9 ms·

The Far Right Has a New Digital Safe Space

33 points by randomname2 10y ago

minimaxir 10y ago
Relevant backstory: https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/trump-supporting-startup-ceo-kicked-out-of-y-combinator https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/trump-supporting-startu... The NYTimes article is surprisingly charitable, although perhaps ironically.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
  FTA: > On the Friday after the US presidential election, Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab.ai, a social network favored by conservatives, was kicked out of Y Combinator “I am actually surprised it took them this long to excommunicate me,” Torba told BuzzFeed News. “Y Combinator doesn’t accept conservatives and they don’t accept Trump supporters.” > In the Facebook thread, before he was booted from Y Combinator, Torba wrote: “All of you: fuck off. Take your morally superior, elitist, virtue signaling bullshit and shove it. I call it like I see it, and I helped meme a President into office, cucks.” I'm bewildered. I want to think that they are just trolls looking for attention. My pessimistic side says that they actually do have a persecution complex and somehow feel that the groups they regularly malign have more rights and privilege than they do. One thing I've noticed regarding the above excerpt is a unique interpretation of free speech where they believe they are free to say anything they want without consequence. Any negative response is met with claims of censorship. If you acted that way in a coffeeshop, bar, or some community gathering you would be asked to leave as well. If you continue hurling verbal assaults after being asked to leave, that's harassment. You have the right to be a dick, but they're claiming they are exercising their right to free speech and are surprised people are being dicks back to them. I hope society never succumbs to their desires and normalizes denigrating speech and just being a complete asshole. I really hope they are trolls EDIT: > “if you feel ‘unsafe’ from from [sic] me saying ‘fuck off’ or ‘build a wall,’ you probably shouldn’t be on the internet.” Sigh, I had such high hopes for the Internet being the ultimate tool to elevate mankind to a more enlightened tomorrow and the promise that technology would make the world a better place. Seems it has enabled a safe space for people to unleash their inner asshole. I'm afraid of what's going to happen if they ever summon up enough courage to do these things in person and are inevitably met with violence. I'm not a tough guy at all, but in my hometown, dem is called fightin words
  - ManFromUranus 10y ago
    His reaction didn't just fall out of the sky, one does not interact with somebody in good faith and then get a reaction like that immediately. That is the response of somebody who's sick and tired of liberals. > I hope society never succumbs to their desires and normalizes denigrating speech This is already happened, you can denigrate conservatives or anybody to the right of you easily, look at all the histrionics surrounding Trump. People are saying he's hitler UNIRONICALLY. We've blown by your line in the sand a long time ago.
    - pyre 10y ago
      > People are saying he's hitler UNIRONICALLY Like the Tea Party people from a few years ago claiming that Obama was Hitler "unironically" and that Obamacare was a "Nazi program"? {edit} I'm curious why you didn't see things like this: http://www.wataugawatch.net/uploaded_images/Tea-party-2-712911.jpg http://www.wataugawatch.net/uploaded_images/Tea-party-2-7129... as "going way past the line?"
      - omonra 10y ago
        Citation please.
        pyre 10y ago
        This comes up on the first page of a Google search... It's almost like you didn't search for anything yourself... http://americablog.com/2013/02/tea-party-obama-is-hitler.html http://americablog.com/2013/02/tea-party-obama-is-hitler.htm... or there is this: https://kristiann1.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/hitler-t-4-obamacare-nazi-socialist-barack-hussein-obama-1.jpg?w=777&h=501 https://kristiann1.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/hitler-t-4-ob...
        omonra 10y ago
        Right - but I don't think anybody took that seriously. Even the tea partiers saying it most likely only meant it as a 'Obama is a very bad guy and the worst name we can call him is Hitler'. On the other hand the many liberal journalists prognosticating Trump to become a totalitarian like Hitler really meant it (for example see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/28/this-new-york-times-review-of-a-hitler-book-sure-looked-like-a-thinly-veiled-trump-hitler-comparison/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/28/th...)
kafkaesq 10y ago
In a way, this might be a good thing -- it substantially weakens their ability to cry "censorship". And provides a space where their drivel can be monitored and tracked: inevitably, we'll see many people connected with the new administration turning up here -- and it will be interesting to see how they expose themselves.
