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Can someone explain the difference between Gab and Parler to someone unfamiliar with both?

cmeacham98 6y ago
Parler is basically a direct clone of twitter's basic features. They use different names but have features similar to that of Twitter's tweet/like/retweet. Gab's current iteration is a mastodon fork (although iirc they don't participate in the fediverse via activitypub). Gab is similar to Twitter like Parler but is less of a direct clone, offering other features Twitter doesn't have. Gab has been along for longer and seems to be more popular. Both market to the (mostly American) far right, with their shtick being basically "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". Gab seems to have been more competent in coming back up after bans from their hosting provider and other partners.
- leesalminen 6y ago
  > Both market to the (mostly American) far right, with their shtick being basically "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended.
  - davidlinc1 6y ago
    It's not. It happens to be an effective marketing vehicle for this particular audience, so you see it presented first and foremost, in an almost hyperbolic way. They conflate free speech infringements with basic service policies. Doesn't mean that other Americans no longer consider free speech important.
  - mint2 6y ago
    why do so many people confusedly assume free speech means forcing printers to print neo-nazi propaganda. Whatever happened to freedom of association? Some businesses and people don’t want to associate with neonazis and don’t want to be known as the company that helps neonazis. Why do people who espouse free speech want to take away freedom to choose who one associates with?
    - InvertedRhodium 6y ago
      'Free speech' means nothing at all in the private sector - but 'supporting free speech' most definitely does. If a company opts to not support free speech (which is an ideal that I believe most Americans would say should be supported) by enacting censorship rules beyond what is illegal, they shouldn't be surprised when people that believe in that ideal look on them less favorably.
      - Delmania 6y ago
        By supporting free speech I support the right for us to say what we will without fear of retribution from the government. By supporting freedom of association I support that company’s can ban you for saying things they don’t agree with. Aren’t Gab and Parker right wing libertarian free market success stories? People found Twitter didn’t agree with their views so they founded a competitor.
        InvertedRhodium 6y ago
        > By supporting freedom of association I support that company’s can ban you for saying things they don’t agree with The US already limit companies "Right of Association" by virtue of things like Providers of Last Resort (that's the extent of my knowledge on this topic in the context of America) so it's not an alien concept. Do you feel that the electricity company should be able to cut off your power supply because you made a blog post they don't agree with? How about your mobile phone provider? And if not, why are online services treated any differently?
        nicoffeine 6y ago
        If you're planning on a violent assault on others, all those protections disappear. Free speech has well established limitations that are pretty easy to understand.
        InvertedRhodium 6y ago
  - kumarvvr 6y ago
    When free speech turns to hate speech, filled with lies and distortions, can it still be called free speech? Is free speech absolute? If tomorrow, fox news falsely says your family is defrauding the IRS, qould you be ok with that because thwy have the right to free speech? The intent of free speech is to have tge freedom to criticise those in power. Not to spread hate and divisions in the society.
    - errantmind 6y ago
      Yes, it can be called free speech, although there can be repercussions when that speech falls into slander / libel / defamation. Outside of that, why would you ever want the government deciding what you can and cannot say? Right now you may be aligned with the government, but that can change very easily in the future
      - kumarvvr 6y ago
        I was commenting on the hypocrisy of some, who love to bang the free speech drum, but expect the government to protect them from private individuals actions. Be it citizens or corporations. If one wants the govt to ensure free speech, then it is implied it must also ensure a private individuals right to pursue legal actions, such as denial or service or lawsuits.
      - pii 6y ago
        "I don't care whether the government allows someone to lie to me about the contents of my medicine"
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        Well, suppose there's a group of people saying that another group of people (which happens to include you) should be killed as soon as possible. In an ideal world, they probably wouldn't do that because they'd recognize that collective aggression against others could rebound on them, but in the imperfect world we actually occupy it happens all the time. Of course, you could just figure they'll limit their social opportunities and eventually grow out of it or develop some higher wisdom, but just how long should you have to put up with threats from random strangers and anxieties about your personal safety while you are waiting for your antagonists to become enlightened?
