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I had heard about Gab but never visited the site before. I just spent 30 seconds perusing the trending feed. I saw the following: 1. a video of a man being sho

I had heard about Gab but never visited the site before. I just spent 30 seconds perusing the trending feed. I saw the following: 1. a video of a man being shot and killed during an armed robbery 2. 3 anti islam posts 3. the usual pro trump propaganda 4. a meme warning about the evils of feminism urging women to get back to their "place" in the family. Gab is a festering pile of trash. Anyone responsible for making any technical decisions on it should be ashamed of themselves.

saagarjha 7y ago
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
- village-idiot 7y ago
  GP isn't recommending that congress ban Gab. They're just using their own free speech to condemn it.
- wpietri 7y ago
  The right to say something is different than people giving material support to it. E.g., I will defend your legal right stand on the corner with a pro-holocaust placard. But anybody printing those placards or otherwise helping you is an asshole. I will happily tell them so, and I will refuse to do business with them. That's me exercising my rights of freedom of speech and freedom of association. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from criticism. And it's also not freedom from any other lawful reaction. Anybody helping with Gab richly deserves criticism and shunning in the technical community.
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- rhcom2 7y ago
  It's not nearly cut and dry as this quote as defining what "right to say it" means in the age of the internet is a massive open question.
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  Will you defend my right to distribute IP I don't own? Or to vote if I am a felon? Or to share state secrets? Or to defraud people or slander people? Do you believe that if the people on gab became state leaders that they'd protect your right to dissent?
  - SheepSlapper 7y ago
    None of the things you mentioned are "rights", that's just muddling the language. Freedom of speech is a capital-R Right.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    There are exceptions to freedom of speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... some of the things on your list are on this and hence do not fall under free speech. Also, note that I don't necessarily agree with all of these exceptions (for example, my personal opinions to your questions tends to lean towards "yes, in many cases" regardless of their legality. In this case I would instead be fighting for your actions to become protected under free speech).
- vikingcaffiene 7y ago
  Since we're doing quotes: "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me." Hate speech should not be allowed a safe haven. Gab is a business and, as such, is not required to adhere to the first amendment.
  - qball 7y ago
    >Gab is a business and, as such, is not required to adhere to the first amendment. Why shouldn't businesses be required to adhere to the First Amendment if they function as the modern public square? The only reason they get out of that requirement is Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, a law that exists to make sure that websites such as Facebook can't be held liable for how they moderate their site provided its content remains within US law. This is the definition of privatizing gains, socializing losses. >First they came for the [people most don't like], then they came for the [progressively larger fractions of the population] This is why we keep the Overton window focused on scoundrels, like we are now. It never stops just with them.
api 7y ago
The flow of excrement on the Internet goes 4chan/8chan -> Reddit/Twitter -> Voat/Gab. It's analogous to anus -> toilet -> septic tank.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  I'm...not sure what your analogy is trying to say. Only the chans create bad stuff, everyone else just reposts it?
rmtech 7y ago
> Gab is a festering pile of trash. That's your opinion. To some people, Gab is an alternative source of information that's independent of the narrative exerted by the mainstream media. > meme warning about the evils of feminism Do you want people to be kept in the dark about criticisms of feminism? What about feminism is so fragile or deceitful that criticism of it must be suppressed? In the end this is what free speech is: people having the freedom to express opinions that those in power would prefer to suppress. I've been 50/50 on signing up for gab, but I think after reading your rather ignorant comment I'll join.
- davexunit 7y ago
  >alternative source of information nice rebrand of "hate speech"
  - nicky0 7y ago
    The trouble with outlawing "hate speech" is: who gets to decide what is hate speech?
    - davexunit 7y ago
      Ah okay, so the clear best move is to do nothing and let everyone say whatever they want on every web application that allows user comments. That policy surely won't be abused.
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      Who gets to define murder? All rules are made by fallible humans. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have rules.
      - nicky0 7y ago
        I never said we shouldn't have rules. I'm saying we should not have harmful rules. Rules which limit speech are harmful. This is because free communication of ideas is the foundation of a free and democratic soceity.
lukifer 7y ago
Relevant: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...
vorpalhex 7y ago
The darkness is only ever undone by shining a light. By all means, people of reasonable sense should take a moment to look at Gab and realize what counter-factual nonsense it is, because banning it or censoring it will only make it more powerful.
- wpietri 7y ago
