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

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

#151

Post by ameister14 »

will_brown wrote: post #136
jaredklewis wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not advocating forcing businesses to become public forums, nor did I do so in my post above. I don't advocate government intervention as the solution to every societal ill, and definitely do not in this case. I am just asking the question, if all businesses choose to not be public forums (as in their right, which I do not dispute), is that good for society? Some would argue that all Internet platforms deciding t…

>The key thing about the public square is interaction with the public. If all that people wanted was free speech they would just go shout in the woods. And the Internet is becoming that. Again anyone can create their own website, nothing is limiting the exercise of their protected speech and if the speech wins in the marketplace of ideas nothing can stop it, and history has shown when speech has won in the marketplac…

Again anyone can create their own website

Sure, but of necessity you'd also need to be your own host, which gets expensive.

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

#152

Post by flukus »

nl wrote: post #149
flukus wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was though. The neo Nazi movement was a lot bigger in the 90s than it is now.

Not in the US it wasn't. But there’s one huge difference: These newer offshoots have been far more successful than we could ever have dreamed. When you see crowds of hundreds marching through the streets with their faces uncovered, when white supremacist leader Richard Spencer holds a press conference a few days after a woman was killed by one of his fellow travelers and hosts reporters in his home, it becomes clear…

Crowds of hundreds isn't a lot. Crowds of hundreds from all over the country is absolutely nothing, you'd get more Muslim extremists from a small fraction of the population.

I hope you're as worried about Islamic extremists as you are about Nazi ones?

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

#153

Post by leereeves »

nl wrote: post #148
leereeves wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many donated a million dollars to Obama? http://www.ebony.com/news-views/obama-foundation-tech-billio...

You realize that is after Obama left office, right? My argument isn't that Evan William's doesn't have political opinions. It is that Twitter's policies don't reflect them. Your point was: > They're [Twitter] firmly on the left and banning their political opponents. I'm sure you can point to many right-leaning commentators who have been banned, and I can point to many left-learning. But as far as I can see they don't…

I'm not talking about Twitter's actions here. I don't know everyone they've banned so I can't tell if they are biased.

I'm talking about Gab being right-wing and therefore banned by Apple and Google, while Twitter, which also hosts hate speech, is not banned, because they are left-wing.

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

#154

Post by lj3 »

GuiA wrote: post #46
Overtonwindow wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"when did all the platforms decide to start being the moral center of determining what's acceptable speech" When it became more profitable to do so, or they saw a PR angle. IMO businesses will cater to death cults that murder kittens if it makes money, but only until it becomes a PR problem. Real or imagined.

Or maybe they are private businesses run by people like you and me who like to have a say in what is published on their platform? For a community that is very pro-company founders, I have a hard time getting a lot of the kneejerk reactions here. Should physical stores not have a right to decide what they want and don't want to sell? Why should it be any different for Google's digital store? Even if their reason is "t…

> or even launch your own competing business.

That's what Gab did when they were banned from Twitter. Now an alliance of tech companies are banning it en masse, even though they are far more benign than some of the other apps on the Apple store and Google Play store (4chan, for example).

This isn't about freedom of expression. This is a coordinated attack against an emerging alternative tech industry.

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

#155

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

acdha wrote: post #150
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone who wants to publish an app to Android cannot easily go somewhere else to publish their app. I do get your point and I understand what you're saying, but at the same time this is not the same as "if you don't like Twitter just go somewhere else to post your microblog", because Android users don't have any other alternative.

If you want to talk about app stores, that's a valid point which deserves conversation but it's not typically covered by network neutrality.

Yes, in fact your point was exactly my point. I do believe this is something that needs to be discussed in the context of net neutrality but people seem to have hard time thinking that way for some reason. I think it's some sort of a "boiling the frog" phenomenon where people have a fixed notion of what "net neutrality" is in terms of examples, but if you think about it it's all about how a network needs to be neutral.