- dforrestwilson1 10y ago
  I know that the fake news narrative is popular right now, and maybe it's just me, but do you think maybe you might be a little biased here? How is it not censorship when somebody actively monitors what is posted on Twitter and makes a judgement on whether or not that post is appropriate? What is appropriate and how does free speech equate to that in your mind?
  - amyjess 10y ago
    Because censorship isn't a bad thing and absolute free speech isn't a good thing. The owners of a platform have a social responsibility to curate it.
  - __derek__ 10y ago
    Technology does weird things to conversations about the First Amendment. Twitter benefits from freedom of speech/the press/assembly in the sense that it can operate a platform that broadcasts individuals' writings. By the same principle, it has the right to only broadcast what it wants. Twitter isn't the government or a public entity. It's the publisher printing a paper. So, no, that's not really censorship, whereas requiring Twitter to broadcast speech against its will seems like it would be. NB: I am not a constitutional lawyer.
  - gdulli 10y ago
    You can't really be conflating free speech as a freedom within the legal system with the ability to say anything without being subject to policy set by a nongovernmental organization like Twitter. That's so basic a fallacy that I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're being obtuse and didn't really make that mistake.
djschnei 10y ago
Can we stop normalizing scum like Richard B. Spencer and the alt right? Many would consider me "far right", I have nothing in common with that filth... Also, nice to see the market filling the need for a censor-less social platform. Let them be hateful idiots over in the corner, it's their right.
- Zaheer 10y ago
  +1 to the normalizing piece. These folks are a few short hops away from ISIS. They've nailed hate-filled ideology, lone-wolf attacks and it's only a matter of time before they organize into something worse. Trump has opened the flood-gates for individuals like this to have a voice.
  - djschnei 10y ago
    Couldn't vote for him, never liked him, he scares me for a lot of reasons; but you think Trump has opened that flood gate? I don't think I buy that. I think the media has opened the flood gate/given it a soapbox in order to link it to Trump. For all his obvious faults, I don't think he is actually a racist. Nothing in the man's history, until he ran for president, shows that... if anything his history shows the opposite. idk, but yea, we agree these guys suck. (down votes incoming...)
    - thenewwazoo 10y ago
      Please don't preemptively complain about downvotes. It poisons the well. To your point, Trump was sued in 1973 for racial discrimination in his housing business[1]. Most recently, he has advocated for banning Muslim people from entering the country based on their religion. The list goes on. The guy is racist to his bones in a way that has been normal but unspoken in America since the 1970s. He did not create the racism, but now the racists who want to be active have his tacit support. [1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/27/hillary-clinton/true-hillary-clinton-says-federal-government-sued-/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/...
      - 10y ago
ng12 10y ago
That's not what "Safe Space" means? There's nothing stopping anybody from going on Gab and virulently disagreeing with everyone there or intentionally offending certain users. Still, impressed with the NYT's ability to push a narrative.
- baldfat 10y ago
  > Still, impressed with the NYT's ability to push a narrative. Isn't news narrative? Seems like I am missing what is bad about this article. Or did you want just the facts? New app call ____ which does ___. Move along you now have all the facts? I want a news story to give me context and some way to sort out the narrative and do something with the raw data.
  - oxide 10y ago
    Anything that doesn't explicity share my views is a narrative created by the enemy.
    - ng12 10y ago
      And this is exactly the problem. I'm a democratic-leaning voter in a blue state -- clearly I have to trust and love outfits like the NYT and WaPo. Nevermind that both were obviously out of touch throughout this year's election. I'm honestly not sure how I escape the bubble at this point.
      - Natsu 10y ago
