you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]magnora7[S] 52 insightful - 8 fun52 insightful - 7 fun53 insightful - 8 fun -  (7 children)

Then sane comments that call out the nonsense are downvoted:

https://voat.co/v/whatever/3099068/17411620

https://voat.co/v/whatever/3099068/17411920

Voat is overrun with shills, and white supremacists who can't tell they're surrounded by shills. Voat has a lot of free speech, but very little moral backbone despite all the grandstanding they do. I guess that's what happens when you let white supremecist neo-nazis literally take over your site and run it for their own benefit. They'll cheer on murder as long as the people killed have the skin color and religion they don't like.

Disgusting.

This is why voat can't be the next reddit. This is why we had to build saidit, to give people a 3rd option, because one didn't really exist. Free information for those who aren't completely lost to extremist ideology. Which is why this site used to be called antiextremes.com back in the day

[–]iufewal 20 insightful - 2 fun20 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 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.

[–]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!