For those who do not know it, social media is big business: it gets links into search engines, which in theory delivers profit. (It is probably wise not to tell them that most of the people using social media are simply wasting time at their jobs or schools because these are horribly boring, and have no intention of buying anything).

For this reason, a cabal of people on Reddit -- the moderators who occupy the default subs, apparently with the blessings of the admins -- have begun to attack the competitor that has emerged, Voat.co. First, there was a prolonged and intense DDOS attack on the Voat.co servers, the type that is organized on IRC -- as I have always felt the SJWs are organizing -- that took it offline for several days.

Then, a surge of complaints prompting the provider to remove the account:

Our hosting provider, hosteurope.de has terminated all our contracts and shut down all our servers without issuing a warning or trying to talk to us. This includes my private server which was only used to host my girlfriends blog. She is a scientist. She published her research papers on that blog (pre-formatted papers to which she owns the copyright). That server contained no other data whatsoever. The reason they gave us when they notified us that they have cancelled our contract is "...we have received significant information that the content on your server includes political incorrect parts that are unacceptable for us." and "Due to the fact that we cannot keep bond of trust to you as our customer...". Luckily, we have managed to move our databases to a cloud platform mere hours before they shut down our servers. Ladies and gentlemen, my eyes have been opened by this. I don't know about you, but we are living in a weird world. We will have to carefully evaluate our long term options of providing a platform of free speech if we are to stay online. Your donations are what keeps us afloat. Also, I am back in Sweden from my post-graduation vacation, currently packing my things and I will be driving (moving) to Switzerland tomorrow or day after tomorrow. Edit: just to clarify, I have been a hosteurope.de customer for well over 5 years, always paying my bills and never hosting any illegal content. Edit 2: thank you all who donated. I removed info on how to donate as I feel we have received enough to help us survive for quite some time. We will publish a detailed report about how much money we have received through donations (all bitcoin transactions are already public) and what the money will be used for. I can already say that we have received around 8000 USD since our call for donation went up a few days ago. This money will most likely have to be taxed, but a detailed report will be published asap. I have received interview requests from several major news agencies but responding to these agencies will have to wait. A voat which runs smoothly and satisfied users is my #1 priority. It would feel wrong for me to be spending time appearing in the media while there are plenty other more pressing issues to deal with right here.

Then, as if this were not enough, Reddit mods from /r/SRS -- the heart of the cabal that controls Reddit with the blessings of the admins -- infiltrated /r/oppression, and set into action their new method of subverting Voat.co: ban links to Voat.co from Reddit unless those links go to a sub on Voat.co that is controlled by the Reddit cabal. This coincides with the seizure of a number of high-profile Voat subs by accounts linked to Reddit /r/SRS mod accounts.

Here is how this was announced:

/r/Oppression has grown and become a thorn in the side of SRS, the Admins and the power moderator clique. However, the scale of this sub and the rule of Pao has created new challenges that we moderators have no choice but to address. Accordingly, we have audited the content and moderator practices of the popular website "voat.co" . Our conclusion is that voat's freedom is incompatible with our own freedom (as defined by reddits's rules). Therefore, it is with great regret that we are going to have to have to remove all posts and comments featuring voat.co . This is due to our safety concerns corresponding with reddit rules. Because we fight censorship, we have established a loophole whereby we can allow direct links to some subverses. As a result of negotiations, we are pleased to announce that subverses where a "trusted" reddit moderator is in control and actively curating content are safe enough to be posted to this subreddit.

This coincides with a discovery by other mods that many subs are already filtering Voat.co links:

I also just discovered that /r/JusticePorn is auto-filtering any links to Voat. My comments linking to an article discussing it on Voat never showed up. All additional comments I tried to make in that thread also didn't show up. As this is the first time I commented there, I can only conclude that they ban users who link to Voat.

While this behavior is not uncommon, it fits within a new framework offered by Reddit mod-cabal SJWs: they are no longer trying to ban opposing thought, but to remove all who are not ideologically obedient to their agenda. When Reddit was banning links to articles about Ellen Pao's $276k judgment in favor of Kleiner Perkins, they were not trying to hide the article, which could be found by anyone. The point was to stamp out those who think it is a good idea to post such an article, and affirm the SJW principle that facts do not matter, but ideological obedience does, so anyone who is anti-Paoism is an enemy of the state. That, apparently, includes Voat.co for no greater crime than being a slow, unreliable alternative to speech-filtered Reddit.