  - danShumway 6y ago
    The reason they're seen as a separate demographic for marketing purposes is because the "far right" has a very specific view of free speech that is largely divorced from: A) the actual full scope of the problem of censorship in the real world, B) the actual rights that other people have to freely associate or filter content they find objectionable, and C) the actual practical ways to increase free speech access. Ignoring for a second the ideologies these people espouse, purely speaking as a free speech advocate far right people make my job harder, both because they only seem to show up to advocate for free speech in very selective situations, and because most of their ideas on how to preserve free speech are, frankly, really bad. Most of the far right crowd isn't going to show up to bat for concepts like Net Neutrality, they're not going to be out campaigning against LGBTQ+ or sex censorship. These are the people I see in my timelines cheering on government intervention into public university curriculums. They push dangerous concepts like Section 230 repeals or nationalizing media companies, and some of their more experimental proposals are just blatantly unconstitutional. It's wild to hear proposals from people who claim that they're free speech advocates that would not hold up under almost any Supreme Court ruling. These people also don't have sophisticated ideas on how to handle spam, pornography, or copyright other than to shrug their shoulders and say that the 1st Amendment shouldn't apply to those things. And their big solution to Twitter censorship is to make new centralized platforms that (for now) cater to specifically them; there's nothing realistic or interesting or permanent about what they're proposing. It's a demographic that likes to say that they're pro-free-speech, but in my opinion a lot of that is just thoughtless rhetoric around the fact that they're mad that different people than them now have power to form their own communities and organize their own social campaigns. So I would not call Gab or Parler bastions of free speech, and it irritates me that those sites steal headlines and place themselves at the center of these debates. Both sites are far right echo chambers filled with a lot of people who's primary experience with censorship begins and ends with the idea that nobody should be allowed to block them on Twitter. And neither site is afraid to engage in its own censorship -- the sites bill themselves as 1st Amendment advocates purely based around who they censor, not because they have compelling or innovative ideas about how to run a community in general. I'm being a little uncharitable here, but I'm not being very uncharitable. I have almost completely given up trying to engage with far right ideas on free speech, because a significant portion of that demographic is only interested in free speech in ways that personally benefit them, and trying to assemble their views into an internally consistent philosophy has frankly been kind of a giant waste of my time. If you're worried about tech censorship, go donate to Mastodon or Matrix -- projects that are filled with people who are actually thinking about free speech in deep, thoughtful, and practical ways.
  - pii 6y ago
    I have the right to promote terrorism? Shit somebody should have told me sooner
    - rvz 6y ago
      Khamenei is that you? I thought you said something similar on Twitter a few months, years back but your main account didn't get banned for promoting terrorism.
  - covermydonkey 6y ago
    As a South African all of this is fascinating. Especially the shift of where the "center" is. It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting. Half a dozen of my friends have moved to the States and a few have scolded me for my understanding saying that plenty of centrists are labeled far right. I'm beginning to glaze over the label now. It doesn't hold any sway for me because it is used so flippantly.
    - cambalache 6y ago
      Because the American mainstream left became bananas. The Democratic and Republican parties would still be right-wing/conservative all across the world except in America, but the woke/sjw/faang crowd is socially hard-left also all across the world (not in economics or international politics, they are very conservative there,even hawkish). So, for example, me, a very leftist third world person has now more in common with your average mid-westerner republican than with a coastal google employee.
      - SrslyJosh 6y ago
        Ah yes, the old "you made me become a neonazi" trope.
        cambalache 6y ago
        That is not a trope, much less an old one. The "I am ideologically pure and anyone against me must be censured, silenced or even more" is an old trope. You a white guy, are calling a POC a neonazi because I dont buy your discourse of being an enlightened superior being. Get lost.
        Igelau 6y ago
        How do you know they're a white guy?
      - PpEY4fu85hkQpn 6y ago
        Maybe you can refresh my memory, was it the "American mainstream left" that just sieged the Capitol in a murderous attempt to overthrow democracy?
  - joe_the_user 6y ago
    It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended. America once had a very finite number of publishers who were the primary gate keepers for what published. America suppressed the works of Wilhelm Reich and Henry Miller. America once arrested members of the IWW for engaging in street corner soapbox speak-outs [1]. America engaged in anti-socialist repression on a fairly large scale.[2] It's common to reference an imaginary free speech fundamentalist era somewhere in the US past but, sorry, it's not there. And, of course, the extreme right only pretend to be true free speech fundamentalists - Note how the dropped Milo Yiannopoulos when his speech offended them. [1] https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers-world-campaigns-free-speech-spokane-washington-usa-1908-1910 https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids
  - mushbino 6y ago
    "Free speech" in these instances means bigotry and calls to violence. Also, we're talking about private businesses here, you can't be that naive.
    - l33t2327 6y ago
      Private businesses used to occasionally support free speech as a concept.
      - dheera 6y ago
        When private businesses support free speech everyone sues the hell out of them for "interfering in elections" when it really was netizens swaying voter opinions using free speech.
      - mushbino 6y ago
        If someone comes into your business to promote racist and bigoted causes, and promote violence, do you have the right to kick them out?
  - baix777 6y ago
    "Break into Congress and kill the swamp creatures". This is a quote from Parler, and this is known as incitement, which is often illegal. The first amendment does not apply to child porn for obvious reasons, but it also doesn't apply to threats of violence, which isn't so obvious to everyone. To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.
    - throwawaysea 6y ago
      The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited. You’re cherry picking one message on a platform with double digit millions of users to paint a certain picture. But let’s not forget about all the violence in BLM riots over the last year, much of which was organized and popularized on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, who all get a pass. And yes it is a free speech issue when several companies that have left leaning cultures and leaders take concurrent actions to block a right leaning platform that mostly carries fully legal speech.
