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Concept
Voat
Summary
Voat Inc (ˈvoʊt; styled VOΛT) was an American alt-tech news aggregator and social networking service where registered community members could submit content such as text posts and direct links. Registered users could then vote on these submissions. Content entries were organized by areas of interest called "subverses". The website was widely described as a Reddit clone and a hub for the alt-right. Justin Chastain made an announcement on December 22, 2020 that Voat would shut down. The site was shut down on December 25, 2020.
Voat was a site which hosted aggregated content and discussion forums. According to Wired, Voat was "aesthetically and functionally similar to Reddit." Like Reddit, Voat was a collection of entries submitted by its registered users to themed categories (called "subverses" on Voat) similar to a bulletin board system. Unlike Reddit, Voat emphasized looser content restrictions and an ad-revenue sharing program. Voat was written in the C# programming language, while Reddit is written in Python.
Voat was described by media outlets including Quartz, The New York Times, New York, and the US and UK editions of Wired, as a hub for the alt-right. The site was also widely described as a clone of Reddit, or sometimes dubbed "the alt-right Reddit". In a January 2017 New Yorker article, Voat was described as a descendant of 2chan, 4chan, and 8chan, where users compete for shock value. The Verge described the site as "Imzys dark twin", in that both were indirect products of the Gamergate culture war. The site has also been described by The Verge as a model for other "censorship-free" alt-tech services, including Gab, Parler, and Hatreon.
The name "Voat" is a play on the words 'goat' and 'vote'. The site's mascot is a goat. The website used the American top level domain, .co, and was registered in November 2019.
Founded in April 2014 as WhoaVerse, the website was a hobby project of Atif Colo (known on Voat as @Atko), then a college student. He was later joined by Justin Chastain (known as @PuttItOut on Voat).
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Related concepts (6)
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