Voat literally praises the mass murder, repeatedly calling him a hero. 90% of voat upvotes in agreement.

submitted by magnora7 from voat.co

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[–]iufewal 20 insightful - 2 fun20 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 2 fun -  (36 children)

As one of the extremists, I'm not sure if I agree with the analysis of Voat as being a place taken over by Neo-Nazis. I would argue that Voat was a place where a normal, decent userbase grew from shared experiences into what they are now.

Voat was certainly not in its original form full of white supremacists; in fact, I would argue that the majority of its userbase actually came from fairly tame places; /r/fatpeoplehate, and so on. For a long period of time, Voat contained a userbase much like Reddit's, with the distinction being that they held a deepseated suspicion of everything and anything which smacked of censorship. Anything which was "censored" was automatically viewed as "one of us", a fellow victim of an injustice they all suffered, and someone to be welcomed with open arms.

It was in this climate that Reddit began to crack down upon what you call "extremists"; but the Voat userbase didn't see it that way. They saw themselves in these "extremists", not necessarily because they saw a connection in political ideology, but because they saw a shared experience. The treatment which these "extremists" had suffered at the hands of the administration was sufficient penance for any wrongheaded views they might hold, and Voat, the ever-compassionate, would be willing to lend an ear and a voice to what they had to say.

You can almost see why this idea would be appealing even to people who care little for political ideology; it was a chance to demonstrate their superiority over their erstwhile tormentors, while at the same time a chance to spite the very same people by giving a platform to those they sought to deplatform. Had Reddit banned /r/chapotraphouse or any sort of communist subreddit, Voat would have just as eagerly jumped at the chance to the support of the far left. That ship has probably sailed by now, but still, the claim that Voat was / is an extremist site doesn't sit right with me at all. It has always been what it still is: A free-speech fundamentalist site where censorship on the grounds of political opinions (no matter how vile or repulsive) is the first enemy, even before anything else.

[–]magnora7[S] 20 insightful - 5 fun20 insightful - 4 fun21 insightful - 5 fun -  (27 children)

I agree completely with your synopsis, and I have been using voat since it was called whoaverse. It was good back then.

But the way it is now... it's hard to deny there is a serious serious culture problem. Literally praising terrorists and super-racist low-information posts regularly making the front page. Even if it is bot/shill activity, it makes the site completely suck to use.

And if you go against the voat hivemind, you get downvoted, and then you can't downvote stuff, and it makes a feedback loop that has led to this ridiculous super-hateful echo chamber where one ideology basically took over.

As soon as stormfront got ahold of most mod positions on voat about 3-5 years ago or so, it's slowly been getting worse and worse. I love voat and what it stands for, but let's not deny the character of the current mainstream voat content is very full of hate and race-based ideology. If it were intelligent debates about that, that'd be one thing, but it's 90% knee-jerk hate these days. It's low-information anger being spewed, while those in real positions of power are basically ignored and instead we get to see a "Elizabeth Warren is a fake indian" post for the 1000th time. Valuable stuff is there, but it's often lost in the noise of the culture that overtook it.

I felt like voat was supposed to be the chosen one to save us from reddit. Which is why I felt so let down when it got so taken-over. Which is why we had to make saidit. So in a way, I am kind of thankful voat got taken over or else none of us would be using this site right now.

[–]FictionalSalad 7 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

I joined Voat and agree totally. It's an echo chamber, but one that is incredibly good about maintaining the racist and hate filled userbase. The limit to the number of upvotes, and the limiting of the number of downvotes makes it incredibly difficult if not impossible for anyone who is not well-established on the site to have any sort of meaningful discussion.

I know exactly why it's happening, why people post the amazingly hate-filled stuff they do. The whole idea is to drive away anyone sensible. and I don't care because it works, and I'm not going to have my name or any thing tying me that website. So I just deleted my account after about six hours and said fuck this cesspool.

it isn't even about censorship, it's about decent people saying these comments are not appropriate and we disagree with them. But you can't do that because the site is not structured that way. Voat is dying anyway so it'll just be a matter of time until it goes under.

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The whole idea is to drive away anyone sensible.

Yeah I agree, it's intentional for this reason. But there are also many useful idiots who honestly believe it and think they are in good company.

Your last paragraph is exactly why we had to make saidit. Voat isn't going to work.

[–]Bompf 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Partially, partially people simply see the insanity of this clown world we live in and can't take it any more. People get angry when the world around them refuses even a basic acknowledgement of their grievances.

[–]Troll 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (15 children)

Stormfront is full of weirdo WN 1.0 boomers. What infected voat was coontowners and 4channers.

Some of the mods on coontown intentionally bred a low-quality environment for ego-purposes, and it led to voat having a low-quality userbase.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

IMO Those other groups came after the stormfront invasion had taken root, which laid the foundation for what came next. By the time it stopped being whoaverse and became voat, they already had their teeth in it. That was years before coontown got banned on reddit. You're probably right about 4chan (specifically probably /pol/) though

[–]Troll 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

Stormfront was never really relevant and doesn't have the organizational skills. 4chan moreso. Just because they had a how-to guide posted there doesn't mean they actually did anything.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

They were back in 2009 or so when voat started getting taken over, I remember it was quite sudden. No racism, then the next day everything is white nationalism, and it never went back

[–]Troll 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

Oh, in 2009? Voat is that old? Maybe I'm wrong then. I'd still say it was the 4channers though. Though they're extremely retarded. And I was a founder of CT LOL.

The IRC people were a lot more fun and more intelligent. Did you know evalion came out of coontown?

