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Stripe has frozen Gab.com's account
- minikites 8y agoIf you're unfamiliar with Gab, it's Twitter for neo-Nazis. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/11/the-alt-right-created-a-parallel-internet-its-a-holy-mess.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/11/the-alt-right-created-a-para... https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/ywxb95/gab-is-the-alt-right-social-network-racists-are-moving-to https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/ywxb95/gab-is-the-alt-rig... https://www.timesofisrael.com/growing-platform-gab-woos-alt-right-exiled-from-other-social-media/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/growing-platform-gab-woos-alt-... https://www.fastcompany.com/3065777/inside-gab-the-new-twitter-alternative-championed-by-the-alt-right https://www.fastcompany.com/3065777/inside-gab-the-new-twitt...
- SiliconWallies 8y agoYou're a neo-nazi.
- rjplatte 8y agoIt's where the neo-nazis went when Twitter became a publisher.
- MysticFear 8y agoIt's twitter (youtube live & other services) for people are silenced by mainstream providers (currently, people with extreme views)
- krapp 8y ago> It's twitter (youtube live & other services) for people are silenced by mainstream providers (currently, people with extreme views) So mostly Nazis, then.
- tptacek 8y agoIt's Twitter for neo-Nazis. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17729028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17729028
- rvcamo 8y agoImagine citing any of these outlets as a serious authority on anything other than propagandized nonsense with a political agenda. Gab is the home of free speech online powered by The People. Always has been, always will be.
- berbec 8y agoDespite all the hype, smoke and crypto, if the mainstream payment processors cut you off, what is a business supposed to do?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- creaghpatr 8y agoChange your content moderation to align with Stripe’s realm of decency, duh /s
- nevir 8y agoGo to the shady ones :-/
- mjfl 8y agoStripe cut me off, I'm using crypto now.
- edoceo 8y agoStripe cut me off...I used PayPal for a while but now my subscription buyers use ACH (I'm all US based). Saves me loads of fees (I had been paying about $9k/yr)
- chomp 8y agoOpen merchant accounts and take the risk onto yourself.
- flukus 8y agoThe puritanism of the big players has allowed for a fair few competitors to service the porn industry. I'm sure any of them would be happy to take on gab.com as a customer.
- adamnemecek 8y agoThis is fucked up. I hate that companies are dictating culture. I get that this is really visa and MasterCard but god I can’t wait for online payments to be a solved problem.
- SippinLean 8y agoWhat's fucked up about a private company not doing business with neo-nazis?
- adamnemecek 8y agoIt seems like this was over nsfw content tho. It's fucked up even if it's neonazis (but I disagree with your usage of that term). It sets a precedent that you can willy nilly drop customers that might be relying on you. Amazon did something similar to me a while back. I was livid.
- minikites 8y agoWhy should you get to dictate the actions of another private business?
- adamnemecek 8y agoBecause when a business gets to a certain size, they might become an essential part of life. What if say, all the ISPs in your area dropped you as a customer because of that one time you looked up holocaust denial on wikipedia. What's your stance on the gay wedding cake supreme court case btw?
- MBCook 8y agoBecause they signed a contract giving you that right? When gab.com decided to use Stripe, they willingly agreed to abide by those terms. It’s not like Whole Foods came out of left field, having no relationship to things at all, and all of a sudden said “you have to close your website.”
- faitswulff 8y agoI'm struggling to find it, but there was a hackernews comment thread about NSFW payment processor alternatives to Stripe (which is pretty strict about NSFW content). Higher fees, though, of course.
- laurencei 8y agoYeah - it was a ?blog about how hard it is to do payments for porn sites.
- faitswulff 8y agoI'm pretty sure it was in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17432801
- jchw 8y agoAs it's been previously mentioned, it appears the pressure comes from MasterCard and Visa. Can someone please tell me why we're letting payment processors control what kind of content we're allowed to pay for when tech giants are under near constant scrutiny for their moderation of user-generated content?
- minikites 8y agoSoftware: It's open source. Don't like it? You fix it. Capitalism: It's a free country. Don't like it? Start your own business.
- 0x8BADF00D 8y agoHaving government involved in every aspect of your financial life is a gross distortion of the word capitalism.
