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Breaking: Gab Upset by the same treatment they promise in their legal terms: "Termination We may terminate your access to and use of the Services, at our sole d
by acoyfellow 8y ago
Breaking: Gab Upset by the same treatment they promise in their legal terms: "Termination
We may terminate your access to and use of the Services, at our sole discretion, at any time and without notice to you." [1]
1- https://gab.com/about/tos https://gab.com/about/tos
- Meekro 8y agoMost companies have something in their ToS to the effect of "we can do whatever we want" -- that doesn't mean they're all the same. For example, Stripe and PayPal both have essentially the same ToS. But only PayPal has so many "banned for no reason" horror stories that there are multiple websites dedicated to cataloging them.
- yzmtf2008 8y agoDon’t conflate this story with “banned for no reason”. There are plenty of reasons to ban Gab.
- dev_dull 8y agoAre they doing anything illegal?
- VectorLock 8y agoDo they have to be?
- millzlane 8y agoYou don't have to do anyting illegal for me not to want to conduct business with you.
- FreeSpeechlover 8y agoPaypal generally doesn't pull out of business unless its illegal. It was a bad move by paypal because 800000 gab users who did nothing wrong are now inconvenienced
- threeseed 8y agoIn most countries, yes. But illegality is not the issue here. People simply have a right not to be associated with hate.
- tinalumfoil 8y ago> a right not to be associated with hate This is neither a right in any theoretical system of human rights I've seen, nor is there any practical way to disassociate people from a basic human emotion.
- village-idiot 8y agoFree association implies the freedom to not associate. You can’t make people be associated with hate groups. Also, don’t be cute about “hate”. We aren’t talking about the human emotion and you know it.
- tinalumfoil 8y agoIn the context of this conversation people don't have the right to disassociate with anyone they don't like. I'm not being "cute" about hate, and whatever you think hate is isn't relevant to my point. People simply do not have the right to do business with others chosen entirely from their own personal discretion. The US government can and does force businesses to provide services, at the risk of that business's existence, to unsavory entities.
- village-idiot 8y agoAffiliation with a hate group is not a protected characteristic.
- FreeSpeechlover 8y agoWe dont live in a 3rd world country where free speech is illegal. Or a middle east country where you get stoned to death for being gay. We live in free speech america.. Gab did nothing wrong, and you pointing to the laws of 3rd worlds is a red herring
- jesssse 8y agoBanning Gab is an attack on Free Speech.
- happytoexplain 8y agoI strongly believe that it's not.
- jesssse 8y agoIf PayPal bans Gab because they dislike the speech available on Gab, it is literally an attack on Free Speech. I understand you feel differently.
- vanderreeah 8y agoI don't know what Gab is, or what its typical content is like, though I'm getting an idea from the replies to this tweet. But the principle of free speech has nothing to do with the right of a company to use Paypal's services. It's to do with the right of individuals to say what they like without government incarcerating or otherwise harming them or their ability to speak.
- jesssse 8y agoIf an entity stifles speech that entity is against Free Speech.
- village-idiot 8y agoIf your belief is that PayPal doing business with Gab is free speech, you have no idea what free speech is.
- pcwalton 8y agoPayPal isn't the government.
- jesssse 8y ago
- blackflame7000 8y agoPaypal banned me when I was 12 for using a 20% off coupon to buy a pencil from myself for $500. Let me keep the $100 after holding the $500 for 6 months. Best CD ive ever had.
- oliwarner 8y agoMost of PayPal's horror stories involve them holding funds back for three months after suspension. Or worse, returning funds after dispatch.
- cpncrunch 8y ago>But only PayPal has so many "banned for no reason" horror stories There is always a reason. The reason this time is probably: "Gab is a popular gathering place for alt-right activists and white nationalists whose views are unwelcome or banned on other social media platforms. Early members included the right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website. Other well known users have included controversial media personalities Alex Jones and Carl Benjamin." https://globalnews.ca/news/4604015/gab-pittsburgh-shooting-free-speech/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4604015/gab-pittsburgh-shooting-f...
- dgzl 8y agoThat's just a catch-all for "our house, our rules". Legal authority aside, it's political warfare and nothing more.
- happytoexplain 8y agoThat's pretty dismissive and combative. From a neutral perspective, it looks like one of the intrinsic characteristics of Gab is that it is host to more hateful expression than other platforms. Can you give something in the way of an explanation as to why you're so confident that can't be the real reason?
- dgzl 8y agoDid Gab pick the hate groups, or did the hate groups pick Gab? What if you created a platform for expression, and it was infiltrated by a certain type of audience that's generally repulsive. Should we sink your project?
- kthejoker2 8y agoSurely this argument is beneath you. Infiltrated? So it's unwanted by you? What efforts are you making to prevent it? Pretty easy to demonstrate that you won't tolerate that behavior. Gab has never done anything remotely suggesting these are unwanted accounts tarnishing their good name.
- repolfx 8y agoGab is just a clone of Twitter. I might well agree that Twitter-type services are more prone to "hateful expression" than longer form writing, but given the relative sizes of Twitter and Gab you can certainly find far more hate on Twitter. And no, Twitter certainly don't crack down on it systematically, not when it's the kind of hate fashionable on the west coast.
- Dylan16807 8y agoOr in other words: "Entity believes that discretion can be misused, despite thinking discretion is important" Which is an extremely reasonable position. (I've never heard of Gab.)
- tptacek 8y agoWell, now you have. It's white supremacist Twitter.
- Dylan16807 8y agoSounds like a good thing to ban, but I'm still wary of the exact method. ('we can ban anyone' clauses, and the idea of generic payment providers being the arbiters)
- FreeSpeechlover 8y agoThere are many racists and ISIS terrorists on twitter. I guess by your ridiculous logic, twitter is an Isis facebook
- lj3 8y agoI see. Dare to disagree with Thomas Ptacek and you get shadow banned?
- tptacek 8y agoI think you're confusing the fact that people have repeatedly argued that Gab isn't white supremacist twitter with the notion that it has somehow been established that it isn't. But, of course, it is. Even Voat has better bona fides than Gab. Later It's probably not just a coincidence that every time this comes up on HN, there's a Popehat thread about Gab at the same time. Here's Ken today with a telling citation to Gab's own Twitter account from earlier this year: https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1027671587825172480 https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1027671587825172480
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]