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Gab will become a Mastodon fork

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Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#91

Post by 0815test »

cannonedhamster wrote: post #77
kristianc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who want space spaces who don't think mainstream platforms moderate enough, and the alt-right and free speech crowd. I've never really understood the 'safe spaces' line of argument. I'm a 30 year old white male, and whenever I log onto YouTube I see nothing but recommendations trying to force me down the alt-right rabbit hole. Sure, Twitter has booted off a few high profile people on the alt right but I don'…

The persecution complex among predominantly white males right now is high because there's a significant social change occurring that is causing those who've been disadvantaged the same privileges that white males have enjoyed alone for much of recent human history. It's a natural human reaction to care more about loss than to see the potential upside. We've also seen this numerous times before. The rise of Nazism was…

And yet, many SJW's and Berniebros are white dudes... Self-hating, perhaps? Or maybe the whole narrative that "the right is powerful because White guys are furious about having to give up their inherent power!" just doesn't stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny. It's blatant propaganda; fake news meant to demonize and discredit conservative thought, even to make it "radioactive" in the eyes of the (largely bandwagoning) general public. And these people have the gall to say that their political opponents are tantamount to Nazis? Sad and despicable!

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#92

Post by phoe-krk »

scohesc wrote: post #75
phoe-krk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now I wonder if mastodon client app developers will start filtering the allowed servers users can put in... This is not the duty of client applications. Banning instances is the duty of the operators of individual instances, and the instance(s) on which you have your account(s) are the instance(s) whose blocking policy affects you. This is a feature. Most sane instances on the Fediverse already ban extremist and al…

I wouldn't say they're abusing the right to free speech, they're taking full advantage of it. If you don't like what they're saying, you have every right to not listen to it, promote it yourself, and you also have the right to start a movement to let people know this is going on and to bring awareness to the festering shitpiles those websites are. It's not an abuse of the right to free speech.

Many people come to a conclusion that that the classical definition of free speech is easily abusable when enough people gather and utilize free speech to promote hatred, closed-mindedness and bigotry. Thanks to free speech instances we get hoaxes like the ones that way 5G is a mortal danger, vaccines are a mortal danger, women, Muslims, Jews and people of color are despicable, and many other interesting "100% verified truths and facts".

I know that the perfect solution for this problem does not conflict with free speech, but if that perfect solution (whatever it is) doesn't come soon enough, the world will get fed up with waiting and implement imperfect solutions, and limiting free speech is first on that list.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#93

Post by cannonedhamster »

dcolkitt wrote: post #33
coldpie wrote: 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 am not required to host your speech on my platform. The only free speech protection that is guaranteed in the United States is from the government stifling a citizen's speech and even that is fairly limited with free speech overridden by safety and security concerns on a fairly regular basis. That a particular platform doesn't want your speech is their right under their ability to speak. You cannot be forced to advocate a position you do not agree with.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#94

Post by sctb »

SoReadyToHelp wrote: post #31
rmtech wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gab is a festering pile of trash. That's your opinion. To some people, Gab is an alternative source of information that's independent of the narrative exerted by the mainstream media. > meme warning about the evils of feminism Do you want people to be kept in the dark about criticisms of feminism? What about feminism is so fragile or deceitful that criticism of it must be suppressed? In the end this is what free sp…

Shoot yourself in the head.

We've banned this account. We can unban you if you email hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you won't post like this again—it simply doesn't matter what you're replying to.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#95

Post by Proven »

gargron wrote: post #8

Gab solicited $5M [1] in investments just to use open source software that anyone can use for free. Wonder how those investors feel about it. [1]: https://thinkprogress.org/social-network-that-caters-to-whit...

They feel great because in all likelihood it will lower the cost and increase the quality and breadth of their service.

Also, I doubt anyone of those investors would want to sell at cost. Gab is the main censorship-free social platform. It's likely worth 10 to 20 times as much by now.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#96

Post by Hamuko »

eugeniub wrote: post #66
sleepybrett wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Most likely because it has gone under the radar thus far.