  That's a common claim, but I've seen precious little evidence for it. For decades US Nazis and other loons were justifiably obscure. But the rise of the Internet, which enabled all sorts of connection, also enabled our country's worst to more easily connect, network, and recruit. A good book on the topic is Neiwart's "Alt-America", written by a journalist who studied American white supremacists starting in the 1980s. As a counterpoint, just recently we saw Tommy Robinson, far right activist and repeat felon, get crushed in the European elections. Why did fail? He himself says social media bans were the reason: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/european-election-results-tommy-robinson-defeated-north-west-latest-a8931426.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/european-elec... Deplatforming works. If we need people to understand awful people and awful ideas, history provides us with plenty of examples. Similarly, if we want people to understand tigers, we don't just turn tigers loose in the classroom. We read books, we see videos, maybe we visit a zoo.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    Deplatforming is like trying to cure cancer with an axe. Even when you have a temporary win, it's at a terrible and horrible cost. Plenty of folks have tried to ban history books too.
    - wpietri 7y ago
      Nobody is talking about banning history books about Nazis. They're not even talking about about preventing Nazis from speaking. They're just choosing to exercise their freedom of association and not provide a platform for Nazis, the same way they boot harassers and spammers. And the same way that publishers have for centuries declined to publish works they don't want to stand behind. You can handwave all you like about the (vague, unspecified) horrible cost. But unless you have clear, specific harms to weigh against the actual harm caused by Nazis, you're just blowing smoke.
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iamshs 7y ago
Seems like Indian Twitter. Replace Trump with Modi. Indian Twitter uses Hindi language to escape notice and censorship. Worst posts fester there.
nicky0 7y ago
Fortunately there are more heavily moderated alternatives available to you.
DominoTree 7y ago
The moment I clicked on this link, without even browsing, I was greeted with a recommendation to follow an account with a racial slur in the name. No thanks.
dcolkitt 7y ago
I mean Tor is used for some pretty bad stuff. Much of the dark net, if not most of the dark net is pretty heinous. Definitely worse than Gab. Do you feel similarly about Tor developers? The way I see it building platforms for detested people is a pretty good canary in the coalmine. If Internet technologies aren't resilient enough to keep the most hated people in the world online, then that's a pretty bad sign that those technologies wouldn't stand up to motivated state actors.
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- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  Tor being a protocol, I think the better analog would be the people developing the "host anything you want here, no limits" servers would be more the type of developers OP was addressing.
- Traster 7y ago
  Gab specifically isn't a technology though. This article is specifically about the technology Gab is going to use. So I think the more apt comparison is between Tor and Mastodon. Gab is a website in the same that that a website on the dark net is a website- both of which can and should be judged on their merits.
  - repolfx 7y ago
    That seems like a rather fragile distinction to draw. Tor isn't just a software stack and protocol. It's also a service made up of many hundreds of volunteers who agree to relay traffic, blindly, anywhere, despite (a) knowing what kind of traffic they're protecting and (b) having the ability to blacklist destinations. For instance it's common for Tor exits to ban SMTP or Bittorrent ports. Bear in mind Tor also supports hidden services, and could also choose to blacklist them if they want - the way the protocol works does allow that, and of course they could change the software stack and the nodes listed in their directory services to make such things easier. So Gab is a service run by a bunch of people that allow stuff pretty liberally, including bad stuff. So is Tor.
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PhasmaFelis 7y ago
Every time someone sets out to create a completely unmoderated free speech platform, it immediately becomes an object lesson in why people moderate platforms.
- inawarminister 7y ago
  That's because the first adopters of an unmoderated platforms are those who were kicked out from the moderated platforms, whether rightfully or wrongly. Indeed, many settlements in the yesteryears were founded by outlaws and dissidents (also see: the Pilgrims and Mormon settlement of Utah)
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    So what does it say that unmoderated platforms always seem to become sinkholes of bigotry? Or are you saying that, like the Pilgrims, they will eventually transmute themselves into something less unpleasant if left alone? That's stretching the metaphor a bit far, I think.
    - zzzcpan 7y ago
      > So what does it say that unmoderated platforms always seem to become sinkholes of bigotry? They don't become that. Or rather this is orthogonal to moderation.
      - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
        Voat and Gab seem to have done. Which ones haven't? The way it seems to work is that unmoderated forums attract the toxic bigots that aren't allowed to speak their minds elsewhere, and they attack anyone who disagrees with them until most of those people get tired of it and go elsewhere, leaving the forum to the jerks. (Or else the owners have second thoughts and start moderating.) It happens to any unmoderated forum that gets large and popular enough.
        7y ago
manigandham 7y ago
The people who post those things also use the internet, email, chat apps, social media and everything else. At some point you have to accept that people can say and do what they want and only they are responsible for it. Gab is no different than any other social media site in that what you see is a function of who you follow, but gab has no moderation at all so you will see things you don’t like more often. It is what it is, but it always seems strange to me to blame the platform for its users.
- vikingcaffiene 7y ago
  > Gab is no different than any other social media site in that what you see is a function of who you follow > At some point you have to accept that people can say and do what they want and only they are responsible for it. I could not disagree with you more. It is very different and they are known as a haven for some of the vilest viewpoints out there. These fringe viewpoints reach a larger audience and bad things happen. Literally every social media platform of any scale is grappling with this problem. Since, as you say, Gab has no moderation, this is what you get. It's very easy to just throw your hands up and yell "freedom" with this stuff but I'd be willing to bet you aren't part of a demographic that gets regularly demonized in these corners of the internet. There are stakes. It matters that things like this get called out for what they are.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    The only difference you stated is what I said: Gab doesn't actively moderate, and so the discussions there are more fringe but also more free. What's wrong with freedom? Free speech is a right and this is a platform that guarantees it as much as possible. If you don't want that then you have the right to not use it. I think you'd be surprised at the speech that people use around the world, let alone the actions that are committed, if you think Gab is the worst out there.
