Voat Inc was an American
alt-tech
Alt-tech are social media platforms and Internet service providers that have become popular among the alt-right, far-right, and others who espouse extreme or fringe opinions, in the belief that these alternatives moderate content less stringe ...
news aggregator
In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, podc ...
and
social networking service
A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
where registered community members could submit content such as text posts and direct links. Registered users could then vote on these submissions. Content entries were organized by areas of interest called "subverses".
The website was widely described as a
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
clone
and a hub for the
alt-right
The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2 ...
. The site shut down on December 25, 2020.
Overview
Voat was a site which hosted
aggregated content and
discussion forums
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
. According to ''
Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...
'', Voat was "aesthetically and functionally similar to
Reddit
Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images ...
."
Like Reddit, Voat was a collection of entries submitted by its registered users to themed categories (called "subverses" on Voat) similar to a
bulletin board system
A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as ...
. Unlike Reddit, Voat emphasized looser content restrictions and an ad-revenue sharing program.
Voat was written in the
C# programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming ...
, while Reddit is written in
Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
.
Voat was described by media outlets including ''
Quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
'', ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
'', and the
US and
UK editions of ''Wired'', as a hub for the
alt-right
The alt-right, an abbreviation of alternative right, is a far-right, white nationalist movement. A largely online phenomenon, the alt-right originated in the United States during the late 2000s before increasing in popularity during the mid-2 ...
.
The site was also widely described as a clone of Reddit, or sometimes dubbed "the alt-right Reddit". In a January 2017 ''
New Yorker
New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to:
* A resident of the State of New York
** Demographics of New York (state)
* A resident of New York City
** List of people from New York City
* ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925
* ''The New ...
'' article, Voat was described as a descendant of
2chan,
4chan
4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, cooking, weapons, television, ...
, and
8chan
8kun, previously called 8chan, Infinitechan or Infinitychan (stylized as ∞chan), is an imageboard website composed of user-created message boards. An owner moderates each board, with minimal interaction from site administration. The site ha ...
, where users compete for
shock value
Shock value is the potential of an image, text, action, or other form of communication, such as a public execution, to provoke a reaction of sharp disgust, shock, anger, fear, or similar negative emotions.
In advertising
Shock advertising or Sho ...
. ''
The Verge
''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts.
The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...
'' described the site as "''
Imzy
Imzy was a social media site led by ex-Reddit employee Dan McComas, which purported to create a "friendlier" alternative to Reddit. The site was started in 2016 by six former employees of Reddit and one of Twitter. Some of the first publications to ...
''s dark twin", in that both were indirect products of the
Gamergate
Gamergate may refer to:
* Gamergate (ant), a worker ant that can store sperm and reproduce sexually
* Gamergate (harassment campaign), targeting women in the video game industry
* Lt. Gamergate, a character in the ''Adventure Time'' episode " Den ...
culture war.
The site has also been described by ''The Verge'' as a model for other "censorship-free" alt-tech services, including Gab, Parler, and Hatreon.
The name "Voat" is a play on the words 'goat' and 'vote'.
The site's mascot is a goat.
The website used the Colombian
top level domain
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...
,
.co
.co is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Colombia.
It is administered by .CO Internet S.A.S., , and was registered in November 2014.
Company and funding
Founded in April 2014 as WhoaVerse, the website was a hobby project of Atif Colo (known on Voat as @Atko), then a college student. He was later joined by Justin Chastain (known as @PuttItOut on Voat).
The website has been labelled as an alternative to Reddit with a focus on
freedom of expression
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
.
In December 2014, WhoaVerse changed its name to Voat for ease of use.
Although Voat was based in Switzerland,
Voat became
incorporated in the United States in August 2015. Colo explained in a post announcing the incorporation that this was because "Switzerland seemed like a great option in the beginning, but when it comes to freedom of speech, the main idea behind Voat, U.S. law by far beats every other candidate country we’ve researched." Following a large influx of users from Reddit in July 2015, Voat's operators were approached by investors interested in funding the project, though they said they "hadn't had the time to talk" about the offers.
In January 2017, Colo resigned as CEO of Voat, citing a lack of time available to devote to the site. Colo was replaced as CEO by Chastain.
Shutdown
In May 2017, Chastain ran a fundraising campaign, announcing that Voat might have to shut down due to lack of money.
However, after forming a partnership with an investor, Voat stayed online.
On December 22, 2020, Voat again announced that it would be shut down due to a lack of funding. Co-founder and CEO Chastain said that he had been funding the site himself after a key investor defaulted on their contract in March, but had run out of money by December.
On December 25, 2020, Voat shut down.
