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[–] AlderaanDuran ago 

I bet you're a blast at parties on the rare occasion you are invited.

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[–] rationalinquisition [S] ago 

I bet you do fantastic work at your job on the rare occasion that you have one.

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[–] AlderaanDuran ago 

... I'm at work right now. Are you at a party right now? Exactly.

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[–] Tisias 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

I think the only answer is continual renewal. The great machine will swallow any site that get popular and profitable. The trick is not to get emotionally married to any platform. Don't get branded and be ready to move to the next platform when this one is co-opted.

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[–] rationalinquisition [S] ago 

That does seem to be the case so far. But I have concerns as to whether or not that will be sustainable indefinitely. There will always be people willing to create sites like Voat that are anti-censorship; however, there is also a big government push to get more control over the internet, both legislatively and through more subversive means. We could see a future in which no internet hosting company was willing to host something that was anti-censorship (like we saw in today's announcement with a single company).

There may be some hope in decentralizing social media through a new platform that isn't web-based I suppose, but I don't really know enough about it to give an informed opinion about that.

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[–] Tisias 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

This is a valid point. And the more free speech cites get pushed underground the more the average citizen will think of them as part of the "dark web" of pirates, drug dealers, pedos, etc. WHO IS THIS 4CHAN? The guilt-by-association will increase as free speechers get pushed to the margins.

The internet was fun. It was our wild west. We'll be telling our kids about the days when you could say anything you wanted online and chat with people around the world. We'll them about the days before you had to worry about getting fired for making the wrong Twitter or Facebook post.

Technology is always a race. New military technologies, for example, have a fleeting period in which they're exclusive to one nation or region. So too it goes for the democratizing aspects of information technology and the Big Brother capacities it allows. In the end, I suspect that tech will do more to empower our masters than the common folk because power tends to absorb and attract (e.g., a handful of people could decide to unleash a nuclear holocaust), but for now we have to run the race.

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[–] SurvivorType 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Hello there, welcome to Voat!