        This might help. Try finding things that completely disagree and see what they have to say. For example - Compare /r/The_Donald with /r/politics with /r/hillaryclinton Compare Breitbart to Wikileaks to CNN / MSNBC. Compare Reddit.com with Voat.co Compare Wikipedia to infogalactic.com Boil away the opinion/predictions made by every article and get down to what concrete, verifiable facts they contain (if any). Check original sources! Articles that cite a legal decision or laws and don't give a link to actual court papers/law are a special peeve of mine. Compare which facts get omitted in each version and which agree. Track who does (and doesn't) get over the stopped clock threshold (i.e. being right at least twice a day) and how often in matters of fact (not opinion). Track future predictions (right and wrong, take special note of fuzziness and lack of a time horizon). Remember the bias induced when we only remember some predictions and not others. Even when there are people you find hateful, it's important to understand what they believe and why.
heartbreak 10y ago
Is this the same as the former YC company?
- monocasa 10y ago
  Yep.
gdulli 10y ago
A quarantine on this stuff is a nice thing for the rest of us in the short term. In the long term it could either be a bad thing because it helps the movement grow, or a good thing because without any opposition to troll within the platform it flames out.
- problems 10y ago
  This is the thing I keep saying. If we kick them off every other platform around rather than letting the community critique them, they'll move to echo chambers and new people won't be able to be introduced to their ideas through criticism, only through those echo chambers. Not only that, but these echo chambers tend to let conspiracy theories and misinformation brew and go wild. I do hope they're successful in getting more users onboard. In many ways I like their libertarian-style free speech loving moderation stance personally, but I read invite only somewhere, which is concerning me even more. If they want to take a free speech stance, they need to respect that free speech needs to be for all, so we can critique and discuss these sorts of ideas. Seems all too ripe to be an echo chamber as is. Guess we'll see how long the invite only thing lasts.
  - Steltek 10y ago
    The free TV time gifted to Trump for saying outrageous things gave him a decided signal boost over his rivals. On the other hand, the media did not give sufficient time to a sane counterargument whereas a well-regulated forum might offer that opportunity. Unfortunately, that's not what we see from the balance of Trump supporters online, who are not at all hesitant to flag or brigade opposing viewpoints regardless of merit.
    - problems 10y ago
      I'm not so sure, I think the media gave plenty of time to sane counterargument. Even CNN, which I constantly see blamed as an evil by both the left and right, they'd air his stuff, then go and critique it and debate it for quite a while afterwards. I think ultimately not as many people are interested in the critique and debate portion and perhaps more importantly, and I think many supporters just didn't care about a lot of the outrageous stuff he said because their alternative seemed even worse. They were basically left no choice but to dismiss it. If the options were better, even just one of them I think this whole thing would have worked out a lot nicer. But instead a lot of people were caught in the middle debating the better of two evils. I'm sure many will argue it was clearly one way or the other, but I'm pretty sympathetic to both arguments here. Education, debate and rationality can't solve that in a really significant way, only better options can.
ChefDenominator 10y ago
Gab appears to be employing unlimited bidirectional voting. This inevitably creates a shout-down chamber, so the network will likely not attract a diverse group of opinions and is nearly guaranteed to become the echo chamber everybody is expecting it to become. I don't find this to be the new competitor the market is really looking for.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  I don't find this to be the new competitor the market is really looking for. All the better then. A black hole that sucks up their energies (and lets them feel "validated" even though no one outside their tiny community is listening) might be just the thing for them.
  - ChefDenominator 10y ago
    I would interpret your statement to indicate you are an opponent of free exchange of ideas.
    - kafkaesq 10y ago
      Which you can, if you want. But that's not what my statement implies.
      - ChefDenominator 10y ago
        This is not correct. The people going to Gab are not going because of market preference, they are going because they are being forced out of current market leaders who do not desire to have free exchange of ideas on their networks. By extension, supporting of this movement means you do not support a free exchange of ideas.
        kafkaesq 10y ago
        Sorry, but I don't buy your contention that the restrictions adopted by market leaders are about blocking the "free of exchange of ideas", per se. And apart of that, your "extension" would be a faulty generalization based on that contention.
coherentpony 10y ago
Doesn't one usually associated a 'safe space' with the introduction of policies surrounding what can and cannot be said? This article seems to suggest that a 'safe space' is also a place associated with looser constraints allowing people say whatever they like.
