4 ms·

Related: Gab had also posted a public statement [0] on Medium after the shooting in Pittsburgh. However, Medium has now suspended Gab from their platform, so t

Related: Gab had also posted a public statement [0] on Medium after the shooting in Pittsburgh. However, Medium has now suspended Gab from their platform, so that the only way to read the statement is to use an archive link [1]. Hopefully the tech community learns from this about the dangers of using centralized external services for your public presence. If you find yourself under distributed political attack your voice will not make its way out there without being filtered by intermediary media outlets unless you own the full stack of your system from top to bottom. [0] https://medium.com/@getongab/gab-com-statement-on-the-tree-of-life-synagogue-shooting-a6c1de715b39 https://medium.com/@getongab/gab-com-statement-on-the-tree-o... [1] http://archive.is/vysbL http://archive.is/vysbL

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
> Hopefully the tech community learns from this about the dangers of using centralized external services for your public presence. Which means... what? Put your stuff on the dark web? Because if you host your own blog - GoDaddy can shut you down. Use an ISP that doesn't do anything? The domain name can be shut down. The internet is full of centralized services.
Amezarak 8y ago
Medium's actions seem particularly bizarre and insidious. I can understand why people might believe that Gab should be shut down, even though I disagree (not very strongly - Gab, like Voat with Reddit, was capable only of attracting the worst of Twitter). But Medium appears to believe that defending the existence of a free speech platform is so fundamentally indefensible that it should be impermissible! It also disturbs me how complete and total these lockouts tend to be - if you get put under the wrong spotlight, it's clear how completely and totally the corporate sphere will coordinate to shut you down. You won't even have a platform to defend yourself on, and the situation is getting worse, not better. Short of laying your own fiber cables and creating your own Internet, there's nothing you can do. This makes me very uneasy. I think the NPR interview with the founder of Gab is worth listening to. [1] It strikes me that just a few years ago, most people would have been in support of their position. The world has changed dramatically in just a few years. https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/661676103/after-synagogue-attack-web-hosting-sites-suspend-gab https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/661676103/after-synagogue-att...
- dx87 8y ago
  Look through this thread, people have already decided that "free speech" is a dog whistle meaning that you are anti-semetic and support murder. It's a shame that people are willing to throw away their personal freedoms in exchange for fake civility.
  - anarazel 8y ago
    Meh. Look at the official PR of gab, and tell me again they're solely concerned with free speech: https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1056266704148262912 https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1056266704148262912 https://twitter.com/ClenchedFisk/status/1027690034718224384?s=20 https://twitter.com/ClenchedFisk/status/1027690034718224384?... are a good start, but there's lots more (even though they're currently deleting some of it). They're trolling and not actually concerned with free speech. It's just a way to sow division for them.
    - leereeves 8y ago
      One of those tweets satirically calls for "open borders for Israel". What's wrong with pointing out that Israel is an ethnostate with tightly controlled immigration? It's a useful example for those advocating tighter immigration controls in the US. Satire isn't trolling. I don't know the context in which Gab made that tweet but I've seen "open borders for Israel" in other contexts, where it was used to advocate adopting policies more like Israel's, not merely to sow division.
      - anarazel 8y ago
        Comeon, you're cherry-picking. The comment about inferring a position on free-speech from Krassenstein's name clearly was a play on his name sounding Jewish. [EDIT: WRONG: And the retweet in the other link was just after the shooting (along with a lot of other trolling) - hardly the reaction of an organization horrified about what happened.] EDIT: The tweet referenced above actually significantly earlier. They deleted many tweets, so it's a bit hard to figure out when what exactly happened.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

> Hopefully the tech community learns from this about the dangers of using centralized external services for your public presence. Which means... what? Put your stuff on the dark web? Because if you host your own blog - GoDaddy can shut you down. Use an ISP that doesn't do anything? The domain name can be shut down. The internet is full of centralized services.

Amezarak 8y ago

Medium's actions seem particularly bizarre and insidious. I can understand why people might believe that Gab should be shut down, even though I disagree (not very strongly - Gab, like Voat with Reddit, was capable only of attracting the worst of Twitter). But Medium appears to believe that defending the existence of a free speech platform is so fundamentally indefensible that it should be impermissible! It also disturbs me how complete and total these lockouts tend to be - if you get put under the wrong spotlight, it's clear how completely and totally the corporate sphere will coordinate to shut you down. You won't even have a platform to defend yourself on, and the situation is getting worse, not better. Short of laying your own fiber cables and creating your own Internet, there's nothing you can do. This makes me very uneasy. I think the NPR interview with the founder of Gab is worth listening to. [1] It strikes me that just a few years ago, most people would have been in support of their position. The world has changed dramatically in just a few years. https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/661676103/after-synagogue-attack-web-hosting-sites-suspend-gab https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/661676103/after-synagogue-att...

dx87 8y ago
Look through this thread, people have already decided that "free speech" is a dog whistle meaning that you are anti-semetic and support murder. It's a shame that people are willing to throw away their personal freedoms in exchange for fake civility.
- anarazel 8y ago
  Meh. Look at the official PR of gab, and tell me again they're solely concerned with free speech: https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1056266704148262912 https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1056266704148262912 https://twitter.com/ClenchedFisk/status/1027690034718224384?s=20 https://twitter.com/ClenchedFisk/status/1027690034718224384?... are a good start, but there's lots more (even though they're currently deleting some of it). They're trolling and not actually concerned with free speech. It's just a way to sow division for them.
  - leereeves 8y ago
    One of those tweets satirically calls for "open borders for Israel". What's wrong with pointing out that Israel is an ethnostate with tightly controlled immigration? It's a useful example for those advocating tighter immigration controls in the US. Satire isn't trolling. I don't know the context in which Gab made that tweet but I've seen "open borders for Israel" in other contexts, where it was used to advocate adopting policies more like Israel's, not merely to sow division.
    - anarazel 8y ago
      Comeon, you're cherry-picking. The comment about inferring a position on free-speech from Krassenstein's name clearly was a play on his name sounding Jewish. [EDIT: WRONG: And the retweet in the other link was just after the shooting (along with a lot of other trolling) - hardly the reaction of an organization horrified about what happened.] EDIT: The tweet referenced above actually significantly earlier. They deleted many tweets, so it's a bit hard to figure out when what exactly happened.