  - balaksakrionon 7y ago
    It's incorrect to state they have no moderation; they moderate in accordance with US law IIRC. Their policy is detailed here: https://gab.com/about/guidelines https://gab.com/about/guidelines
kerkeslager 7y ago
I don't like most of the content you mention, but I still don't understand your pro-censorship viewpoint. What's your goal here? Do you honestly think that preventing these people from having a public voice will make them disappear? Or do you simply want to brush them under the carpet so you can pretend they don't exist? I think a much better approach is to allow free speech, and to spend some of our time kindly and empathetically trying to understand these people so we can address the underlying issues that cause them to believe what they believe. That's what Martin Luther King did, if you read his more theoretical writings. And I think it's what we should be trying to do today. Gutting free speech isn't the solution.
- vikingcaffiene 7y ago
  If you read my original comment you'll see I am not actually calling for censorship. I am calling for any developers responsible for providing Gab with technical assistance to re-evaluate what they are doing with their skills. It's a matter of professional ethics and it matters quite a bit to me. If they are helping Gab in any capacity they either agree with the content on it, or are taking a cynical payday. Either way its repulsive and it needs to be called out. While we are on the subject of censorship: yes people with vile viewpoints exist. Yes they have a right to express those viewpoints. NO a platform does not have to help them spread said viewpoints. I would like to remind you that Gab is a _business_, not a government. They are under no obligation to honor the 1st amendment. It's no different than places like Hacker News which heavily moderates its content. Codes of conduct exist for a reason and it is to protect the vulnerable. If you don't feel that deeply in your bones it's likely because you aren't a member of a demographic that is under threat. Gab, by its very existence and prominence legitimizes racism, nazism, sexism, violence, etc. It creates a community and a sense of moral righteousness around it. People are _dying_ and the country is on the brink of chaos. We can't ignore this threat any longer. Gab _can_ in fact moderate hate speech on their platform. They just don't either because they believe it or because it's profitable. Either way I hope their business dies and they go broke because what they are doing is wrong.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > If you read my original comment you'll see I am not actually calling for censorship. I am calling for any developers responsible for providing Gab with technical assistance to re-evaluate what they are doing with their skills. It's a matter of professional ethics and it matters quite a bit to me. If they are helping Gab in any capacity they either agree with the content on it, or are taking a cynical payday. Either way its repulsive and it needs to be called out. You ARE calling for censorship. It's no less censorship just because it's developers doing the censorship instead of governments. > While we are on the subject of censorship: yes people with vile viewpoints exist. Yes they have a right to express those viewpoints. NO a platform does not have to help them spread said viewpoints. I would like to remind you that Gab is a _business_, not a government. They are under no obligation to honor the 1st amendment. The thing about unalienable human rights is that they are UNALIENABLE. The right to free speech doesn't simply go away when you put a business in charge. I agree that the first amendment doesn't apply to businesses, and this is one of the largest reasons that we should be concerned about the increasing control that businesses have over the most influential of our communications platforms. This how free speech dies--all mainstream communications are moved onto corporate platforms where free speech isn't protected, and then opponents of free speech call for censoring views they disagree with. You seem to be under the misconception that free speech is only important because of the first amendment, but the opposite is true. The first amendment is only important because it protects free speech, which is what really matters. > It's no different than places like Hacker News which heavily moderates its content. It's different because Hacker News purports to be a forum for specific topics, rather than a general communications platform like Gab or Twitter. > Codes of conduct exist for a reason and it is to protect the vulnerable. If you don't feel that deeply in your bones it's likely because you aren't a member of a demographic that is under threat. And here we get to the crux of what you completely ignored in my previous post: the censorship you're demanding DOESN'T PROTECT THE VULNERABLE. It just doesn't work. The people who hold racist, nazi, sexist, violent, etc. viewpoints don't simply disappear because you censor them. They still exist, and censoring them merely drives them together, into more unified communities, since they can't talk to anyone else. We lose the opportunity to talk to them, and change their minds. The censorship you're demanding is not the solution to to the division in our culture, it's the CAUSE of the division in our culture. When you call for censorship, you're opening Pandora's box. Maybe today you can successfully censor Nazis, but only a few short decades ago, Nazis were in power and censoring other people. Censorship doesn't benefit the right ideas, it benefits the ideas that are in power, and the ideas that are in power aren't always right. Before you throw away free speech and call for censorship, consider that free speech allows YOU to say what YOU'RE saying, and in the future it may be YOUR ideas that are censored.

