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It's pathetic all they did to Gab and it shows how biased the open source community at large is.

by vadfa 5y ago

scrollaway 5y ago
“Biased”. As if your own point of view isn’t. People have their limits. Most people aren’t absolutists, taking their philosophy to the extreme and utterly unable to make exceptions to their rules when egregious examples show up. Turns out, most people don’t just dislike gab, they think it’s dangerous not to take action and don’t want to be on the eventual wall of people who Did Nothing when retrospection comes. That’s not really bias, it’s called having a moral compass. You’re free to disagree with its tuning of course.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  People are either for free speech or against it. If a site that states "supporting free speech" as reason for their existence decides against free speech, it is disappointing. Of course everybody can decide what they want, but it can still be disappointing and a betrayal of trust.
- vadfa 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - nemothekid 5y ago
    >let everybody say whatever they want. So SPAM is ok?
  - blowski 5y ago
    > My point of view is: let everybody say whatever they want. Doesn't get more unbiased than that. That assumes the individual’s right to speak is greater than the community’s right to shut them up, and is therefore biased in favour of the individual.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      What is "the community's right to shut somebody up"? If a country elects a dictator, it is fine if that dictator then shuts people up? Mastodon (afaik) already has the feature that communities can decide what outside content can enter their servers. What is the point on making it impossible for others to use the software at all? It doesn't server the purpose of protecting that community from nasty speech, because that is already accomplished by not communicating with the evil servers.
      - oblio 5y ago
        If the dictator is democratically elected, well, kind of yes. Plus you've already lost. The real protection against abuse by the majority is generally through constitutions. Plus having a well educated populace.
    - chrismcb 5y ago
      The community does not, and should not have the right to shut someone up. They have a right not to listen.
    - nobody9999 5y ago
      > > My point of view is: let everybody say whatever they want. Doesn't get more unbiased than that. >That assumes the individual’s right to speak is greater than the community’s right to shut them up, and is therefore biased in favour of the individual. I completely disagree. The individual's right to speak is greater (at least in the US) than the government's right to shut them up. However, other individuals (or a group of individuals, such as a corporation like F-Droid) have the same right to speak, as well as the right to control the speech on their private property. There is an important distinction there. From a legal standpoint, the government are restricted from (except in very narrow circumstances) limiting an individual's speech. However, private actors have no such restrictions on their private property. a "community" of individuals can absolutely express their dislike/dissatisfaction with the speech of others by banning them from their private property. It's only the government that's restricted from doing so.
      - 5y ago
  - kadoban 5y ago
    What about death threats? What about organizing a lynch mob? What about someone else posting your personal info and browser history? What about extortion attempts? What about copies of anything you've ever written?
    - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
      And we can't just draw the line here when considering the ramifications of absolute free speech. Basically everything that involves human art of creativity is free speech. If that's absolute then any depths of depravity is free. One could fake horrible, violent, traumatizing acts being performed by people on other people and then claim it is in fact those people, spread it on billboards and across from schools, and that's all under the purview of free speech.
- totony 5y ago
  >People have their limits. Most people aren’t absolutists, taking their philosophy to the extreme and utterly unable to make exceptions to their rules when egregious examples show up. If your morals don't hold up when pushed to their limits, it's that you have a poor understanding of what your morals are. A lot of people like free software because it's hip, but when faced with the very reason free software exists they turn back on it very fast.
  - kyralis 5y ago
    That's a very simplistic way of looking at the world. It turns out that things are frequently more complicated than absolutist rules allow for, and the world isn't a series of black and white with bright lines between them. Most people are actually very much okay with "Thou shalt not kill" being quite a bit more nuanced in reality, because it turns out most real-world moral questions are a little more complicated than single questions.
    - totony 5y ago
      >Most people are actually very much okay with "Thou shalt not kill" I don't think that's true. Most people are very vengeful and do not hold that view. >It turns out that things are frequently more complicated than absolutist rules allow for imo "absolutist" is mostly used pejoratively. It's dissonance to believe both "People should be able to express themselves however they way" and "Racists should be ostracized." The logical consequence of the second is to disallow racists to speak. It might be OK according to your moral compass, but that's antithesis to free speech and more akin to "people should be able to express themselves if what they say is something I allow."
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    > If your morals don't hold up when pushed to their limits I think you're missing the point here that their morals aren't your morals and they can be entirely self-consistent and do what they're doing if they don't share your exact priorities. They obviously prioritize other concerns above freedom of speech absolutism and they aren't hiding that, thus remaining entirely consistent within their frame of reference.
- twofornone 5y ago
  >Turns out, most people don’t just dislike gab, they think it’s dangerous not to take action and don’t want to be on the eventual wall of people who Did Nothing when retrospection comes. The vast majority of people who support this deplatforming have been whipped up into a hysteria by their peers and media and unironically believe that half the country belongs to the party of racism and white supremacy and anti-science, and that platforms like gab are merely hangouts for extremism and insurrection plotting. Ironically, this sort of treatment is going to breed extremism, and if I may say, rightly so. You don't demonize and dehumanize half the country by associating them with "whiteness" and nazism, especially while claiming to be anti-racist. At best, this path leads to construction of a parallel society, with it's own infrastructure. At worst, genocide, but which side will do the genociding is hard to predict, the way things are going. There's no excuse for this blatand politicization of all of our institutions, and the way that they all implicitly and explicitly collude to effectively deny voices to half of the country while worshipping SCIENCE! as though it were some unreproachable religion.
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    I agree that demonizing and “othering” people on the Other Side is a bad idea for the reasons you state. I also agree with your overall point. I disagree that deplatforming gab is demonizing anybody. It’s tackling an absolute cesspool of a community. It’s among the worst of the worst that’s available out there. I’m sure they’ll survive without it.
    - twofornone 5y ago
      That's only because our media does not scrutinize the other side with the same intensity. You have literal communists LARPing about the coming revolution on reddit alongside entire subreddits dedicated to celebrating deaths among so called "plague rats", on a platform where the TOS ostensibly state that there is no tolerance for such behavior. But it's not surprising given that for a brief period last year the TOS explicitly stated that hate against the "majority group" (i.e. white people) is totally fine. If this were legitimately about extremism it'd be one thing, but the way it is shaping up, one side's extremism gets a pass, and that bias is toxic to a functioning society. The same way that excuses were made by all of our institutions for the nationwide, year long protests during a pandemic. Our institutions have clearly chosen a side. And I'm not necessarily saying that the act of deplatforming gab is demonization, but what I am saying is that this one sided demonization/dehumanization is used as an excuse to target platforms like gab.
- yuuu 5y ago
  "Most people," huh? You sure are an expert on what "most people" think. Maybe just replace that phrase with "I" if you want to stop being intellectually dishonest.
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    Would you care to take a guess at which field of study makes one an expert in figuring out what most people think?
    - yuuu 5y ago
      Okay, let's see your source that proves "most people don’t just dislike gab, they think it’s dangerous," Dr. Statistics.