- pyre 10y ago
  I guess it's a "Safe Space" for alt-righters because they are surrounded by like-minded people that will shout down any dissenting opinions?
Gooulo 10y ago
I will be the first one to admit it. Even if these people are scholarly and educated in their rhetoric, they should be systematically suppressed. It is no longer a war of fact and reason, we have entered a war of survival. If our sisters and allies in silicon valley do not step up and throw these people off their platforms we will be stuck with Donald trump figures forever. Free speech can only be allowed if the people know what is good for them. The silent majority has awoken from its seventy year old slumber and progressives must be ready to beat them back to their racist, sexist and homophobic trailer parks where they can enjoy the company of their own kind.
- djschnei 10y ago
  > Free speech can only be allowed if the people know what is good for them. You are just as terrifying as any racist, sexist, homophobic trailer trash.
- ngould 10y ago
  Gooulo, agreed insofar as we should reject hate in its various forms. It's ugly, terrifying, and has nothing to do with what has made this country what it is. But even as a progressive democrat, I feel sympathy for djschnei's response here. I think we should embrace and celebrate free speech in all of its forms. And when racists speak publicly, we should publicly reject their views. When you suggest that large swaths of people should be "systematically suppressed," I think you're driving a wedge between yourself and a lot of fairly moderate conservative folks who could be allies in protecting civil society from the likes of actual Nazi's, etc.
Gooulo 10y ago
I will be the first one to admit it. Even if these people are scholarly and educated in their rhetoric, they should be systematically suppressed. It is no longer a war of fact, we have entered a war of survival. If our sisters and allies in silicon valley do not step up and throw these people off their platforms we will be stuck with Donald trump figures forever. Free speech can only be allowed if the people know what is good for them. The silent majority has awoken from its seventy year old slumber and progressives must be ready to beat them back to their racist, sexist and homophobic trailer parks where they can enjoy the company of their own kind.
- tdb7893 10y ago
  In my experience this sort of ruthless antagonism only serves to entrench their behaviours.
  - mynameishere 10y ago
    Or, you know, justify them.
- Natsu 10y ago
  If you're going to invoke Karl Popper, you might want to reread him. He justifies the intolerance of intolerance via the right of self defense because instead of arguing rationally, the intolerant would resort to fists or pistols. The right of self-defense is already considered in the USA's free speech laws, which do not permit things like incitement to violence, fighting words, or true threats. The fact that you're arguing for violence, in saying that you must be "ready to beat them back to their [...] trailer parks" to suppress ideas you find abhorrent is actually a rather complete inversion of how Popper justified his idea. "they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols." - Karl Popper Ref: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Popper https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Popper
- djschnei 10y ago
  > Free speech can only be allowed if the people know what is good for them. You are just as terrifying as any racist, sexist, homophobic trailer trash.
LyndsySimon 10y ago
I have an account an Gab, with the same handle as my account here. It seems to be growing very quickly and offers keyword-based timeline filters that are far better than what Twitter offers. I've said it before on HN, but I really think it's a mistake to write off approximately half the country because you disagree with their political positions.
mindcrash 10y ago
This is a absolutely dishonest headline. Andrew Torba and his team created Gab as a response to Twitter when Jack and his team started harassing and outright censoring people who didn't agree with far left ideology (and no, not just those who identify themselves as "right"). The most important design principle of Gab is "freedom of speech", and it is completely neutral of who are making use of this principle; Andrew has stated several times that EVERYBODY IS WELCOME no matter where you are in the political spectrum. Yes, a large part of the population on Gab can be described politically as either "alt right" or "conservative" because these people are outright scared that their online voices will be shut simply because of disagreement. But that doesn't mean that the Gab population is 100% right wing, it also consists out of classical liberals and moderates who are sick and tired of the behavior and bullshit narrative of the far left, and do not agree with the way Twitter is handling freedom of expression, which by the way is a universal human right, on its platform.

