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Gab will become a Mastodon fork

gab.com

61–70 of 335 posts

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#61

I had heard about Gab but never visited the site before. I just spent 30 seconds perusing the trending feed. I saw the following: 1. a video of a man being shot and killed during an armed robbery 2. 3 anti islam posts 3. the usual pro trump propaganda 4. a meme warning about the evils of feminism urging women to get back to their "place" in the family. Gab is a festering pile of trash. Anyone responsible for making a…

[deleted]

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did nothing of the sort. And his assessment is correct. Mastodon, and federated social networks, are the wrong direction for social media. I don't understand how more people don't see this; open-source or not, walled gardens only worsen polarization and demonization of the "other side".

I like my feed to not be flooded with racist/sexist replies. Mastodon has been a huge step in the right direction in this regard. "Free speech" doesn't mean "no moderation allowed".

Your "feed" (at least in the context of Facebook's/Twitter's) is comprised of people/groups that you follow. If your feed is garbage, then that means you follow people/groups that post garbage. Mastodon will be a more amplified version of that.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice job equivocating nazis and the people that don't like nazis.

He did nothing of the sort. And his assessment is correct. Mastodon, and federated social networks, are the wrong direction for social media. I don't understand how more people don't see this; open-source or not, walled gardens only worsen polarization and demonization of the "other side".

Federation is the opposite of walls.

If I want an uncensored social network, knowing that I will see objectionable content, then I can have that. Likewise, if someone wants their safe space where gender pronouns are banned, then they can have that, and neither of us interfere with each other - I can even still consume their content if I so wish.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#64
post #2

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network) - "Gab is an English-language social media website, launched publicly in 2017, known for its mainly far-right user base.[9] The site has been described as "extremist friendly"[10] or a "safe haven"[11] for neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right.[10] ... Antisemitism is a prominent part of the site's content[24] and the platform itself has engaged in an…

A nice thing about Mastodon/ActivityPub is that administrators of "instances" (which means basically each running copy of the server software; you create a user account with a specific Mastodon instance, rather than with Mastodon itself) can disable federation with individual other instances, if they want to. So if a particular instance becomes a haven for trolls or other miscreants, you can block that entire instanc…

Okay cool. I wonder does that mean Gab is able to use and benefit from any apps/tools created for Mastodon instances - or would it be possible for the owners of those apps/tools themselves to block/prevent certain instances from benefiting? I'd hope that's the case so everyone has the ability to 'vote' for who they are supporting.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#65
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>alternative source of information nice rebrand of "hate speech"

The trouble with outlawing "hate speech" is: who gets to decide what is hate speech?

Who gets to define murder?

All rules are made by fallible humans. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have rules.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#66
post #4

> “Moving to the ActivityPub protocol as our base allows us to get into mobile App Stores without even having to submit and get approval of our own apps, whether Apple and Google like it or not.“ The perils (or benefits?) of open protocols. Existing mastodon/pleroma clients will be able to connect to Gab by adding a server setting. Now I wonder if mastodon client app developers will start filtering the allowed server…

While apple does have some 'technology bars' you have to clear to get into their store. You can't use private APIs in the Apple frameworks for example. There are also 'content' bars that have to be surmounted. I don't think just because they use activity pub or whatever protocol that apple is going to roll over and play nice. Their whole social network is literally a garbage fire, Apple doesn't want to associate thei…

Why not? You can already use existing App Store apps to connect to whatever ActivityPub server you want, no matter the content. It's like how you can use an RSS reader app in the App Store to subscribe to literally any RSS feed.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#67

I had heard about Gab but never visited the site before. I just spent 30 seconds perusing the trending feed. I saw the following: 1. a video of a man being shot and killed during an armed robbery 2. 3 anti islam posts 3. the usual pro trump propaganda 4. a meme warning about the evils of feminism urging women to get back to their "place" in the family. Gab is a festering pile of trash. Anyone responsible for making a…

[deleted]

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#68
Gab has certainly carved out a niche for some of the worst speech on the internet, including at the very least the announcement of terrorist activity (see Tree of Life, New Zealand massacres) if not the wholesale coordination of it. I don't think we can have a serious discussion about free speech without acknowledging that members of these groups have moved along a path from speech to actions that include mass murder.

On the other hand if we're serious about free speech absolutism, this is probably the best case scenario. Federated Mastadon instances should have the option of blocking harassment from Gab users. Allow them to have their free speech, but the rest of online society should have the option to shun them - a real-world dynamic that is not well reflected on platforms like twitter _because_ of centralization. Rather than hopelessly petitioning Jack to ban the nazis, users + communities should be empowered to do it themselves.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#69

I had heard about Gab but never visited the site before. I just spent 30 seconds perusing the trending feed. I saw the following: 1. a video of a man being shot and killed during an armed robbery 2. 3 anti islam posts 3. the usual pro trump propaganda 4. a meme warning about the evils of feminism urging women to get back to their "place" in the family. Gab is a festering pile of trash. Anyone responsible for making a…

The darkness is only ever undone by shining a light. By all means, people of reasonable sense should take a moment to look at Gab and realize what counter-factual nonsense it is, because banning it or censoring it will only make it more powerful.

That's a common claim, but I've seen precious little evidence for it. For decades US Nazis and other loons were justifiably obscure. But the rise of the Internet, which enabled all sorts of connection, also enabled our country's worst to more easily connect, network, and recruit. A good book on the topic is Neiwart's "Alt-America", written by a journalist who studied American white supremacists starting in the 1980s.

As a counterpoint, just recently we saw Tommy Robinson, far right activist and repeat felon, get crushed in the European elections. Why did fail? He himself says social media bans were the reason: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/european-elec...

Deplatforming works. If we need people to understand awful people and awful ideas, history provides us with plenty of examples. Similarly, if we want people to understand tigers, we don't just turn tigers loose in the classroom. We read books, we see videos, maybe we visit a zoo.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#70
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deciding what content is allowed on your private platform is not censorship. The platform owner is exercising their own form of speech.

Incorrect. > Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient".[2][3][4] Censorship can be conducted by a government[5], private institutions, and corporations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

I like how the "private institutions, and corporations" part doesn't actually have a citation associated with it.
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