saagarjha 7y ago

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

village-idiot 7y ago
GP isn't recommending that congress ban Gab. They're just using their own free speech to condemn it.
wpietri 7y ago
The right to say something is different than people giving material support to it. E.g., I will defend your legal right stand on the corner with a pro-holocaust placard. But anybody printing those placards or otherwise helping you is an asshole. I will happily tell them so, and I will refuse to do business with them. That's me exercising my rights of freedom of speech and freedom of association. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from criticism. And it's also not freedom from any other lawful reaction. Anybody helping with Gab richly deserves criticism and shunning in the technical community.
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rhcom2 7y ago
It's not nearly cut and dry as this quote as defining what "right to say it" means in the age of the internet is a massive open question.
UncleMeat 7y ago
Will you defend my right to distribute IP I don't own? Or to vote if I am a felon? Or to share state secrets? Or to defraud people or slander people? Do you believe that if the people on gab became state leaders that they'd protect your right to dissent?
- SheepSlapper 7y ago
  None of the things you mentioned are "rights", that's just muddling the language. Freedom of speech is a capital-R Right.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  There are exceptions to freedom of speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... some of the things on your list are on this and hence do not fall under free speech. Also, note that I don't necessarily agree with all of these exceptions (for example, my personal opinions to your questions tends to lean towards "yes, in many cases" regardless of their legality. In this case I would instead be fighting for your actions to become protected under free speech).
vikingcaffiene 7y ago
Since we're doing quotes: "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me." Hate speech should not be allowed a safe haven. Gab is a business and, as such, is not required to adhere to the first amendment.
- qball 7y ago
  >Gab is a business and, as such, is not required to adhere to the first amendment. Why shouldn't businesses be required to adhere to the First Amendment if they function as the modern public square? The only reason they get out of that requirement is Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, a law that exists to make sure that websites such as Facebook can't be held liable for how they moderate their site provided its content remains within US law. This is the definition of privatizing gains, socializing losses. >First they came for the [people most don't like], then they came for the [progressively larger fractions of the population] This is why we keep the Overton window focused on scoundrels, like we are now. It never stops just with them.

