Free Speech

The basis of what most people are referring to when they say "free speech" in English:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. -- First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

Note that there are no exceptions to this listed in the text of the amendment, but US courts (and most reasonable people) hold that there are in fact some exceptions - inciting violence & criminal activity, libel/slander, and child pornography, to name a few. Generally, speech is a candidate for an exception if it in some way infringes on someone else's rights. As the saying goes, "Your rights end where another's begin."

Censorship

Censorship, then, would be acts by a government that contradict the above-defined right to freedom of expression when such expression does not fit into one of the exceptions.

Free Speech on a Website

The US' first amendment states that "Congress shall make no law", so no non-governmental entity, regardless of its actions, can ever violate someone's first amendment rights. While technically correct, stopping there is uninteresting in the context of websites where users can submit content. Voat declaring itself a "free speech zone" perhaps means something like this:

Site operators will take no action limiting the freedom of expression of users of the website.

However, here, too, there are some necessary exceptions. From the site operators, the user agreement explicitly calls out some behaviors which will not be permitted. A rigorous "free speech zone" would probably try to limit such exclusions to actions that impact the ability of other users to use the site as the site was intended to be used - in a way that mirrors the free speech exceptions to the first amendment.

So perhaps a more complete summary of a "free speech zone" site's policy might be

Site operators will take no action limiting the freedom of expression of users of the website except where such expressions prevent other users from using the website the way the website was intended to be used.

This covers both "interfering-with-other-users"-style offenses which prevent users from using the site and "interferes-with-site"-style offenses which prevent the site from being available for use.

What Censorship on a Website is

Within the context of "free speech on a website" above, then, a website would commit an act of censorship if the site operators deliberately intervened to single out a subset of users that were only doing things within the scope of the site, and limit that subset of users' ability to express themselves on the site.

If the site operators just don't like Buddhists, and ban+delete any account that claimed to be a Buddhist, that would clearly and blatantly be censorship.

Administrative Actions

Per Voat's user agreement:

This agreement is a legal contract between you and us. You acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. If you do not agree to this agreement, you should not use voat.

...

Without advance notice and at any time, we may, for violations of this agreement or for any other reason we choose: (1) suspend your access to voat, (2) suspend or terminate Your Account, and/or (3) remove any of your User Content from voat.

While this could literally never be real-world censorship since Voat is not a part of any government, the admins would be fully within their rights to censor anyone's expression for any reason on their own website that they built because, well, it's theirs and our use of it is a privilege.

Users of Voat that value free speech will just have to hope that the admins don't do this... and leave Voat for somewhere else if the admins ever do.

What Censorship on a Website is NOT

The Inability of Downvoated Accounts to Submit Content

It's the Users, not the Admins!

Downvoats come from the users, not from the administration. Every account can comment and submit posts upon its creation. The users of the site use the two core mechanics Voat's design - voting and commenting - to react to submitted content. This happens after the content is submitted - it doesn't ever prevent the first submission!

If a particular account continues to submit content that the community doesn't enjoy, the mechanics of Voat may restrict that account's ability to submit content.

This is not a deliberate singling-out of a user or user(s) by the site operators based on what the user(s) chose to express - this is a community saying "we do not want to experience this content here."

It's how Voat is!

This design is part of Voat's core mechanics and can be looked at as an analogy to the social contract that people abide by in the real world. Voat is not a scrolling text feed of whatever content anyone can submit; it provides mechanics for communities to share and curate content. Every account (by virtue of the way Voat is coded) is forced to abide by the "contract" of Voat's mechanics.

Things that users are not entitled to just by virtue of creating an account on Voat include

• people liking the content they submit
• getting any quantity of SCP or CCP
• communities centered on one particular type of content being interested in content that isn't of that type (i.e. there is no reasonable expectation that /v/gifs would be pleased with daily postings of non-animated JPGs)

Go To Your Own Space!

Even if a user runs afoul of several or even all of the communities on Voat, nothing stops them from creating their own community (subverse) where they can engage in whatever kind of expression they want so long as it doesn't run afoul of the user agreement.

/v/Niggers is a prime example of a community / users that get this. It's extremely unlikely that most of the posts there would be well-received in other communities on Voat. If that community started posting to, say, /v/politics, it's likely that most posts would be heavily downvoated and/or removed by moderators there. Fortunately for the /v/Niggers community, the mechanics of Voat and the commitment to freedom of expression on the part of the Voat administrators mean that this community was able to create their own subverse and engage in their desired expression.

That's freedom of expression at work!

Here's a real-world analogy:

You show up at a nightclub to DJ, and instead of the house/trance/EDM/Dubstep/whatever that the clientele are expecting you play children's music. The crowd will probably boo you and the manager will probably ask you to leave. This would probably happen at every nightclub in town! If a club invited you back for a 2nd chance and you did it again, they probably wouldn't ask you back a third time! Are you being censored!? No - nowhere is there a government saying you can't play your children's music. What's happening is that you went into some other community's space and tried to fit in and failed and they expressed that you weren't welcome there anymore. Go to the appropriate venue (like an elementary-school concert) or your own home and you won't find a group of people reacting to your content with negativity and asking you to leave their space.

Moderators Removing Content

Moderators are users. They have more abilities to interact with Voat's mechanics than non-moderator users, but they are still users, not administrators. Moderator actions are user actions. Moderators removing content from a subverse on Voat is not equivalent to Voat censoring a user's freedom of expression. Each subverse is designed to collect and curate content that fits certain criteria and foster a community around that content. Removal of content that doesn't fit the criteria of one subverse is not equivalent to site-wide censorship.

This applies to Moderators banning users from a subverse, too.

It is totally possible for a moderator to remove content that, per the sub's stated purpose, shouldn't have been removed. If the community that hangs out in that sub disagrees with the action, they should take the moderator to task and replace them if the moderator demonstrates that they will continue to act against the stated interests of the community.

Still, though, all of that is user-level: If I found one day that all my submissions to /v/80smusic were deleted by a moderator shortly after being submitted, that still isn't equivalent to Voat censoring /u/SpottyMatt: It's only one corner where it's happening and the Voat admins have had no part in it; I am still free to submit content to other communities and create my own communities.

System Subverses

System subverses, despite being "subverses" are the closest Voat has to "public spaces" in the "free speech under the US constitution" analogy. If there is undue content-removal in a system subverse then and only then it may be appropriate to claim that "Voat is censoring freedom of expression" in some way as these subverses have been explicitly chosen as core, system-and-not-user-owned spaces on Voat. To uphold Voat's commitment to freedom of expression, the admins should pay close attention to the actions of moderators in system subverses.