Pour one out for the folks on Voat. The so-called “free speech” Reddit clone — designed to appeal to people too hateful for Reddit — has apparently run out of money and will close its virtual doors on Christmas day.
According to site co-founder Justin Chastain, in a weirdly sexually suggestive post on Voat titled “I Can’t Keep It Up,” the site has basically been running on fumes since its big investor pulled support for the site in March. “I personally decided to keep Voat up until after the US election of 2020,” Chastain explained. “I’ve been paying the costs out of pocket but now I’m out of money.”
Chastain has decided to milk the melodrama of the shutdown for all it’s worth.
I will lay Voat upon the cross on December 25th 2020 at 12 noon PST. I have chosen Christmas as the day to do so in honor of the only True thing you will find in this world and that is Jesus Christ, the son of God, and the only way to the Father. I chose 12 noon in honor of the twelve disciples who spread the message of salvation to the world. In this way, my hope is that perhaps 12 people will carry the cross for Freedom of Speech and sacrifice part of their lives for an ideal in the way I did, but hopefully with much more success, glory, and reward.
Well, all righty then.
The regulars on Voat responded to the announcement in classic Voat style, with one commenter declaring that “Killing Voat on Christmas Day is such a Jew thing to do.”
Another commenter agreed:
Governments put out orders to attempt to prevent people from seeing their families over christmas. Then this site shuts down the “online family” on the very same day. They want us isolated. We need to stop relying on internet connections and form irl communities, asap.
A third commenter ironically named Don’tBeRacist responded:
At this point I’m so sick of n*ggers and n*gger shit everywhere, I’d be happy with a group of people also opposed to n*gger shit like n*gger monkey music.
Yeah, I don’t think the world of internet discourse will be losing much when Voat goes dark.
The real question is where the Voat refugees will go. In a discussion of Voat’s closing on the GamerGhazi subreddit, one commenter predicted that the Voat People will wash up on Parler:
I think the best case scenario would be that voat scum migrates to Parler, causing a clash of anticultures and schism leading to it eating itself alive.
One can only hope.
Indeed. The more these awful people fight one another, the less damage they can do in the real world. Goodbye, Voat, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
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Moran.
We would have killed it on Passover.
It’s a Christmas Miracle
My guess is that they will go to Saidit, AFAIK that one is still up. That’s also probably what killed Voat, since it was a more familiar interface for Redditors.
If I had to guess, I’d say he probably means “don’t be racist against white people” whatever that means.
As for the Jesus bit, I can’t tell if that’s satire or if converting to Christianity is becoming a trend for failed grifters.
Forming an online family is not impossible, voat dude. I’ve never been banned from anywhere!* What’s my secret? I’m not a racist sack of shit! What a concept.
* (aside from one christian message board)
Could be. But if I had to guess I would think it was just trolling and the person believes strongly in being racist (therefore SJWs who oppose racism should, in that person’s opinion, be mocked).
With regard to “Don’tBeRacist”, it’s barely possible that was inspired by a quote from Stormfront in The Boys. Stormfront, for those who haven’t seen the series, is an actual Nazi (she was essentially the first “superhero”, and agelessness is one of her powers) and she’s using that phrase in exactly the sort of ironic sense this idiot has chosen for his username.
I mention this because other far right idiots have taken to wearing Homelander costumes recently, confirming their widely presumed inability to spot satire.
Classy touch to compare himself to Jesus.
Tacky much?
So you’re going to put Voat “upon the cross” — just like Jesus was laid upon a cross — to honor Jesus?
Apparently I have to say it: it doesn’t honor Jesus to put Voat “upon the cross” on the day that Christ’s birth is celebrated. Or any other day.
Also, the fact that you can’t “keep it up” doesn’t interest Jesus. I’m just gonna go ahead and speak for Jesus: get over yourself.
Shutting down… on Christmas day.
Aw. How sweet. And I didn’t get them anything.
I mean… I’m sure at least one person somewhere will remember that it was definitely one of the things that happened in 2020 in six months. Not me, but someone.
100% worth spending money on. Which raises some other questions, for me. How did they get an investor in the first place? Why did the investor leave, too toxic or no ROI? I’m thinking option 2, otherwise Chastain wouldn’t be out of money if it was self-sufficient; why have a vanity project like that the when Gab, Parlor, and all those other trash platforms exist? So many questions, so little sense…
@Big Titty Demon
I’d imagine they originally got an investor because in 2014 when Voat was founded, Gab and Parler didn’t exist so there was a lot less competition. As such, they were probably able to find someone rich who was upset about being banned from Reddit and would support them. Now it’s probably harder to turn a profit since all these other sites exist, but most of those originated in the past year or few years. The main direct competitor is probably Saidit, with some smaller ones like Throat and Ovarit.
