Fuckkkkkkk them! Shows the powers that be are not happy with the message we seem to be perpetuating on this site!

We will have to carefully evaluate our long term options of providing a platform of free speech if we are to stay online.

hint...

Luckily, we have managed to move our databases to a cloud platform

i'm not technically inclined enough with networking to offer any comprehensive solutions, but it seems to me that perhaps the only way free speech can be protected on the www is to get off of the www and head to the darknet

Wowww fuck you german internet.

If it hasn't been said enough before, fuck hosteurope...

Hope lots of you have moved away from them where possible..

You, I like you.

Thanks for keeping the site up and running. It's a blessing!

Thank you for your commitment to this project and your open discussion regarding any donations you have received. It's unfortunate your hosting provider has reacted in such a way. Best of luck to you.

WHAT? They actually used that actual term. Fucking weak as piss. What a joke.

Dude this is the fucking media. They'll take what he says and twist the context so he looks like the bad guy.

Glad you got the help you needed. Good luck with your hosts.

Very well made post. I agree that the Brave New World is more applicable situation.

Very well made post. I agree that the Brave New World is more applicable situation.

Very well made post. I agree that the Brave New World is more applicable situation.

I hear Iceland has the best free speech protections codified into law anywhere in the world. Can anyone verify if this is true? That might be an option for a hosting location.

Regardless of the laws, Iceland has very poor hosting options. Even local companies in Iceland tend to rent UK hosting facilities instead because Iceland simply does not have capabilities for large scale hosting. Its a small iceland in middle of nowhere and was never really connected like that. Though in theory it is rather good location due to its cold area which actually helps with server cooling (true story - Google builds server facilities up north because perma-frost means you can cool more efficiently).

If you're pissing people off you doing it right. We are with you @Atko .

Read the wiki. All the founders are progressives.

Hotwheels did interviews and tried to make himself a public figure. The slander didn't stop. Maybe it will be different for Voat, but my hopes are a bit low.

This is terirble news and really needs to be brought to the attention of a wider audience. Potential hosteurope.de need to know what they might be letting themselves in for.

"Reddit refugee camp Voat dropped by German webhost for 'political incorrectness' "

Fuckers. I quit my 2 domains that I have prepaid for 3 years (out of which 2 have passed) and have them transferred to Iceland (orange website). Sent the transfer notice by registered letter to ensure human interaction, and I explicitly stated the bad treatment of voat.co as my reason for the switch. Bastards.

Can't you just use some russian company?

Wow, very detailed and informative, I love people like you who know their shit.

I really hope they don't get to us.

atko, stay strong, dont give up. we can win this.

We need a global, decentralized DNS system Isn't that what opneDNS and Google's public DNS does?

We should make sure we don't fall into a dependency relationship with voat or anyone else. It's Pop-Psychology, but when you rely on someone else for a thing, and can't provide that thing for yourself, you slip into a kind of relationship similar to a teenager's relationship with their parents. You manipulate them with drama and passive aggression, which demeans you even if it gets you the Christmas present you wanted.

I hope that voaters don't go that way. Few of us have a real feel for how much it really costs in coins and time to run the mechanical end of a site like voat, reddit, digg, plastic, etc.

We need to get some effective monetization going on. With enough money we can keep voat going, moving from place to place.

I find the fact that people are celebrating how you were closed over subreddits you have no control over coming to your site, but then again the people who celebrated it are stupid enough to not understand that admins shouldn't censor.

Unbelievable. Dark days are indeed coming.

Pao pao pao pao. Shots fired.

There will always be people trying to take you down and push you around, because voat is showing signs of becoming a large website and many interested parties have become good at putting these kinds of websites in their pocket or in the ground. Also what comes to funding is it possible to set an emergency back up funds account which we can keep "full" so if this sort of thing happens again the money is already there and doesnt come out of the normal expenses? The sum can be anything and it cant be exceeded, perhaps that would keep you a peace of mind for atleast some time. You are giving us a platform to express ourselves, let us do what we can in return.

Neat. Thank them for the free press. I didn't even know this site existed until now.

Damn. Friggin' Europe. At least we still have a bit of free speech here in the US left. Keep on rockin' voatdudes.

Political correctness is one of the worst things to grow out of socialism.

Reminds me of this

I am shocked that a person who kept herself in such fine shape died before 60.

It is great to see all the negative review on their facebook page.

True enough. Sadly, once people get a taste their tune changes quickly.

If it really is SJWs, can you explain then why they are silent in the face of atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, etc.? These people deserve justice too, do they not?

Jew is a much better answer for this kind of behavior. After all, we see it over and over again.

Voat is the scariest thing to Reddit right now since it changed hats. I don't like being forced to censor myself because of over sensitive babies whining about how it hurts their feelings that they don't really have. It's very simple to avoid being triggered when you just don't go to places you don't like.

This change happened during the "web 2.0" phase. It was more free and encouraged debate before. Now debate is actively discouraged, which is a danger for any democracy.

LONG LIVE VOAT!

YOU HAVE MY AXE!

People are such pussies that they can't just accept that people have varying opinions? "Political incorrectness"... that must be annoying that they deny you service for that reason..

Hey, at least we've accomplished something. We've gotten to the point of pissing someone off!!

Word around reddit is because it might either be because of the jailbait subs or someone just spamming reports.

Aye aye capt'n

You. I want to hear more from you. You're a wizened, BASED muh-fug. Absolutely spot-on.

IN BEFORE SOME FAGGOTS OF FPH START WHINING ABOUT HOW SJWs ARE NOT BAD, BUT ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD...

DEATH TO SJWs

DEATH TO "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS"

DEATH TO HAMBEASTS

DEATH TO DEGENERACY

Keep fighting the good fight, sysadmin. We shall fight them on the beaches...

How is this not "harassment" according to reddit? How has SRS not been deleted? It's a joke.

Disgusting. Shows you exactly what kind of people support this political correctness bullshit.

Be careful with "paypal" it will be the next to go!

Definitely this, answer the media contacts as soon as you can. Bad press and more attacks would be a lot to handle.

Lets give more, maybe run a crowdfund? This is about human freedom.

Reddit once banned the RT "Russia Today" thread, why don't people contact RT I think they would be interested in this story.

Get them on Twitter @RT_com also Ben Swan @BenSwann_

lol

Yeah, fuck them. I hate those guys!!!

This is terrifying :<

I have seen commenters on one of the sites reporting this say that the jailbait subverse is posting child porn pic links from imgur.

Jimmyin response to (name redacted) • 22 minutes ago

That's because they ARE hosting child porn (or sexually suggestive photos of children at the very least). Either way, it's sick.

Voat has a subsection of it's site called "jailbait", here's a screenshot that I found in the following article. Note the thread titled "...here are some images that you can go to prison for even looking at"

http://i.imgur.com/F8nOltC.png http://mic.com/articles/120528...

Seems like a srs fuck wits were party of this

You guys need to see this... it's not pretty :( https://archive.is/KQTmz

thank you all who donated. I removed info on how to donate as I feel we have received enough to help us survive for quite some time.

I would leave it up for now. Better to gather some funds for the slow times while you still have the public outrage on your side. If you take off or even sustain some pretty steady growth, you're going to want to have some funds to fall back on for upgrades or what have you.

Heil

This is disgusting, might me time to start think about creating a worldwide entity to fight those ''people'', divided we are weak but united we are strong. I don't know some kind of world people's government or something working on donation only so we can start lobbying here and there...

I think you should sue them. For damages. It was against the contract and gave you a material damage.

.net

Why would he subject the domain to the jurisdiction of a 3rd world police state?

That person seriously deserves misery. What a complete asshat

Wherever your are hosted now is MUCH better than the last few weeks. I know having a big website is hard on servers but you should have known this would happen! Just happy to see the speeds picking up, at a certain point funding shouldn't be an issue though. Best of luck with all of your endeavors.

