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For those who need the context -- when Reddit had that big bust-up last week about banning subreddits like /r/fatepeoplehate, aggrieved commenters were recommen

• x5n1 11y ago
  > Given that, it isn't wholly surprising that their hosting service wanted no part of them. It is very surprising, the hosting company should be concerned with providing hosting... not moderating content. that's the job of the government and the legal system.
  • mootothemax 11y ago
    What's the logical conclusion of that? The government forcing private companies to host content that they disagree with? You can't have it both ways.
    • higherpurpose 11y ago
      Right. Vote with your wallet, I guess. Don't buy services from hosteurope.de.
      • x5n1 11y ago
        > Vote with your wallet Usually doesn't do shit. The people voting, just like the people who are disgruntled, are usually a small minority. They have no material impact on anything other than the propaganda value of their actions.
    • nothrabannosir 11y ago
      False dichotomy. Nobody is talking about forcing anybody to do this. At least not the OP, and I didn't read it that way. The conclusion of this issue is anything but obvious. It is hairy, ambiguous, and unclear. An alternative could be: public shaming, and people taking their money elsewhere. There, no government required. I feel he is allowed to at least express disapproval...
    • x5n1 11y ago
      > What's the logical conclusion of that? Private companies should serve their shareholders. They should draft a policy saying that they don't get involved in content moderation issues as a matter of policy. That's good business and good for speech. If disgruntled people want to do something about it, they can take it up with the legal system. > Is it good business? Or is it better business to have a clear policy over what is and is not allowed, and then enforce that? It is not possible to have a clear policy when moderating content because the world is a diverse place with diverse opinions. Where would you begin? Are Muhammad cartoons banned?
      • nine_k 11y ago
        Let's note that it's perfectly fine for a private company to limit their terms of service and reserve a right to stop hosting "distasteful content". It just needs to be declared openly in TOS. If it were so, probably voat won't choose them.
      • s73v3r 11y ago
        Is it good business? Or is it better business to have a clear policy over what is and is not allowed, and then enforce that?
    • hcal 11y ago
      I don't want to put words in his mouth, but you can certainly argue that hosting companies shouldn't censor or moderate their customers without rising to the level of a legal requirement.
  • slg 11y ago
    And the German government, like all governments, (although Germany's laws are slightly stricter than most western governments) puts limits on free speech. Reddit has a tendency to demonstrate Godwin's law pretty quickly. For example, it is common practice to upvote a post with a link to a Nazi flag and a headline about some hated group in attempt to get that to be the default image for Google searches of that group. I imagine with Voat being a Reddit clone, similar things have popped up on it. Something like that could run afoul of Germany's laws regarding how to portray Nazi history and iconography. I could imagine Voat's hosting provider wanted to wash their hands of the site before the government actually tries to come after them.
  • DasIch 11y ago
    Given voat's new community that content will be everything from the more "friendly" organizing harrassment and doxxing people to child pornography. Nobody in his right mind is ever going to knowingly host them for long.
  • s73v3r 11y ago
    Do you want your company to be associated with harassment, even if you're not doing it directly?
• sergiotapia 11y ago
  Please don't misrepresent what happened. A lot of people, myself included, left Reddit because I don't agree with the way the CEO is handling things. My leaving Reddit had nothing to do with fatpeoplehate being banned. I just don't agree with shadowbanning people and removing -distasteful- subreddits. I just don't visit them. Reddit has become a marketing tool either way, so I that was just another drop in the bucket for me and I left.
  • m3rc 11y ago
    Your personal reasons for not using reddit don't have any impact on the fact that most of the people switching over were either from the /r/fatpeoplehate, /r/kotakuinaction, and /r/conspiracy crowd. You can have whatever personal BS with the CEO you want, but the fact is that voat's ex-reddit userbase is all from what is essentially the worst parts of reddit.
    • vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      You clearly haven't dived in too deep if you think /r/conspiracy is even close to among "essentially the worst".
      • Someone1234 11y ago
        They aren't the worst. They do say some pretty anti-semitic things at times however from what I've seen (some of them think the world is controlled by a Jewish conspiracy or some such).
        • kinghajj 11y ago
          /r/conspiracy has quite a diverse set of 'characters', the anti-semitic ones are merely one of the loudest. There's also the various 9/11-truthers, the flat earthers, UFOlogers, Christian/spiritual scientists, pro-gun/anti-federal government types, etc. It can be a pretty fun place to check out, actually, if you enter it with the right frame of mind.
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  • trentmb 11y ago
    They didn't keep to themselves like, say, /r/coontown.