      - sellyme 6y ago
        > The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited. Why are you saying "probably"? A lot of it was backed up. You can go check for yourself, it was very markedly not limited.
        throwawaysea 6y ago
        Feel free to share your hard evidence, with comparisons to total number of users and total message volume. Until then, you're making an unproven claim.
      - hidarinokutsu 6y ago
        r/ParlerWatch has been surfacing violent threats for months, long before the Capitol riot. https://old.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/
      - barbacoa 6y ago
  - whytaka 6y ago
    Everyone supports free speech. Everyone also supports moderation. All liberty comes with moderation else we have chaos. Imagine someone talking loudly outside your window all night. You’d have laws made about public disturbances. Would you then be a freedom hating communist? I don’t know about that. Now if you also have a forum where you’d like to have more family friendly conversations. Would you welcome the Nazi hatemongerer? I would think you’d moderate them out. Imagine you have a church, and an atheist disturbs your mass by shrieking god doesn’t exist. Would you escort them out? This is so basic to me that I can’t believe people have a hard time grasping something so obvious. I can’t help but think they are being disingenuous.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    I will defend to the death someone’s right to hold and speak any beliefs, ideas, or opinions no matter how controversial or unorthodox. What I will not defend is someone who knowingly speaks untruths or uses language as a weapon with the intent to hurt others. Just because it uses mouth sounds doesn’t make something speech. If you think homosexuals are an abomination and an affront to god then you’re free to believe that and tell everyone you know. But that doesn’t mean you should be allowed to shout f*g at a gay person on the street. Only the former is speech, the latter is hate.
  - saila 6y ago
    Just because Gab and Parler claim to support free speech absolutism--and use that for marketing purposes--doesn't make it true. I signed up on Gab recently to see what people were talking about on there, and the discussion is far less diverse than Twitter (there's just no comparison). Twitter has X, Y, and Z Twitter, whereas Gab basically seems to be just Q Twitter these days. And on Gab, you'll get shouted down within milliseconds if you post something that doesn't fit the general vibe, and you'll probably be called a f#g for your trouble. (I've seen the same thing on so-called "patriot" live streams that also claim free speech absolutism but then ban you for saying anything they don't want to hear, even good-faith efforts to explain the motivations of the "other side.") Therefore, I can confidently claim that Twitter, just as an example, cares more about and does far more to promote free speech than Gab ever could or will, even though they don't use "free speech" as a marketing cudgel.
    - soundnote 6y ago
      > I signed up on Gab recently to see what people were talking about on there, and the discussion is far less diverse than Twitter (there's just no comparison). Twitter has X, Y, and Z Twitter, whereas Gab basically seems to be just Q Twitter these days. Gab being Q twitter is probably related to this: https://twitter.com/beeeeeers/status/1358141547057848320 https://twitter.com/beeeeeers/status/1358141547057848320 That said, mostly any platform that allows some kind of speech banned on mainstream platforms will initially turn into a hive of said banned content for completely obvious reasons. > I've seen the same thing on so-called "patriot" live streams that also claim free speech absolutism but then ban you for saying anything they don't want to hear, even good-faith efforts to explain the motivations of the "other side." This does sound sad. I've found a few places online where there are people of all manner of creeds and they're some of the best places. They usually don't contain wokelets or rabid Q people, which probably explains why they remain nice and interesting.
  - GVIrish 6y ago
    > It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. > Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended. It's not that most Americans don't care about free speech. It's that most Americans understand that constitutional free speech means the government can't infringe on your speech, except in limited circumstances (like extortion, inciting violence, inciting panic, divulging classified material, etc). The reason companies like Gab and Parler market 'free speech' to the far right, is because the far right often engages in trolling, harassment, incitement to violence, disinformation, and bigotry in social media. As such, they run into the moderation policies of those platforms and at some point start running into bans. Not to say other parts of the political spectrum don't run into moderation and bans too, but it's a bigger problem right now for the far right. There's a debate to be had about the power social media giants have over public discourse and whether internet service providers should be able to blacklist companies like they did to Parler. But that still doesn't fall under the umbrella of constitutional free speech. Businesses usually have wide latitude to refuse service to customers, particularly for toxic behavior.
    - naniwaduni 6y ago
      Before taking "constitutional" free speech for a concept, we have to understand that free speech is a prescriptive social norm. It happens to have a constitutional instantiation. That instantiation happens to be expressed as a restriction on the government's chartered power; this is an artifact of the process by which it was drafted, i.e. as part of a collection of proposed restraints on the powers federal government. No reasonable person should confuse the very limited constitutional guarantee given to free speech with the norm itself.
      - enraged_camel 6y ago
        "Free speech" has never, ever meant "say whatever you want without any consequences whatsoever." That's what conservatives seem to be demanding these days. And when they don't get it, they whine about "cancel culture."
