Voat Is Shutting Down • Hacker News Board

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#551

Post by Heracleides » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

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…

Well, Reddit also likes to censor criticism.

For example, if you criticize power moderator Ani625's unreasonable deletions of legitimate posts, you risk an account suspension.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#552

Post by andrei_says_ » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

piokoch wrote: post #309

renewiltord wrote: post #279

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…

All these are discussed over and over again - if you’re really after discussion go to r/changemyview do a search on your favorite topic an read until you find the argument you’d reward a delta to.

Unless you just want to vent.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#553

Post by meowster » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

paranoidrobot wrote: post #379

yaomtc wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old.reddit.com is not usable on mobile.

Like the sibling commenter, I use old.reddit.com on mobile - but the key being that I switch the browser into Desktop mode.

In posts with embedded pictures, I have to remove the "old." in the URL in order to be able to see the pictures, switching to desktop mode doesn't solve the problem.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#554

Post by HelloNurse » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

Free speech is important, but seeing the horrible content on the Voat frontpage (anti-vaccine and US presidential election hate speech and silliness, "the Holocaust didn't happen, but it should have happened", "how the Yids stole Christmas"...) the only reaction I can think of is GOOD RIDDANCE.

I hope losing an online echo chamber causes Voat ex-users to be accidentally exposed to different points of view as they settle elsewhere online or (I know I'm being optimistic) have a civil conversation with real people.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#555

Post by meowster » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

sedatk wrote: post #115

ffpip wrote: post #64

Voat never works for me. Seems like they banned all Indian IPs using Cloudflare. https://i.imgur.com/gUQQgdI.png

So much for the so called bastion of free speech.

That speaks to the country, not the website.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#556

Post by verroq » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #543

verroq wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lynching has always been a crime and that’s why nobody was lynched ever. The mob already has protection because their numbers. It is everyone but the mob that needs the protection.

“Laws don’t work, which is why we need more laws” is quite an argument.

Me: “there isn’t enough done to protect dissenting voices”

You: “so we should do nothing and give them up to the lynch mob, laws don’t work anyway, this is what I call freedom of speech but not from consequences”

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#557

Post by ngcazz » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #350

ngcazz wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find these types of strawman confusing. It's obvious to anyone who reads them that it doesn't even slightly relate to what anyone here has said (not letting someone participate in sporting events where they have a biological advantage is not exactly calling them pigs) but people post them anyway. Is there some sort of costly signalling of membership of some social group (woke group?) going on?

Simple, I like to be solidaristic and find the _need_ per se to discuss those topics antagonistic to solidarity. I'm not signalling my virtue, but then again, you're free to call my attitude whatever you want, it just demonstrates our values are entirely distinct.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#558

Post by lordCarbonFiber » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

likeclockwork wrote: post #528

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how, in a screed about "censorship killing good faith arguments", you make 2 incendiary claims with no sources to back them up. You're doing the thing, you're the bad faith actor . Here, have an actual source regarding women competing in women's sports. Minus transphobic dog whistling. [0][1][2] Repetition legitimizes and it's way less effort to "have discussions" then actually do the work in debunking them. W…

You do know that people are not required to take hormones to be considered transgender right? It's not a medical state, it is a social one.

Trans people are required to be on hormones (and even maintain certain levels) to compete in elite sports. See WA and the Olympic committee's rules[0][1]

So yeah, not a transmedicalist, just we have existing frameworks for how to balance inclusion and fairness; there's no open question that needs debate around how trans people can compete in sports (unless you get all your cues from South Park i suppose). The only real debate is around what the levels should be and how to avoid retroactively excluding cis women with hyperandrogenism or related conditions.

Also just as an aside, like a lot of hypotheticals that get forced onto trans people, there isn't any evidence of this being an issue. Trans people just want to live their lives, medicinally transition if necessary, and exist as regular people. The number of people who both chose not to hormonally transition, and are competing in some kind of sporting event where that matters is small enough to be humanly addressed case by case (if there are any at all).

[0]https://www.worldathletics.org/news/press-release/questions-...

[1] https://stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/...

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#559

Post by amanaplanacanal » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

totony wrote: post #200

weare138 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Voat is proof that we are not yet deserving of free speech It's not the we the people are not deserving of free speech, it's the idea the right to 'free speech' supersedes other rights and should go unchecked at the expense of others that undermines the concept for so many. Besides, it wasn't free speech or lack thereof that's causing Voat to fold. Apparently no one wanted to pay to hear what they had to say. Everyo…

>'free speech' supersedes other rights and should go unchecked at the expense of others Curious about this, what right does anti-Semite/racism rhetoric removes from others? How can words affect your rights as a person?

I think your parent stated it pretty well. You can say whatever you want, if you are willing to pay the bills. In this case, nobody wanted to pay to listen.

Re: Voat Is Shutting Down

#560

Post by Tempest1981 » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

cookiengineer wrote: post #229

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…

> The underlying nexus is that our ideals on free speech do not take into account human wetware bandwidth. Damn, this is such a good metaphore, I had to think a lot about it. For my browser [1] I wanted to introduce a fact gathering and linking system, and build it in a way that bias of authors (and publishers) can be guessed when they release a new article. My theory is that Rationalism will never be anything that c…

> Rationalism will never be anything that can exist

This insight helps me understand why I am so frustrated with political forums. Thank you.

But being an analytic, how can this be improved? And are some societies/countries/governments better at doing so? Is it easier in a more homogeneous society?