Site goes vroom vroom.

Well, we ain't going anywhere... The can try to shut you down, but the more they push, the harder you will come back. Just look at TPB and the years and resources they have invested in trying to close the site. Good luck trying to silences the internet. It simply doesn't work.

Bitcoin expects you to take charge of your own digital security and use it in a secure manner - and most people are not ready for this

I have my issues with bitcoin but this is not one of them.

With the advent of cheap usb sticks, it really should not be onerous to "air-gap" your wallet when it's not in use.

No need to understand firewalls, or encryption, or anything else besides "don't plug it in and they can't access it"

She is a scientist. She published her research papers on that blog (pre-formatted papers to which she owns the copyright). That server contained no other data whatsoever.

In my experience you may be able to sue for damages for loss of research as they shut down your associated accounts, in which Voat wasn't located on, without notice.

Great reply, covered all the grounds of my hypothesis plus some. Should be an interesting ride...

A voat which runs smoothly and satisfied users is my #1 priority. It would feel wrong for me to be spending time appearing in the media while there are plenty other more pressing issues to deal with right here.

Love it bud, keep at it! We've all got your back.

I know a lot of people are freaked out by this, but let me give you three words of inspiration : The Pirate Bay.

Good call not taking media attention just yet. The site is still a little ropey in terms of stability.

BUT DO TAKE UP THE OFFER.

Can you please open some sort of funding channel so we can give you money?

There's definitely a lot of crossover between the users. I would also like to see a cooperation between the two.

I've been a member of the ACLU and EFF[Electronic Freedom Foundation] for a few years,look into the movement for free speech. Alot of work for us all to do,for freedom. Peace. :)

Why would you host your stuff in Germany?? Country infrastructure is below average and contracts are always a PITA. If you want to stay in Europe look at OVH.

Well your previous host wasn't providing a good service anyways. You're right though, people who promote freedom of speech in this world will always be attacked by governments and large companies. That said, you should speak with Kim.com from NZ. As soon as you mention free speech, he will set you up in no time. (He's not fond of tyrannical behaviour). Can you make your donations button completely obvious? I could find it when I loaded the homepage. Keep up the good work, and thank you for letting us bitch at each other, free speech comes in many colours!. Oh, can you remove the 7 minute messaging display? Its very annoying and it means the minority will always be repressed by the majority. That flies in the face of free speech and is actually fundamental ly UN-democratic. Have a look at liveleak.com I suspect it will not be your usual website of interest but their comments system is perfect. You can still comment freely even if you are down voted. This means you do not have to wait 7minutes to defend yourself. And it works well because only the hard core trolls get slapped for being a jerk. You're doing that too fast. Please wait 30 second s before trying that again. It's not "having my say"if I have to wait every time! Thats really annoying. You need to remove it!

Can someone explain to the average schmuck how to make a donation already? I don't have paypal, I don't know how to use bitcoin. What can I do?

War...War Never Changes.

This is the point where you move the servers to Russia or some other Eastern European country who don't give 2 shits about political correctness.

Well your previous host wasn't providing a good service anyways. You're right though, people who promote freedom of speech in this world will always be attacked by governments and large companies. That said, you should speak with Kim.com from NZ. As soon as you mention free speech, he will set you up in no time. (He's not fond of tyrannical behaviour). Can you make your donations button completely obvious? I could find it when I loaded the homepage. Keep up the good work, and thank you for letting us bitch at each other, free speech comes in many colours!. Oh, can you remove the 7 minute messaging display? Its very annoying and it means the minority will always be repressed by the majority. That flies in the face of free speech and is actually fundamental ly UN-democratic. Have a look at liveleak.com I suspect it will not be your usual website of interest but their comments system is perfect. You can still comment freely even if you are down voted. This means you do not have to wait 7minutes to defend yourself. And it works well because only the hard core trolls get slapped for being a jerk.

Well, that's interesting. My company is in the process of selecting new hosts for our European branches. Guess what hosting company just got taken off our list?

Get a Swedish server. From what I know they have freedom of speech and won't give a crap about hurt feefees

I'll just stop using any site that they host!

Maybe you should all move to hubski.com

If i'm not mistaken when pirate bay was taken down last (or before that) i think they decentralized by using a load balance and vms that was set up at multiple providers granted this site us running some form of database behind it all but that must be possible to run in multiple instances and then sync it right ?

Have you thought about prq or bahnhof btw ?

It would feel wrong for me to be spending time appearing in the media while there are plenty other more pressing issues to deal with right here.

You are the leader a site like voat needs, keep up the good work @atko

You filthy muhsoggyknist! Help, help, I'm being oppressed!

Spammeri ite domum

haha. Yeah, I kind of want one of those too.

Are you referring to this thread in /r/oppression?

https://archive.is/JU3DH

I'm in Switzerland now, it's awesome! Thanks for keeping up with the bullshit, I think I speak for everyone when I say we love this site and want nothing more than to see it thrive based on principles of free speech instead of lofty and morally misguided crap

I miss the days when wars were fought face to face with guns and swords.

semi-coordinated media campaigns to paint Voat as something worse than the Silk Road

And? 4chan's survived every bit of slander its received partially thanks to its user base. Stormfront's probably the most infamous and reviled website on the internet and according to wikipedia it's been operational since '95. So far they're still going strong.

The moment a website get's what 4channers refer to as "normalfags" is when you start losing your freedom of expression anyways.

I think I can speak for the bulk of Voaters here when I say thanks for your work on all fronts.

I think I can speak for the bulk of Voaters here when I say thanks for your work on all fronts.

Well, time to leave some trustpilot reviews. https://www.trustpilot.com/review/hosteurope.de

After Atko finds a trustworthy host he needs to invest in Cloudflare. The SJW script kiddies have finally figured out how to DDOS.

Say what you will about the NSA but the USA has the World's strongest anti-Censorship law in the First Amendment.

atko, consider the many USA options. Freedom of Speech is a bedrock in the States. It is always the Censors who need to explain themselves, not the censored.

EDIT: Yes, there is self censorship as in the refusal to show Charlie Hebdo cartoons but that was not a Federal or State choice but the cowardly actions of the faux-liberal elite in the US.

"We will have to carefully evaluate our long term options of providing a platform of free speech if we are to stay online."

I will not be providing you any support nor have respect for you should you hinder any form of what we refer to as 'free speech'.

The cold truth

What the fuck is wrong with you germany

I mean what the fuck is wrong with you germany

To me it seems like our generation is engaged in a war on the question of whether culture should be produced from the bottom up or be dictated from the top down, this isn't a good sign for the mental health of our ruling class.

your camera is owned by google (or apple).

Can we regard this as cultural war already? We certainly are getting battered like this is a war. Of course, I don't think we should sink down to their level. But it's time to push back. It's not about hating hamplanets not being allowed, or video game characters looking too sexy. They focus on this shit because they are still young, dumb and myopic (hey I am young and dumb as well, but not in this area.). But those tumblr snowflakes and campus feefee policemen/women/otherkin will in 30-40 years lead our societies. They are literally trying to turn our world into Orwell's nightmare.

Can we regard this as cultural war already? We certainly are getting battered like this is a war. Of course, I don't think we should sink down to their level. But it's time to push back. It's not about hating hamplanets not being allowed, or video game characters looking too sexy. They focus on this shit because they are still young, dumb and myopic (hey I am young and dumb as well, but not in this area). But those tumblr snowflakes and campus feefee policemen/women/otherkin will in 30-40 years lead our societies. They are literally trying to turn our world into Orwell's nightmare.

What a shithole this hosteurope.de is. I thought to be 'political incorrect' is not a crime, just a choice or nature. So fuck you hosteurope.de (go change name to hostpoliticalcorrecteuropebullshit.de)

welcome to sweden :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KSJY0c8QWw

You've got my support.

This is saddening..

This is complete bullshit. Sounds like some people don't like us having free speech.

