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Voat Is Shutting Down

voat.co

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Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#271

Post by birdsbirdsbirds »

yibg wrote: post #242
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…

Plus there is an asymmetry here. Wild “theories” and purposefully inflammatory content is easy to post, and also easy to believe for those that align with them ideologically. Countering them, especially to a degree that can be convincing, takes a lot more work. End result, a lot more of the former and less of the latter.

How come moderators don't fall for those 'theories'?

Or more precisely: Why is there a majority of people who upvote those theories but moderators can identify them as what they are and remove them? What has happened to moderators that they can handle the 'theories' that hasn't happened to regular forum members?

Whatever that is, can't this be handed out to new members before they are allowed to vote?

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#272

Post by PradeetPatel »

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…

Sometimes hate speech must be limited in order for a greater freedom of speech to thrive.

My heart goes out to the founder of voat, I'm sure his heart was in the right place when he founded the site. But perhaps he did not anticipate it to organically evolve into a haven for alt-right extremism.

Perhaps this will serve as a lesson to many future platform providers.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#273

Post by [deleted] »

greggturkington wrote: post #215
heavyset_go wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Those weren't the early days; Condé Nast owned it and you could make your own subreddits by then. Early on it was very science, tech, and liberal. Mysogynistic, but not alt-right/hate content like Voat.

[deleted]

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#274

Post by [deleted] »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #119
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…

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 enc…

[deleted]

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#275

Post by fulafel »

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.

There have been some pretty successful unmoderated (centrally) social networks. Email, Usenet, IRC come to mind. The moderation does happen in these but it's self organizing.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#276

Post by sam_bristow »

jcims wrote: post #149
stavros wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I visited once out of curiosity, and was just shocked to see how overtly racist people were. It wasn't just "immigrants should stay in their countries" (which I was expecting), it was full on "I don't see why I shouldn't be able to kill me a n*gger if I feel like it" speech (censorship mine). Truly disgusting.

Same. It was so on-the-nose I wasn't entirely convinced that everything I was reading was authentic. Obviously that type of person exists but some of the conversations seemed performative.

This is when i tend to apply Popehat's law of goats.

The Rule of Goats: even if you say you're only fucking goats ironically, you're still a goatfucker

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#277

Post by crabbypatty »

A lot of words were used in this thread to say precisely one thing:

You are all afraid of being alone.

Every single post on this thread is your inner voice screaming at you and pointing out that something is wrong all the while your outer voice publicly and viciously de-personalizes and others a group of people you dare not associate with.

Not a single one of you do this because you believe it. All of you do this because you MUST do it.

Because, the price of NOT participating in these tactics is expulsion from this forum and beyond.

You know I'm right.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#278

Post by zaarn »

dragonwriter wrote: post #269
triceratops wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The context is clearly that it's an idea associated with them. Is it? Says who? The Soviets did a great many things. It doesn't mean all of them are "Soviet things". Nationalized healthcare predates the Soviets, still exists in nearly all capitalist countries in one form or another, and is viewed largely positively in each of those countries. The Soviets had a powerful military and infamous police force. When you s…

> Nationalized healthcare predates the Soviets Where? In most of the Western countries that have it, it post-dates WWII, and corresponds to the replacement of capitalism in the relatively pure sense with the modern mixed economy, which is arguably more Marxist than the USSR and other “Communist” regimes based on Leninism and it's descendants.

Just a few comments up, Imperial Germany is mentioned (pre-dating the Weihmar Republic and the Nazi Regime).

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#279

Post by renewiltord »

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…

> So the answer has to be to stop the witch hunts in the places where everybody else already is.

Got to be honest, bro, I don't really care to sacrifice for "the good of society" or whatever. If you make a website where some dude is going to post anti-Semitic shit everywhere and someone else is going to have to politely explain that Jewish lizard people are not conspiring to elect a Black woman as President then sure, you can have it.

But that's not a sacrifice I want to make. I'll go to the website where I don't have to do that. And the website will come to me.

Like, I don't see you moving to the ghetto and putting your kids in shitty schools so that you can even things out. This ain't different. I don't like those people at the party, so I'm not gonna go if you invite them. So you pick: them or me?

Either choice is fine. Reddit picked me. Voat picked them. And we are where we are.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#280

Post by XorNot »

birdsbirdsbirds wrote: post #271
yibg wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus there is an asymmetry here. Wild “theories” and purposefully inflammatory content is easy to post, and also easy to believe for those that align with them ideologically. Countering them, especially to a degree that can be convincing, takes a lot more work. End result, a lot more of the former and less of the latter.

How come moderators don't fall for those 'theories'? Or more precisely: Why is there a majority of people who upvote those theories but moderators can identify them as what they are and remove them? What has happened to moderators that they can handle the 'theories' that hasn't happened to regular forum members? Whatever that is, can't this be handed out to new members before they are allowed to vote?

Moderators are there to ensure the community thrives, not to respond to 50 restatements a day of "COVID-19 is a hoax" by people "just asking questions".

Part of that is very much ensuring that the front page is not wall to wall conspiracy theories, and members don't have every thread inundated with the same junk.

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