api 7y ago

The flow of excrement on the Internet goes 4chan/8chan -> Reddit/Twitter -> Voat/Gab. It's analogous to anus -> toilet -> septic tank.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago
I'm...not sure what your analogy is trying to say. Only the chans create bad stuff, everyone else just reposts it?

rmtech 7y ago

> Gab is a festering pile of trash. That's your opinion. To some people, Gab is an alternative source of information that's independent of the narrative exerted by the mainstream media. > meme warning about the evils of feminism Do you want people to be kept in the dark about criticisms of feminism? What about feminism is so fragile or deceitful that criticism of it must be suppressed? In the end this is what free speech is: people having the freedom to express opinions that those in power would prefer to suppress. I've been 50/50 on signing up for gab, but I think after reading your rather ignorant comment I'll join.

davexunit 7y ago
>alternative source of information nice rebrand of "hate speech"
- nicky0 7y ago
  The trouble with outlawing "hate speech" is: who gets to decide what is hate speech?
  - davexunit 7y ago
    Ah okay, so the clear best move is to do nothing and let everyone say whatever they want on every web application that allows user comments. That policy surely won't be abused.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    Who gets to define murder? All rules are made by fallible humans. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have rules.
    - nicky0 7y ago
      I never said we shouldn't have rules. I'm saying we should not have harmful rules. Rules which limit speech are harmful. This is because free communication of ideas is the foundation of a free and democratic soceity.

lukifer 7y ago

Relevant: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...

vorpalhex 7y ago

The darkness is only ever undone by shining a light. By all means, people of reasonable sense should take a moment to look at Gab and realize what counter-factual nonsense it is, because banning it or censoring it will only make it more powerful.

wpietri 7y ago
That's a common claim, but I've seen precious little evidence for it. For decades US Nazis and other loons were justifiably obscure. But the rise of the Internet, which enabled all sorts of connection, also enabled our country's worst to more easily connect, network, and recruit. A good book on the topic is Neiwart's "Alt-America", written by a journalist who studied American white supremacists starting in the 1980s. As a counterpoint, just recently we saw Tommy Robinson, far right activist and repeat felon, get crushed in the European elections. Why did fail? He himself says social media bans were the reason: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/european-election-results-tommy-robinson-defeated-north-west-latest-a8931426.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/european-elec... Deplatforming works. If we need people to understand awful people and awful ideas, history provides us with plenty of examples. Similarly, if we want people to understand tigers, we don't just turn tigers loose in the classroom. We read books, we see videos, maybe we visit a zoo.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  Deplatforming is like trying to cure cancer with an axe. Even when you have a temporary win, it's at a terrible and horrible cost. Plenty of folks have tried to ban history books too.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    Nobody is talking about banning history books about Nazis. They're not even talking about about preventing Nazis from speaking. They're just choosing to exercise their freedom of association and not provide a platform for Nazis, the same way they boot harassers and spammers. And the same way that publishers have for centuries declined to publish works they don't want to stand behind. You can handwave all you like about the (vague, unspecified) horrible cost. But unless you have clear, specific harms to weigh against the actual harm caused by Nazis, you're just blowing smoke.

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iamshs 7y ago

Seems like Indian Twitter. Replace Trump with Modi. Indian Twitter uses Hindi language to escape notice and censorship. Worst posts fester there.

nicky0 7y ago

Fortunately there are more heavily moderated alternatives available to you.

DominoTree 7y ago

The moment I clicked on this link, without even browsing, I was greeted with a recommendation to follow an account with a racial slur in the name. No thanks.

dcolkitt 7y ago

I mean Tor is used for some pretty bad stuff. Much of the dark net, if not most of the dark net is pretty heinous. Definitely worse than Gab. Do you feel similarly about Tor developers? The way I see it building platforms for detested people is a pretty good canary in the coalmine. If Internet technologies aren't resilient enough to keep the most hated people in the world online, then that's a pretty bad sign that those technologies wouldn't stand up to motivated state actors.