This is complete bullshit. Sounds like some people don't like us having free speech.

Sounds like this site would benefit from a similar strategy as The Pirate Bay began employing a couple of years ago. Distribute a cached version of the site as a downloadable file that can fit on a USB stick, and should anything bad befall this place, mirrors can be established.

Leave it to Germany to ruin a good party,

Lets hope you survive!

I removed info on how to donate

You son of a.... what a cool guy!

Not to take anything away from Dylan Thomas' accomplishment, I just wanted to point out that the structure is a standard poetic form known as a villanelle.

have thought about netherlands branch of leaseweb? netherlands are supposed to be liberal as fuck. pr0gramm.com used to be hosted there and this site, hosting also porn and gore, was not taken down https://www.leaseweb.com terms/conditions: https://www.leaseweb.com/sites/default/files/NL_ENG_B2B_v2014.1%20General%20Conditions_1.pdf

I really appreciate the transparency of the admin here.

So, "passing through the UK" means that GCHQ, the UK's NSA, can sniff the lines, etc. Good SSL should cover that problem, but it is wise to remember that Iceland is an island nation, and the traffic has to pass from there to the Internets via SOME major power. And the UK, like Germany, is not a friend of privacy.

But Iceland is a friend of privacy and free speech, so I like Iceland for origin server hosting. Also, 1984.is takes Bitcoin, IIRC. Cloudflare (Amazon) is not bad for a cloud solution, although it could easily be turned against Voat through legal, political, or economic means. But if the origin servers are in Iceland, they are unlikely to be seized, so performance would be degraded if the cloud went down, but the service could stay up in a "limp-home" mode.

On the other hand, a cloud server solution means that legally, the data on the Voat compute and database instances is the property of the cloud provider. And could be seized and/or shut down.

I think multi-country mirrors for the origin server and database, a pre-purchased series of voat.TLD domains (e.g. voat.co, voat.net, voat.is, voat.tv, etc.), redundant DNS paths, a robust cloud distribution platform plus a cold backup plan, and a legal entity and bank account in a safe harbor would all be good things to have. And avoid the Five Eye countries and their friends. Publishing raw IP addresses wouldn't be bad, either.

Basically what Pirate Bay has had to do.

How is that?

Jesus fu**ing Christ...This is some scary shit for sure :S

Just use reddit's provider, Political Incorrectness doesn't matter to coon town.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/3afak7/meta_im_the_one_who_contacted_voats_server_host/

Brigade those fucks. Reddit rules dont apply here.

Of all the countries you could have chosen... Germany was a bad choice.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/3afak7/meta_im_the_one_who_contacted_voats_server_host/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/3afak7/meta_im_the_one_who_contacted_voats_server_host/

Where can we donate?

I know a guy that ran a torrent site. PayPal decided to close the account and keep the ~$700 that was on it - all perfectly legal of course! Just check the user agreement.

Could you provide some screenshots of the notifications or would that be illegal?

Where are the European "were more free than Amerikkka" elitists now?

Thank you so much.

/user/Atko is the hero we deserve!

i call bullshit on hosteurope, i say this was a financed move backed by reddit as a hemorrhage stop

i call bullshit on hosteurope, i say this was a financed move backed by reddit as a hemorrhage stop

Thank you for doing this. We'll do what we can as subscribers to contribute and keep this site up!

In an old episode of the West Wing, a character says "if they're shooting at you, you know you're doing something right." So thanks for doing something right, no matter how difficult it may be to stand up for the free exchange of ideas.

Guess all that moral panic stuff got you nowhere? Pity.

They are going too far. They must be stopped.

This is fucked up right here.

This is fucked up right here.

In the words of Victory Nuland: "Fuck the EU"

I guess we are going in the right direction if this is happening, right?

Just like others have mentioned...stay strong. I am not sure we'll win this one because we seem to be in the minority but I have hope.

This site in general brings me back to how the net used to be, before all the bullshit, censorship disguised as political correctness, special interest groups, discussion manipulation and other crap that seems to be the norm nowadays. It used to be free man...people could do whatever they wanted. We're just opinions waiting to be aggregated and sold to the highest bidder nowadays. WTF man.

Can't you guys just demand availability? Like make a petition or something.

Sue?

Damn. See if you can get a group of people/staff/employees to help out with keeping the site up and running well.

Note that Reddit used to suffer some of these. Until they started playing ball.

New here, hello. hosteurope triggered me. Don't eat me.

Oh hosteurope. I love their professional technicians (have been a customer for about 10 years and through this time had several virtual servers and webhosting stuff), but I hate their inflexibility in regards of customer service towards "the small man" (that made me terminate all the mentioned contracts). A shutdown due to "political incorrectness" is astonishing, but considering their perceived inability to react to the market not impossible at all.

Halt die Ohren steif, Atko.

Surely as a business the Costs are offset against the Donations for tax purposes?

That is pathetic. Their business should never affect a personal problems. They should of warned you gave some time to shut it down, instead of doing the immature way. Censorship is becoming big, people are getting a lot hurt faster, and people aren't grown up to understand that other people have opinions that shouldn't fit a standard of everyone else.

Oh well, there will always be roadblocks.

Isn't that what 4chan is for?

Definitely not. I am solidly in the group of people who don't know/trust enough about bitcoin to use that service.

Why do you think reddit was censoring so much? There is muscle in this world, and it's much higher up the food chain than frickin Ellen Pao. They are playing hardball now.

Nobody ever thought that napster would go down. Or pirate bay. Or kimdotcom. But deep down, we all knew that this was going to be the end-game. The web has grown so much narrower in the past 15 years; and it's because only those who play ball, are allowed to survive.

Whelp! Found my new home!

Is there a mobile android app?

I must add that Orwell also dealt with the complacency of the people as well, not in 1984, but in Animal Farm. The enemy in Animal Farm isn't necessarily the pigs, but the inability of the other farm animals to question what is going on before it is far too late.

this is amazing. Thanks for sharing.

Ironically, this attempt to close down Voat will probably make even more people aware of this place now, just wait for the Streisand effect to kick in.

I do not understand, why do these people have so much fear over unpopular opinions? I am not a FPHer nor any of the minorities Voat lets in their site, but I do not just step in and tell them to stop thinking what they think. It's scary, really. There seems to be this idea that either you host the ideas the majority agrees to, or your opinion is forbidden. The truth should be shown by discussion or by judging both sides of the argument, not by trying to bury, censor and close down anything other than the widely agreed idea.

Best of luck, /u/Atko , and thank you so much for creating Voat!

I don't know exactly who they is, but check out this post that was even instantly shadowbanned on r/conspiracy. The funny thing is, it's about privilege so you would think it would be right up reddit's alley. http://imgur.com/ymRz8Pk

I hope this makes anyone else using this hosting provider reconsider where they should be spending their money.

@Atko why don't you tell everyone who Voat is hosted with now? Don't want to mention Microsoft?

This money will most likely have to be taxed, but a detailed report will be published asap. I have received interview requests from several major news agencies but responding to these agencies will have to wait. A voat which runs smoothly and satisfied users is my #1 priority. It would feel wrong for me to be spending time appearing in the media while there are plenty other more pressing issues to deal with right here.

Dont ever change

Hey! Enjoy Midsommer, Atko!

Is this the cause of the slow loading speed of the site and my upvotes randomly reverting and sometimes when I go to comment is says I'm going to fast (despite not posting for far longer than 30 seconds)? Or is this just me? (if just me ignore)

I can't upvoat you yet but I can say this is an interesting take that I haven't heard before. Granted, I am one of many who connects to the Orwell reference merely because I have read it... I must read Brave New World ASAP.

Thanks for taking the time to write that out. Both interesting and terrifying.

Nobody likes them over here, so they won't have the control that they enjoy on Reddit.

Correct, but for the sake of the discussion I don't think it makes that big of a difference.