      - GVIrish 6y ago
  - geofft 6y ago
    Just about all Americans support and defend doing moral things, but the "Moral Majority" was partisan. Just about all Americans have values that they care about, but the "Values Voter Summit" is partisan. Just about no Americans advocate for being irresponsible with government money, but "fiscal responsibility" is a specific partisan interpretation of what sorts of uses of government money are reasonable. That only a subset of the population wants to be marketed to under the banner of "free speech" doesn't mean that people don't care about free speech itself. (Neither Gab nor Parler have any objection to FOSTA/SESTA's unconstitutional limitations on free speech and neither of them have any interest in standing up for the free speech rights of sex workers, let alone their ability to participate in the free market.)
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. It is indeed incredible, though perhaps not in the sense that you meant.
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      I think the right (no pun intended) word here is "disheartening".
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    These are bottom feeders who want to cash in on social media without the overhead of moderation. To MBAs that's a cost center that has to go. The "free speech" spiel is just their cover story to fend off government intrusion while the user base festers.
  - throwaway189262 6y ago
    > It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. It's because private companies don't want to host their extreme views. Private companies free to regulate their own platforms is a very Republican position. Hobby Lobby and Chic Fil A are perfect examples of right leaning companies imposing their own political views of what is acceptable on their employees and customers. It would be liberal to regulate what private companies allow or block on their platforms, which is why Republicans complain about being cancelled but don't take action. Forcing companies to allow free speech using regulations is a liberal proposition. Right leaning people are free to create their own platforms that cater to far right conspiracies, racism, homophobia, death threats, and white supremacists. And that's what they did
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    If you were a photographer creating erotic gay art or a writer hosting a Communist poetry night, I would advise you not to bank on the right wing defending your freedom of expression.
- mikepost001 6y ago
  "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other mode“ For a non-American, could you explain how this is far right? Sounds pretty liberal.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    Because the people there are far right. When you go to a website and the first thing you see is calls to murder jewish people and the n-word repeated ad nauseam, all but the far right decide to just leave. The end result is that gab/parler/etc don't become places where all speech exists but instead places where extreme racism, homophobia, and sexism suck the oxygen away from everything else.
    - _coveredInBees 6y ago
      And ironically enough, Parler, the bastion of "free speech" was happily banning people who were critical of right wingers or did not participate in the right-wing group think on their network. After rallying against liberals being "snowflakes" and needing "safe-spaces", Parler ironically enough ended up being just that for the extreme right.
      - pii 6y ago
        This is true, doesn't matter how much it gets downvoted
      - EdwardDiego 6y ago
        Much the same as /r/conservative on Reddit.
        _coveredInBees 6y ago
        Lol, yup, I was just thinking that after I posted. /r/conservative is hilarious in that they rail against censorship and free speech issues and yet basically self censor so strongly that only "flaired" (someone vetted to be part of the group-think) users are allowed to post in pretty much all discussions. And even flaired users who dare to oppose the group-think are quickly banned. The cognitive dissonance on that subreddit is quite amazing.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jorts 6y ago
  Gab and Parler basically just attracted extremist views which is why you see them being portrayed like that. Anything less than that is typically accepted or debated by more left leaning circles. Democrats cover a wide spectrum of society, from the far left to folks considered what republicans used to be 20 years ago in terms of the policies supported.
- wp381640 6y ago
  > "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". That's not right at all. They both ban adult content and Gab will ban blasphemy. They also frequently remove drug content. They're stricter on banning speech than Twitter and the sites they fled from.
  - cies 6y ago
    > you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US [or frowned upon by what we* believe God would frown upon] without fear of being banned or other moderation it's not censorship when you like it! *) we = right leaning americans
    - tor11 6y ago
      this is almost correct. probably correct that they censor based on conservative opinions. not correct that right leaning americans are conservative. all conservatives are right leaning tho. not the other way around.
      - cies 6y ago
        I'm not even sure what right leaning or conservative means these days. The "right" was merely copied from an ancestor post.
        tor12 6y ago
        its all the same as before. - authoritarian-left/ communism/ socialism - authoritarian-right/ nationalism/ conservatism - libertarian-left/ anarchism/ anti-property - libertarian-right/ libertarianism/ property center sometimes overlap. such as national socialism, or as frequently referred to as nazism, is a centrist catch-all idea. usually populist, since someone have to be elected after all. everyone calling for regulation is authoritarian. such as mainstream progressivism. crypto is libertarian. both left and right. although differences in direction. hence simply "far right" does not actually say much. could be both nationalist puking racism and anti-authoritarian discussing how to avoid tax.
- vkou 6y ago
  > "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation" Parler was happily banning leftist viewpoints. It's raison d'etre was not so much 'you can say anything that's not directly illegal', and more 'you can say anything that the far right approves of' (Some of which, most notably the death threats cited by AWS, also happens to be directly ilelgal.)
z92 6y ago
Gab is like Facebook. Parler like twitter.
shp0ngle 6y ago
Gab is older and in the old days, attracted alt right and downright nazis, however they banned the absolute worst by now. So it has roots in the alt-right/nazi/4chan community and predates parler by a lot. They used to have their own software, then switched to mastodon, but turned off the peering and added custom code apparently full of SQL injection. Parler is very new and has roots in more conservative circles. It’s written from ground up and is apparently pretty bad, although it’s not working anymore.