- drak0n1c 8y agoSo why did we need to pass GDPR and Net Neutrality? The issues they were intended to address also had theoretical solutions in "write more software and start more competitors".
- StanislavPetrov 8y agoSure lets eliminate the massive, burdensome, complex financial regulatory environment, dismantle SWIFT, disband the FED, and remove prohibitions on crypto-currencies. Until then we don't have free markets where one can simply "start their own business" and do it better. We have a centrally-controlled government market.
- fche 8y agobuild your own bank build your own internet service provider
- MBCook 8y agoBecause it’s far easier to use/trust a handful of big well-known companies than hundreds and hundreds of little companies when it comes to access to my bank account?
- byron_fast 8y agoIs there a slope to where everyone is a neo-nazi equivalent though? I realize these are not likable people, but at the same time slurs are thrown around these days at many undeserving groups. It's a tough call: I don't want to see losers abuse a private company's terms of service, nor do I want to see businesses be constantly virtue-signalling. Virtue-signalling is itself a dirty business: how long 'til we see the neo-communists (or whatever, you choose) who happily sell Che shirts on Stripe?
- tareqak 8y agoI'm not sure if you picked a bad example, or you're reaching for "both sides are the same", but https://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=che%20guevara%20t-shirt https://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywo... .
- isoskeles 8y agoYeah but these are sold by capitalists.
- byron_fast 8y agoEveryone has their own view on who is bad, is all. One person's virtue signal is another's evil.
- byron14 8y agoThe political views of most Gab users are essentially those of a majority of Americans during the 20th century. I doubt it would be fair to say those who fought Nazis in WW2 were also Nazis. By todays "standards" they would be called such hence why its a useless term.
- tareqak 8y agoIt didn't stop a US ambassador during the Cold War from doing the same with with the word "communist": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test .
- 8y ago
- chomp 8y agoWow, main stream society doesn't want to associate with a company that harbors extremists. I'm shocked. So many commenters on this are jumping to a slippery slope fallacy as if Stripe has any moral imperative to uphold free speech. They are a private company and have their own reasons to disassociate from any client they wish. That is their prerogative, and as long as they are not discriminating against anything that is a federally protected class (and last I checked, hosting porn is not federally protected) they can cut off services to anyone.
- pranks 8y agoExcept that stripe is citing that Gab is hosting pornography as their reason.... which doesn’t make sense. OnlyFans (dot) com is a website that allows porn stars to sell their own membership based porn service... OnlyFans uses Stripe as their payment processor. That is hypocritical that Stripe processes one of the biggest porn websites yet
- kevinr 8y ago> If you are looking to subscribe to other profiles you will need to add a payment card. When adding a payment card, your card information is stored by a payment processor, which is called Stripe; or if you are subscribing to a profile containing sexually explicit content, your card information is stored by a different payment processor, Securion Pay. https://onlyfans.com/terms/ https://onlyfans.com/terms/
- willpiers 8y agothere are extremists and pornographers all over other sites that use stripe. the "private company" argument doesn't apply super well when there are only a handful of options and they all have the same political ideology.
- creaghpatr 8y agoDoes Stripe know that one of their flagship clients listed on their site (Pinterest) hosts NSFW content? https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/course-theres-porn-pinterest/329954/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/cours...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rvcamo 8y agoHey guys, CEO of Gab.com here. Here is our full response to Stripe: Hello Stripe Support, To our knowledge no one is using GabTV to specifically livestream adult content and certainly not charging to access this live content because that is not possible on Gab. Can you please cite any specific examples for our review if you have discovered any? Currently only GabPro accounts can livestream content, but Gab native video uploading can be used by anyone including free version users. I think you may be conflating GabTV livestreaming with Gab native video uploading. Further, anyone can view and access any native video or livestreaming content for free on Gab without processing any payments through Stripe or anyone else. We do not offer any form of "exclusive" video unlocking access features via GabPro. Secondly, we have several protocols and user guidelines in place to prevent any illegal activity on the site. We work with law enforcement regularly and see to it that any illegal content is reported to the proper agencies. We also have several technical features in place such as PhotoDNA to scan for and report any illegal content, machine learning systems that detect nudity which is not properly labeled NSFW, and user guidelines that require any adult content to be marked as Not Safe For Work; which is a setting that is on by default for all users and public-facing links. Both our User Guidelines and our GabPro Content Creator Agreement state that we do not allow any illegal activity on our service. We believe these guidelines and our user agreements already cover what your own guidelines require and we will certainly take action on any offending accounts if you can point us to specific violating examples. We will also work to add improved reporting features to GabTV videos to make it easier for users to flag this content in the future. We are happy to jump on a call if it is easier to discuss because some of your requests are not clear. For example your demand that we remove all adult content from the entire site, which is a bit unreasonable considering the many technical and user guidelines we have in place to ensure the specific Stripe guideline you cite is not violated and that no illegal activity is happening on the site. Please advise Andrew Torba CEO, Gab.com PS HN: We release our API today. Hit me up if you want to build something cool: andrew@gab.com https://developers.gab.com/ https://developers.gab.com/
- rjplatte 8y agoThanks for weighing in. Good to see both sides here.