History
Over Voat's six years of operation, accusations of censorship against Reddit and its moderation decisions, including the banning of various subreddits, caused several influxes of Reddit users to Voat. In early June 2015, after Reddit banned five subreddits for harassment—the largest of which,
r/fatpeoplehate, had around 150,000 subscribers
—many users of Reddit began to create accounts on Voat.
The influx of new participants temporarily overloaded the site, causing downtime.
In early July 2015, following the dismissal of a popular administrator on Reddit, another influx of Reddit members registered with Voat, leading to traffic levels which again caused Voat to experience downtime. In November 2016, more users relocated to Voat after Reddit banned the
Pizzagate conspiracy theory
"Pizzagate" is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle. It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police.
In March 2016, the pe ...
subreddit,
r/pizzagate, due to
doxing
Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the internet. Historically, the term has been used interchangeably to refer to both the aggregation of this i ...
and harassment concerns. In November 2017, some of Reddit's
incel community moved to Voat after an incel community,
r/incels, was banned on Reddit. On September 12, 2018, Reddit banned several subreddits dedicated to discussing the
QAnon
QAnon ( , ) is an American political conspiracy theory and political movement. It originated in the American far-right political sphere in 2017. QAnon centers on fabricated claims made by an anonymous individual or individuals known as "Q". ...
conspiracy theory, stating that they had violated its rules prohibiting "inciting violence, harassment, and the dissemination of personal information." This caused many of the QAnon posters to migrate to Voat.
In April 2019, Voat's CEO announced in a post that he had been contacted by a "US agency" about threats that were being posted on the website. In the post, he wrote that Voat would work with law enforcement and take down any "gray area" posts if requested. According to ''
Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tra ...
'', "Voat users took offense to the perceived curtailing of their ability to post racial slurs and endorse violence. The first comment on Chastain's post opened with an anti-Semitic slur and call to exterminate Jews."
Deplatforming and cyberattacks
Voat's
web hosting service
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web h ...
, Host Europe (a precursor to
Webfusion), refused service to Voat in June 2015, alleging that the service "was publicizing
incitement of the people, as well as abusive, insulting and
youth-endangering content" and "
illegal right-wing extremist content."
Host Europe is based in Germany, and is subject to stronger hate speech laws than those of the United States.
Voat's founder attributed the shutdown to
political correctness
''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
.
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...
froze payment processing services to Voat the same month due to "sexually oriented materials or services."
Voat shut down four of its own subverses in response, two of which hosted sexualized images of minors ("
jailbait
Jailbait is slang for a person who is younger than the legal age of consent for sexual activity and usually appears older, with the implication that a person above the age of consent might find them sexually attractive. The term ''jailbait'' ...
").
The website continued to accept
cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
donations,
and was able to continue functioning as it had moved to a different hosting provider.
The website continued to experience downtime due to an ongoing distributed denial of service (
DDoS
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
) attack, rendering the 700,000 unique visitors unable to access the site.
Also in July, Voat, alongside
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...
, was subject to a
Bitcoin
Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...
"dust" attack and more DDoS attacks. The Bitcoin attack slowed payment processing to the websites. The DDoS attack, launched July 12, was unsuccessful due to
Cloudflare
Cloudflare, Inc. is an American content delivery network and DDoS mitigation company, founded in 2009. It primarily acts as a reverse proxy between a website's visitor and the Cloudflare customer's hosting provider. Its headquarters are in San ...
DDoS protection services, although it had the side effect of rendering third-party Voat apps incapable of functioning.
See also
*
Controversial Reddit communities
Controversial Reddit communities are communities on the social news site Reddit (known as "subreddits"), often devoted to explicit, violent, or hateful material, that have been the topic of controversy. Controversial Reddit communities sometim ...
*
Gab
*
8chan
8kun, previously called 8chan, Infinitechan or Infinitychan (stylized as ∞chan), is an imageboard website composed of user-created message boards. An owner moderates each board, with minimal interaction from site administration. The site ha ...
*
DLive
DLive is an American video live streaming service which was founded in 2017. It was purchased by BitTorrent in 2019. Due to the site's lax enforcement of prohibited content guidelines, DLive has become a popular alternative to YouTube and Twit ...
*
Minds
*
Parler
Parler () is an American alt-tech social networking service associated with conservatives. Journalists have described Parler as an alt-tech alternative to Twitter, and users include those banned from mainstream social networks or who oppose ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voat
American companies established in 2014
Alt-tech
American news websites
Internet forums
Internet properties established in 2014
Internet properties disestablished in 2020
American companies disestablished in 2020
News aggregators
Social bookmarking websites
Web software