6 ms·

I’m an observant Jew. I’ve never considered posting a comment on here before. Despite disliking the anti-Semitic speech hosted on sites like gab, silencing the

I’m an observant Jew. I’ve never considered posting a comment on here before. Despite disliking the anti-Semitic speech hosted on sites like gab, silencing them this way puts a bad taste in my mouth. Yes, their speech is hateful. Yes, these are private entities that are well within their rights to refuse service. But that’s not the point. At the moment, a majority agrees this type of speech is unacceptable. But what’s next? Maybe next time it’s speaking against google or anything, for that matter. The famous saying “first they came for the X..., then the Y..., who was left to speak for me?” Is appropriate here. I don’t condone hate speech, but just words aren’t hurting others. Until that speech becomes action or highly encourages action, it is just words. Additionally, if the majority destroys the gathering place of the minority, they’ll just go to ground. Burying themselves deeper, re-enforcing their conspiracy theories, and polarizing them more. Our actions will be the catalyst to their radicalization. We need to think, long and hard, before jumping on this bandwagon.

philjohn 8y ago
I suggest you read "The Paradox of Tolerance" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
alphabettsy 8y ago
I see your point, but there is also the issue of helping to make this kind of content available. If the content is hard to find or hidden then maybe less people are exposed to it? Is that the answer? I have no idea, but to me there’s a big difference between arguing the merits of single-payor healthcare and whether or not certain people should be allowed to exist. There are loads of racist and bigoted opinions on Facebook and Twitter, but Gab takes that to another level. The people being banned from Twitter aren’t saying things like black people have lower IQs, they’re saying they’re animals that shouldn’t exist in this country, etc. That’s not the same.
- dr-rachet 8y ago
  My main point is that this is a tricky subject. One that we should be very careful in regards to our actions. If the content was so terrible on this site, why only remove it now? Why was it tolerated for so long? Acting against gab now, seems to be more of a show than reality. All these companies are attempting to show their disdain for this behavior. But they allowed it before. And I’m sure they allow many other sources of hate to persist on their services.
  - alphabettsy 8y ago
    Gab is a relatively new site and you might be surprised to learn that it wasn’t that well known before. But you can bet that after an event like this most companies are wanting as much distance as possible with the content of the site being in press worldwide. Twitter allows David Duke on their platform, but he’s careful not to post the kind of things you’ll find on Gab. Twitter allows everyday racism and white supremacist speech. They do not allow you to talk about culling millions from this country violently. The difference is that Gab does and won’t remove it. I think we should be equally careful in how we combat ideologies that lead people to and even encourage violence. Where were all of the free-speech slippery slope people when YouTube and other groups were banding together to combat ISIS recruitment on their platforms?

philjohn 8y ago

I suggest you read "The Paradox of Tolerance" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

alphabettsy 8y ago

I see your point, but there is also the issue of helping to make this kind of content available. If the content is hard to find or hidden then maybe less people are exposed to it? Is that the answer? I have no idea, but to me there’s a big difference between arguing the merits of single-payor healthcare and whether or not certain people should be allowed to exist. There are loads of racist and bigoted opinions on Facebook and Twitter, but Gab takes that to another level. The people being banned from Twitter aren’t saying things like black people have lower IQs, they’re saying they’re animals that shouldn’t exist in this country, etc. That’s not the same.

dr-rachet 8y ago
My main point is that this is a tricky subject. One that we should be very careful in regards to our actions. If the content was so terrible on this site, why only remove it now? Why was it tolerated for so long? Acting against gab now, seems to be more of a show than reality. All these companies are attempting to show their disdain for this behavior. But they allowed it before. And I’m sure they allow many other sources of hate to persist on their services.
- alphabettsy 8y ago
  Gab is a relatively new site and you might be surprised to learn that it wasn’t that well known before. But you can bet that after an event like this most companies are wanting as much distance as possible with the content of the site being in press worldwide. Twitter allows David Duke on their platform, but he’s careful not to post the kind of things you’ll find on Gab. Twitter allows everyday racism and white supremacist speech. They do not allow you to talk about culling millions from this country violently. The difference is that Gab does and won’t remove it. I think we should be equally careful in how we combat ideologies that lead people to and even encourage violence. Where were all of the free-speech slippery slope people when YouTube and other groups were banding together to combat ISIS recruitment on their platforms?