That a nice summary of potential future events. The question is would you personally be bothered to do this, if it's just a load of hassle.

hosteurope.de invites you to get to know their customers. Perhaps someone would like to inform these customers that their service may be terminated at any time if they are judged to be "politically incorrect".

I'd say deaddit's biggest advertisers.

I think it's important that you read this, posted on Reddit's KiA by NotYourMothersDildo:

People need to start accepting that Voat.co will not be able to scale -- these guys don't have enough experience with traffic to become the next reddit.

Strikes against them:

• ASP.net based site
• Not using cloud hosting

The fact that they have a physical host and their own servers is a giant red flag. If you have an opportunity to take an exodus from a site like reddit you have to be able to scale and there is no way they will be able to provision enough physical servers fast enough to scale to handle a reddit-sized crowd.

I'm anti-cloud for most projects but for something like this you need to be able to spin up a dozen servers immediately and you can't do that at some random German ISP that they didn't even seem to investigate for hosting policies.

Maybe it's time to have a ZeroNet or Cjdns version of the site.

Can you imagine a time when all the internet hosting services become consolidated and set a agenda through undemocratically arrived at rules that ignore the role of Free Speech in a democratic institution? This is 1984 territory we are entering into. SJW stooges working through the power and influence of the oligarchs and Corporate power houses will be setting the debate and its parameters for political correctness purposes behind the scenes by controlling the information bubble we all get to see.

Reality and agendas will exist outside this bubble, of course, but for the majority, the bubble will dictate their position and opinions. Chomsky calls this "Manufacturing Consent".

But organizations exist outside this bubble. The reason why Islam is so successful is that it operates on the level of Imams and Muftis and is impervious to the media and internet machinations that all the rest of us are vulnerable to. Islam has its agenda and its means and outlets for advancing it forward. I doubt Islam is vulnerable to the attempt to fashion a politically correct narrative.

That is an interesting reality. In the service of keeping the masses compliant and docile and unaware, the consolidated web-hosting services and media conglomerates will be nullifying stories of real social breakdown and the failure of democratic institutions to realize the interests of the populace so as to avoid public reaction to events. The wish of oligarchs to have massive immigration so as to bust wages and maximize profit will trump the needs of society to preserve liberal values and to resist a-liberal religious theocracy.

BTW, having each person isolated in their bubble-dom and with no sense of community is exactly China's model for public control using the internet:

"In most cases, censors reacted swiftly, deleting messages within a day of posting. They also seemed to follow a surprising logic. The researchers found that posts on topics they themselves classified as highly sensitive were only slightly more likely than average to be deleted—24% of posts, versus 13% overall. That was “completely unexpected,” King says. They next looked at bursts of posts following significant events. During events with potential for collective action, the vast majority of posts were censored—regardless of whether they supported or criticized the state."

http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2014/08/study-internet-censorship-reveals-deepest-fears-chinas-government

China, by allowing people to air their complaints, diffuses the people's well grounded anger and concerns without needing to institute change. By eliminating all attempts to connect with others and take collective action on important and popular issues of concern, China isolates each person into a ineffectual "n" of one. Each "n" can complain but that is all an "n" can do. See how that works?

And maybe that is a larger strategy than just the one used by China? Maybe the sociology of mass control is being implemented for the benefit of an elite few? Likely? I think so. Why not? If you can, you will take the tools that are provided for your own self interest. That is all too human.

Well, I don't like it. I hope you don't either. Here is that address for hosteurope.de and for their higher level provider, DENIC.

Name: HostEurope GmbH Address: Welserstrasse 14 PostalCode: 51149 City: Köln CountryCode: DE Phone: +49 800 4678387 Fax: +49 1805 663233 Email: [email protected] Changed: 2012-07-12T12:16:13+02:00

Contact

DENIC eG Human Resources Frank Bernd (Human Resource manager in charge of hiring) Kaiserstrasse 75-77 60329 Frankfurt am Main Germany

Are there any international law attorneys here are VOAT? German laws and the intent to shut down a site for allowing unpopular political ideas to be forwarded seems to me to be a legal issue and one that a post-Fascist Germany should be concerned about. Maybe some anticensorship group like the one's below deserve a letter asking for aid?:

Campaign Against Censorship

25 Middleton Close Fareham, Hampshire T014 1Qn England 44.329.28.44.71 Center for Civic Education

5146 North Douglas Fir Road Calabasas, CA 91302 818.340.9320

Propaganda Review

Media Alliance Fort Mason Center, Room D-290 San Francisco, CA 94123 415.441.2557

Project Censored

"Project Censored educates students and the public about the importance of a truly free press for democratic self-government. We expose and oppose news censorship and we promote independent investigative journalism, media literacy, and critical thinking."

http://www.projectcensored.org/censorship/

Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression

400 Peter Jefferson Place Charlottesville, VA 22911-8691 (804) 295-4784

I guess servers in Sealand could be an option.

Wow, fatties got really BTFO

Is there any legal action you could take against hosteurope.de? If they just shut down your servers without warning weren't they risking your data?

so it's gotten that bad

Well done. Goaters have your back

Stay strong, you got this! I'm here for the long run, as are many other users

I just want to thank you Atko and the Voat team for the contributions you are making to free speech. The more they try to silence you the more I come to realize what you are doing is essential to a free society.

Reddit's behind this, it's blatantly obvious. First a DDoS then this??

Amazing! Are the Fat Activists behind this?

It's like Ellen Pao is sending her thugs to break kneecaps.

That is not a sufficient answer to the question.

Reddit is now the Wal-Mart of the internet. Fear from competition? Put them out of business. I'm sure that $50milllion 'investment' last year can get them any leverage they want now.

You need your own datacenter.

Political correctness is bullshit. It was made up by people so they could feel persecuted without actually experiencing persecution. It's shocking that it's acceptable for people to refuse a service to someone over something like this.

You've been put into a strange position and given an opportunity to oppose censorship--and you're doing a great job of it. You'd have my support even if you were doing a not-great job.

Kudos man.

Political correctness is bullshit. It was made up by people so they could feel persecuted without actually experiencing persecution. It's shocking that it's acceptable for people to refuse a service to someone over something like this.

Just providing a different platform for different ideas, and different cat pictures, is harassment. Dear god. Keep up the good work, Atko, we all love you.

How can I donate money?

Your church has experienced this crap because they're fucking crazy.

Their loss. Maybe they just can't handle the traffic....

I'm not so sure our treatment isn't a little of the two and a lot of both.

Who's they? Tell us, I'm so ready with my battling ram and legions of mountain goats! I'm ready!

Seriously, who? the PC people? The only way to beat them is expose their hypocrisy. I never met any PC/SJW who is not hypocrite. Expose their hypocrisy and let the other PC/SJW jerks do they bullying and ostracizing for us.

Hi! It's me, your friendly neighborhood aardvark! As an aardvark I can't claim to know much about hosting. But I hear good things about something called OVH. Word around the bushland is that their service is good, their prices are good, and they're also the people who told the French government to go pound sand when pressured to close a wikileaks mirror. That marks them as good people as far as I'm concerned because pounding sand is how you unearth termites, and I thought I should let you know. OVH: hosting that meets an aardvark's needs, and maybe yours too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3ae6s1/voatcos_provider_hosteuropede_shuts_down_voats/csby3co

Well, I just did end my relationship with HostEurope. Back to Hetzner I guess.

Do not, under any circumstances, host anything related to freedom of speech in fucking germany.

I can speak from experience.

Dude. Amazon EC2. Or Linode.

As soon as I get a new job, if Voat is still standing, I'm gonna donate to the site on a regular basis.

Fucking SJWs aren't satisified enough with kicking people from their hugboxes, they feel the need to destroy whatever places that contain what and whom they don't like. Makes me wanna punch their faces until they become a blood pudding.

personally I disagree with much of what was said in some of the banned subs. I think some of the positions are stupid. I'm not here because I hate fat people or even the SWJs, to me they're just like the Christian/Islamic/Jewish/whicheverreligious fundamentalists, but they, and you and I have the right to be stupid and to air and discuss our views.

