When we started Cake, investors were nervous about us because Reddit was perceived to be on the rocks. Ellen Pao had just been fired for, among other things, banning 6 subreddits. I thought in the day it might not survive because they had gone too far towards unrestricted free speech, which sounds wonderful until you actually start moderating and find out what people will really post.

Anyway, the membership of the banned subreddits went to Voat, mostly, and I wondered how that would turn out. Reddit was able to raise $300 million after the episode from tier A investors like Sequoia on the basis that advertisers would be more comfortable on Reddit after subreddits like fatpeopleshame and coontown went to Voat.

'Free speech' Reddit clone Voat says it will shut down on ChristmasThe site nearly shut down in 2017.www.theverge.com

They got hella traffic in the meantime, though, like Gab and Parler are doing now.

The way I see it is this: Hate speech isn’t free speech. You need to draw a line somewhere. Otherwise, you’ll go off the deep end at some point.

I looked at voat once months ago for about two minutes, I don't remember why, I think it was when I was doing some research on 'alternative' social networks.

I didn't click any of the 'subverts' just skimmed the titles of a few which was more than enough to see what a depressing hate-filled place it was, full of misogynistic homophobic racists and the most batshit crazy kind of anti-authority conspiracy theorists.

It won't be very missed by the vast majority of reasonable humans, and the ones who would miss it will have already found a shiny new forum to spew their hatred by the time it closes.

Free speech is a right we have to protect us from the Government. There is no excuse not to set and enforce standards in the private sector, just as every person does individually.

No such thing as free speech on someone else's controlled turf. And that's not necessarily bad. As they said, it's not what you put in your mouth, but what you say out of it, that poisons you.

It's like pay per view reversed and uncensored, what could possibly go wrong?