Deplatforming work. The less space for thoses bozos to manipulate and lie, the better.
(that don’t mean that the dupes are free from blame either, of course)
Homelander is powerful and does what he wants, so racists can compartimentalize enough to pretend to be him. You ain’t seein’ no Nazi cosplaying as Wilhelm Klink.
The closing arguments in the Minassian trial. Sounds like the judge isn’t swayed by the general argument re autism, but is just going to apply M’Naghten in the normal manner. Which would seem to present problems for the defence. Hence, presumably, their seemingly tenuous argument that the judge can’t rely on the Defendant’s own words.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/23/toronto-van-killer-autism-defence-alek-minassian
@Gazza
Which is something, given that Garth Ennis would not recognize the concept of subtlety if it threw a parade.
@Naglfar
Lol, ovarit. Terfs insist women are more than baby factories, then do this shit
@Bakunin
It’s part of a whole TERF internet ecosystem, the Atlantic did a feature on it a couple weeks ago. Its founder wasn’t pleased and made a video rebutting it, I would watch but I’m not enough of a masochist to sit through an hour and a half of MK Fain.
Since we’re veering off topic,
One incel has apparently formulated a grand unified theory of female sexual arousal. David recently tweeted some of it, but the whole thing is screenshotted in this Twitter thread:
Xpel Incels Twitterissä: “Well it’s time to make #incelscience a hashtag… #EXPELincels https://t.co/yDmhc7Fgai” / Twitter
It’s incredible. It contains everything. It’s illustrated with anatomical charts and anime memes. It took me more than an hour to read the whole thing, with necessary breaks for laughing, eye rolling and mental debriefing. Don’t try to read it while at work.
In short, it revolves around the idea that women orgasm from vaginal penetration with Chad, but not so much with lesser men. This is explained with a garbled lecture on female genital anatomy. Basically, the theory goes that women get clitoral erection from just looking at Chad, which then facilitates effective stimulation of the internal clitoral structures via vaginal wall.
The author grudgingly acknowledges that you might engage in some actual foreplay, if you ever get a chance with a woman despite not being Chad. There’s a creepy detour to “how to smoothly seduce a girl while you’re in her friendzone” and “Chad of course doesn’t need to act smooth because he can basically just grab women by the pussy and they like it”. There’s some wild speculation on whether some right kind of sexual practice could make one’s internal clitoris or external penis grow bigger. Finally, there’s a snide homophobic note at the end, like a cherry on top.
With regard to foreplay (external clit stimulation), the author contemplates that it’s somewhat degrading, as a reminder that you’re not Chad, because obviously he doesn’t need any foreplay. Then there’s this creepy assertion that if you do get her hard with foreplay, it’s a mere mechanical response; she doesn’t actually feel arousal like when she’s with Chad. Despite this, she should be somehow able to orgasm after you move on from your hasty foreplay to vaginal penetration. No need to actually finish her off with cunnilingus, or anything like that.
@Lumipuna
That is…something.
Where to even begin? If David’s tweeted it out, it probably means he’ll post a more in depth post later and I can do a takedown then. Suffice to say the author has probably never had sex, or if they have they are terrible at it.
Some thoughts though:
I’m looking at the first tweet and already rolling my eyes. The bulbs of vestibule are not analogous to the testes at all, that’s not how vaginas work, and I love how he’s unclear of whether it’s water or blood that flows into the tissue when aroused.
Oh, and if Chad ignores the clit completely, he is really bad at sex.
This thing also has some contradictions. Incel dogma states that vaginas get looser with sex, but this says that if the bulbs of the vestibule are engorged that it would make the vagina tighter for medium penises. Which is it, incels?
Oh, and the last set of screenshots think that penises grow with sex, but only PiV or something similar to vaginal penetration. If this were the case, couldn’t any incel just buy a fleshlight and grow a Chad dick? Or do that to his wrists or something?
OT, but does anyone here know how to circumvent a “502 Bad Gateway” and view a site anyway? I’m trying to catch up on checking some things and I’m being obstructed with this at one site, without due cause.