I'm fairly sure you'd think I was an idiot for some of my opinions just as I would you. So fucking what... That's what being human is.

That's why I'm here

personally I disagree with much of what was said in some of the banned subs. I think some of the positions are stupid. I'm not here because I hate fat people or even the SWJs, to me they're just like the Christian/Islamic/Jewish/whicheverreligious fundamentalists, but they, and you and I have the right to be stupid and to air and discuss our views.

I'm fairly sure you'd think I was an idiot for some of my opinions just as I would you. So fucking what... That's what being human is.

That's why I'm here

ITT: "ZOMG CENSORSHIP SJW OMG RAGE RAGE"

Did you realize Germany doesn't have pro-Freedom of Speech policy and is well known for this kind of censorship for a long time, and ISPs have a responsibility to enforce German law themselves?

".... but 1984... but Pao.... "

personally I disagree with much of what was said in some of the banned subs. I think some of the positions are stupid. I'm not here because I hate fat people or even the SWJs, to me they're just like the Christian/Islamic/Jewish/whicheverreligious fundamentalists, but they, and you and I have the right to be stupid and to air and discuss our views.

I'm fairly sure you'd think I was an idiot for some of my opinions just as I would you. So fucking what... That's what being human is.

That's why I'm here

I will readily agree with many here that the outrage is justified, and it's about time that Reddit.com is tanking. But I also see people addressing Reddit users instead of Reddit employees as part of the problem. As in Us versus Them, as in antagonizing people who have very little power over the website they frequent.

I'd like to point that Reddit's management is the reason Reddit has become shit. The users, the redditors are just people. Demonizing people who just haven't yet left the sinking ship doesn't seem fair. I see a good deal of Voaters saying that they still use their old Reddit accout, at least to some extent.

TL;DR If we are quick to antagonize Reddit users instead of employees, we risk being social justice warriors ourselves. ^{And that leads to the Dark Side}

ok

ok

Everytime someone brings up Orwell I bring up Aldous. When people fear we are becoming like 1984, I always say no, the U.S. is getting something much more frightening. We're getting the Huxley treatment.

What the hell? That's fucked up. They don't deserve your business.

Free speech does not buckle under the pressure of "safe zones" or political correctness. This fight will never be over but we will prevail.

What the fuck is going on in this world? Those right wing lunatics might be right. If you hold an opinion that is not aligned with the anyone then they shut you down? So if Aristotle came out and said that the world was not flat but round, people would try to shut him up? This whole notion that you got your stuff taken away because someone doesn't like your opinion is scary.

This is funny, I feel like voat is just going to get bigger, wouldn't that mean more money for keeping voat?

Isn't that a breach of contract? Can you sue them? They can't prove you were hosting anything illegal.

My best friend is one of his descendants.

Dude, get advertisers. You need capital to deal with shit like this. I would happily turn off Adblock for this site.

You know, it's probably just better to find you a bulletproof server and be done with it.

Well, I give up. I'm not a FPH person or racist, but I just support free speech. I'm a minority now. There's no world left for me.

This is where we hold them. ... This is where we fight! ... And this is where THEY DIE!

Your donations are what keeps us afloat. Our paypal account has been un-suspended, so you can still donate to [email protected], or via bitcoin to wallet address 1C4Q1RvUb3bzk4aaLVgGccnSnaHYFdESzY.

I smell a ruse and it's not voat.

Yo, maybe check out nearlyfreespeech.net. They have a very strong free speech stance and do a lot to protect clients.

I've enjoyed their services for years, their prices can't be beat.

What continues to shock me is the lenghts some folks will go and the fevor with which they desire to block free speech. Over history, when has limiting free speech ever ended well for anyone?

.

Voat has a good thing going here. Keep it up.

I used to work for an isp under hosteurope. It's highly unlikely that care about censorship. Most of their staff probably use reddit and voat. You are simply a troublesome customer for them. If there was more money it would be different.. But they want customers who spend money and never bother them with anything. That's the way it is in the business world.

You're using our servers to provide a service on the internet, but we don't like you, we think you're meanie heads, so we don't want your money.

K, bye bitch. I love that this was someone's secret attempt to take down voat and it just utterly failed.

Hater's gonna hate.

Success! The only reason to attack is if they sense a threat. Voat has officially reached the next level if they are worried.

Hmm weird that you have no problem putting your old provider on blast but won't mention your new provider is none other than Microsoft in the U.S.?? Seems like something you would mention if you were really interested in privacy.

I don't know what your route is like but if you're driving through Innsbruck(Austria) on your way, send me a pm if you want a break and something to eat or a couch to crash on

Okay, I'm officially done with Reddit.

If you have a dogecoin account then I'll happily donate.

seriously though. I'm no techie, but I'm learning. I will do my part if the time comes to help fight for this place. Just say the word, Atko

Still up and active, MyBodyIs ;)

Really sorry about that.

Keep fighting the good fight. You have our support.

Maybe Chairman Pao had her husbands hedge fund buy them up. Oh wait......

Yes making it configure itself automatically just by having servers thrown at it is quite another thing,that would require quite some innovative coding.

The pathetic thing is that someone actually took the time to bitch and moan to the ISP instead of, IDK, not visiting the website.

The biggest hurdle to bitcoin adoption is that wallet.dat file. Bitcoin expects you to take charge of your own digital security and use it in a secure manner - and most people are not ready for this, in fact they may never be ready for it as it's not trivial to a non-technical person. We need better 'wallet' technology to make it easier for the average joe to manage his coins.

Whoever can come up with a secure, easy to use means to use/have Bitcoin for the layman, s/he will make a boatload of money. This is why I haven't tried my hand at Bitcoin - So much information and somehow not clear enough how to manage a wallet / acquire currency / et al.

Yep, in our current culture, the loudest, squeakiest wheels are given inordinate power/say-so over things they decry. Apparently, this is where "minority as victim" leads us all.

The biggest hurdle to bitcoin adoption is that wallet.dat file. Bitcoin expects you to take charge of your own digital security and use it in a secure manner - and most people are not ready for this, in fact they may never be ready for it as it's not trivial to a non-technical person. We need better 'wallet' technology to make it easier for the average joe to manage his coins.

Whoever can come up with a secure, easy to use means to use/have Bitcoin for the layman, s/he will make a boatload of money. This is why I haven't tried my hand at Bitcoin - So much information and somehow not clear enough how to manage a wallet / acquire currency / et al.

The biggest hurdle to bitcoin adoption is that wallet.dat file. Bitcoin expects you to take charge of your own digital security and use it in a secure manner - and most people are not ready for this, in fact they may never be ready for it as it's not trivial to a non-technical person. We need better 'wallet' technology to make it easier for the average joe to manage his coins.

Whoever can come up with a secure, easy to use means to use/have Bitcoin for the layman, s/he will make a boatload of money. This is why I haven't tried my hand at Bitcoin - So much information and somehow not clear enough how to manage a wallet / acquire currency / et al.

Wow... that's... exactly what's going on. I'm going to have to read that one.

That is seriously disturbing.

Huzzah for proving us right

they're just the loudest and seemingly have the media on their side (outrage = clicks). if enough people stand up to them, ignore them, they resort to dirty tactics. utterly predictable and shameful people, not to mention giant narcissists. fascists in disguise, they can fuck off.

What do you mean it can't work here?

Ok, fuck this shit.

You are completely right about the final solution. We need a decentralized system that cannot be taken down or fucked with in any way. It is hard to code but it is not impossible. I can do it and with other people's help, we can get it done faster and probably better.

Essentially, we need to store the content on in a distributed fashion, using a combination of public servers (linode, AWS, whatever) and personal computers (yours and mine). All content can be encrypted to protect against tampering (nobody knows which pieces are stored where). Using cryptographic techniques we can protect the content and verify it's authenticity (think MD5 hashes).