Parler is basically a direct clone of twitter's basic features. They use different names but have features similar to that of Twitter's tweet/like/retweet. Gab's current iteration is a mastodon fork (although iirc they don't participate in the fediverse via activitypub). Gab is similar to Twitter like Parler but is less of a direct clone, offering other features Twitter doesn't have. Gab has been along for longer and seems to be more popular. Both market to the (mostly American) far right, with their shtick being basically "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". Gab seems to have been more competent in coming back up after bans from their hosting provider and other partners.

leesalminen 6y ago
> Both market to the (mostly American) far right, with their shtick being basically "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended.
- davidlinc1 6y ago
  It's not. It happens to be an effective marketing vehicle for this particular audience, so you see it presented first and foremost, in an almost hyperbolic way. They conflate free speech infringements with basic service policies. Doesn't mean that other Americans no longer consider free speech important.
- mint2 6y ago
  why do so many people confusedly assume free speech means forcing printers to print neo-nazi propaganda. Whatever happened to freedom of association? Some businesses and people don’t want to associate with neonazis and don’t want to be known as the company that helps neonazis. Why do people who espouse free speech want to take away freedom to choose who one associates with?
  - InvertedRhodium 6y ago
    'Free speech' means nothing at all in the private sector - but 'supporting free speech' most definitely does. If a company opts to not support free speech (which is an ideal that I believe most Americans would say should be supported) by enacting censorship rules beyond what is illegal, they shouldn't be surprised when people that believe in that ideal look on them less favorably.
    - Delmania 6y ago
      By supporting free speech I support the right for us to say what we will without fear of retribution from the government. By supporting freedom of association I support that company’s can ban you for saying things they don’t agree with. Aren’t Gab and Parker right wing libertarian free market success stories? People found Twitter didn’t agree with their views so they founded a competitor.
      - InvertedRhodium 6y ago
        > By supporting freedom of association I support that company’s can ban you for saying things they don’t agree with The US already limit companies "Right of Association" by virtue of things like Providers of Last Resort (that's the extent of my knowledge on this topic in the context of America) so it's not an alien concept. Do you feel that the electricity company should be able to cut off your power supply because you made a blog post they don't agree with? How about your mobile phone provider? And if not, why are online services treated any differently?
        nicoffeine 6y ago
        If you're planning on a violent assault on others, all those protections disappear. Free speech has well established limitations that are pretty easy to understand.
        InvertedRhodium 6y ago
- kumarvvr 6y ago
  When free speech turns to hate speech, filled with lies and distortions, can it still be called free speech? Is free speech absolute? If tomorrow, fox news falsely says your family is defrauding the IRS, qould you be ok with that because thwy have the right to free speech? The intent of free speech is to have tge freedom to criticise those in power. Not to spread hate and divisions in the society.
  - errantmind 6y ago
    Yes, it can be called free speech, although there can be repercussions when that speech falls into slander / libel / defamation. Outside of that, why would you ever want the government deciding what you can and cannot say? Right now you may be aligned with the government, but that can change very easily in the future
    - kumarvvr 6y ago
      I was commenting on the hypocrisy of some, who love to bang the free speech drum, but expect the government to protect them from private individuals actions. Be it citizens or corporations. If one wants the govt to ensure free speech, then it is implied it must also ensure a private individuals right to pursue legal actions, such as denial or service or lawsuits.
    - pii 6y ago
      "I don't care whether the government allows someone to lie to me about the contents of my medicine"
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      Well, suppose there's a group of people saying that another group of people (which happens to include you) should be killed as soon as possible. In an ideal world, they probably wouldn't do that because they'd recognize that collective aggression against others could rebound on them, but in the imperfect world we actually occupy it happens all the time. Of course, you could just figure they'll limit their social opportunities and eventually grow out of it or develop some higher wisdom, but just how long should you have to put up with threats from random strangers and anxieties about your personal safety while you are waiting for your antagonists to become enlightened?
