Today I will be badging everyone who donated (except for those who told us not to). When you donated, you were asked to enter your Voat username in the description box. If you did not do this for whatever reason, and still wish to receive your donor badge, please wait 24 hours and then if your donor badge is not visible on your profile page, send an email to [email protected] and mention your donation transaction ID and your Voat username. Since the badging process is currently not automated, I will be spending a large chunk of this Sunday on this task.
I would like to use this opportunity to THANK YOU all who donated as your donations are what keeps Voat online and what keeps us motivated to fight our way forward. I wish I could say thank you to each and every one of you personally, but the number of people who donated it just too big to manage.
Anyways, I hope to be able to make another announcement soon with more information on our monthly operating costs. I'd love to do an ama-type thing with Putt and answer any questions you guys may have, but I can't promise anything at this point.
Requests
We have received 0 NS/FISA requests.
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Zinnsee ago
Good to see you again. Some of us were kind of worried.
Atko ago
Thank you. I know you guys were worried and I don't blame you, we need to be more visible and steer the ship, so to speak. Stay vigilant and always question everything.
SaneGoatiSwear ago
worried? what about: all admins for our site drop it like a bad habit and disappear for a month. within that month, you atko, come back 2.5 weeks later, post some (normally - for you - ) weird stuff and don't answer basically anyone's questions. and then go silent for a week.
at the SAME time the slimg devs disappear, and tech comes back around when you do.
hecho's account stopped. amalek's (doing another round of) claiming to quit because "voat's been compromised"
that warrant canary is, after further investigation, incomplete and not legally binding, there fore we believe you and putt may be under a gag. now, if you are under a gag, you can't say you are. and if you are under a gag, they can't compel you to lie. write the code i've sent you.
WE, the Where's Putt Foundation, are hot on the trail of this breaking news story,
and will continue to report on it. we have respectfully asked you for comment for a while now, and we will continue to politely ask for it.
we await all questions answered, and are at defcon 3. heightened awareness and readyness to jump ship, heightened intelligence gathering. we are 5 days from defcon 2, barring an official answer to all of these questions from you and puttitout.
edit: thank you for your response below!
we can't wait for your second one :)
Donbuster ago
You DO know how warrant canaries work, right?
SaneGoatiSwear ago
you DO know there are many more ways to gag someone than just fisa/ns requests, right?
injunctions, super injunctions, judge-given gag orders in general, etc... NOT listed on voat's "warrant canary." which means if they have one of those gags, they can still post that "canary" and would not be "being compelled to lie."
Citizen ago
If something listed on voat's warrant canary was done, such as a FISA request, we would only know if Atko were to not post a new warrant canary. Therefore, we must trust Atko and Atko's judgement in order for the warrant canary to have any meaning.
If you consider that we are already trusting Atko's judgement, I believe that if he were to receive a different sort of gag order, he would want everyone to know. The only way to signal that something had happened would be to remove the warrant canary.
Pawn ago
the requests can include that they keep the canary up.
Citizen ago
The courts have found that the first amendment protects against compelled speech even more strongly than it protects against prior restraint on speech. On the other hand, ex-parte orders preventing speech deprive people of their first amendment rights without due process, so you would think they're illegal to begin with. On the gripping hand, warrant canaries are unproven in court, and the court doesn't look kindly at people attempting to "work around" the law.
In short, it's a big mess, and we're waiting for the courts to clear it up. As things are, the government is in no hurry to set any precedents, because the status quo is in their favour.