Alt-social network Gab booted from Google Play Store for hate speech

> I'm kind of curious why we can't have an uncensored platform that represents both sides. Is it because good people prefer censorship?

It's because most people fall into 3 camps:

- those who want an uncensored platform so they can be assholes

- those who want an uncensored platform, without wanting to be an asshole (many of the people on this site)

- those who don't want to be on a platform where random people can be assholes to them

The third camp is the largest, and it doesn't take many people in the first camp to make the platform not worth using for them.

I of course don't argue that Internet sites, like Twitter or the Google Play Store, are not private places. They are not public forums.

But to me, the concerning point, is that the Internet is quickly becoming a place with no public forums. And I don't mean public forum in the legal sense (though that is also true), but in the sense of a place where everyone is welcome, and where people of all sides are actually present.

I think public forums are an important part of our society because they force exposure to other members of society and create shared experiences. I think a major part of protests, like occupy wallstreeet, BLM or the Women's March is to get people's attention by being in a public space. You can get your ideas out into the area and even the country on television.

If we are all living in our little bubbles, how can we have dialog and solve problems? Conservatives will have their little bubble, liberals will have their little bubble, and there will be no interaction. Twitter used to be a place where you could hear any kind of thought. You could hear one side of the story from the president of the US and the other side from al qaeda. Not anymore.

Now, it may not seem like a big deal as the people being kicked off are bigots. But are you sure your opinion will always be in the majority? Take for example the recent Google Memo, which was quickly labeled sexist by most media outlets. Conversation on HN the past weeks indicates many on HN disagree with that label. It's bigots today, but it might be "sexists" tomorrow.

So, yes I agree corporations have no duty to maintain a public forum. But if all businesses choose not to be public forums, do you think that is a good thing?

I understand where you're going, but the purpose of my site isn't to host multiple viewpoints from multiple people. The giving site is more of who we've partnered with - it's never been open to any & all charities.

I think the issue specifically with the app store is that there are other players who could similarly violate the "hate speech" metric (telegram/whatsapp/twitter/etc), but Google doesn't take those down. That calls into question how consistent they are with their policing and what constitutes the "line."

The larger argument I was trying to get at in the other comment was that there seems to be a few companies that are aggregating power over "speech" online. At some point, they start to either look monopolistic (and using their base to prevent other players from growing - see fb v snapchat), or start to seem more similar to utility companies (which are regulated to some extent).

Should your electric company be able to shut you off because you attended a rally? Should your phone company be able to terminate your service? Maybe, maybe not, but the utility analogy seems apt (to me) for this scenario.

Did he self-identify as alt-left? Literally nobody identifies as alt-left. Unless he did, it's irrelevant to my comment.

>I think the issue specifically with the app store is that there are other players who could similarly violate the "hate speech" metric(telegram/whatsapp/twitter/etc), but Google doesn't take those down. That calls into question how consistent they are with their policing and what constitutes the "line."

According to 1st amendment law, the remedy is to boycott the business, and truthfully it's the greatest tool people have to level the playing field, and it's seriously underleveraged especially in the internet age. However, the logic goes if you can't get the public to boycott a company, then your speech has basically failed in what's called the marketplace of ideas. So maybe while it's worth while to call attention to the power of these big companies and promote a boycott to keep them in check, you shouldn't be surprised when the boycott fails to gain momentum based them prohibiting hate speech, meaning find a clear cut example where they abused their power in a clearly controversial way where enough of the public will support the boycott to hurt the companies bottom line.

As to your last paragraph, denial of service is not always protected or even speech for that matter. Another famous Supreme Court Case is Ollie's BBQ which prohibited African Americans from eating there, and that was found to be unconstitutional under the commerce clause. The commerce clause is kind of a running joke in law that gives the Federal Government the right to regulate everything on the basis of effecting interstate commerce, and while I of course agree with the result of the case, I despise the logic and use of the commerce clause. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katzenbach_v._McClung