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52-6F-62 7y ago
Tor being a protocol, I think the better analog would be the people developing the "host anything you want here, no limits" servers would be more the type of developers OP was addressing.
Traster 7y ago
Gab specifically isn't a technology though. This article is specifically about the technology Gab is going to use. So I think the more apt comparison is between Tor and Mastodon. Gab is a website in the same that that a website on the dark net is a website- both of which can and should be judged on their merits.
- repolfx 7y ago
  That seems like a rather fragile distinction to draw. Tor isn't just a software stack and protocol. It's also a service made up of many hundreds of volunteers who agree to relay traffic, blindly, anywhere, despite (a) knowing what kind of traffic they're protecting and (b) having the ability to blacklist destinations. For instance it's common for Tor exits to ban SMTP or Bittorrent ports. Bear in mind Tor also supports hidden services, and could also choose to blacklist them if they want - the way the protocol works does allow that, and of course they could change the software stack and the nodes listed in their directory services to make such things easier. So Gab is a service run by a bunch of people that allow stuff pretty liberally, including bad stuff. So is Tor.

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PhasmaFelis 7y ago

Every time someone sets out to create a completely unmoderated free speech platform, it immediately becomes an object lesson in why people moderate platforms.

inawarminister 7y ago
That's because the first adopters of an unmoderated platforms are those who were kicked out from the moderated platforms, whether rightfully or wrongly. Indeed, many settlements in the yesteryears were founded by outlaws and dissidents (also see: the Pilgrims and Mormon settlement of Utah)
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  So what does it say that unmoderated platforms always seem to become sinkholes of bigotry? Or are you saying that, like the Pilgrims, they will eventually transmute themselves into something less unpleasant if left alone? That's stretching the metaphor a bit far, I think.
  - zzzcpan 7y ago
    > So what does it say that unmoderated platforms always seem to become sinkholes of bigotry? They don't become that. Or rather this is orthogonal to moderation.
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      Voat and Gab seem to have done. Which ones haven't? The way it seems to work is that unmoderated forums attract the toxic bigots that aren't allowed to speak their minds elsewhere, and they attack anyone who disagrees with them until most of those people get tired of it and go elsewhere, leaving the forum to the jerks. (Or else the owners have second thoughts and start moderating.) It happens to any unmoderated forum that gets large and popular enough.
      - 7y ago

manigandham 7y ago

The people who post those things also use the internet, email, chat apps, social media and everything else. At some point you have to accept that people can say and do what they want and only they are responsible for it. Gab is no different than any other social media site in that what you see is a function of who you follow, but gab has no moderation at all so you will see things you don’t like more often. It is what it is, but it always seems strange to me to blame the platform for its users.

vikingcaffiene 7y ago
> Gab is no different than any other social media site in that what you see is a function of who you follow > At some point you have to accept that people can say and do what they want and only they are responsible for it. I could not disagree with you more. It is very different and they are known as a haven for some of the vilest viewpoints out there. These fringe viewpoints reach a larger audience and bad things happen. Literally every social media platform of any scale is grappling with this problem. Since, as you say, Gab has no moderation, this is what you get. It's very easy to just throw your hands up and yell "freedom" with this stuff but I'd be willing to bet you aren't part of a demographic that gets regularly demonized in these corners of the internet. There are stakes. It matters that things like this get called out for what they are.
- manigandham 7y ago
  The only difference you stated is what I said: Gab doesn't actively moderate, and so the discussions there are more fringe but also more free. What's wrong with freedom? Free speech is a right and this is a platform that guarantees it as much as possible. If you don't want that then you have the right to not use it. I think you'd be surprised at the speech that people use around the world, let alone the actions that are committed, if you think Gab is the worst out there.
- balaksakrionon 7y ago
  It's incorrect to state they have no moderation; they moderate in accordance with US law IIRC. Their policy is detailed here: https://gab.com/about/guidelines https://gab.com/about/guidelines

kerkeslager 7y ago

I don't like most of the content you mention, but I still don't understand your pro-censorship viewpoint. What's your goal here? Do you honestly think that preventing these people from having a public voice will make them disappear? Or do you simply want to brush them under the carpet so you can pretend they don't exist? I think a much better approach is to allow free speech, and to spend some of our time kindly and empathetically trying to understand these people so we can address the underlying issues that cause them to believe what they believe. That's what Martin Luther King did, if you read his more theoretical writings. And I think it's what we should be trying to do today. Gutting free speech isn't the solution.