It's pathetic all they did to Gab and it shows how biased the open source community at large is.

by vadfa 5y ago

It's pathetic all they did to Gab and it shows how biased the open source community at large is.

“Biased”. As if your own point of view isn’t. People have their limits. Most people aren’t absolutists, taking their philosophy to the extreme and utterly unable to make exceptions to their rules when egregious examples show up. Turns out, most people don’t just dislike gab, they think it’s dangerous not to take action and don’t want to be on the eventual wall of people who Did Nothing when retrospection comes. That’s not really bias, it’s called having a moral compass. You’re free to disagree with its tuning of course.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
People are either for free speech or against it. If a site that states "supporting free speech" as reason for their existence decides against free speech, it is disappointing. Of course everybody can decide what they want, but it can still be disappointing and a betrayal of trust.
vadfa 5y ago
[flagged]
- nemothekid 5y ago
  >let everybody say whatever they want. So SPAM is ok?
- blowski 5y ago
  > My point of view is: let everybody say whatever they want. Doesn't get more unbiased than that. That assumes the individual’s right to speak is greater than the community’s right to shut them up, and is therefore biased in favour of the individual.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    What is "the community's right to shut somebody up"? If a country elects a dictator, it is fine if that dictator then shuts people up? Mastodon (afaik) already has the feature that communities can decide what outside content can enter their servers. What is the point on making it impossible for others to use the software at all? It doesn't server the purpose of protecting that community from nasty speech, because that is already accomplished by not communicating with the evil servers.
    - oblio 5y ago
      If the dictator is democratically elected, well, kind of yes. Plus you've already lost. The real protection against abuse by the majority is generally through constitutions. Plus having a well educated populace.
  - chrismcb 5y ago
    The community does not, and should not have the right to shut someone up. They have a right not to listen.
  - nobody9999 5y ago
    > > My point of view is: let everybody say whatever they want. Doesn't get more unbiased than that. >That assumes the individual’s right to speak is greater than the community’s right to shut them up, and is therefore biased in favour of the individual. I completely disagree. The individual's right to speak is greater (at least in the US) than the government's right to shut them up. However, other individuals (or a group of individuals, such as a corporation like F-Droid) have the same right to speak, as well as the right to control the speech on their private property. There is an important distinction there. From a legal standpoint, the government are restricted from (except in very narrow circumstances) limiting an individual's speech. However, private actors have no such restrictions on their private property. a "community" of individuals can absolutely express their dislike/dissatisfaction with the speech of others by banning them from their private property. It's only the government that's restricted from doing so.
    - 5y ago
- kadoban 5y ago
  What about death threats? What about organizing a lynch mob? What about someone else posting your personal info and browser history? What about extortion attempts? What about copies of anything you've ever written?
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    And we can't just draw the line here when considering the ramifications of absolute free speech. Basically everything that involves human art of creativity is free speech. If that's absolute then any depths of depravity is free. One could fake horrible, violent, traumatizing acts being performed by people on other people and then claim it is in fact those people, spread it on billboards and across from schools, and that's all under the purview of free speech.
totony 5y ago
>People have their limits. Most people aren’t absolutists, taking their philosophy to the extreme and utterly unable to make exceptions to their rules when egregious examples show up. If your morals don't hold up when pushed to their limits, it's that you have a poor understanding of what your morals are. A lot of people like free software because it's hip, but when faced with the very reason free software exists they turn back on it very fast.
- kyralis 5y ago
