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Regardless of how you feel about the Gab folks in particular, this is great news that clearly shows the power of the federated web in enabling, empowering and p

Regardless of how you feel about the Gab folks in particular, this is great news that clearly shows the power of the federated web in enabling, empowering and preserving diverse audiences.

krapp 7y ago
Maybe now they'll stop concern-trolling about the inevitable slippery slope into an Orwellian fascist nightmare the world will descend into every time a site bans them. They have their own playground where they can be as racist and edgy as they want. Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- rchaud 7y ago
  That won't happen because the constant alarmism about censorship is part of the appeal. "Your rights are being violated by the Hollywood/feminists/liberal elites! Send me money so I can tell you how to combat this scourge with Logic & Reason (TM)" People like J Peterson and Sargon could deal with being deplatformed in the way they preach to their disciples, but instead they whine about it while shaking their e-collection boxes.
  - balaksakrionon 7y ago
    I suspect the type of dismisiveness you show towards large swaths of the populace's opinions contributes to the success of folks like JBP and Sargon
    - rchaud 7y ago
      I suspect it does too, but probably for different reasons. Criticism of "thought leaders" like these guys only strengthens the hold they have among the legions of young people who follow their words like gospel. Any criticism of these figures for their platitude-heavy content and huckster-style marketing must also be a criticism of their followers as individuals, because they have bought into that mindset wholesale.
      - antepodius 7y ago
        JBP, at least, generally seems to come off better than the people criticising him. And young people have rebellious tendencies, they form countercultures. The current world culture tilts to left-progressivism, so there's a right-ish counterculture.
        Bakary 7y ago
        The problem is that many look at JBP interacting with clickbait and unethical journalists and conclude that he must be a great and honest thinker in comparison. Actual academics rarely engage with him, and not because they are afraid to or malicious but because he hasn't published much that can even be engaged with outside of psychology. The exception is Žižek, and we all saw how that went for Peterson.
    - Can_Not 7y ago
      On the contrary, the rise of my dismissiveness comes from the emergence and popularity of grifters like JBP and Sargon, who seem to only favor freedom of speech for bullying, but never seem to protest any actual freedom of speech issues at home or abroad (like Ortega gunning down protesters), in addition to having to listen to his fans parrot a lot of strange claims he had no qualifications to make or relevant knowledge of.
- anon12345690 7y ago
  uh theres a big story right now about china attacking activists. theres a story about google and amazon tracking everything and using facial recognition. everyone freaks out when google builds a china search engine. but ok, yea its all fake because you think theyre racists. whatever.
  - krapp 7y ago
    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ They are racists, it is all fake, and even if if it weren't all fake, I wouldn't shed a tear if they came for the racists.
    - anon12345690 7y ago
      so people who care about free speech are racists? or do you just throw that word around? and theyre going to come for you too and youll be shedding a lot of tears then when its too late. its how it goes.
      - krapp 7y ago
        >so people who care about free speech are racists? Aw. No, racists are racists. Nice try, though. Keep it up and someday you'll grow up to be a real troll. >and theyre going to come for you too and youll be shedding a lot of tears then when its too late. its how it goes Why would people opposed to racists come for me? I'm not a racist.
        anon12345690 7y ago
        you are a racist though. you cant prove otherwise.
- belorn 7y ago
  The right to free speech in the US is indeed a specific law with a narrow scope to only limit the US government. This is why people that do end up in court often go the route of using anti-discrimination laws rather then freedom of speech. It has much bigger scope and it can actually demand that a company host people which they politically disagree with. In EU, if a place cancel a reservation because someone is homosexual then they are likely breaking a human rights law. Anti-discrimination laws covers ideology, political, philosophical, religious and other identities, and showing people the door is often illegal if it done on the grounds of difference in ideology or politics. In the US I don't know if a hosting company has the same right to show the door to a racist (that follow the law) as a racist hotel owner has the right to show a non-white person the door. I suspect the law does not really distinguish between online and offline so my guess would be that racist hotel owners can discriminate if they wish to not host a customer regardless of reasons.

