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Most people who went to Voat years ago remember their well known resident spammer/troll, Amalek.

Amalek would generally post long incoherent/autistic rants against the Jews ad nauseam until his account got banned and he had to create a new one (this happened almost daily).

Amalek was for the most part a novelty, a person with too much time on his hands that spent every waking hour spamming Voat. He was the bane of the admins existence as he was considered the most successful spammer. Most folks would downvoat him or troll him for the hell of it.

However if you go to Voat now you see his style of autistic anti-Jew rant that would once have been downvoated to oblivion now makes up a big portion of the top content on Voat.

So did Amalek win?

Most people who went to Voat years ago remember their well known resident spammer/troll, Amalek. Amalek would generally post long incoherent/autistic rants against the Jews ad nauseam until his account got banned and he had to create a new one (this happened almost daily). Amalek was for the most part a novelty, a person with too much time on his hands that spent every waking hour spamming Voat. He was the bane of the admins existence as he was considered the most successful spammer. Most folks would downvoat him or troll him for the hell of it. However if you go to Voat now you see his style of autistic anti-Jew rant that would once have been downvoated to oblivion now makes up a big portion of the top content on Voat. So did Amalek win?

13 comments

[–] kromulent 8 points (+8|-0)

I originally saw the autistic anti-semitic stuff as a necessary part of the free-speech environment there; in part because it kept the pearl-clutchers away, and in part because it was the canary in the coal mine, the proof that the environment was as open as it claimed.

Now I see it as evidence of an organized effort to destroy Voat, to keep it too toxic to ever be more than a fringe site. I do not believe that there really is a majority of Voat readers voting this crap up to the top. I think it's the work of shills who know full well they can drive away the sensible folks, and make Voat an unloved target of the next wave of censorship. It may also double as a honeypot for genuine would-be extremists, which would explain why somebody is still paying to keep it running.

Every potentially right-wing site is a target of this stuff; Gab is another example. The same folks who run a 'viral' outfit like Shareblue would surely run a viral effort to disrupt their opposition - they would be negligent if they didn't. That their efforts dilute the legitimate concerns about the real and growing anti-semitism on the left is just an added benefit.

Maybe I'm wrong, and Voat's anti-semitism is organic and real. In that case it's just sad.

Now I see it as evidence of an organized effort to destroy Voat

I was actually thinking about this the other day. I've seen sites highly upvoated there that are known Russian fakes and quite a bit of content that is completely unverifiable. Also memes/content that was produced/shared by groups that are known to be foreign actors.

[–] PhunkyPlatypus 3 points (+3|-0)

Before I left I had discovered about 6-10 accounts that I suspected was the same person or group.

They all had very high goat points, one was over 100k IIRC. But they all posted the same sort of cherry picked alt right nonsense.

They came to my attention by often posting from multiple accounts on succession. Basically flooding /new with a dozen low hanging fruit stories.

I initially tried to expose them for this to the community on their posts, but the circle jerk backing them was just too strong. It's the fuel for the fire the community had decided it wanted.

[–] kromulent 2 points (+2|-0)

I was on Poal a little earlier today and I found a half-a-dozen low-quality, anti-semetic posts, each with exactly five upvotes.

[–] [Deleted] 0 points (+0|-0)

Amalek was actually Jewish, he was a terribly damaged individual.

[–] [Deleted] 2 points (+2|-0)

I think the real winner was Sanegoat. Once you could be silenced through downvotes is when it really started to be toxic. That one week Sanegoat was literally 50% of the content, copying and pasting. Then if you were new you'd just get downvoted if you were not alt-right or racist enough.

It wasn't just Amalek though, there's a lot of white nationalist accounts that photoshop crap and no one calls them out (or if they do it's lost in comments). People read the headlines and assume it's true. It's hard for me to tell which accts are part of a professional organization, or just derranged individuals online.

[–] Butler_crosley 2 points (+2|-0)

When Sanegoat really got going that was when I noticed the drop in moderate users, the ones who helped keep Amalek in check. After Sane exposed the system, the extreme users exploited it and took over while claiming they were protecting the site.

[–] [Deleted] 0 points (+0|-0)

Interesting take, I can see how that makes sense, yeah it seems to have taken off with him.

And seems it was professionally done since he seemed to change personality in different time zones. I'm sure he was working with TexanPride if he wasn't the same person.

Heard he had a hairy asshole, not that it matters. He was interesting to say the least, and I still wonder if him and sane weren't the same people/group. While the one's style seems to have become the popular voice, I am thankful the other's fell into obscurity.

[–] KillBill 0 points (+0|-0)

I don't know if he won but I half expected to see the Voat logo posted in that manifesto of the serial killer.