Hello,
Here's why I think this might be the case:
The context
Some years ago, some people in power noticed social media focusing on discussion(reddit) could potentially form a problem somewhere down the dark road they were leading us.
They thought, of course, of simply controling reddit. But that alone wouldn't work, because of something economists call the market.
They needed something ready and effective to take reddit's place for communities banned for their speech from the platform.
The Mechanics, or how they mute and destroy a community making that digital migration
Like mentioned above, the power of these connecting interfaces(socials), in this case reddit, is the sheer amount of free speech.
On voat however, speech is everything but free. The system that selects which content is provided for consumption is based on 'up voats' and 'down voats' that come with rigid restrictions.
Probably the largest part of redditters that migrated here were new users.
A new user can
- Post
- Comment
- Upvoat 10 times a day
A new user NEEDS
-
10 comment points to make unlock more upvoats
-
10 comment points to send a message to someone...
-
100 comment contribution points to downvote(how many times?)
Is there anyone with more insight in the limits that come after these numbers?
Then there is also a character limit that seems completely arbitraty but might be based on voats?
In other words, new users can only be(very) marginal participants in the mechanic that controls for provided content, the voats. Hammering a new user with a few downvoats is all that is needed. New members resort to 'attention seeking' comments and posts to get their voats up. It all adds to the chaos.
They say this about their genius invention:
This requirement was established as a measure to encourage new members to get involved and participate in discussions.
Really? They want to stimulate all the shy guys on the internet to participate? Please...
**What this really is, is a war operation, and I can't understand others can't see this.
**
An example
Have a look at this post
https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1467451
The only post made by this contributor.
The top reply to this post was made by a user who also posted this
https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1446112
And seems to post a lot of "entertainment " which receives a lot of attention.
This is what they have done: they have provided an extremely flawed(from our POV) system as the replacement of reddit.
They produce some obvious "shilling" on it
They say reply to themselves, wahah! Don't worry, these "shills" are so stupid, it's so obvious! We destroyed them on reddit and we will destroy them here.
No, we will not, because reddit didn't have restrictive voats.
Not only speech in written words needs to be free. Judgment of that speech needs to be free too, this is maybe even more important.
Maybe the real pizzagatekeepers should dig a little into with what money Atif Colo conjured this little site into existence in 2014.
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Phobos_Mothership ago
Every time we get a reddit migration, this post happens.
The required comment contribution to downvote posts is 100 so that you have to EARN The right to downvote by participating in the communities on Voat. The 'daily upvotes' limit increases the more upvotes you have. This is all put in place to make sure that people can't make a 1.2 day old account (like yours) and immediately be able to shill.
Bentastixc ago
I know what your sales story is. I'm arguing here it hampers free speech. Discuss my points. This is like early democracy where only citizens paying enough taxes were allowed to vote.
EDIT: Like your downvoting now. I can not downvote you. Is that not silencing my speech? How can you decide for other people whether they want to read this or not?
amCassandraAMA ago
It's simple: it's called a Meritocraty
this system is not only an evolution from reddit, but also from 4chan. 4chan is the frest of all, but ahving absolutely no restriction on the instream of accounts can get pretty tiring at times. This way the shills at least have to fall back on astroturfing before they can get to work.
The whataboutism whether this is impending free speech or if reddits system is ultimately more better is just philosophical masturbation. This is a pragmatic solution, it is far from perfect
Sliding is only effective if your community is lazy.
Bentastixc ago
Yes, in theory.
But the reality is that you only need a fraction of the manpower to control the narrative. On this Pizzagate page, they need only a handful of guys who are able to downvoat in order to prevent something coming through "new". This is not philosophical masturbation, I claim this looks like it was designed to control dissent.