- 8y ago
- edoceo 8y agoSimilar thing happened to me. STRIPE closed me at their discretion and yet my direct competitors are using Stripe (they've since asked me back but I declined, too risky). One thing Stripe cited was their underwriting FI wouldn't allow it. IIRC that FI was Wells Fargo, we my company has had a happy relationship since we started five years ago.
- byron14 8y agoLiberals then: Corporate power and influence is too great! More regulations please. Liberals now: You violated the All Mighty ToS! Go start your own continent if you dont like it Nazi.
- mrschwabe 8y agoWhy was Andrew Torba's comment (on this thread) - the CEO of Gab and subject of this discussion - downvoted and already censored ('dead') ? Absurd. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DooMz4QV4AEEuv4.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DooMz4QV4AEEuv4.jpg:large Here is the link to his comment if you wish to reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18136380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18136380 And make sure you turn on 'showdead' in your settings otherwise miss key comments like this.
- scrollaway 8y ago> Absurd The guy is banned, clearly because he's been an asshole to others. Since you have showdead, behold the kind of person he is: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rvcamo https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rvcamo
- rjplatte 8y agoHe seems... very in support of freedom of speech
- scrollaway 8y agoLet's call it what it is: Freedom of hate. As someone who regularly defends some pretty vile shit for ideological free speech reasons, it makes me uneasy how "freedom of speech" is starting to sound way too synonymous with "unrestricted license for nazis and assholes to spread their ideology and hatred even on private services". The real damage neo-nazis can do is to turn people against the concept of free speech. So I suggest we call this "Freedom of hate", instead.
- dang 8y agoComments from banned users get killed automatically. I've unkilled that one. In the future, if you see a comment that shouldn't be [dead], that's what the 'vouch' feature is for: click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'vouch'. You're also welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and let us know, so we can unkill it. But please don't noise up the thread by posting offtopically about it.
- adrianscott 8y agoReally disappointed that the CEO's response has been censored / dead'd here. Not a great moment for HN.
- dang 8y agoThat account was banned a long time ago for posting tons of comments violating the site guidelines. Obviously we ban any account that does that. We wouldn't be moderators if we didn't. Banned users' comments get killed automatically. We often unkill good comments posted by banned accounts. I've unkilled that one. If you see a comment that shouldn't be [dead], click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'vouch' at the top. (There's a small karma threshold before those links appear.) You can also email us at hn@ycombinator.com to point out a comment that needs to be unkilled. Complaining off-topically in the thread does nothing but add noise, so please don't do that.
- adrianscott 8y agothanks
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- belltaco 8y agoCheck his post history, he has been calling other commenters cucks and the like.
- designingapis 8y agoI did checked GAB's site and I can confirm that this place was full of racism and hateful comments towards anyone who believe their ideas. I honestly think you can get your message across without being a dick. Someone else here mentioned these guys promote "freedom of hate", I think that's very close to reality. Downvote me all you want, but you can check for yourself, this is just a white supremacist cave. Don't believe their freed of speech crap they promote.
- alphabettsy 8y agoI’m somewhat conflicted. Sometimes I wish these people were on mainstream platforms with their real names so their stances and motives would be clear. Too many people with these kinds of ideas have learned to disguise their hate speech with a touch of intellectualism.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]