6 ms·

A good start is the Wikipedia page; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)

gruez 6y ago
The line of thinking seems to be: "Gab's target demographic is users that have been banned from the mainstream platforms for hate speech and conspiracies. Therefore by targeting those users, it's 'purpose built' for hate speech and conspiracies.". My question is, can't you apply this to basically anything that's "free speech"? The mechanism seems to be that most people are content with the mainstream platforms, and therefore the only people who go for the "free speech" platforms end up being the people who were banned from the mainstream platforms. By that logic, is tor "purpose built" for criminals, since basically only people with stuff to hide use it? How is it different than gab?
- simias 6y ago
  If your site has been overrun by ultra-far-right types for basically its entire existence and you do nothing to mitigate this then you're very clearly complicit. But you're right, most of the "no moderation, anything goes" online communities tend to be overrun by extremists but it's easy to see why: you only need a minority of very dedicated trolls posting outrageous content 24/7 to ruin a community. It takes time and effort to post insightful content and analysis, meanwhile you can throw shit at the walls at a large scale very easily. That's why it's pretty obvious to me that if you want to actually have interesting discussions online and a plurality of opinions you need moderation, otherwise the low effort bullies take over.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >If your site has been overrun by ultra-far-right types for basically its entire existence and you do nothing to mitigate this then you're very clearly complicit. How do you mitigate without running counter to the original idea of "free speeech"?
    - munificent 6y ago
      It's not at all clear what "the original idea of 'free speech'" even was. In the US, the wording of the First Amendment is quite vague. I think people have a mental model that social media sites and apps are like a communication medium. They are a neutral carrier that transmits an idea X from person A to B. The site itself is not "tainted" by the content of X or get involved in the choices of A and B. But a more accurate model is that they are amplifiers and selectors. The algorithms and ML models at the heart of every social media app often determine who B is. A is casting X out into the aether and the site itself uses its own code to select the set of Bs that will receive it—both who they are and how large that set is. From that perspective, I think it is fair that apps take greater responsibility for the content they host. Here's an analogy that might help: Consider a typical print shop. You show up with your pamphlet, pay them some money, and they hand you back a stack of copies. Then you go out and distribute them. The print shop doesn't care what your pamphlet says and I think is free from much moral obligation to care. Now consider a different print shop. You drop off your pamphlet and give them some money. Lots of other people do. Then the print shop itself decides how many copies to make for each pamphlet. Then it also decides itself which street corners to leave which pamphlets on. That sounds an awful lot to me like they have a lot of responsibility over the content of those pamphlets. The latter is much closer to how most social media apps behave today.
      - gruez 6y ago
        but does gab use "algorithms and ML" to determine what gets shown? Doesn't it use a upvote/downvote model like hn or reddit? Is a site that uses a "order by upvotes" ranking system closer to the first print shop or the second? What about bulletin boards that ranks by last post?
        munificent 6y ago
        > Doesn't it use a upvote/downvote model like hn or reddit? Is that really any different? If your print shop counts the user-submitted tallies on a chalkboard to decide which pamphlets to print, the print shop is still choosing to use that rule to decide what to print.

gruez 6y ago

The line of thinking seems to be: "Gab's target demographic is users that have been banned from the mainstream platforms for hate speech and conspiracies. Therefore by targeting those users, it's 'purpose built' for hate speech and conspiracies.". My question is, can't you apply this to basically anything that's "free speech"? The mechanism seems to be that most people are content with the mainstream platforms, and therefore the only people who go for the "free speech" platforms end up being the people who were banned from the mainstream platforms. By that logic, is tor "purpose built" for criminals, since basically only people with stuff to hide use it? How is it different than gab?

simias 6y ago
If your site has been overrun by ultra-far-right types for basically its entire existence and you do nothing to mitigate this then you're very clearly complicit. But you're right, most of the "no moderation, anything goes" online communities tend to be overrun by extremists but it's easy to see why: you only need a minority of very dedicated trolls posting outrageous content 24/7 to ruin a community. It takes time and effort to post insightful content and analysis, meanwhile you can throw shit at the walls at a large scale very easily. That's why it's pretty obvious to me that if you want to actually have interesting discussions online and a plurality of opinions you need moderation, otherwise the low effort bullies take over.
- gruez 6y ago
  >If your site has been overrun by ultra-far-right types for basically its entire existence and you do nothing to mitigate this then you're very clearly complicit. How do you mitigate without running counter to the original idea of "free speeech"?
  - munificent 6y ago
    It's not at all clear what "the original idea of 'free speech'" even was. In the US, the wording of the First Amendment is quite vague. I think people have a mental model that social media sites and apps are like a communication medium. They are a neutral carrier that transmits an idea X from person A to B. The site itself is not "tainted" by the content of X or get involved in the choices of A and B. But a more accurate model is that they are amplifiers and selectors. The algorithms and ML models at the heart of every social media app often determine who B is. A is casting X out into the aether and the site itself uses its own code to select the set of Bs that will receive it—both who they are and how large that set is. From that perspective, I think it is fair that apps take greater responsibility for the content they host. Here's an analogy that might help: Consider a typical print shop. You show up with your pamphlet, pay them some money, and they hand you back a stack of copies. Then you go out and distribute them. The print shop doesn't care what your pamphlet says and I think is free from much moral obligation to care. Now consider a different print shop. You drop off your pamphlet and give them some money. Lots of other people do. Then the print shop itself decides how many copies to make for each pamphlet. Then it also decides itself which street corners to leave which pamphlets on. That sounds an awful lot to me like they have a lot of responsibility over the content of those pamphlets. The latter is much closer to how most social media apps behave today.
    - gruez 6y ago
      but does gab use "algorithms and ML" to determine what gets shown? Doesn't it use a upvote/downvote model like hn or reddit? Is a site that uses a "order by upvotes" ranking system closer to the first print shop or the second? What about bulletin boards that ranks by last post?
      - munificent 6y ago
        > Doesn't it use a upvote/downvote model like hn or reddit? Is that really any different? If your print shop counts the user-submitted tallies on a chalkboard to decide which pamphlets to print, the print shop is still choosing to use that rule to decide what to print.