    • monksy 11y ago
      I've never seen a case of harassment from FPH. But coontown, they freaking invade. The amount of people banned for 'didndunothin' comments is unbelievable.
  • mootothemax 11y ago
    From the little I understand, they were harassing people, and then comparing their subreddit to talking behind someone's back. Unpleasant enough, and conveniently ignoring the hate overflowing elsewhere.
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  • danso 11y ago
    The motivation for deleting r/fatpeoplehate was because the admins asserted there were clear and identifiable patterns and instances of person-to-person harassment. Whatever you think about how moderation/censorship should be done...I don't think it's obvious that Reddit admins were trying to go the route of sanitization based merely on content...if that were their intention, they would've wiped out the many other subreddits that have much more controversial content and fewer subscribers (i.e. fewer people to raise a fuss about). https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/removing_harassing_subreddits/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/remov...
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• sanswork 11y ago
  Unfortunately as is always the case with every popular social network/forum in the history of the internet when the "slimy runoff" says they are leaving what they actually mean is they are going to spend all day on in the same place talking above leaving and how shit the current site now is. Reddit would be a much nicer place if everyone who threatened to leave over last weeks bans actually left.
  • MCRed 11y ago
    Tell that to the ghost town that is slashdot or Kuro5hin. To be honest, I see the same thing happening here already. So many posts on the front page with no comments, so much less comment activity than before. Feels like HN is emptying out. Where they're going I don't know.
    • sanswork 11y ago
      Slashdot lost its userbase because new sites like Digg offered more frequent stories/variety and a better experience than the curated and infrequently updating /. I was never a user at Kuro5hin and only checked it infrequently but I thought it was more due to lack of management than over management that led to the initial decline. Digg changed the way the site worked. I've been here a fairly long time and it seems busier than ever to me. I think a lot of the shitty pointlessly mean comments are gone now which just improved s2n even if it means less comments in total.
• monksy 11y ago
  It's not just the worst. Its people that disagree with the current fad of "politically correctness." There were very few people that were sad to see most of those subs go, but those subs weren't well known. The FPH was a response to the silly "body positive" movement that has been encouraging non-healthy behaviors. (The execution wasn't popular, but the idea of it is well supported) Additionally: Another big reason for the migration is that the ban came out of nowhere. There was no interaction with the Admins, and there has been a threat that has been expressed by Pao. ["We're going to make it safe" (for who and what political adgenda has scared the users quite a bit)]
  • unbudgingprawn 11y ago
    FPH was posting photos of imgur's staff and sending them hatemail, I belive.
    • monksy 11y ago
      So there is a question about that I have for you: Was it that they posted a picture of the staff of Imgur that hatemail was sent, or was hatemail sent because Imgur just decided to wipe them out? ---- Did FPH cross the line with the pic. Mostly yes... But they didn't put personal information on it. Nor was it an drive to attack them. (It was done in satire [even "the dog is fat"]
      • unbudgingprawn 11y ago
        Is Imgur required to host FPH content? Imgur is a private website that can moderate content as it sees fit. They didn't want to be associated with a hateful community, imgur generally tries to encourage positivity from what I've seen. The appropriate response is not to harass people. It's amazing how difficult that concept is. What might seem like "satire" to you is pretty messed up behavior, and in others contexts would be an outright threat
        • monksy 11y ago
          They are free to choose not to host the content anymore. I believe that any hate mail that they recieved, that was the reaction due to their decision. (Not endorsed by the subreddit it's self)
• ramy_d 11y ago
  Given that, it isn't wholly surprising that their hosting service wanted no part of them. Which means, by their own judgment, since voat.co isn't "correct" they deserve no warning, no refund, and no negotiation in good faith - only termination. How can you say that isn't surprising?
• bluecalm 11y ago
  I don't like you labeling those people "slimy runoff of Reddit's worst element". I think this kind of labeling is commonly used these days (and especially on Reddit) to shut down unpopular ideas. There were 150k subsribers to fph and probably several times more readers. It was one of the most active subreddits at the time of the ban. How is it "slimy runoff of Reddit's worst element"? Maybe you know, there were many reasonable, frustrated with PC culture in there who just wanted to vent sometimes.
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• arfliw 11y ago
  That's roughly accurate but worth noting: -The migration to Voat has been underway for a long time -It's a lot more than the "slimey runoff" -- it's people who care about free speech and people who don't like the direction reddit is headed. -Voat is actually a really cool site for non-free speech reasons[1] and word is getting out about that. [1] they throttle downvotes resulting in them being rare. Which makes it not the circlejerk reddit is, where unpopular opinions are buried. The small size of the site also makes everything much more of a conversation and not a competition to be heard and seen like reddit.