There will be complications and synchronization issues, but this is a solvable problem. If a serious group forms, I will be willing to dedicate my time to help make this happen.

I really admire your decision to use cloud hosting and PayPal for your infrastructure, so much trust in you now.

This is so crazy. Voat has just been getting hit hard. I can only hope that this site grows stronger and becomes more of what it already is.

Yes. Education is dominated by appeasing the loudest potential hysterical voice.

"If you don't like reddit go somewhere else!"

"...wait you cant jus't ACTUALLY do that!"

The 'final solution' to this mess is a decentralized, distributed Voat that doesn't actually live on any one server - but this is fucking hard to code, no one has ever done it before,

Im not an expert but curious - what about diaspora project? Aren't they servers decentralized ?

All I got from this is I can donate money to the paypal addess now.

So I did.

Woah hey, your papal was suspended? when did this happen?

Holy shit, they really are trying everything to shut this down. Good thing you managed to save the data, but is your next host outside of Germany?

What a bunch of fucktards. Another good reason for regular backups and DR plans.

it sickens me that some people go out of there way to try to stop competition.

Keep up all your good work!

we are living in a weird world

When the going gets weird the weird turn pro.

Kudos to you and all your efforts and as someone once said to a British politician "don't let the bastards bring you down"

The term politically incorrect is the most weasel y worded phrase of the modern age.

You just gave me a great idea!

Reddit got mad that everyone is coming over here.

This is heartbreaking, and infuriating.

Wow this is absolutely unacceptable!

Thanks for that I love Dylan Thomas.

if your money is in a bank, it can be seized, so you're losing all of your protection by doing so

Frankly I'm significantly less concerned about money being seized from a bank than hacked or otherwise lost at an unregulated and potentially insecure bitcoin depository. I am nearly 40 and the only people I know who've ever had money seized at a bank were people who were under investigation by the IRS. On the other hand, I do know a handful of people who lost money with Mt. Gox. My perception is that the chances of the IRS making a mistake with your accounts is much smaller than the chances that your btc depository is going to have something go wrong.

ETA: If you actually are cheating on your taxes or engaged in other criminal enterprises you should seriously make some provisions to liquidate enough of your profits to tide you over while legal proceedings/legging it are required. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

What is The Silk Road ive been hearing about it but I don't know anything about it?

In lamens terms "Shouting at the problem until it goes away" except you know, also stabbing, breaking in, plagarizing, discrediting and even death threats.

This oddly looks like the CIA and FBI's tactics to get things done.

The "politically correct" crowd is horrifying. It's becoming more and more like a religion every day. This is going to get worse before it gets better as well. I'm very sorry that you were caught in the middle of this.

This is my favorite poem. The structure and message are just so well done.

I can't imagine anyone would be pussy hurt enough by the internet to go to these lengths.....unless they had a financial stake in the outcome

You guys should never pick a host in Germany due to their laws regarding content, I'd find a new one to be honest :/

I'm sending 5 Euros to [email protected] right now. (Bringing my donations to a total of 15 Euros - Want my badge goddamnit :D)

Is there anything Voat can do about this other then be glad the data was in the cloud?

Cyber warfare, powered by political influence.

Free speech = politically incorrect

I hope there's a better way to pay for servers since paypal is a bitch and most people don't know how to use bitcoin, but I'm sure we're not going down just because some assholes got butthurt and shut down our servers.

THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT???!?!

WTF does that even mean anymore? Is this how mass censorship is going to take over the internet? Under the pathetic banner of SJWs?

Amazing how spineless the person in charge of hosteurope turned out to be. Keep up the good work. You are making correct decisions.

Host at least some of your own servers. Also please stop blocking Tor users from registering and logging in. The google "I'm not a robot" box does not work when using the Tor browser. Find an alternative that does not use javascript. I would also recommend hosting a copy of voat as an onionsite (formely "hidden service website") and making the non-javascript register/login the default on the onionsite.

Voat should team up with thepiratebay guys somehow.

I'm going to soon move over my year's worth of QoinPro to your account. We've got your back, Atko. You keep doing what you're doing, and we'll do what we do to make sure this works out.

By the way Atko, have you considered doing a Teespring? I posted about this on the Voat subreddit, but I'm curious if you would be open to that.

"hurt feelings" huh. Well, even so, fph still didn't hurt anyone. "Hurt feelings" means they know they are at fault and they try to deflect it. I really hate fat people. More than smokers, idiots, theists... and dog lovers.

One small correction decentralised is not hard to to code it is merely replication of dbs across platforms. Set up a few domain names in advance and make sure your load balancers can safely fail over it is how all international websites should be run.

Iceland is a good option for servers, not so much for cloud services. 1984.is is a pretty good hosting company. ISNIC is a damn stubborn registry. The laws are appropriate.

Scale is an issue, and all traffic flows through the UK.

Source: I migrated hosted servers from other providers to Iceland for privacy reasons.

Well if there were any better way to prove a legitimate open forum I don't know what it would be.

> "Stop being such entitled manbabies and just go to your own site already if you want your freeze peach, shitlords!"

> DDOS attacks, reporting Voat to its host for "political incorrectness"

Bottom line, SJWs: if your ideas were logically sound, you wouldn't have to try to shut down every alternative and force everyone to only read your censored, curated content.

Chairman Pao sends her regards

"And who, are you.."

I encourage everyone to contact HostEurope to let them know your thoughts on this, customer or not.

https://www.hosteurope.de/en/Host-Europe/Support-Service/#Kontakt-Beratung

[email protected]

That should be fairly easy since SJW's panties tend to be the size of circus tents.

Do you think bitmessage could work as a reddit/voat clone? Infact, i'd be willing to do some coding work to get that! it's the dream

They reported you. Someone reported you. Not sure from where. For shits and giggles, try contacting the hoster and asking what did the report say, ask them to substantiate their claims about you.

Eastasia. We've always been at war with Eastasia.

@atko Please don't be disheartened and please hold fast to your stances on censor ship and free speech. We will support you and this site like we have, and there are plenty of servers out there that will accept your money and business. This is just a small part of the problem of the sjw pc culture, they are doing all they can to try and shut us down and smear us and it will not work. Fear not brother, we're all in this for the long haul.

Reminds me of this.

physically anyways.

quit your bullshit, fph didn't hurt anyone, physically or otherwise.

A reminder that Reddit has been manipulated by shills working for the US government for several years now. Your enemy is the US government, and they'll do anything in their power to keep the public corralled into the place where THEY want them to be. Don't give up, and keep fighting the good fight against tyranny.

God forbid we hurt anyone's fee fee's

God forbid we hurt anyone's fee fee's

I also would like to know. Just "SJW" doesn't really satisfy me as an answer. It's like having a ready-made strawman while there's no central SJW organisation calling the shots. As far as I know.

I think it was because they reached their limit on donations. They will still get the money, but last I checked it would be in December. Hopefully the account being unsuspended has changed that, though I'm not sure. I donated anyway though.

Here is a link to the final Q&A for anyone else that may be interested. I may listen to a lot of this while at work today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYUKJBZuUig

This Service Level Agreement (SLA) is provided in English for your convenience.

General Terms and Conditions of Business of Host Europe

Please note that in case of a dispute or discrepancy between the German SLA and the English translation, the German version shall prevail.

This is a Win. Glass half full. Voat users have your back and some pocket money to fund a new hosting site.

wow fuck hosteurope.de what a bunch of wankers

Encourage owner of site to seek legal advice about article 11 of the European convention on human rights. If this was indeed closed down for political reasons rather than violation of terms of service or illegal activity. If it is illegal activity you should respect the laws of the country it is hosted in.

