Introduction

Voat has been on a drama heavy "crisis" for the past few weeks that started with the claims of a user stating that she was being harassed on this site by a certain group of users that have in their interests create chaos and disrupt the community with their well known trolls. This drama evolved into a false narrative of the user being doxxed on Voat which was proven to be a false claim in order to gain another one banned. I have shown this on previous posts I made with proof of my own statements. Now we have a user that is known to be the epitome of reason here at Voat engaging in what I can only judge as an irrational response to the frustration he gain after the situations did not had the result he very much wanted. He has taken this to a personal level and has engaged himself in a combative behavior accusing left and right users that he once called friends because it was obvious that he felt he didn't do enough before and he was "forced" to his current actions now.

This will be the first post of a series that I will work on in order to prepare new users, and old ones too, to avoid situations on a public forum that could create problems for them in their real life as here on the forum. This is not to point fingers to anyone even if the users that find themselves related to the first paragraph may feel like that. At this point my main concern is the integrity of the site and our main ideal: FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

Let this be our statement here at v/ProtectVoat and for many here at Voat also that we are not looking to compromise our God given right to express ourselves by no means. We are also not supporting any type of harassment that may be done by certain parties here at Voat that wish nothing but create drama and chaos as a way to find their own satisfaction. Yes people, there are of those kind everywhere in the world and more even in anonymous public forums. Which is why the concern for many about trolls and shills should always be the first thought that crosses your mind when dealing with someone here. Myself included.

I: What is doxxing?

In simple words doxxing is commonly known as an online threat of someone exposing another person's personal information in order to provoque psychological, emotional and in more extreme scenarios physical harm. It is often used as a way to take vengeance on someone or to blackmail someone in order to get them to do what the doxxer wants. Nowadays it is very important for people to understand that this is a very plausible threat to anyone when using the internet and for such reason you should all be very weary of the people you deal with online.

II: Is doxxing ilegal?

You first need to understand that doxxing can be both done by third parties as it can be self-inflicted. If a third party does it, you first need to answer a very basic but important question: How did that party got a hold of the information? During the past few days Voat engaged on a very sensitive debate on whether the situation faced by one of our users was in fact legal or not. Many others argued the point of morally and ethically wrong. But these approaches are not the ones to be taken into account for a simple reason: If the doxxer applied legal ways to get a hold of the information in order to expose another user then it is not considered illegal. Was it morally wrong? Certainly. Was it ethically wrong? Absolutely. But was it punishable by law? No.

Now lets address the self inflicted doxx. Let's say that I am the user who posted links to my personal social media, that in it I not only have my personal information but also give access to information of my loved ones in an anonymous forum relevant to a certain post I make. Whether it is for mockery, for information purposes, business purposes, etc. I would have made that link willingly myself and hence given access to my information to a number of people that I don't even know putting my reputation, my life and my loved ones at risk. Now one could see it as a very small detail but in reality the thought of "that would never happen to me or is very unlikely" just leads to overconfidence and sloppiness from our part. We are not only responsables for ourselves but also for those that we share a connection with online. So if myself I posted willingly the link to my personal social media, I would have engaged in a self-inflicted doxxing of myself and hence provided legal access to third parties I am not familiar with to my information. I engaged in an irresponsible act and hence I am responsible for that myself NOT the party that repeated my action.

III: Commitment to informing the community

I know that for some this may seem as a justification for what happened in the past two weeks and lacking the empathy for the user that suffered the harassment she went through. But we need to remain objectives on our own assertions as a subverse that is dedicated to protecting our community and more importantly informing our community. I think this is where we have failed primarily. We have left our role as informers to our users on how to better address this situations and we took only the approach of accusing power moderation and censorship without looking at the bigger picture.

For this I must extend my most sincere apologies and commitment that this will change. Users engaging on Voat should have in their minds that our Subverse will fight for their FREEDOM OF SPEECH, yes, all of Voat's users. That includes trolls and not trolls. And you all have to find the way to understand that and also acknowledge that you have a personal responsibility with how you deal with your personal information online. But you should also know, that this subverse will act from now on, on it's informative part of the job that we haven't been doing in a long time.

These are sources that you can look for online to inform yourselves on "Doxxing" but they are certainly not the only ones:

1. What is doxxing (with examples) and how do you avoid it
2. What is Doxxing?

Please do not take lightly your security on a public forum. Do not take lightly your accusations thrown without evidence. For to ensure the beginning of a due process we must have all the sides of the story with proofs of the matter in order to deal with them accordingly. Every time you deal with someone you don't trust, inform the ones that you do that you don't trust that user and the reasons why. Do it privately to avoid promoting brigading on users you don't like but to maintain those that you do informed. If you know with certainty that the user is engaging in a illegal behavior or that is disrespecting the rules of a certain subverse and the global rules of Voat, don't hesitate to create your posts here at v/ProtectVoat with the corresponding evidence of the accusation so we can analyse it and handle it in an objective way.

As you feel entitled to FREEDOM OF SPEECH the rest of us are. So please help us ensure that all of us here at Voat can protect this beloved right from those that look to destroy it.