- danShumway 6y ago
  The reason they're seen as a separate demographic for marketing purposes is because the "far right" has a very specific view of free speech that is largely divorced from: A) the actual full scope of the problem of censorship in the real world, B) the actual rights that other people have to freely associate or filter content they find objectionable, and C) the actual practical ways to increase free speech access. Ignoring for a second the ideologies these people espouse, purely speaking as a free speech advocate far right people make my job harder, both because they only seem to show up to advocate for free speech in very selective situations, and because most of their ideas on how to preserve free speech are, frankly, really bad. Most of the far right crowd isn't going to show up to bat for concepts like Net Neutrality, they're not going to be out campaigning against LGBTQ+ or sex censorship. These are the people I see in my timelines cheering on government intervention into public university curriculums. They push dangerous concepts like Section 230 repeals or nationalizing media companies, and some of their more experimental proposals are just blatantly unconstitutional. It's wild to hear proposals from people who claim that they're free speech advocates that would not hold up under almost any Supreme Court ruling. These people also don't have sophisticated ideas on how to handle spam, pornography, or copyright other than to shrug their shoulders and say that the 1st Amendment shouldn't apply to those things. And their big solution to Twitter censorship is to make new centralized platforms that (for now) cater to specifically them; there's nothing realistic or interesting or permanent about what they're proposing. It's a demographic that likes to say that they're pro-free-speech, but in my opinion a lot of that is just thoughtless rhetoric around the fact that they're mad that different people than them now have power to form their own communities and organize their own social campaigns. So I would not call Gab or Parler bastions of free speech, and it irritates me that those sites steal headlines and place themselves at the center of these debates. Both sites are far right echo chambers filled with a lot of people who's primary experience with censorship begins and ends with the idea that nobody should be allowed to block them on Twitter. And neither site is afraid to engage in its own censorship -- the sites bill themselves as 1st Amendment advocates purely based around who they censor, not because they have compelling or innovative ideas about how to run a community in general. I'm being a little uncharitable here, but I'm not being very uncharitable. I have almost completely given up trying to engage with far right ideas on free speech, because a significant portion of that demographic is only interested in free speech in ways that personally benefit them, and trying to assemble their views into an internally consistent philosophy has frankly been kind of a giant waste of my time. If you're worried about tech censorship, go donate to Mastodon or Matrix -- projects that are filled with people who are actually thinking about free speech in deep, thoughtful, and practical ways.
- pii 6y ago
  I have the right to promote terrorism? Shit somebody should have told me sooner
  - rvz 6y ago
    Khamenei is that you? I thought you said something similar on Twitter a few months, years back but your main account didn't get banned for promoting terrorism.
- covermydonkey 6y ago
  As a South African all of this is fascinating. Especially the shift of where the "center" is. It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting. Half a dozen of my friends have moved to the States and a few have scolded me for my understanding saying that plenty of centrists are labeled far right. I'm beginning to glaze over the label now. It doesn't hold any sway for me because it is used so flippantly.
  - cambalache 6y ago
    Because the American mainstream left became bananas. The Democratic and Republican parties would still be right-wing/conservative all across the world except in America, but the woke/sjw/faang crowd is socially hard-left also all across the world (not in economics or international politics, they are very conservative there,even hawkish). So, for example, me, a very leftist third world person has now more in common with your average mid-westerner republican than with a coastal google employee.
    - SrslyJosh 6y ago
      Ah yes, the old "you made me become a neonazi" trope.
      - cambalache 6y ago
        That is not a trope, much less an old one. The "I am ideologically pure and anyone against me must be censured, silenced or even more" is an old trope. You a white guy, are calling a POC a neonazi because I dont buy your discourse of being an enlightened superior being. Get lost.
        Igelau 6y ago
        How do you know they're a white guy?
    - PpEY4fu85hkQpn 6y ago
      Maybe you can refresh my memory, was it the "American mainstream left" that just sieged the Capitol in a murderous attempt to overthrow democracy?
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended. America once had a very finite number of publishers who were the primary gate keepers for what published. America suppressed the works of Wilhelm Reich and Henry Miller. America once arrested members of the IWW for engaging in street corner soapbox speak-outs [1]. America engaged in anti-socialist repression on a fairly large scale.[2] It's common to reference an imaginary free speech fundamentalist era somewhere in the US past but, sorry, it's not there. And, of course, the extreme right only pretend to be true free speech fundamentalists - Note how the dropped Milo Yiannopoulos when his speech offended them. [1] https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers-world-campaigns-free-speech-spokane-washington-usa-1908-1910 https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/industrial-workers... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids
- mushbino 6y ago
  "Free speech" in these instances means bigotry and calls to violence. Also, we're talking about private businesses here, you can't be that naive.
  - l33t2327 6y ago
    Private businesses used to occasionally support free speech as a concept.
    - dheera 6y ago
      When private businesses support free speech everyone sues the hell out of them for "interfering in elections" when it really was netizens swaying voter opinions using free speech.
    - mushbino 6y ago
      If someone comes into your business to promote racist and bigoted causes, and promote violence, do you have the right to kick them out?
- baix777 6y ago
  "Break into Congress and kill the swamp creatures". This is a quote from Parler, and this is known as incitement, which is often illegal. The first amendment does not apply to child porn for obvious reasons, but it also doesn't apply to threats of violence, which isn't so obvious to everyone. To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited. You’re cherry picking one message on a platform with double digit millions of users to paint a certain picture. But let’s not forget about all the violence in BLM riots over the last year, much of which was organized and popularized on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, who all get a pass. And yes it is a free speech issue when several companies that have left leaning cultures and leaders take concurrent actions to block a right leaning platform that mostly carries fully legal speech.
    - sellyme 6y ago
      > The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited. Why are you saying "probably"? A lot of it was backed up. You can go check for yourself, it was very markedly not limited.
      - throwawaysea 6y ago
        Feel free to share your hard evidence, with comparisons to total number of users and total message volume. Until then, you're making an unproven claim.
