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Voat Is Shutting Down

voat.co

321–330 of 671 posts

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Reddit didn't 'pick you', it kicked out most of the people who made it a great site in the first place - not even the rightoids, but the original, deviant, unique, outcast users who were there in the early days of the site. They made it special, and they are gone.

At the risk of making a reddit comment... "relevant nickname".

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#322

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

It has less to do with fReE sPeEcH and more to do with reddit being a niche platform for nerds in the early days (and as far as 2008).

>They were there, but they were far less extreme there than they were on Voat.

Until reddit became mainstream. Then the front page got taken over by /r/The_Donald crowd. There is a reason that subrredit is no more.

>And then whenever they would post rank inaccuracies, there were clearer-minded people to point out why they were wrong, in the same place where the same people could see it.

And there flowed rivers of milk and honey.... Wait, no, you'd get banned from /r/The_Donald faster than you can blink after you post something that didn't align. And it wasn't even the worst subreddit.

>Meanwhile in the 7% of cases when they actually had a legitimate point to make, they could make it, and the people who benefited from hearing it would actually hear it instead of continuing to be unawares and consequently continuing to be wrong about something.

Cry me a river about losing the educational value neo-nazis provide. You don't eat an apple that's 93% rotten, you throw it into the compost pile. This post shows that the compost pile couldn't even sustain itself.

>But it doesn't work to have one popular platform which allows nearly everyone except for Those Deplorables

To the contrary, the platform that works for these "deplorables" (your words) doesn't work for literally everyone else.

As a proof, we see this very post. Nobody is interested in having these people around.

Reddit wasn't a popular platform when it started out. It gained a huge amount of users because Digg messed up. If kicking the Voat contingent out were a mistake, Voat would bethe new reddit (it has the same features platform-wise, after all).

>Because witch hunts are bad...

Straw man argument. These people were kicked out for their hostile and toxic behavior, not for their ideas.

Kicking out people who poop in public places is not a "witch hunt", because it's not based on identity, but on bad behavior.

There are plenty of alt-right and neo-nazis on reddit still. They are just behaving a little better.

And again, I'm sorry, but I have little interest in attending venues where throwing poop around is OK. This post is an indication that I am in the majority.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#323
For whatever reason, they are blocking all requests from most Asian countries with Cloudflare.

I tried my own home internet, couple of different VPN services in different Asian countries and it only worked on US and UK IPs.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yes, but there is some middle ground between antisemitism and following what mainstream loves the a given point of time. And right now if someone dares to stick outside mainstream views this is considered hate speech, anti-XXX, etc. Can we discuss if overweight people should pay more for sits in a plane? Can we discuss if a trans male who identifies herself to be a woman should be allowed to take part in female sport…

>Can we discuss if overweight people should pay more for sits in a plane? Can we discuss if a trans male who identifies herself to be a woman should be allowed to take part in female sport competition (box, running)?

Those discussions routinely take place on reddit.

Google is your friend, buddy.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#325

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…

> 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…

Looking at the second link just makes me nostalgic for the heyday of reddit drama. So many shitty subreddits on there I forgot all about.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#326
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but there is some middle ground between antisemitism and following what mainstream loves the a given point of time. And right now if someone dares to stick outside mainstream views this is considered hate speech, anti-XXX, etc. Can we discuss if overweight people should pay more for sits in a plane? Can we discuss if a trans male who identifies herself to be a woman should be allowed to take part in female sport…

It’s tiring to have to repeat that you’re proposing debating the legitimacy of the humanity of certain people as though it merited debate.

GP's is not claiming that overweight or transgender people are inhuman. That statement is exactly the type of extremist stance that is causing this debate in the first place.

Hell, they aren't even claiming that they are in favor of the points mentioned. Just that it's a bad idea for democratic society to shut down such discussion.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#327
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.

4chan is heavily moderated.

The moderation is just that the barrier is in a different place, and it's hidden for the most part. But there is moderation.

It's like the pub you don't want to drink in because it's full of the thugs and drug dealers who have the scariest bouncers at the door. Any trouble makers get taken out back, but they do have methods to control what they consider to be trouble makers.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Yes, but there is some middle ground between antisemitism and following what mainstream loves the a given point of time. And right now if someone dares to stick outside mainstream views this is considered hate speech, anti-XXX, etc. Can we discuss if overweight people should pay more for sits in a plane? Can we discuss if a trans male who identifies herself to be a woman should be allowed to take part in female sport…

> Can we discuss if overweight people should pay more for sits in a plane? Can we discuss if a trans male who identifies herself to be a woman should be allowed to take part in female sport competition (box, running)? I am afraid we no longer can discuss such "uncomfortable" topics

You can debate those things on reddit without being censored on a lots of subreddits. However, the reason these are such contentious topics is that 99% of the time they are aired it's either people using them to complain about SJW culture, or people trying to stir up shit.

The last 1% is people who legitimately care about these people and want to discuss their wellbeing and rights. But I'm putting that in to be generous, I don't think I'm ever seen these topics discussed in good faith.

You did not bring them up in good faith, for example, you just used obese and trans people to make a point. I have no reason to think you actually care about them or would ever engage in a conversation about their rights within our society.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#329
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Taking responsibility for what you say" often equals being attacked or ostracized for deviating from the Correct Opinion. Anonymity is often required for freedom of expression. Give a person a mask and he'll tell you the truth, and all that.

> Give a person a mask and he'll tell you the truth Rather, give a person a mask and they'll tell you whatever will most further their own goals, be it truth or falsehood. If only the complete absence of accountability were sufficient to ensure truth.

Still better than a forced smile and repetition of harmless trivialities.

Bluntness may not be likeable, but you can often learn something useful from it, even if it feels offensive.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think charging for a forum account would change the outcome? Would having people pay for a user account in order to be able to post on a forum reduce the amount of hate speech and related?

There is a reasonably well-known example of a large forum that charges users for account creation. Something Awful has charged $10 for account creation for as long as i can remember. While I do think it has kept away most low-effort trolls, there have certainly been deeply toxic attitudes and arguments still happened. Doxxing, organized harassment, racism and similar nastiness have certainly been issues with some reg…

I wonder if you could do that kind of thing on a large scale. Require a small contribution, say $1 a year, and use the proceeds to hire a moderation team that was deliberately coached to allow controversial arguments but prevent malicious echo chambers from poisoning the entire ecosystem.

It would necessarily be a less profitable site than the competition, but that might not be a problem as long as it wasn't venture-funded.

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