33 points by randomname2 10y ago

Relevant backstory: https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/trump-supporting-startup-ceo-kicked-out-of-y-combinator https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/trump-supporting-startu... The NYTimes article is surprisingly charitable, although perhaps ironically.

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
FTA: > On the Friday after the US presidential election, Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab.ai, a social network favored by conservatives, was kicked out of Y Combinator “I am actually surprised it took them this long to excommunicate me,” Torba told BuzzFeed News. “Y Combinator doesn’t accept conservatives and they don’t accept Trump supporters.” > In the Facebook thread, before he was booted from Y Combinator, Torba wrote: “All of you: fuck off. Take your morally superior, elitist, virtue signaling bullshit and shove it. I call it like I see it, and I helped meme a President into office, cucks.” I'm bewildered. I want to think that they are just trolls looking for attention. My pessimistic side says that they actually do have a persecution complex and somehow feel that the groups they regularly malign have more rights and privilege than they do. One thing I've noticed regarding the above excerpt is a unique interpretation of free speech where they believe they are free to say anything they want without consequence. Any negative response is met with claims of censorship. If you acted that way in a coffeeshop, bar, or some community gathering you would be asked to leave as well. If you continue hurling verbal assaults after being asked to leave, that's harassment. You have the right to be a dick, but they're claiming they are exercising their right to free speech and are surprised people are being dicks back to them. I hope society never succumbs to their desires and normalizes denigrating speech and just being a complete asshole. I really hope they are trolls EDIT: > “if you feel ‘unsafe’ from from [sic] me saying ‘fuck off’ or ‘build a wall,’ you probably shouldn’t be on the internet.” Sigh, I had such high hopes for the Internet being the ultimate tool to elevate mankind to a more enlightened tomorrow and the promise that technology would make the world a better place. Seems it has enabled a safe space for people to unleash their inner asshole. I'm afraid of what's going to happen if they ever summon up enough courage to do these things in person and are inevitably met with violence. I'm not a tough guy at all, but in my hometown, dem is called fightin words
- ManFromUranus 10y ago
  His reaction didn't just fall out of the sky, one does not interact with somebody in good faith and then get a reaction like that immediately. That is the response of somebody who's sick and tired of liberals. > I hope society never succumbs to their desires and normalizes denigrating speech This is already happened, you can denigrate conservatives or anybody to the right of you easily, look at all the histrionics surrounding Trump. People are saying he's hitler UNIRONICALLY. We've blown by your line in the sand a long time ago.
  - pyre 10y ago
    > People are saying he's hitler UNIRONICALLY Like the Tea Party people from a few years ago claiming that Obama was Hitler "unironically" and that Obamacare was a "Nazi program"? {edit} I'm curious why you didn't see things like this: http://www.wataugawatch.net/uploaded_images/Tea-party-2-712911.jpg http://www.wataugawatch.net/uploaded_images/Tea-party-2-7129... as "going way past the line?"
    - omonra 10y ago
      Citation please.
      - pyre 10y ago
        This comes up on the first page of a Google search... It's almost like you didn't search for anything yourself... http://americablog.com/2013/02/tea-party-obama-is-hitler.html http://americablog.com/2013/02/tea-party-obama-is-hitler.htm... or there is this: https://kristiann1.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/hitler-t-4-obamacare-nazi-socialist-barack-hussein-obama-1.jpg?w=777&h=501 https://kristiann1.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/hitler-t-4-ob...
        omonra 10y ago
        Right - but I don't think anybody took that seriously. Even the tea partiers saying it most likely only meant it as a 'Obama is a very bad guy and the worst name we can call him is Hitler'. On the other hand the many liberal journalists prognosticating Trump to become a totalitarian like Hitler really meant it (for example see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/28/this-new-york-times-review-of-a-hitler-book-sure-looked-like-a-thinly-veiled-trump-hitler-comparison/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/28/th...)