    - hidarinokutsu 6y ago
      r/ParlerWatch has been surfacing violent threats for months, long before the Capitol riot. https://old.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/
    - barbacoa 6y ago
- whytaka 6y ago
  Everyone supports free speech. Everyone also supports moderation. All liberty comes with moderation else we have chaos. Imagine someone talking loudly outside your window all night. You’d have laws made about public disturbances. Would you then be a freedom hating communist? I don’t know about that. Now if you also have a forum where you’d like to have more family friendly conversations. Would you welcome the Nazi hatemongerer? I would think you’d moderate them out. Imagine you have a church, and an atheist disturbs your mass by shrieking god doesn’t exist. Would you escort them out? This is so basic to me that I can’t believe people have a hard time grasping something so obvious. I can’t help but think they are being disingenuous.
- Spivak 6y ago
  I will defend to the death someone’s right to hold and speak any beliefs, ideas, or opinions no matter how controversial or unorthodox. What I will not defend is someone who knowingly speaks untruths or uses language as a weapon with the intent to hurt others. Just because it uses mouth sounds doesn’t make something speech. If you think homosexuals are an abomination and an affront to god then you’re free to believe that and tell everyone you know. But that doesn’t mean you should be allowed to shout f*g at a gay person on the street. Only the former is speech, the latter is hate.
- saila 6y ago
  Just because Gab and Parler claim to support free speech absolutism--and use that for marketing purposes--doesn't make it true. I signed up on Gab recently to see what people were talking about on there, and the discussion is far less diverse than Twitter (there's just no comparison). Twitter has X, Y, and Z Twitter, whereas Gab basically seems to be just Q Twitter these days. And on Gab, you'll get shouted down within milliseconds if you post something that doesn't fit the general vibe, and you'll probably be called a f#g for your trouble. (I've seen the same thing on so-called "patriot" live streams that also claim free speech absolutism but then ban you for saying anything they don't want to hear, even good-faith efforts to explain the motivations of the "other side.") Therefore, I can confidently claim that Twitter, just as an example, cares more about and does far more to promote free speech than Gab ever could or will, even though they don't use "free speech" as a marketing cudgel.
  - soundnote 6y ago
    > I signed up on Gab recently to see what people were talking about on there, and the discussion is far less diverse than Twitter (there's just no comparison). Twitter has X, Y, and Z Twitter, whereas Gab basically seems to be just Q Twitter these days. Gab being Q twitter is probably related to this: https://twitter.com/beeeeeers/status/1358141547057848320 https://twitter.com/beeeeeers/status/1358141547057848320 That said, mostly any platform that allows some kind of speech banned on mainstream platforms will initially turn into a hive of said banned content for completely obvious reasons. > I've seen the same thing on so-called "patriot" live streams that also claim free speech absolutism but then ban you for saying anything they don't want to hear, even good-faith efforts to explain the motivations of the "other side." This does sound sad. I've found a few places online where there are people of all manner of creeds and they're some of the best places. They usually don't contain wokelets or rabid Q people, which probably explains why they remain nice and interesting.
- GVIrish 6y ago
  > It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. > Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended. It's not that most Americans don't care about free speech. It's that most Americans understand that constitutional free speech means the government can't infringe on your speech, except in limited circumstances (like extortion, inciting violence, inciting panic, divulging classified material, etc). The reason companies like Gab and Parler market 'free speech' to the far right, is because the far right often engages in trolling, harassment, incitement to violence, disinformation, and bigotry in social media. As such, they run into the moderation policies of those platforms and at some point start running into bans. Not to say other parts of the political spectrum don't run into moderation and bans too, but it's a bigger problem right now for the far right. There's a debate to be had about the power social media giants have over public discourse and whether internet service providers should be able to blacklist companies like they did to Parler. But that still doesn't fall under the umbrella of constitutional free speech. Businesses usually have wide latitude to refuse service to customers, particularly for toxic behavior.
  - naniwaduni 6y ago
    Before taking "constitutional" free speech for a concept, we have to understand that free speech is a prescriptive social norm. It happens to have a constitutional instantiation. That instantiation happens to be expressed as a restriction on the government's chartered power; this is an artifact of the process by which it was drafted, i.e. as part of a collection of proposed restraints on the powers federal government. No reasonable person should confuse the very limited constitutional guarantee given to free speech with the norm itself.
    - enraged_camel 6y ago
      "Free speech" has never, ever meant "say whatever you want without any consequences whatsoever." That's what conservatives seem to be demanding these days. And when they don't get it, they whine about "cancel culture."
    - GVIrish 6y ago
- geofft 6y ago
  Just about all Americans support and defend doing moral things, but the "Moral Majority" was partisan. Just about all Americans have values that they care about, but the "Values Voter Summit" is partisan. Just about no Americans advocate for being irresponsible with government money, but "fiscal responsibility" is a specific partisan interpretation of what sorts of uses of government money are reasonable. That only a subset of the population wants to be marketed to under the banner of "free speech" doesn't mean that people don't care about free speech itself. (Neither Gab nor Parler have any objection to FOSTA/SESTA's unconstitutional limitations on free speech and neither of them have any interest in standing up for the free speech rights of sex workers, let alone their ability to participate in the free market.)