(The sum total of my recent conduct there has consisted of occasionally opening their site’s front page, reading some things, and then moving on elsewhere, so I am quite certain I have not actually committed any infraction that would justify being blocked from so much as reading the site’s front page. Hence I feel justified in circumventing this, especially since it was imposed without anything even resembling due process, most likely because a previous user of my current DHCP-assigned IP address did something naughty over which I had no control and for which I bear no culpability. Which leads to another question: is there any way I can have myself exempted from this sort of bullshit? Whatever automated systems sites are using to keep out unwanted bots or whatever clearly are not reliable or trustworthy, and are prone to misfiring and punishing me wrongly. If anyone human at such a site has an actual problem with me and wants to block me from what is otherwise non-confidential information accessible by the general public, then they can take me to an actual court with an actual judge and jury and make their case there. And probably lose. Really, though, this should be extended to everybody. It’s one thing for private parties to block posting or other such activities on their own whims, but the mere reading of non-confidential, publicly available information is supposed to be a UN-guaranteed human right the last time I checked, and limiting any person from access to such information should therefore require the same process as limiting them from other basic likewise-guaranteed freedoms: a criminal trial resulting in a guilty verdict, with a “beyond a reasonable doubt” burden of proof placed upon the entity seeking to curtail the person’s freedom.)
IIRC it was mentioned somewhere in there that these effects probably counteract each other, since the supposed loosening is supposed to be a permanent state. Also briefly, something creepy about young virgins.
@ cats in shiny hats
One for you I think.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/12/23/mailman-mclean-christmas-dog-stocking/
Re: bad gateway error
They can happen for a lot more reasons than someone maliciously blocking your IP. It could be temporary overloading / high traffic. It could be coding error in their last update. It could be miscommunication between servers.
Troubleshoot steps:
1) Refresh a few times (you’ve probably already done this)
2) Check a service like “Is it down right now” to see if it’s an identified problem for other servers
3) See if website organization has a status page on a different service. If they do, contact them via that service. If they don’t…
4) Wait an hour, or a day, and try again.
There’s no way to work around it that I know of if it’s a coding error or communication problem, short of contacting the server admin or waiting it out.
Unless you feel like double checking your firewall and cache and all… that’s way better answered by google than by me, though.
I’ve already tried reloading repeatedly, waiting it out, and looking at their Twitter feed for info. None of those worked. The problem remains and I am still not properly caught up on the stuff I should have been caught up on an hour ago.
Any other suggestions? I might try using a proxy or trying to get DHCP to assign me a new IP, but that’s always tedious and rarely has proved effective (sites often block known proxies, and often block an entire ISP rather than only the offending IP, precisely to make it hard for the actual malefactor to circumvent a block with such methods … which also prevents those wrongfully blocked as collateral damage from this overblocking from circumventing it).
Addendum: I would like to note also that I do not feel that I should have to try all of these circumventions, because I don’t feel that I did anything wrong in my first attempt to catch up on those sites an hour ago, and therefore I feel that I deserved to succeed on the first try catching up on those things. This is why I’d like to find a way to legally enjoin everyone else from doing shit like this to me without due process.
Catching these things up should be a low-effort, five-minute task for me, as long as I, personally have not screwed up in any way, and I’d like to enforce that it be a low-effort, five-minute task for me as long as I, personally, have not screwed up in any way.
Frankly, after years of being subjected to bullshit like this, I simply do not trust other people or the universe in general to get these things right in instances where I am the one “on trial” for whatever reason. It has gotten these things wrong on way, way too many occasions where I could be absolutely, 100% certain of my innocence of any errors, technical or moral, for me to have any trust any more that its judgments of me are accurate, or its punishments of me deserved. Hence why I want an exemption from all mechanisms of judgment and punishment outside of the legal and criminal justice systems in the developed world, with their due process guarantees and rule of law. This might inconvenience other people, if they have to always go through the full legal system if they ever want to restrict me or take something away from me in any circumstance, but so be it. They’ve fouled up too damn many times in the past when I’ve been the defendant. They shouldn’t get to use convenient shortcuts against me anymore. They abused that privilege and deserve to lose it, as this latest incident in which I am certainly innocent but being unfairly restricted anyway helps prove.
From now on, when I am the target of someone’s ire (or a machine’s algorithmic, hostile “judgment”) the rule should be “sue me, charge me, or leave me alone”. Consider this my explicit withdrawing/withholding of consent to any kind of dispute arbitration mechanisms outside of the legal system in any case where the other party seeks to punish or restrict me.