4 ms·

Never attribute to malice that which can equally be explained by incompetence, or something like that.

by McGlockenshire 6y ago

forgotmypw17 6y ago
.
- firebaze 6y ago
  Maybe they are spinoffs of reddit/facebook/twitter etc. to contain moderation cost :)
- hddu 6y ago
  I do like your theory that it was a honeypot from the left created to produce people to attack. I would be surprised if our intelligence agencies and law enforcement didn't have a role in creating/running extremist sites. Seeing as the FBI likes to run child porn sites and infiltrate political groups that could cause instability, they are the most obvious perpetrators.
  - orblivion 6y ago
    FWIW Gab very proudly proclaims that they report things to law enforcement if they cross a legal line. I could be wrong but I would think that if the FBI was trying to entrap people they would not want to give such a warning.
    - neltnerb 6y ago
      I think you are wrong, stating it prominently and repeatedly makes the warning disappear into noise for users so there's little downside and a lot of upside if it were in fact being operated by the FBI. I doubt it is though, I don't think the FBI has the capability to be frank, but even more if the FBI were operating it as a honeypot somehow I doubt that the websites would have been banned from AWS and such. I'm sure that if it were true the FBI could have easily just told AWS that the presence of extremist content was being allowed by law enforcement specifically to identify terrorists. I think the idea that it's a honeypot is a very poor fit to the available information.
  - endymi0n 6y ago
    Occam‘s razor would disagree. While it‘s certainly thinkable that it‘s a honeypot of the FBI, set up from the left (just like it‘s possible that it was Antifa who stormed the capitol posing as Trump supporters), it‘s far more likely this was a job done by nutjobs, for nutjobs. If you also think the earth is flat or the election was stolen despite literal mountains of evidence, how are you supposed to properly weigh any other rational evidence like the existence of SQL injections?
  - wrycoder 6y ago
    The leader of the supposedly white supremecist Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, is an Afro-Cuban who turned out to be an FBI informer. Wheels within wheels. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/27/proud-boys-leader-enrique-tarrio-fbi-informant https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/27/proud-boys-l...
- cmeacham98 6y ago
  > My opinion is that it's more likely than not that these sites are little more than honeypots to troll the gullible into making asses of themselves so that we have another subject for our Two Minutes of Hate. Or maybe, instead, some people really do hold extremist views and post them on the internet? I don't understand your theory here - the majority of Gab content is public already (well, behind an authwall, but otherwise public). The hack achieves nothing for these masterminds that just want to make fun of people being bigoted on the internet because they already could. > Now that data can be used against the most ferverent Republican supporters and there's no one to blame, officially, because they were "hacked". Oops! Maybe you should think twice before publicly supporting Republicans online, I guess! Do you seriously think the problem people had with some of the content on Gab is that users were "supporting Republicans"???? GP has edited their comment like 10 times so here's the version I'm replying to: > I'm one of the world's biggest fans of Hanlon's razor, and I've done so much damage to it with Gab and Parler that it looks like a hairbrush now. > My opinion is that it's more likely than not that these sites are little more than honeypots to troll the gullible into making asses of themselves so that we have another subject for our Two Minutes of Hate. > I do a lot of research on social media mechanics, and I've used both of them. I can't quite put my finger on it, but they performed and felt differently from any other sites I've used over the past 20+ years. For one thing, you could not read or see ANY comments without registering first. > I could just as easily be imagining it, of course. And they did paint a huge target on themselves. But they also made it easy to steal the data. > Now that data can be used against the most ferverent Republican supporters and there's no one to blame, officially, because they were "hacked". Oops! Maybe you should think twice before publicly supporting Republicans online, I guess! > (Not affiliated with any political party, apolitical, have friends and family who are into all different flavors. Just think it's fucked up to throw thousands of people under the bus like that, if it's true.)
- McGlockenshire 6y ago
  I think you're encountering Poe's Law here - at some point it becomes difficult to tell the difference between a troll and someone genuinely expressing an extremist point of view. Are there trolls on Gab and Parler? For sure. Are there purestrain rabid culture warriors on Gab and Parler? Yup. Are Gab and Parler honeypots? I don't think so, but that also depends how you define "honeypot." Both exist because other social networks cracked down on distasteful content. Gab erupted during the era of cracking down on ethnonationalists and is full of wannabe nazis and 4chan-grown edgelords. Parler erupted during the era of cracking down on dangerous misinformation (QAnon, COVID denialism, the things that we now know lead to election denialism, etc etc) and if full of people that choose to believe that nonsense rather than reality. Parler was also signal boosted by political voices that intentionally framed crackdowns on distasteful content as an aspect of the ongoing culture war. Both naturally courted their respective audiences. The guy running Gab is a True Believer. Check out Gab's Twitter (heh) for some pretty questionable recent posts that blame the hack on "mentally ill trans hackers," only with a slur instead of trans, because of course there's a slur. The Mercer family bankrolls Parler. They have a long history of throwing money at causes that follow their political viewpoints. We don't have a reason to doubt that their board and and management are True Believers in their own cause as well. So, is it really a honeypot if it's honest by design?
  - new_guy 6y ago
    >The guy running Gab is a True Believer He's definitely not but he knows how to play to his audience. Instead of owning it and saying 'we messed up' it's easier to blame the 'mentally ill trans hackers'! But the 'hack' was almost certainly intentional, it's the exact same play Parler did a few weeks ago. They're both honeypots, this is the easiest way to get the data out there.
adolph 6y ago
Never assume xor among different interpretations.