kafkaesq 10y ago

In a way, this might be a good thing -- it substantially weakens their ability to cry "censorship". And provides a space where their drivel can be monitored and tracked: inevitably, we'll see many people connected with the new administration turning up here -- and it will be interesting to see how they expose themselves.

dforrestwilson1 10y ago
I know that the fake news narrative is popular right now, and maybe it's just me, but do you think maybe you might be a little biased here? How is it not censorship when somebody actively monitors what is posted on Twitter and makes a judgement on whether or not that post is appropriate? What is appropriate and how does free speech equate to that in your mind?
- amyjess 10y ago
  Because censorship isn't a bad thing and absolute free speech isn't a good thing. The owners of a platform have a social responsibility to curate it.
- __derek__ 10y ago
  Technology does weird things to conversations about the First Amendment. Twitter benefits from freedom of speech/the press/assembly in the sense that it can operate a platform that broadcasts individuals' writings. By the same principle, it has the right to only broadcast what it wants. Twitter isn't the government or a public entity. It's the publisher printing a paper. So, no, that's not really censorship, whereas requiring Twitter to broadcast speech against its will seems like it would be. NB: I am not a constitutional lawyer.
- gdulli 10y ago
  You can't really be conflating free speech as a freedom within the legal system with the ability to say anything without being subject to policy set by a nongovernmental organization like Twitter. That's so basic a fallacy that I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're being obtuse and didn't really make that mistake.

djschnei 10y ago

Can we stop normalizing scum like Richard B. Spencer and the alt right? Many would consider me "far right", I have nothing in common with that filth... Also, nice to see the market filling the need for a censor-less social platform. Let them be hateful idiots over in the corner, it's their right.

Zaheer 10y ago
+1 to the normalizing piece. These folks are a few short hops away from ISIS. They've nailed hate-filled ideology, lone-wolf attacks and it's only a matter of time before they organize into something worse. Trump has opened the flood-gates for individuals like this to have a voice.
- djschnei 10y ago
  Couldn't vote for him, never liked him, he scares me for a lot of reasons; but you think Trump has opened that flood gate? I don't think I buy that. I think the media has opened the flood gate/given it a soapbox in order to link it to Trump. For all his obvious faults, I don't think he is actually a racist. Nothing in the man's history, until he ran for president, shows that... if anything his history shows the opposite. idk, but yea, we agree these guys suck. (down votes incoming...)
  - thenewwazoo 10y ago
    Please don't preemptively complain about downvotes. It poisons the well. To your point, Trump was sued in 1973 for racial discrimination in his housing business[1]. Most recently, he has advocated for banning Muslim people from entering the country based on their religion. The list goes on. The guy is racist to his bones in a way that has been normal but unspoken in America since the 1970s. He did not create the racism, but now the racists who want to be active have his tacit support. [1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/27/hillary-clinton/true-hillary-clinton-says-federal-government-sued-/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/...
    - 10y ago

ng12 10y ago

That's not what "Safe Space" means? There's nothing stopping anybody from going on Gab and virulently disagreeing with everyone there or intentionally offending certain users. Still, impressed with the NYT's ability to push a narrative.

baldfat 10y ago
> Still, impressed with the NYT's ability to push a narrative. Isn't news narrative? Seems like I am missing what is bad about this article. Or did you want just the facts? New app call ____ which does ___. Move along you now have all the facts? I want a news story to give me context and some way to sort out the narrative and do something with the raw data.
- oxide 10y ago
  Anything that doesn't explicity share my views is a narrative created by the enemy.
  - ng12 10y ago
    And this is exactly the problem. I'm a democratic-leaning voter in a blue state -- clearly I have to trust and love outfits like the NYT and WaPo. Nevermind that both were obviously out of touch throughout this year's election. I'm honestly not sure how I escape the bubble at this point.
    - Natsu 10y ago
      This might help. Try finding things that completely disagree and see what they have to say. For example - Compare /r/The_Donald with /r/politics with /r/hillaryclinton Compare Breitbart to Wikileaks to CNN / MSNBC. Compare Reddit.com with Voat.co Compare Wikipedia to infogalactic.com Boil away the opinion/predictions made by every article and get down to what concrete, verifiable facts they contain (if any). Check original sources! Articles that cite a legal decision or laws and don't give a link to actual court papers/law are a special peeve of mine. Compare which facts get omitted in each version and which agree. Track who does (and doesn't) get over the stopped clock threshold (i.e. being right at least twice a day) and how often in matters of fact (not opinion). Track future predictions (right and wrong, take special note of fuzziness and lack of a time horizon). Remember the bias induced when we only remember some predictions and not others. Even when there are people you find hateful, it's important to understand what they believe and why.