  That's a very simplistic way of looking at the world. It turns out that things are frequently more complicated than absolutist rules allow for, and the world isn't a series of black and white with bright lines between them. Most people are actually very much okay with "Thou shalt not kill" being quite a bit more nuanced in reality, because it turns out most real-world moral questions are a little more complicated than single questions.
  - totony 5y ago
    >Most people are actually very much okay with "Thou shalt not kill" I don't think that's true. Most people are very vengeful and do not hold that view. >It turns out that things are frequently more complicated than absolutist rules allow for imo "absolutist" is mostly used pejoratively. It's dissonance to believe both "People should be able to express themselves however they way" and "Racists should be ostracized." The logical consequence of the second is to disallow racists to speak. It might be OK according to your moral compass, but that's antithesis to free speech and more akin to "people should be able to express themselves if what they say is something I allow."
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- guerrilla 5y ago
  > If your morals don't hold up when pushed to their limits I think you're missing the point here that their morals aren't your morals and they can be entirely self-consistent and do what they're doing if they don't share your exact priorities. They obviously prioritize other concerns above freedom of speech absolutism and they aren't hiding that, thus remaining entirely consistent within their frame of reference.
twofornone 5y ago
>Turns out, most people don’t just dislike gab, they think it’s dangerous not to take action and don’t want to be on the eventual wall of people who Did Nothing when retrospection comes. The vast majority of people who support this deplatforming have been whipped up into a hysteria by their peers and media and unironically believe that half the country belongs to the party of racism and white supremacy and anti-science, and that platforms like gab are merely hangouts for extremism and insurrection plotting. Ironically, this sort of treatment is going to breed extremism, and if I may say, rightly so. You don't demonize and dehumanize half the country by associating them with "whiteness" and nazism, especially while claiming to be anti-racist. At best, this path leads to construction of a parallel society, with it's own infrastructure. At worst, genocide, but which side will do the genociding is hard to predict, the way things are going. There's no excuse for this blatand politicization of all of our institutions, and the way that they all implicitly and explicitly collude to effectively deny voices to half of the country while worshipping SCIENCE! as though it were some unreproachable religion.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  I agree that demonizing and “othering” people on the Other Side is a bad idea for the reasons you state. I also agree with your overall point. I disagree that deplatforming gab is demonizing anybody. It’s tackling an absolute cesspool of a community. It’s among the worst of the worst that’s available out there. I’m sure they’ll survive without it.
  - twofornone 5y ago
    That's only because our media does not scrutinize the other side with the same intensity. You have literal communists LARPing about the coming revolution on reddit alongside entire subreddits dedicated to celebrating deaths among so called "plague rats", on a platform where the TOS ostensibly state that there is no tolerance for such behavior. But it's not surprising given that for a brief period last year the TOS explicitly stated that hate against the "majority group" (i.e. white people) is totally fine. If this were legitimately about extremism it'd be one thing, but the way it is shaping up, one side's extremism gets a pass, and that bias is toxic to a functioning society. The same way that excuses were made by all of our institutions for the nationwide, year long protests during a pandemic. Our institutions have clearly chosen a side. And I'm not necessarily saying that the act of deplatforming gab is demonization, but what I am saying is that this one sided demonization/dehumanization is used as an excuse to target platforms like gab.
yuuu 5y ago
"Most people," huh? You sure are an expert on what "most people" think. Maybe just replace that phrase with "I" if you want to stop being intellectually dishonest.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  Would you care to take a guess at which field of study makes one an expert in figuring out what most people think?
  - yuuu 5y ago
    Okay, let's see your source that proves "most people don’t just dislike gab, they think it’s dangerous," Dr. Statistics.