I'm just waiting for the first scandalous "here's how Apple is promoting rampant racism" article to pick up steam.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#97

Post by hedora »

asdf21 wrote: post #56
davexunit wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Hate speech isn't even a valid legal distinction in the US, first of all.* Even philosophically, it's extremely hairy to define. Would you consider harshly criticizing Scientology and its adherents to be hate speech? How about harshly criticizing Islam? It's pathetic to me how nowadays any criticism of a group, no matter how valid, has been rebranded into "hate speech" by so many. Just because you criticize something…

Hate speech is a well-defined legal term in the US.

On its own, it is protected, but it is also sufficient evidence to establish that some other act was a hate crime:

https://legaldictionary.net/hate-speech/

> In October of 1989, a group of young black men were hanging out in front of their apartment complex, discussing the movie Mississippi Burning, in which a number of black people are beaten. As a young white boy walked past the complex, and Todd Mitchell, one of the group, called out “Do you all feel hyped up to move on some white people?” then said, “There goes a white boy; go get him!” and led his friends in an attack on the boy. The black men stole the boy’s tennis shoes, and beat him so badly that he was in a coma for four days.

> Mitchell was convicted on charges of aggravated battery in the Circuit Court, but because the jury ruled he had chosen the victim based solely on race, the crime was elevated to the level of a hate crime. In this case, Mitchell’s words were intended to incite violence against a person, based on a trait or attribute – his race. Although Mitchell appealed his conviction, claiming the conviction violated his right to free speech.

> The question of constitutionality in this case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993, which held that the First Amendment does not bar the use of a person’s speech as evidence to establish elements of a crime. In fact, such evidence is commonly used to prove a defendant’s intent or motive, as well as to determine relevancy of certain evidence, or reliability of a witness’ testimony. The crime in Mitchell’s case was aggravated battery, not the words that he spoke, which provoked his companions to engage in the crime. Therefore, Mitchell’s free speech rights were never impeded.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#98

Post by paulgb »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #76
gargron wrote: post #8

Gab solicited $5M [1] in investments just to use open source software that anyone can use for free. Wonder how those investors feel about it. [1]: https://thinkprogress.org/social-network-that-caters-to-whit...

In spite of the fact that Gab is a known cess pool (cis pool?), I funded it because we need more alternatives to the big social networks. I would have funded Tor and 4chan had I the opportunity many years ago. Not too long ago this was a classical liberal position. Today free speech is passé. Guess I'm just old fashioned. I'm happy to see that Gab is switching to Mastodon. I think it will increase the survivability o…

> Not too long ago this was a classical liberal position. Today free speech is passé. Guess I'm just old fashioned.

It's not old fashioned, it's just that people differentiate free speech in principle from paying the server bills. Just as freedom of the press never meant the newspaper had to publish your op-ed, free speech online doesn't mean Twitter has to give anyone server space to post Nazi stuff.

(I agree that there should be more platforms, but that's why I've supported other Mastadon instances instead of Gab.)

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#99

Post by kerkeslager »

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #13

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…

I don't like most of the content you mention, but I still don't understand your pro-censorship viewpoint.

What's your goal here? Do you honestly think that preventing these people from having a public voice will make them disappear? Or do you simply want to brush them under the carpet so you can pretend they don't exist?

I think a much better approach is to allow free speech, and to spend some of our time kindly and empathetically trying to understand these people so we can address the underlying issues that cause them to believe what they believe. That's what Martin Luther King did, if you read his more theoretical writings. And I think it's what we should be trying to do today. Gutting free speech isn't the solution.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#100

Post by asdf21 »

hedora wrote: post #97
asdf21 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate speech isn't even a valid legal distinction in the US, first of all.* Even philosophically, it's extremely hairy to define. Would you consider harshly criticizing Scientology and its adherents to be hate speech? How about harshly criticizing Islam? It's pathetic to me how nowadays any criticism of a group, no matter how valid, has been rebranded into "hate speech" by so many. Just because you criticize something…

Hate speech is a well-defined legal term in the US. On its own, it is protected, but it is also sufficient evidence to establish that some other act was a hate crime: https://legaldictionary.net/hate-speech/ > In October of 1989, a group of young black men were hanging out in front of their apartment complex, discussing the movie Mississippi Burning, in which a number of black people are beaten. As a young white boy…

I already mentioned mens rea in my previous comment.
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