I’ve banned all Sane alts (while leaving the main account alone) for spamming. If Sane (or his group) wants to post on Voat, they can do so without using alts to hide behind, thus preventing their main accounts from being downvoted and thus restricted. I am done letting this group stomp all over Voat unfettered* like a spoiled toddler and pushing me to enact draconian rules to prevent them from doing so.
Don’t for a second be fooled at the motivations this group has for Voat, they seek not to help. They seek only to force censorship, drive away users, and ultimately destroy Voat while ruining Voat’s commitment to Freedom of Speech. I will not let them win.
They setup an unwinnable situation for Voat, and no matter Voat’s action, they can claim a victory.
If Voat bans them, they claim censorship. If Voat does nothing, reasonable users depart. Regardless of the action, a user subset will be infuriated, and this is entirely the purpose, divide and conquer. We all need to recognize exactly what is happening here. This isn’t about a single user, this is about an organized effort.
If you ever wondered why Reddit has so many private and obfuscated areas in code, fuzzed counters, shadow bans, etc.? It is to stop groups like this. The problem is, as you all know, once this code is implemented it can be used for both good and evil. I choose not to use the little time available on such things, and will instead ban users who engage in Amalek/ManHood101 style spamming in order to maliciously claim censorship later.
A user is free to say whatever they wish, but if they resort to using alt accounts in order to circumvent the protections we do have, these alt accounts will be banned for spamming.
I’m also pulling Sane off v/TIL and v/ReportShills and moving both to @system. Both these subs were transferred to “him” and “he” has not been a good steward. What a joke. Enough of this as well.
* Screenshot taken from statistics page located at https://voat.co/statistics
--
Canary
https://voat.co/v/announcements/1330806
view the rest of the comments →
guinness2 ago
I've studied human rights philosophy and it's important to be mindful that one right can not be used to justify violating other rights.
For example, it's unreasonable for Muslims to justify murdering unbelievers in the name of religious freedom.
Similarly, it's unreasonable to claim that silencing people is a valid form of free speech... and that is precisely what SaneGoat is attempting to do when he claims his free speech takes the form of banning users and deleting their content if his feelings were hurt, or by artificially raising his posts and down-vote brigading others using an army of alts.
Hyde Park's Speakers Corner is a famous celebration of free speech where Londoners have gathered since 1872 to express themselves freely and have an opportunity to be heard by the crowd. There are some very basic and reasonable rules: everyone must have an equal opportunity to be heard, which means megaphones and horns are banned so that people can't be shouted-down or drowned-out artificially: which is a perfect simile for SaneGoat's banning and deleting content he disagrees with or that hurts his feelings and using alts to up-vote his content while down-vote brigading everyone else.