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Why is Voat shutting down? QAnon supporting Reddit clone loses 'angel' investor post Trump's 2020 loss: Report

Co-founder Justin Chastain announced in an emotional farewell post that the right-wing social networking platform was due to shut down on Christmas

The QAnon movement has suffered a post-election blow as one of the online platforms that hosted their views without censorship was shut down permanently following President Donald Trump's loss to Joe Biden. Voat co-founder Justin Chastain announced in an emotional farewell post that the right-wing social networking platform was due to shut down on December 25, Christmas Day. This came after Trump's quest to overturn the results of the election appeared to lose steam over the past few days.

The loss of Voat, an “anti-censorship” social network that’s been described as the “alt-right Reddit", proved to be a setback for QAnaon, a pro-Trump underground movement whose supporters used the platform to discuss their beliefs after having their accounts muzzled or taken down by social media giants. Supporters of QAnon reportedly believe that the world is run by a secret cabal of Satanic pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking ring in the shadows. Furthermore, they believe Trump is the only person who has the fortitude to stop them.

Voat was founded in 2014 and soon became a hub for right-wingers as they were free to use politically incorrect language and express controversial beliefs that previously had them banned from other social media platforms such as Reddit or Twitter. Chastain warned in 2017 that the website would likely shut down to do lack of funding. However, a year later, an "angel" investor came to the rescue to keep the site running. But the investor has since abandoned the project.

"The short of it is that the 'Angel' defaulted on the contract in March 2020," Chastain explained in a farewell post. "This is when Voat lost all of its funding. I personally decided to keep Voat up until after the U.S. election of 2020. I've been paying the costs out of pocket but now I'm out of money."

"Instead of feeling pity or vengeful, I'm instead going to celebrate the fact that Voat stayed up for so long," Chastain wrote. "In my opinion, Voat is and will always be the biggest dysfunctional family on the internet."

Last week, MEAWW reported how QAnon supporters appeared to have turned against Senator Mitch McConnell after the Republican leader accepted the results of the 2020 presidential elections and congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on his victory. The underground movement's followers denounced the Senate Majority Leader and accused him of being a traitor after he acknowledged Biden's win. Some QAnon members even stated that they will abandon the GOP altogether and form a new political party of their own.

President Trump, who over a month after Election Day, November 3, has still refused to concede to Biden in the presidential race and continues to claim massive "voter fraud" in the polls as his campaign challenges election results. McConnell, on Tuesday, December 15, announced that the "Electoral College has spoken" and declared that Biden had won a total of 306 Electoral Votes, referring to him as President-elect. Trump, however, denounced the senator in a tweet and stated that it was too soon for the Republican party to give up. He tweeted: "Mitch, 75,000,000 VOTES, a record for a sitting President (by a lot). Too soon to give up. Republican Party must finally learn to fight. People are angry!"

Trump tweeted his message to the Kentucky senator along with an article detailing multiple high-profile conservative figures who also criticized McConnell for accepting Biden as the next president. Several QAnon supporters also took to Twitter to accuse McConnell of working for the "deep state" and referred to him as a "RINO" [Republican in name only.]