Regardless of how you feel about the Gab folks in particular, this is great news that clearly shows the power of the federated web in enabling, empowering and preserving diverse audiences.

krapp 7y ago

Maybe now they'll stop concern-trolling about the inevitable slippery slope into an Orwellian fascist nightmare the world will descend into every time a site bans them. They have their own playground where they can be as racist and edgy as they want. Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/

rchaud 7y ago
That won't happen because the constant alarmism about censorship is part of the appeal. "Your rights are being violated by the Hollywood/feminists/liberal elites! Send me money so I can tell you how to combat this scourge with Logic & Reason (TM)" People like J Peterson and Sargon could deal with being deplatformed in the way they preach to their disciples, but instead they whine about it while shaking their e-collection boxes.
- balaksakrionon 7y ago
  I suspect the type of dismisiveness you show towards large swaths of the populace's opinions contributes to the success of folks like JBP and Sargon
  - rchaud 7y ago
    I suspect it does too, but probably for different reasons. Criticism of "thought leaders" like these guys only strengthens the hold they have among the legions of young people who follow their words like gospel. Any criticism of these figures for their platitude-heavy content and huckster-style marketing must also be a criticism of their followers as individuals, because they have bought into that mindset wholesale.
    - antepodius 7y ago
      JBP, at least, generally seems to come off better than the people criticising him. And young people have rebellious tendencies, they form countercultures. The current world culture tilts to left-progressivism, so there's a right-ish counterculture.
      - Bakary 7y ago
        The problem is that many look at JBP interacting with clickbait and unethical journalists and conclude that he must be a great and honest thinker in comparison. Actual academics rarely engage with him, and not because they are afraid to or malicious but because he hasn't published much that can even be engaged with outside of psychology. The exception is Žižek, and we all saw how that went for Peterson.
  - Can_Not 7y ago
    On the contrary, the rise of my dismissiveness comes from the emergence and popularity of grifters like JBP and Sargon, who seem to only favor freedom of speech for bullying, but never seem to protest any actual freedom of speech issues at home or abroad (like Ortega gunning down protesters), in addition to having to listen to his fans parrot a lot of strange claims he had no qualifications to make or relevant knowledge of.
anon12345690 7y ago
uh theres a big story right now about china attacking activists. theres a story about google and amazon tracking everything and using facial recognition. everyone freaks out when google builds a china search engine. but ok, yea its all fake because you think theyre racists. whatever.
- krapp 7y ago
  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ They are racists, it is all fake, and even if if it weren't all fake, I wouldn't shed a tear if they came for the racists.
  - anon12345690 7y ago
    so people who care about free speech are racists? or do you just throw that word around? and theyre going to come for you too and youll be shedding a lot of tears then when its too late. its how it goes.
    - krapp 7y ago
      >so people who care about free speech are racists? Aw. No, racists are racists. Nice try, though. Keep it up and someday you'll grow up to be a real troll. >and theyre going to come for you too and youll be shedding a lot of tears then when its too late. its how it goes Why would people opposed to racists come for me? I'm not a racist.
      - anon12345690 7y ago
        you are a racist though. you cant prove otherwise.
belorn 7y ago
The right to free speech in the US is indeed a specific law with a narrow scope to only limit the US government. This is why people that do end up in court often go the route of using anti-discrimination laws rather then freedom of speech. It has much bigger scope and it can actually demand that a company host people which they politically disagree with. In EU, if a place cancel a reservation because someone is homosexual then they are likely breaking a human rights law. Anti-discrimination laws covers ideology, political, philosophical, religious and other identities, and showing people the door is often illegal if it done on the grounds of difference in ideology or politics. In the US I don't know if a hosting company has the same right to show the door to a racist (that follow the law) as a racist hotel owner has the right to show a non-white person the door. I suspect the law does not really distinguish between online and offline so my guess would be that racist hotel owners can discriminate if they wish to not host a customer regardless of reasons.