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Voat Is Shutting Down

voat.co

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Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#111

Post by aaron-santos »

intended wrote: post #78
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

Makes sense. Lies spread faster than truth, and repetition legitimizes are fundamentally incompatible with the marketplace of ideas mindset.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#112

Post by nitrogen »

gdulli wrote: post #72
1_player wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't understand. Why is it a disgrace that teenagers talk about politics, or are allowed to do so without being insulted?

I think they were saying that the coolness of partisanship is what's disgraceful.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#113

Post by noema »

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.

(Responding to now defunct comment claiming that conservatism is correlated to age because of life experience blah blah)

Age here is a proxy for wealth, of course.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#114

Post by MinusGix »

intended wrote: post #78
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

I think the issue is one of scale. Having non-perfect free-speech is fine on your usual forum site, and somewhat has to be used to ensure quality. While, at the absolutely massive scale that Reddit and other social media giants are at, they (in my view) should essentially have very little to no say in what content appears upon the site. Now, individual moderators for subreddits could be more stringent due to being sub-communities (and thus smaller).

This would allow high quality moderation that lets communities focus on topics without as much worry about free-speech issues. Essentially allowing the classic, 'Go build your own social media' be actually possible since the communities that may not like your content are sufficiently small.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#116

Post by MinusGix »

ninkendo wrote: post #108
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 consi…

I think this is more of a matter of scale, like in your ISP and datacenter example, social media could be counted in on that too due to the sheer size of it and influence it can have on people. I agree that not having moderation isn't something we can do, for staying on topic or getting rid of certain users. The benefit of Reddit in this is that sub-communities can be made with harsher moderation policies than the outside Reddit, which allows getting rid of users they don't want. Since this is small sub-communities, if the users who disliked that subreddit really wanted they could make their own alternative and still be accessible to the wider Reddit. This would help avoid the problems of Voat becoming full of people on the extremist end of the spectrum. It wouldn't be a perfect solution, but being shared around reddit and accessible through the same account would make it a lot easier to dilute things like that.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#117

Post by thaumasiotes »

dragonwriter wrote: post #79
1_player wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> decades ago a teenager talking about politics would be dismissed with a "get a hobby, nerd." I was a teenager three decades ago. 1. No one would ever say “get a hobby, nerd” (“get a life...”, OTOH) 2. No one would say that about teens talking about politics, which non-nerd teenagers did commonly. They would say it about talking about computer code, though. > It is an absolute disgrace how it's become normal Why? >…

> The continuous political vigilance widely acknowledged to be necessary to prevent liberal democracy from devolving into tyranny is incompatible with the political disengagement you seem to prefer

This is backwards. The tyranny is caused by the vigilance.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#118

Post by vkou »

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…

> ...when the popular platforms stop being free speech platforms.

No, this always happens, any time you get more than two people in one room together. Eventually, intolerable assholes drive either everyone else away, or they get driven away.

Meanwhile, people who aren't bothered by that particular intolerable asshole shrug their shoulders, and ask 'What's the big deal?', and 'Can't we all just be rational robots who get along?', and 'This is purely an intellectual conversation, the outcome of which has absolutely no material bearing on my life, why are people getting so worked up over this?'

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#119

Post by AnthonyMouse »

intended wrote: post #78
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

A huge problem, which is the cause of this far more than "free speech" ever was, roots in these platforms optimizing for engagement. And then vacuous controversy maximizes engagement so you're really optimizing for controversy, which is a dumpster fire.

But separating the combatants doesn't just stop the algorithmically-promoted unintelligible flame wars. It stops the debate entirely. You lose the ability to even encounter the other tribe or have any idea what their views or concerns are.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#120

Post by hombre_fatal »

_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.

What almost every comment about Voat here misses though is that when you start a competitor clone to an incumbent like Voat did, there’s literally zero reason for most people to join. The only people who have an incentive are people banned from the incumbent.

You see this all the time. As a kid I posted on a forum Opa-Ages that was just weirdos banned from Gaming-Ages (NeoGAF).

This isn’t so much about free speech and moderation. You also need to answer the question of how to compete with Reddit with these facts in mind.

The only people who ever had reason to use Voat were those with unsavory opinions. Ok, you’ve banned all of your users. Now what?

So, all the times you’ve said this before, did you ever pitch a solution?

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