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[–] Rottcodd 4 points 1 point (+5|-4) ago 

Sorry, but to be brutally honest, I think that everyone who whinges on about "freedom of speech" on Voat is probably an idiot.

There is no "freedom of speech" on private property, and Voat is a piece of private property.

"Freedom of speech" is a construct, defined and guaranteed by some number of governments (most notably, the US). ALL it guarantees is that the government cannot enact legislation that limits ones freedom of speech. It doesn't even apply to private property. The owners of a piece of private property (and again, Voat is a piece of private property) have the full right to limit the speech of those whom they allow on their property in whatever manner they might choose. If they wanted to, the owners of Voat could enact a policy that called for lifetime bans for anyone who posted anything that contained the word "the" and there's NOTHING that anyone could do to stop them. Why? Because it's their property, so they get to decide what is allowed on it.

And they have decided. It's right there in the user agreement. "Subverses may create their own rules and enforce them as they see fit, providing they do not violate the terms of this agreement."

And that's that. All this ceaseless prattling about "freedom of speech" is just the squalling of spoiled children who don't want to have to follow any rules. The simple fact of the matter is that the owners of the site, who are the ONLY ones with the authority to decide what is or is not allowed on the site, have decreed that "Subverses may create their own rules and enforce them as they see fit, providing they do not violate the terms of this agreement," obviously with the understanding that anyone who doesn't like the rules and/or the enforcement of the rules on one sub is perfectly free to post on a different sub.

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[–] mamwad [S] 0 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago 

But the owners of this site set it up to be a free speech zone...

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[–] Rottcodd 0 points 7 points (+7|-0) ago 

Yes - that is what they've said.

And I'm sure, from the way that the site is set up and from the very specific rules listed in the user agreement (that I've quoted repeatedly) that their approach to that was to set it up so that any person who wanted to could start any sub they wanted to with any rule set they wanted, and therefore any person who wanted to post on the site could find or create a sub on which to post. They obviously did NOT intend for any person to be able to post any thing ON ANY SUB, or they wouldn't have stated explicitly that "Subverses may create their own rules and enforce them as they see fit, providing they do not violate the terms of this agreement."

Because they chose to set it up that way, the users have "freedom of speech" ON THE SITE AS A WHOLE. However, they do not and never did have "freedom of speech" on each and every individual sub. The individual subs are free to "create their own rules and enforce them as they see fit."

More people need to understand that distinction.

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[–] toats 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

And for the "downvotes are censorship" crowd, there's a loophole that allows you to be free from downvotes: create an anonymous sub to post in. Downvotes don't work and it still shows up in /v/all.