Remember Voat? The non-censored alternative to Reddit that saw an influx of users in 2015 after Reddit started cleaning up its house a bit and claims of censorship became a hot button issue that drove people away from Reddit.

The site has now become an anti-vaxxer, conspiracy theorist platform that resembles an uncontrollable raging dumpster fire. Although to be fair, the site was always teetering on the edge even in the beginning.

After Reddit started banning subreddits such as those dedicated to PizzaGate, many moved over to Voat. And when the whole QAnon thing came to be and Reddit subsequently banned that community, they also moved to Voat.

As you can see, Voat sure knows how to attract the right people to its platform. I haven’t been to the site in years, so it was an interesting experience to go and see what constitutes front-page material these days and well, the screenshots speak for themselves.

Given the COVID-19 pandemic is a hot button issue right now, it is not unexpected to see a tonne of paranoid conspiracy theories surrounding vaccinations and COVID-19.

My question is, how is Voat even still alive? Many of its subverses (sub communities) seem to be completely dead like /v/javascript and the only ones that seem to be thriving are the conspiracy theory sub communities.