heartbreak 10y ago

Is this the same as the former YC company?

monocasa 10y ago
Yep.

gdulli 10y ago

A quarantine on this stuff is a nice thing for the rest of us in the short term. In the long term it could either be a bad thing because it helps the movement grow, or a good thing because without any opposition to troll within the platform it flames out.

problems 10y ago
This is the thing I keep saying. If we kick them off every other platform around rather than letting the community critique them, they'll move to echo chambers and new people won't be able to be introduced to their ideas through criticism, only through those echo chambers. Not only that, but these echo chambers tend to let conspiracy theories and misinformation brew and go wild. I do hope they're successful in getting more users onboard. In many ways I like their libertarian-style free speech loving moderation stance personally, but I read invite only somewhere, which is concerning me even more. If they want to take a free speech stance, they need to respect that free speech needs to be for all, so we can critique and discuss these sorts of ideas. Seems all too ripe to be an echo chamber as is. Guess we'll see how long the invite only thing lasts.
- Steltek 10y ago
  The free TV time gifted to Trump for saying outrageous things gave him a decided signal boost over his rivals. On the other hand, the media did not give sufficient time to a sane counterargument whereas a well-regulated forum might offer that opportunity. Unfortunately, that's not what we see from the balance of Trump supporters online, who are not at all hesitant to flag or brigade opposing viewpoints regardless of merit.
  - problems 10y ago
    I'm not so sure, I think the media gave plenty of time to sane counterargument. Even CNN, which I constantly see blamed as an evil by both the left and right, they'd air his stuff, then go and critique it and debate it for quite a while afterwards. I think ultimately not as many people are interested in the critique and debate portion and perhaps more importantly, and I think many supporters just didn't care about a lot of the outrageous stuff he said because their alternative seemed even worse. They were basically left no choice but to dismiss it. If the options were better, even just one of them I think this whole thing would have worked out a lot nicer. But instead a lot of people were caught in the middle debating the better of two evils. I'm sure many will argue it was clearly one way or the other, but I'm pretty sympathetic to both arguments here. Education, debate and rationality can't solve that in a really significant way, only better options can.

ChefDenominator 10y ago

Gab appears to be employing unlimited bidirectional voting. This inevitably creates a shout-down chamber, so the network will likely not attract a diverse group of opinions and is nearly guaranteed to become the echo chamber everybody is expecting it to become. I don't find this to be the new competitor the market is really looking for.

kafkaesq 10y ago
I don't find this to be the new competitor the market is really looking for. All the better then. A black hole that sucks up their energies (and lets them feel "validated" even though no one outside their tiny community is listening) might be just the thing for them.
- ChefDenominator 10y ago
  I would interpret your statement to indicate you are an opponent of free exchange of ideas.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    Which you can, if you want. But that's not what my statement implies.
    - ChefDenominator 10y ago
      This is not correct. The people going to Gab are not going because of market preference, they are going because they are being forced out of current market leaders who do not desire to have free exchange of ideas on their networks. By extension, supporting of this movement means you do not support a free exchange of ideas.
      - kafkaesq 10y ago
        Sorry, but I don't buy your contention that the restrictions adopted by market leaders are about blocking the "free of exchange of ideas", per se. And apart of that, your "extension" would be a faulty generalization based on that contention.

coherentpony 10y ago

Doesn't one usually associated a 'safe space' with the introduction of policies surrounding what can and cannot be said? This article seems to suggest that a 'safe space' is also a place associated with looser constraints allowing people say whatever they like.

pyre 10y ago
I guess it's a "Safe Space" for alt-righters because they are surrounded by like-minded people that will shout down any dissenting opinions?