I think it goes much deeper than Pao and down to the investors who put her into power at reddit. I dont have the article so I may have misinterpreted it but I believe one of the main investors had issues with klein( who Pao was suing) and as a jab to make their case harder he appointed Pao as CEO - this both makes her seem legit and gave her power but it also helped him by making it harder for klein say she wasnt legit. Again I am not attorney as I may have way misunderstood the dealings going on. My point is Pao may just be a pawn in a power game that goes much deeper than whats being reported.

just got banned from my fav sub reddit. now voats gone.

Why not just aws this shit? Use ec2 buy cpanel or whatever you need, run whatever is is your kick...centos, Ubuntu, Windows...all would do the job. I doubt amazon is scurred.

Don't forget this cunt liberals before the next election, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have pledged in public, with 48 Democratic Party senators to kill the first amendment. Or keep pretending shit is alright and talk shit about the republicans and conservatives who do not attack our rights. If you let the cunts win then America will be just like Europe and you can kiss freedom of speech goodbye in the name of PC.

I'm just gonna leave this here for us and others

“Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read.

If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people.

I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don't like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don't like it, nobody is telling you to finish it.

To read a 600-page novel and then say that it has deeply offended you: well, you have done a lot of work to be offended.”

― Salman Rushdie

This is why proxy your site and protect the actual content servers as best you can. I play this cat and mouse game constantly as an internet marketer.

A strange world indeed. This is cyberpunk, "Little Brother" levels of crazy.

Do you stand on your dick?

^oww

You don't have to pull your punches, Atko. The world isn't weird. It's fucked.

This whole thing has definitely piqued my interest in learning more to be able to contribute to the overall success of this place. There has to be more we can do as a community. Right?

What the fuck?

This is absolutely fucked. Sorry to hear that.

Is this Reddit's doings?

Sad. I hope we can fight the system and find a hosting provider that will protect our freedom of speech.

Gotcha, never ever use hosteurope.de because they're leftards

Report this to the press, particularly the conservative press, name and shame the hosting company and get it into headlines.

These "political correctness" people are hated by everyone who is not an extremist leftist, and get what they want by threatening the corporate image of various businesses.

If you make it more painful to their image to abide these PC police than to tell them to fuck off, they'll tell them to fuck off.

What the fuck is wrong with the world today?

Actually, many subs with extreme political views are illegal in many European countries. We don't have a culture of freedom of speech, unfortunately. Most people here agree that extreme views should be "prohibited". Especially for Germany that is the case. And, iirc, Hosteurope is a German company. So, no surprise they terminated the contract at the first sign of " illegal" opinions.

Hosting in the US or some other country with actual freedom of speech culture would probably be a better idea.

To expound on your point, a common argument in the US for gay marriage to those who opposed it morally was that it wouldn't ultimately affect them in any way. Then comes the "well it affects you if you bake cakes, take pictures or cater for a living". The Frank Herbert quote : " when I am less powerful than you I ask for my freedom, because that is according to your principles. When I am more powerful than you I take away your freedom, because that is according to my principles"

(funny, thought I'd made an account over here some time back.) All I can say is 'holy shit'. I am glad you were able to migrate to a cloud-based system, but honestly I'm not sure how much safer that is. I know what you're taking on with this site is a massive task, but thank you. All of your users appreciate it.

Astroturfed concern emails from a big jealous rival?

If seen this trend also, and it is alarming.

Now that we see that the other party is willing to go great lengths to take us down, it seems to me that we should instate something like a Warrant Canary to check whether Voat is still running as usual or has been cornered into positions that you cannot disclose this.

Well the provider can refuse to host the site, but I don't think they can refuse the owner access to their intellectual property. So even if Voat keeps getting shutdown, he should be able to get a fresh copy of the site and just move it.

You should host with Azure, Amazon, and Google for redundancy's sake. Also I'm sure they are not so petty to take down servers because your point of view does not agree with theirs.

I hope your girlfriend has backups of her research papers. :(

On the one hand, I wouldn't be surprised; on the other hand, you quoted a huge company that apparently had a grammatical error in an important place. I don't buy your shit.

FFS - I'm really getting sick of this puritanical activism. Were any specific examples of the wrongthinks given - or was it just a nebulous concept of political incorrectness?

They came for 4chan. I didn't protest as I wasn't a 4channer.

They came for Reddit. I stopped being a Redditor.

They came for Voat. I lost my shit and stocked up on C-4 and hookers.

Forget the C-4 and double the hookers.

TLDR; Vigilantism is the only means of social justice.

If you're reading violence into that statement, you're a psychopath. Any independent thinker is considered a vigilante by society so pull your head from the pile of sociopathic cocaine you're sniffing. /wink

Keep fighting the good fight! I sent over a bitcoin donation and will do so when ever I can! Good work.

Well, because of this you got yourself one new registered user.

Bye bye reddit.

Just emailed Hoste Europe and expressed my rant about their PC BS. No wonder UK and Germany are one of the fattest countries in Europe...

Maybe we should get the same host as 4Chan so we know they won't have a problem with our content.

According to this website (http://who-hosts.com/4chan.org) 4Chan is hosted by Cloudflare.com.

What about Skrill as an alternative?

Find out if that was a breach of contract, very doubtful, take the company to small claims court just for what your girlfriend has on there. Eat tacos.

Please contact a lawyer. Possible claims breach of contract. I also believe there might be some violation some European Union Law.

The irony --- not long ago the European Union the world was outraged by killed of a cartoonist for " politically incorrect" expression of thought. I guess intolerance to the moral high ground only applies to Muslims , and not to " progressive stifling of hate" to those who believe their views are enlighten not to tolerate views they do not agree with. Intimidation fear and control of opposing views is not only done with a gun-- not making their acts less henious.

The tools of authoritarian control -- imposed by private companies. One and the same.

Double plus good. Edit: contact the media in your area or where the company is located. Let them know that this company engages in a thought police -- among other things.

Tl:dr: Europe - we only protect freedom of expressions against the Muslims.

@atko thank you for what you're doing. Thousands of us have your back.

We don't know for sure it's who we think it is. What we do know is a lot of people stand to lose a lot of money if the SJWs sink that other site. The parent company has millions of dollars and lots of power to bully others into accepting their PC bullshit. Even if it's not them, the SJWs are a force on their own, well financed by powerful people. There's a ton of other scenarios as well. But the rapid rise of this site and the fact that someone wants to shut it down shows that we are still a big threat. Fight the good fight Atko. We're with you.

Found the fatties

Human programming dictates that if an opinion has over 10% acceptance in a social ecosystem it must be considered. Voat is allowing uncontrolled thought free which is very dangerous to the powers that be.

Us military did this study a long time back. Perception of freedom plus controlled speech equals invisible control.

You're continually uder attack, aren't you? Can't you just rent rackspace in a datacenter? Of course you dont have any support that way but your opponents have no hosting provider to complain to.

http://i.imgur.com/W9GVxXu.jpg

Looking forward to the success of this site.. keep up the good fight !

So needless to say we're all going to remove hosteurope.de from our vendor lists?

My impression is that lawsuits are less common in Europe, but couldn't you sue them for breach of contract? Especially if you can show financial losses?

I mean, is there anything in your contract with them about hosting politically incorrect content or the content needing to be arbitrarily acceptable to them?

Holy shit people, cry more. It's not like Voat isn't back up and it's not like it was removed from the internet. They were just told to move.

If you don't like it vote with your wallets. It's a free market. It's not like it was blocked from all hosts.

After reading through their service agreement, it's likely because anything they host is subject to German laws, and Germany has some strict laws around what you can and can't say- they decided the risk isn't worth the benefit and canceled you.

To be honest I wouldn't be too happy about hosting subverses such as /v/jailbait either... There should have been much more communication on there side though.

Man this is really a bummer. I hope everything turns out alright.

on another note: I hope you travel well and enjoy your life here!

Wow, terrifying how much time people have available to ruin other people's hard work. SJW or maybe more organized (Advance Publications or Conde Nast)?