What makes it worse is a lot of people advocate for net neutrality but when it comes to things like this they think it's the right thing for the "network" to be not neutral.

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

#156

Post by nl »

leereeves wrote: post #153
nl wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that is after Obama left office, right? My argument isn't that Evan William's doesn't have political opinions. It is that Twitter's policies don't reflect them. Your point was: > They're [Twitter] firmly on the left and banning their political opponents. I'm sure you can point to many right-leaning commentators who have been banned, and I can point to many left-learning. But as far as I can see they don't…

I'm not talking about Twitter's actions here. I don't know everyone they've banned so I can't tell if they are biased. I'm talking about Gab being right-wing and therefore banned by Apple and Google, while Twitter, which also hosts hate speech, is not banned, because they are left-wing.

> Of course they favor the left. The founder even said he was sorry about Twitter helping elect Trump.

> How many donated a million dollars to Obama? [Twitter founder Evan Williams]

> I'm not talking about Twitter's actions here.

Hu?

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

#157

Post by nl »

flukus wrote: post #152
nl wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the US it wasn't. But there’s one huge difference: These newer offshoots have been far more successful than we could ever have dreamed. When you see crowds of hundreds marching through the streets with their faces uncovered, when white supremacist leader Richard Spencer holds a press conference a few days after a woman was killed by one of his fellow travelers and hosts reporters in his home, it becomes clear…

Crowds of hundreds isn't a lot. Crowds of hundreds from all over the country is absolutely nothing, you'd get more Muslim extremists from a small fraction of the population. I hope you're as worried about Islamic extremists as you are about Nazi ones?

I hope you're as worried about Islamic extremists as you are about Nazi ones?

Of course. I think all violent extremism is despicable.

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

#158

Post by j2kun »

jdoliner wrote: post #137
j2kun wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He self identified as left.

Exactly. Alt-left is a term made up by literal white supremacists to make violent leftist terrorists look like they're a broad, organized movement. They use it to excuse themselves for the violence their side commits. It gives them non sequiturs to distract in conversation, as you and the root comment successfully did.

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

#159

Post by hashberry »

j2kun wrote: post #158
jdoliner wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He self identified as left.

Exactly. Alt-left is a term made up by literal white supremacists to make violent leftist terrorists look like they're a broad, organized movement. They use it to excuse themselves for the violence their side commits. It gives them non sequiturs to distract in conversation, as you and the root comment successfully did.

"The alt-right didn’t invent ‘alt-left.’ Liberals did."[0]

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/0...

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

#160

Post by j2kun »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #119
j2kun wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they contradictory? The goal of net neutrality is to have physical internet lines be regulated in the same way that phone lines are: as a part of the communication infrastructure of the country. Is Google Play a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the country? I wouldn't even call Google search fundamental (or infrastructure at all, for that matter)!

"Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments regulating the Internet must treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality And yes, google play IS a fundamental part of the infrastructure of not ju…

> Internet service providers and governments

Which of these is Google? You seem to have reiterated my argument back to me.

> If you're an android user you don't have an alternative.

Cell phone operating systems are not a fundamental part of the communication infrastructure of the country. If you really did think that, you'd be asserting that people have a right to an Android phone, and that governments should compel Google to sell them to everyone at a fair price. According to you, the gov't doesn't get to do that for iPhones or Blackberries or whatever Amazon is doing in this space.

I hope you see how ridiculous that idea is. If you replaced your smartphone with a dumb phone today you'd get along fine and barely notice. None of your rights would be infringed. There are reasonable alternatives to having an Android phone for anything you'd want to do on an Android phone. You can't say the same thing of access to the infrastructure of the internet.

Nobody is saying Google doesn't have a lot of influence, and nobody's saying that isn't problematic. Nobody's calling you a Nazi for warning about censure that comes from centralization (the EFF is on your side). But you're spitting hypocrisy at other people and erecting straw men when you haven't thought your own ideas through. I get you're angry, but try to reflect more.

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