Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gab will become a Mastodon fork

gab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 335 posts

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#111

Post by dcolkitt »

cannonedhamster wrote: post #93
dcolkitt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 adv…

You're conflating the definition of the word "censorship" with the legal protections of the First Amendment. They're too separate concepts.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#112

Post by Iamhisalt »

kgraves wrote: post #88

As much as I hate the bad parts of Gab, I am glad they are standing up to their principles of being a truly free speech social network. The other social networks just love to censor everybody they disagree with, even a particular orange looking website. I am also excited and glad they are utilising open source software as well. (This was bound to happen sooner or later) This can make activitypub & decentralised netwo…

This whole concept of trying to silence people rather than simple disagreeing is insane. Demonizing then for disagreeing with you more so.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#113

Post by 52-6F-62 »

Keverw wrote: post #73
samfriedman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you can block specific users, but if I don't want to see (for example) anti-semitism how can I block that topic completely? It's not as if users tag their posts with each brand of hate speech.

I'm not sure if you block someone if it also hides their topics created by them but I would assume so. I know they have a way to block words too. I guess they call it mute users and words instead of block. I know some people were calling this the alt tech space. I haven't really been following it other than I remember the developer was interviewed talking about it. Another idea instead of verification badge being res…

> some search engines and sites were rigged to rank Hillary higher than Trump... Even the people in the media were saying Trump had no chance and Hillary was going to win. It's like they tried to rig the whole thing. But even then the mainstream media is all controlled by a few hands anyways too.

You don't know this, though. There's no possible way you can.

And from someone inside the media— it's more disparate than you seem to want to believe.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#114

Post by Fomite »

vorpalhex wrote: post #40
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…

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.

I mean, the last time Nazi's came to the front, darkness was undone by carpet bombing and years of grueling war.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#115

Post by asdf21 »

hedora wrote: post #106
asdf21 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They are all hate speech, because the definition of hate speech does not distinguish between which groups are protected and which are not. If you yell that, and then attack a member of the relevant group, then you can and should be charged with a hate crime. The supreme court has ruled on this. It is not controversial.

Sure, in the US. Most countries are not that liberal with their speech laws, though.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#116

Post by Traster »

dcolkitt wrote: post #58
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 mean Tor is used for some pretty bad stuff. Much of the dark net, if not most of the dark net is pretty heinous. Definitely worse than Gab. Do you feel similarly about Tor developers? The way I see it building platforms for detested people is a pretty good canary in the coalmine. If Internet technologies aren't resilient enough to keep the most hated people in the world online, then that's a pretty bad sign that th…

Gab specifically isn't a technology though. This article is specifically about the technology Gab is going to use. So I think the more apt comparison is between Tor and Mastodon. Gab is a website in the same that that a website on the dark net is a website- both of which can and should be judged on their merits.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#117

Post by hedora »

coldpie wrote: post #10
xrjpi wrote: post #6

>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 They also had the option of creating an ActivityPub compatible API, no? But yes I guess it's easier this way. Having said that I wonder if they'll allow federation to happen. Most Mastodon instances restrict and censor speech so…

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

Privatized censorship is legal in the US, but it is still censorship.

For example, the MPAA was formed because the movie industry felt it was better to self-censor than to have the government censor them.

If your movie contains anything the censors don’t approve, then it will not get an R rating, and will not be distributed to theaters, etc.

They even censor political speech sometimes: https://boingboing.net/2007/12/20/mpaa-censors-torture.html

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#118

Post by boapnuaput »

scohesc wrote: post #81
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'…

See, alt-right is such a subjective term. I've seen people say that wearing a hat with "MAGA" on it is alt-right. I've also seen people say that opinions like "we want an entire race of people locked up and punished" is alt-right as well. While one is definitively magnitudes worse than the other, they're both put under the banner of "alt-right".

MAGA hats boldly proclaim a fascist resurrection myth, though; it's not an inaccurate banner to be put under! I can understand the unhappiness of many folks on the right. It's unpleasant to have one's beliefs placed under scrutiny.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#119

Post by r3bl »

phoe-krk wrote: post #32
javagram wrote: 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…

> 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…

> This is not the duty of client applications.

It might become their duty. Since Gab's apps are banned, and those apps would be used to access Gab's servers, I could see Apple/Google blocking Mastodon apps as well.

App creators might be forced to ban Gab in order to avoid getting banned from the app stores.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#120

Post by kgraves »

jtr1 wrote: post #110
kgraves wrote: post #88

As much as I hate the bad parts of Gab, I am glad they are standing up to their principles of being a truly free speech social network. The other social networks just love to censor everybody they disagree with, even a particular orange looking website. I am also excited and glad they are utilising open source software as well. (This was bound to happen sooner or later) This can make activitypub & decentralised netwo…

I don't share any such appreciation for Gab. IMO, "free speech" in this case was a thinly veiled excuse for white supremacism, which has plenty of other homes on the internet. The developers of Gab chose to devote substantial portions of their lives to creating a platform for people who promote ethnic cleansing and the suppression of minorities. I don't think it's possible to do that without your eyes wide open, and…

> ..."free speech" in this case is a thin wrapper over white supremacism,

Even though this is your opinion I find this statement extremely ridiculous.

I don't support or agree with their views, but free speech grants them the right to say it and I will defend that right (which includes everyone).

The great thing is that you don't have to hear it, just block them if you don't like it.

Post reply on HN