Two things you could do:

1) Look into how the piratebay manages their server. They've mastered the art of moving their servers at a moments notice.

2) Look into your legal options. You're not in the USA, so you might be protected by some consumer protection laws.

You need a +1 for your date? I've always wanted a threesome.

Let's make another YLYL thread, haven't had one of those in a while.

I can't take seriously the mind that harbors such a term as "sjw"

Free yourself.

To be fair, there is a lot of overlap between /b/ and 4chan from what I've seen a heard.

Just use Bitcoin. There's no one to step in and stop the transaction, so you always have control over your money.

Remember Atko, we love you. :3

Wouldn't it be better if it was hosted in Switzerland?

I guess it's more expensive?

This is interesting. Hosteurope's Terms and Conditions are online, available here. The only section of this agreement that is applicable to this situation is §3 (Obligations of the client), specifically subsection (3) which says

The Client may not infringe statutory prohibitions, moral standards or the rights of third parties (copyright law, trademark law, rights to the name and data protection law etc.) through his use of his website or the banners that appear on the website. The Client may not enter its website details into search engines when making such entries, if and insofar as the Client infringes statutory prohibitions, moral standards or the rights of third parties through his use of keywords and similar technologies. In the event of any infringement of one of the aforementioned obligations, the Provider shall be entitled to suspend the provision of his services with immediate effect or to block access to the Client’s information.

Voat clearly didn't infringe on the rights of third parties, didn't break copyright or trademark law, data protection laws or any other law. Since Hosteurope claimed "Political Incorrectness" as reason to terminate the contract, it can only mean that "Moral standards" were infringed upon.

Here's the thing: German law, which is applicable here (§11, "Applicable law, place of jurisdiction"), doesn't recognize "moral standards". This would make the immediate termination of the service agreement between Atko and Hosteurope nil and void, and would put Hosteurope on the hook for infringing on §5 of the German basic law as well as consumer protection laws.

Suing a company is fairly cheap in Germany, and in the current anti-surveillance, anti-censorship climate, a lawsuit like this could be huge.

What a bunch of dicks

Does gofundme.com or any of those have a history of stealing donations?

No, it's not, but Voat is accepting Bitcoin which essentially eliminates payment processor issues.

Atko, I know you're busy, but please publish some data on donations or make a statement on transparency before continuing to ask for more donations.

Thanks, and hang in there.

Sounds like somebody's jimmies are rustled if they went after you through your hosting company...keep it up! Don't let them silence this place!

Despite being outraged by this act of questionable legality, I'd recommend **not **to seek legal recourse and avoid Germany altogether for hosting Voat as the laws here are quite harsh (libel, responsibility for third party content, pornography and much more) . There are some substantial legal risks involved in running a website like Voat and if you have not done so already, you should get yourself either full time legal advice or at least document a qualified expert opinion on what exactly you have to do to prevent liability, in particular criminal in the jurisdiction you live in, you host in and you plan to travel to.

Messing with Reddit means you made some serious enemies on the corporate level and other people who have leverage because of it and they will use any tool available to them to keep it.

I'd offer my assistance for free but to be quite frank the of getting associated officially with these matters is a bit too risky. If you do need a short term solution I am willing to provide unbinding counseling.

Next target will likely be PayPal / other methods of funding. If you have not done it already immediately separate your personal funds from the page to prevent that they can hit you hard. As soon as possible you should transfer voat.co to a company that provides you with limited liability. Do not dismiss this easily, this shit happens out in the real world every day and people don't take it seriously until it is to late. As a private person you are extremely easy to attack legally and tangle you up into endless lawsuits that will ruin your life regardless whether they fail or not.

There must be some provider somewhere in the world that doesn't give a damn about PC and maybe enjoys virtually kicking SJWs i.e. American culture in the nuts; I don't know, non-EU East Europe, Russia, Korea...?

Perhaps Venmo is a better alternative? Although, I have a friend who just got a job there and her twitter feed is full of women in tech/affirmative action, gun-control, and various other things that typically align with a pro-censorship stance. Not that it reflects the Venmo corporate policy necessarily, but from the position they created for her with only a bachelor's degree I'd say they are least in love with her tech abilities, and the political stuff has helped her get interviewed by some magazines so I'm sure they like the exposure there.

Edit - Scratch that, Venmo is limited to US residents according to their Terms of Service.

Edit 2 - Scratch it again, /u/ihaveamac has pointed out that Venmo is not a competitor of PayPal, but a subsidiary.

Best of luck guys

There will be much more fuckery going on but that all means Voat is moving in the right direction!

So sad it has stooped to this level.

That's fucked up, man.

Okay, so hosteurope.de are a bunch of idiots and I won't do business with them - thank you for the heads up :)

wow it's astonishing that they don't make more of an effort to pretend they're acting like proper human beings they're not just anti-free speech corrupt villains they're lazy too

I'm not sure what you wanna do atko but we support you all the way and sorry if we brought you or your girlfriend any trouble

I'm not sure if you really want to or feel comfortable with it but if you're with us the position as our rebel leader is always open to you ;)

This is ridiculous. Straight up redonkiconkulous. I'm kind of at a loss for words.

Hoist the mainsail and scuttle the jib boys!

They Ellen Pao'd your servers!

yes?

Disgusting. Will make sure to spread the word about hosteurope.de's actions. It is their rights to shut down a service, but as a result I'll put them on my blacklist of services to never do business with.

Isn't this a breach of contract?

Rrrr...did they really cite the need to be politically correct? To be fair, it's not wrong to say there's quite a bit of political incorectness here..but that doesn't necessarily make it bad.

Might be time to give that subscription idea another look, I think.

I truly hope you're up for this, this is just the beginning brother.

Appreciate the work you all have done to this point!

Keep up the good work Atko!

This is remarkably disturbing. Good luck to you in the coming days and weeks.

There's nothing strange about it. We live in a world where members of the extreme left (for lack of a better word) want to silence all dissenters. This extends to companies.

If Voat is to stay afloat, it's going to HAVE to stand up for free speech. And by that, I don't mean things like kiddie porn or posting torrents, just free speech. But you all know that.

It's definitely time to make Voat what Reddit used to be - A tool to fight for freedom of speech, regardless of the country.

The "social justice" cult. "Social Justice Warriors" (SJW) can't tolerate the fact that some people disagree with them. They go out of their way to silence people who don't submit to their worldview.

They've infested reddit on the subreddit and admin level and they absolutely will not let us leave without a fight.

Ayy LMAO!!

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Too much censorship in Germany. Don't be hosted there.

You better get fat, change your sex and dye your hair pink before its too late!

What a fucking world we live in. Now I'm calling it, free speech on the internet will be significantly limited within the next 10 years or so in the name of safe spaces. And naturally this will be abused in ever increasing ways. I wonder if the people supporting this have ever picked up a fucking history book. This is how it always begins. First you stop something that almost everyone agrees that is distasteful. Then you stop those who defended the freedom of speech. Next something slightly less universally distasteful and those who defend free speech again.. And that loop repeats until only ideas approved by those in power are accepted.

Yet again, this is the pattern in each and every censorship movement. If you defend free speech, then you are simply labeled to be all of the things that people find distasteful. "Oh, so you are one of them, aren't you?" And yet again the people who like the idea of only their opinions being allowed don't realize that of course the people in power will abuse their position, why the hell wouldn't they?

So depressing.. I thought the internet would be the end of such censorship, but human nature to dominate seems to be coming trough.

All you need to know is, THEY hate everything you love, and THEY love everything you hate!

If fat people put this much effort into losing weight instead of bringing down offensive websites, we would have nothing to make fun of.

Holy shit. I hope it's just some fat fucks account manager that has hurt feefees and not the entire company's stand. Either way, fuck them. Fuck them in the ass with a life size bust of Pao.

My bet is that they got harassed by someone opposed to Voat and didn't want to deal with it, so they did the easy thing and killed a customer account.