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. It is indeed incredible, though perhaps not in the sense that you meant.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    I think the right (no pun intended) word here is "disheartening".
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  These are bottom feeders who want to cash in on social media without the overhead of moderation. To MBAs that's a cost center that has to go. The "free speech" spiel is just their cover story to fend off government intrusion while the user base festers.
- throwaway189262 6y ago
  > It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. It's because private companies don't want to host their extreme views. Private companies free to regulate their own platforms is a very Republican position. Hobby Lobby and Chic Fil A are perfect examples of right leaning companies imposing their own political views of what is acceptable on their employees and customers. It would be liberal to regulate what private companies allow or block on their platforms, which is why Republicans complain about being cancelled but don't take action. Forcing companies to allow free speech using regulations is a liberal proposition. Right leaning people are free to create their own platforms that cater to far right conspiracies, racism, homophobia, death threats, and white supremacists. And that's what they did
- uniqueid 6y ago
  If you were a photographer creating erotic gay art or a writer hosting a Communist poetry night, I would advise you not to bank on the right wing defending your freedom of expression.
mikepost001 6y ago
"you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other mode“ For a non-American, could you explain how this is far right? Sounds pretty liberal.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  Because the people there are far right. When you go to a website and the first thing you see is calls to murder jewish people and the n-word repeated ad nauseam, all but the far right decide to just leave. The end result is that gab/parler/etc don't become places where all speech exists but instead places where extreme racism, homophobia, and sexism suck the oxygen away from everything else.
  - _coveredInBees 6y ago
    And ironically enough, Parler, the bastion of "free speech" was happily banning people who were critical of right wingers or did not participate in the right-wing group think on their network. After rallying against liberals being "snowflakes" and needing "safe-spaces", Parler ironically enough ended up being just that for the extreme right.
    - pii 6y ago
      This is true, doesn't matter how much it gets downvoted
    - EdwardDiego 6y ago
      Much the same as /r/conservative on Reddit.
      - _coveredInBees 6y ago
        Lol, yup, I was just thinking that after I posted. /r/conservative is hilarious in that they rail against censorship and free speech issues and yet basically self censor so strongly that only "flaired" (someone vetted to be part of the group-think) users are allowed to post in pretty much all discussions. And even flaired users who dare to oppose the group-think are quickly banned. The cognitive dissonance on that subreddit is quite amazing.
deleted 6y ago
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jorts 6y ago
Gab and Parler basically just attracted extremist views which is why you see them being portrayed like that. Anything less than that is typically accepted or debated by more left leaning circles. Democrats cover a wide spectrum of society, from the far left to folks considered what republicans used to be 20 years ago in terms of the policies supported.
wp381640 6y ago
> "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". That's not right at all. They both ban adult content and Gab will ban blasphemy. They also frequently remove drug content. They're stricter on banning speech than Twitter and the sites they fled from.
- cies 6y ago
  > you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US [or frowned upon by what we* believe God would frown upon] without fear of being banned or other moderation it's not censorship when you like it! *) we = right leaning americans
  - tor11 6y ago
    this is almost correct. probably correct that they censor based on conservative opinions. not correct that right leaning americans are conservative. all conservatives are right leaning tho. not the other way around.
    - cies 6y ago
      I'm not even sure what right leaning or conservative means these days. The "right" was merely copied from an ancestor post.
      - tor12 6y ago
        its all the same as before. - authoritarian-left/ communism/ socialism - authoritarian-right/ nationalism/ conservatism - libertarian-left/ anarchism/ anti-property - libertarian-right/ libertarianism/ property center sometimes overlap. such as national socialism, or as frequently referred to as nazism, is a centrist catch-all idea. usually populist, since someone have to be elected after all. everyone calling for regulation is authoritarian. such as mainstream progressivism. crypto is libertarian. both left and right. although differences in direction. hence simply "far right" does not actually say much. could be both nationalist puking racism and anti-authoritarian discussing how to avoid tax.
vkou 6y ago
> "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation" Parler was happily banning leftist viewpoints. It's raison d'etre was not so much 'you can say anything that's not directly illegal', and more 'you can say anything that the far right approves of' (Some of which, most notably the death threats cited by AWS, also happens to be directly ilelgal.)

z92 6y ago

Gab is like Facebook. Parler like twitter.

shp0ngle 6y ago

Gab is older and in the old days, attracted alt right and downright nazis, however they banned the absolute worst by now. So it has roots in the alt-right/nazi/4chan community and predates parler by a lot. They used to have their own software, then switched to mastodon, but turned off the peering and added custom code apparently full of SQL injection. Parler is very new and has roots in more conservative circles. It’s written from ground up and is apparently pretty bad, although it’s not working anymore.