If you remember, Pizzagate was banned in November of 2016, and at the time it was the center of the open sourced investigation with over 20,000 subscribers.
The banning of the sub-reddit fractured the community and investigators scrambled to find a new platform to continue their work. Immediately before the Reddit censorship hammer came down, users pointed to a similar platform, Voat, as a viable alternative where the investigation could, and would, continue.
Many users were outraged with the complete banning of the sub where so much research had been done and vowed never to return. The exodus of thousands of redditors to Voat helped to maintain a cohesive core community. Yet, Voat Pizzagate has struggled to regain comparable numbers of users. Four months after the Reddit ban, Voat pizzagate subscribers have steadily increased and the current population is approximately 12, 800 users. Still a far cry from the 20,000 Reddit subscribers in the fall of 2016.
Don't get me wrong, Voat has done well to keep the investigation alive and Voat itself has benefited greatly from the influx of disgruntled and disillusioned redditors. However, those responsible for the Reddit ban achieved their primary goal of dividing the community into different shards. Voat is not impervious to censorship, take the example the rogue moderator that went on a thread deleting rampage.
Despite the obvious censorship on Reddit through the banning of the pizzagate and operation bernstein sub-reddit forums, many redditors have been reluctant to give up on the platform that they have become so attached to. It must be pointed out that research still continues in other subs such as r/the_Donald and r/Conspiracy where much of the initial research began.
I myself moved from Reddit, to Voat and then to Steemit. Being a supporter and fan of blockchain technology I made the switch to Steemit because i felt that it offered the best available defense against internet censorship.
Though I am happy to see that the return of Pizzagate/Pedogate to Reddit, I remain skeptical for several reasons.
The main reasons is due to the history of blatant censorship on the forum and if the new Pedogate sub is not banned outright once more, it's possible that the forum could be used as a center for disinformation. Several Voat users have already pointed out that the forum has been pre-populated with posts that may possibly contain dis-info. This has not been substantiated yet, of course, but should give cause for concern.
If there's a silver lining, it is that Reddit has a massive user base and it's encouraging, to a certain extent, that the muzzle placed upon Pizzagate investigators has been lifted.
The new Pedogate forum is very explicit in announcing that Doxxing is prohibited. The justification for the original ban was for doxxing.
I will not discourage people from using the forum but be vigilant and keep your eyes open for disinformation and censorship.