Gooulo 10y ago

I will be the first one to admit it. Even if these people are scholarly and educated in their rhetoric, they should be systematically suppressed. It is no longer a war of fact and reason, we have entered a war of survival. If our sisters and allies in silicon valley do not step up and throw these people off their platforms we will be stuck with Donald trump figures forever. Free speech can only be allowed if the people know what is good for them. The silent majority has awoken from its seventy year old slumber and progressives must be ready to beat them back to their racist, sexist and homophobic trailer parks where they can enjoy the company of their own kind.

djschnei 10y ago
> Free speech can only be allowed if the people know what is good for them. You are just as terrifying as any racist, sexist, homophobic trailer trash.
ngould 10y ago
Gooulo, agreed insofar as we should reject hate in its various forms. It's ugly, terrifying, and has nothing to do with what has made this country what it is. But even as a progressive democrat, I feel sympathy for djschnei's response here. I think we should embrace and celebrate free speech in all of its forms. And when racists speak publicly, we should publicly reject their views. When you suggest that large swaths of people should be "systematically suppressed," I think you're driving a wedge between yourself and a lot of fairly moderate conservative folks who could be allies in protecting civil society from the likes of actual Nazi's, etc.

Gooulo 10y ago

I will be the first one to admit it. Even if these people are scholarly and educated in their rhetoric, they should be systematically suppressed. It is no longer a war of fact, we have entered a war of survival. If our sisters and allies in silicon valley do not step up and throw these people off their platforms we will be stuck with Donald trump figures forever. Free speech can only be allowed if the people know what is good for them. The silent majority has awoken from its seventy year old slumber and progressives must be ready to beat them back to their racist, sexist and homophobic trailer parks where they can enjoy the company of their own kind.

tdb7893 10y ago
In my experience this sort of ruthless antagonism only serves to entrench their behaviours.
- mynameishere 10y ago
  Or, you know, justify them.
Natsu 10y ago
If you're going to invoke Karl Popper, you might want to reread him. He justifies the intolerance of intolerance via the right of self defense because instead of arguing rationally, the intolerant would resort to fists or pistols. The right of self-defense is already considered in the USA's free speech laws, which do not permit things like incitement to violence, fighting words, or true threats. The fact that you're arguing for violence, in saying that you must be "ready to beat them back to their [...] trailer parks" to suppress ideas you find abhorrent is actually a rather complete inversion of how Popper justified his idea. "they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols." - Karl Popper Ref: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Popper https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Popper
djschnei 10y ago
> Free speech can only be allowed if the people know what is good for them. You are just as terrifying as any racist, sexist, homophobic trailer trash.

LyndsySimon 10y ago

I have an account an Gab, with the same handle as my account here. It seems to be growing very quickly and offers keyword-based timeline filters that are far better than what Twitter offers. I've said it before on HN, but I really think it's a mistake to write off approximately half the country because you disagree with their political positions.

mindcrash 10y ago

This is a absolutely dishonest headline. Andrew Torba and his team created Gab as a response to Twitter when Jack and his team started harassing and outright censoring people who didn't agree with far left ideology (and no, not just those who identify themselves as "right"). The most important design principle of Gab is "freedom of speech", and it is completely neutral of who are making use of this principle; Andrew has stated several times that EVERYBODY IS WELCOME no matter where you are in the political spectrum. Yes, a large part of the population on Gab can be described politically as either "alt right" or "conservative" because these people are outright scared that their online voices will be shut simply because of disagreement. But that doesn't mean that the Gab population is 100% right wing, it also consists out of classical liberals and moderates who are sick and tired of the behavior and bullshit narrative of the far left, and do not agree with the way Twitter is handling freedom of expression, which by the way is a universal human right, on its platform.