vikingcaffiene 7y ago
If you read my original comment you'll see I am not actually calling for censorship. I am calling for any developers responsible for providing Gab with technical assistance to re-evaluate what they are doing with their skills. It's a matter of professional ethics and it matters quite a bit to me. If they are helping Gab in any capacity they either agree with the content on it, or are taking a cynical payday. Either way its repulsive and it needs to be called out. While we are on the subject of censorship: yes people with vile viewpoints exist. Yes they have a right to express those viewpoints. NO a platform does not have to help them spread said viewpoints. I would like to remind you that Gab is a _business_, not a government. They are under no obligation to honor the 1st amendment. It's no different than places like Hacker News which heavily moderates its content. Codes of conduct exist for a reason and it is to protect the vulnerable. If you don't feel that deeply in your bones it's likely because you aren't a member of a demographic that is under threat. Gab, by its very existence and prominence legitimizes racism, nazism, sexism, violence, etc. It creates a community and a sense of moral righteousness around it. People are _dying_ and the country is on the brink of chaos. We can't ignore this threat any longer. Gab _can_ in fact moderate hate speech on their platform. They just don't either because they believe it or because it's profitable. Either way I hope their business dies and they go broke because what they are doing is wrong.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > If you read my original comment you'll see I am not actually calling for censorship. I am calling for any developers responsible for providing Gab with technical assistance to re-evaluate what they are doing with their skills. It's a matter of professional ethics and it matters quite a bit to me. If they are helping Gab in any capacity they either agree with the content on it, or are taking a cynical payday. Either way its repulsive and it needs to be called out. You ARE calling for censorship. It's no less censorship just because it's developers doing the censorship instead of governments. > While we are on the subject of censorship: yes people with vile viewpoints exist. Yes they have a right to express those viewpoints. NO a platform does not have to help them spread said viewpoints. I would like to remind you that Gab is a _business_, not a government. They are under no obligation to honor the 1st amendment. The thing about unalienable human rights is that they are UNALIENABLE. The right to free speech doesn't simply go away when you put a business in charge. I agree that the first amendment doesn't apply to businesses, and this is one of the largest reasons that we should be concerned about the increasing control that businesses have over the most influential of our communications platforms. This how free speech dies--all mainstream communications are moved onto corporate platforms where free speech isn't protected, and then opponents of free speech call for censoring views they disagree with. You seem to be under the misconception that free speech is only important because of the first amendment, but the opposite is true. The first amendment is only important because it protects free speech, which is what really matters. > It's no different than places like Hacker News which heavily moderates its content. It's different because Hacker News purports to be a forum for specific topics, rather than a general communications platform like Gab or Twitter. > Codes of conduct exist for a reason and it is to protect the vulnerable. If you don't feel that deeply in your bones it's likely because you aren't a member of a demographic that is under threat. And here we get to the crux of what you completely ignored in my previous post: the censorship you're demanding DOESN'T PROTECT THE VULNERABLE. It just doesn't work. The people who hold racist, nazi, sexist, violent, etc. viewpoints don't simply disappear because you censor them. They still exist, and censoring them merely drives them together, into more unified communities, since they can't talk to anyone else. We lose the opportunity to talk to them, and change their minds. The censorship you're demanding is not the solution to to the division in our culture, it's the CAUSE of the division in our culture. When you call for censorship, you're opening Pandora's box. Maybe today you can successfully censor Nazis, but only a few short decades ago, Nazis were in power and censoring other people. Censorship doesn't benefit the right ideas, it benefits the ideas that are in power, and the ideas that are in power aren't always right. Before you throw away free speech and call for censorship, consider that free speech allows YOU to say what YOU'RE saying, and in the future it may be YOUR ideas that are censored.