "Dixiecrat" on the ballot as well.

So growing old and becoming conservative may not necessarily go hand in hand...

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#107

Post by qlm »

phponpcp wrote: post #98
_opc6 wrote: post #88

I've said this before and got downvoted for it. But if companies allow extremists on their platforms then the moderates will leave. It's not so much a paradox but a cause and effect.

I dont know about that... Twitter has a huge problem of leftwing extremism.

Can you provide an example of what you perceive to be "left wing extremism"?

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#108

Post by ninkendo »

raldi wrote: post #84

Moderated communities beat unmoderated ones on any metric you can name. Always have, always will. Nobody wants to drink at a pub that won't throw out rude patrons.

Exactly this.

Folks can rant about free speech all they want, but no sane person would actually want to experience it. I support your right to speak, but doesn’t mean I want to listen to you.

IMO the only parts of the internet that should be absolutely required to allow unfiltered (legal, protected) speech, should be ISP’s, and maybe datacenters that rent out physical rack space. Everyone else should absolutely consider it their right to exercise moderation on their platform (throw out the rude patrons, as it were.)

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#109

Post by tootie »

236dev wrote: post #19
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #2

How much was he/she paying a month to keep it up? Why not ask for donations/people to subscribe? I mean, I don't personally use and I don't know anybody who does but...

I think they would be kicked off whatever fund raising platform they use pretty quickly.

Anyone who backed them financially would be instantly blacklisted. They'd be better off asking to be sent cash via snail mail.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#110

Post by d3nj4l »

Threeve303 wrote: post #13
herbstein wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But yeah, for every polite person in some isolated corner there were 50 screaming about politics on the front page. The problem with Voat wasn't that some people were "talking politics" on the front page. The problem was that the vast majority where anti-semites, racists, and otherwise horrible. That's beyond "talking politics" in any decent sense of the phrase.

When the hardcore believers from /r/The_Donald moved to Voat, I was happy that it was still possible for anyone to read what they were saying. Similar to a honeypot or sting operation, we are probably worse off when they scatter back to the shadows.

The hardcore believers from /r/The_Donald are on thedonald.win now. The place is as full of anti-semitism, racism and misogyny as you'd expect. It's a good place for a laugh every now and then, if you can stomach the hate.
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