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Yeah the 4channers probably came around the same time as the stormfront guys and it led to an unholy marriage lol

[–]Troll 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Are you sure they were from stormfront? I have a difficult time of thinking of them as being organized. They're certainly unintelligent, but I mostly viewed it as autistic 4channers.

[–]magnora7[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yes it was literally the stormfront forum website that set up camp very first. There was no white nationalism on the site before they came along. I guess voat/whoaverse is 4 years old, so it probably happened about 3 years ago. I remember it clearly, and they were linking to the stormfront forum over and over. Then it kind of subsided and I hoped it was going to get better. But then it just slowly got worse and worse, and in the last year it's just terrible. I think the latter part was probably mostly 4chan types. But the initial spark was undoubtedly the stormfront forum migrating to voat.

I suppose in retrospect maybe that was all some elaborate 4chan "prank" to make the site look super racist and I didn't realize it at the time. Either way I think there is some overlap anyway

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I thought Stormfront was debunked as zionists disguising as white supremacist?

[–]Bompf 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

/pol/ suffered from the fact that any forum in which people can freely discuss ideas will naturally become racist, nationalist, and conservative due to the wealth of available evidence pointing in that direction.

[–]Troll 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Well, right-wing. I never found /pol/ all that insightful, but I was doing what they were doing before they were around, and better.

[–]Bompf 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Probably. Good job. How did some one with a last name like Goldberg end up joining our cause? I'm curious.

[–]Troll 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Don't ask me. I was the one bitching about his antics in modmail. It was GreatApeNiggy who modded him.

[–]useless_aether 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

but a good thing about voat are their pizzagate related subs, they are doing real, valuable research

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They've also debunked that alleged NZ "shooting" which never took place.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Copypaste them here.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Hey now. Why. That's not nice.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

?

Not nice? Are you responding to the correct comment?

Why? To share information.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Well, stealing content from another platform seems repugnant to my sense of morality, but whatever.

[–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If you source and cite it then it's not stealing, it's sharing information. Claiming it as your own and making a profit can be considered theft.

Information, especially political information, should be free.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I guess I don't disagree... ;-)

[–]Alduin 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

I'm not sure if I agree with the analysis of Voat as being a place taken over by Neo-Nazis

I don't think it was taken over by Nazis, but definitely made a safe harbor for Nazis by paid shills. There was no kindred spirit with these people back with the first wave of users flooded in with the banning of FPH and Niggers. Back then all they wanted was a place to speak freely. Then along came the shills, which were easy enough to spot - they made half the posts and called everyone who criticized them a shill. They simply flooded the site with Nazi content until the only users that stayed were Nazis. They also made clear to any new users that they were not welcome there. These are common intelligence/law enforcement tactics for creating a honeypot.

[–]magnora7[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

I don't think it was taken over by Nazis, but definitely made a safe harbor for Nazis by paid shills.

I agree, I think it was a little of both though.

[–]Greedeater 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

From what I've seen, I tend to agree as well.

Bout 4 odd year ago when Eddit really started swinging the banhammer, folk looked for an alternative. I was one of em, won't lie - abhor censorship meself. That's why we went over to explore Voat more fully, started the sub and transferring of content and such. Further we went looking though, the worse we realised the crowd was; it was /b/ and /pol/ combined with an unhealthy mix of Alt Right. Think we hung about for 3 months or so? Decided to stick with what we know and went back to Eddit.

When WPD and Gore got banned this week, Tej n I went back to Voat with the intention of a landing spot for the 500k odd users that suddenly had no sub. Bloody hell, it was basically a caricature of what people think 4Chan is. Almost like they are just to out edgelord each other. Me, I've been around the Chan's for quite since roughly the Habbo raid, so didn't bother me that much.

Then I realised it would bother our old users, most definitely.

So, after 12 minutes of Mod activity there totalling one post and 3 comments, we got nuked from all our modspots after the Voat WPD started Reeeeing. Out the window with that then, haha. Had a look around again at the places I used to be subbed to and... Yeh. It might have pulled the crowd, but definitely kept em, and is basically akin to their own echo chamber that most folk complain about with Left leaning crowd. Nuked me account, came here.

As for here, I like it immensely so far. Feels very 2010 Reddit.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Almost like they are just to out edgelord each other.

That's pretty much a perfect description of what's wrong with voat.

Thanks for telling your story. After years of searching for alternatives myself, it led to the creation of saidit because all the alternatives just sucked. I don't really feel at home on any of them except saidit anymore. Voat was so far to one extreme, and then reddit is so far to the other extreme on the main subs, that we had to make a 3rd option. This site actually used to be called antiextremes.com for that very reason.

It just seems possible to have a place with real info that isn't a pit of hate. I saw it with the first 5 years of reddit and the first year or two of voat/whoaverse, so I know it's possible and we hope saidit can bring that spark back.

[–]test978383133 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

That's pretty much a perfect description of what's wrong with voat.

Thanks for telling your story. After years of searching for alternatives myself, it led to the creation of saidit because all the alternatives just sucked. I don't really feel at home on any of them except saidit anymo

I am new here and I like the conversation going on.

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Welcome! We try to create space for an actual variety of viewpoints here, so people can debate things and find common ground and learn things. I'm glad you appreciate that!

[–]Tom_Bombadil 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is a very interesting comment.

Someone engineered and deployed a successful divide and conquer political strategy.

[–]Bompf 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

In any structure where free debate and discussion is permitted, extremist right-wing ideologies will naturally evolve as a result of all available evidence. The best arguments tend to win.