Never attribute to malice that which can equally be explained by incompetence, or something like that.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

firebaze 6y ago
Maybe they are spinoffs of reddit/facebook/twitter etc. to contain moderation cost :)
hddu 6y ago
I do like your theory that it was a honeypot from the left created to produce people to attack. I would be surprised if our intelligence agencies and law enforcement didn't have a role in creating/running extremist sites. Seeing as the FBI likes to run child porn sites and infiltrate political groups that could cause instability, they are the most obvious perpetrators.
- orblivion 6y ago
  FWIW Gab very proudly proclaims that they report things to law enforcement if they cross a legal line. I could be wrong but I would think that if the FBI was trying to entrap people they would not want to give such a warning.
  - neltnerb 6y ago
    I think you are wrong, stating it prominently and repeatedly makes the warning disappear into noise for users so there's little downside and a lot of upside if it were in fact being operated by the FBI. I doubt it is though, I don't think the FBI has the capability to be frank, but even more if the FBI were operating it as a honeypot somehow I doubt that the websites would have been banned from AWS and such. I'm sure that if it were true the FBI could have easily just told AWS that the presence of extremist content was being allowed by law enforcement specifically to identify terrorists. I think the idea that it's a honeypot is a very poor fit to the available information.
- endymi0n 6y ago
  Occam‘s razor would disagree. While it‘s certainly thinkable that it‘s a honeypot of the FBI, set up from the left (just like it‘s possible that it was Antifa who stormed the capitol posing as Trump supporters), it‘s far more likely this was a job done by nutjobs, for nutjobs. If you also think the earth is flat or the election was stolen despite literal mountains of evidence, how are you supposed to properly weigh any other rational evidence like the existence of SQL injections?
- wrycoder 6y ago
  The leader of the supposedly white supremecist Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, is an Afro-Cuban who turned out to be an FBI informer. Wheels within wheels. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/27/proud-boys-leader-enrique-tarrio-fbi-informant https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/27/proud-boys-l...
cmeacham98 6y ago
> My opinion is that it's more likely than not that these sites are little more than honeypots to troll the gullible into making asses of themselves so that we have another subject for our Two Minutes of Hate. Or maybe, instead, some people really do hold extremist views and post them on the internet? I don't understand your theory here - the majority of Gab content is public already (well, behind an authwall, but otherwise public). The hack achieves nothing for these masterminds that just want to make fun of people being bigoted on the internet because they already could. > Now that data can be used against the most ferverent Republican supporters and there's no one to blame, officially, because they were "hacked". Oops! Maybe you should think twice before publicly supporting Republicans online, I guess! Do you seriously think the problem people had with some of the content on Gab is that users were "supporting Republicans"???? GP has edited their comment like 10 times so here's the version I'm replying to: > I'm one of the world's biggest fans of Hanlon's razor, and I've done so much damage to it with Gab and Parler that it looks like a hairbrush now. > My opinion is that it's more likely than not that these sites are little more than honeypots to troll the gullible into making asses of themselves so that we have another subject for our Two Minutes of Hate. > I do a lot of research on social media mechanics, and I've used both of them. I can't quite put my finger on it, but they performed and felt differently from any other sites I've used over the past 20+ years. For one thing, you could not read or see ANY comments without registering first. > I could just as easily be imagining it, of course. And they did paint a huge target on themselves. But they also made it easy to steal the data. > Now that data can be used against the most ferverent Republican supporters and there's no one to blame, officially, because they were "hacked". Oops! Maybe you should think twice before publicly supporting Republicans online, I guess! > (Not affiliated with any political party, apolitical, have friends and family who are into all different flavors. Just think it's fucked up to throw thousands of people under the bus like that, if it's true.)
McGlockenshire 6y ago
I think you're encountering Poe's Law here - at some point it becomes difficult to tell the difference between a troll and someone genuinely expressing an extremist point of view. Are there trolls on Gab and Parler? For sure. Are there purestrain rabid culture warriors on Gab and Parler? Yup. Are Gab and Parler honeypots? I don't think so, but that also depends how you define "honeypot." Both exist because other social networks cracked down on distasteful content. Gab erupted during the era of cracking down on ethnonationalists and is full of wannabe nazis and 4chan-grown edgelords. Parler erupted during the era of cracking down on dangerous misinformation (QAnon, COVID denialism, the things that we now know lead to election denialism, etc etc) and if full of people that choose to believe that nonsense rather than reality. Parler was also signal boosted by political voices that intentionally framed crackdowns on distasteful content as an aspect of the ongoing culture war. Both naturally courted their respective audiences. The guy running Gab is a True Believer. Check out Gab's Twitter (heh) for some pretty questionable recent posts that blame the hack on "mentally ill trans hackers," only with a slur instead of trans, because of course there's a slur. The Mercer family bankrolls Parler. They have a long history of throwing money at causes that follow their political viewpoints. We don't have a reason to doubt that their board and and management are True Believers in their own cause as well. So, is it really a honeypot if it's honest by design?
- new_guy 6y ago
  >The guy running Gab is a True Believer He's definitely not but he knows how to play to his audience. Instead of owning it and saying 'we messed up' it's easier to blame the 'mentally ill trans hackers'! But the 'hack' was almost certainly intentional, it's the exact same play Parler did a few weeks ago. They're both honeypots, this is the easiest way to get the data out there.

adolph 6y ago

Never assume xor among different interpretations.