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Gab will become a Mastodon fork

gab.com

221–230 of 335 posts

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#221
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

OK. By the same token, demanding that all speech be allowed on a private platform is censoring the platform owner's speech. So whichever position you take, you are advocating for censorship, and we have successfully reduced a useful word to an insult we can shout at anyone who uses their speech in a way we dislike. Neat trick.

That's not the same token at all.

-Demanding the owner not let someone say something Vs. -Demanding the owner let someone say something

I mean, they're both demands vis-a-vis the owner. But what they're demanding are the opposite of each other.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see two propositions 1. Trump supporters are fascist. 2. Fascists should be sabotaged at every turn. If we link this up with the fact that the majority of white Americans are Trump supporters, it's hard to escape the conclusion that people are basically calling for persecution of white people.

> If we link this up with the fact that the majority of white Americans are Trump supporters, it's hard to escape the conclusion that people are basically calling for persecution of white people. 1. X is bad and deserves punishment. 2. The majority of Y are X. 1 & 2 together do not imply: Y are bad and should be punished.

I agree. But it means the majority of Y are bad and should be punished. Things don't look too bright for Y on average.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#223

Most HN posts: HN users hate internet controlled and censored by governments or corporations This post: HN users hate it when things they don't like manage to get around corporate and government censorship

Maybe there's a selection effect on who comments on the thread? People who know and heavily dislike Gab already might be more motivated, when scrolling past the thread, to comment on it.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#224
post #34
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…

The conclusion I always seem to come to is you eventually want to be able to trust those within your network. I believe that requires some level of initial openness to prove who you are to a personally selected authority you decide to trust, who can verify your identity, and then allow you to communicate/engage with your real name or one-to-many pseudonyms, so if your actions are outside whatever rules exist for that…

You’re saying that intelligence agencies should infiltrate and spy on dissident groups?

Pretty sure they do that already, but weird to see people advocate for it.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#225
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the type of dismisiveness you show towards large swaths of the populace's opinions contributes to the success of folks like JBP and Sargon

I suspect it does too, but probably for different reasons. Criticism of "thought leaders" like these guys only strengthens the hold they have among the legions of young people who follow their words like gospel. Any criticism of these figures for their platitude-heavy content and huckster-style marketing must also be a criticism of their followers as individuals, because they have bought into that mindset wholesale.

JBP, at least, generally seems to come off better than the people criticising him.

And young people have rebellious tendencies, they form countercultures. The current world culture tilts to left-progressivism, so there's a right-ish counterculture.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see two propositions 1. Trump supporters are fascist. 2. Fascists should be sabotaged at every turn. If we link this up with the fact that the majority of white Americans are Trump supporters, it's hard to escape the conclusion that people are basically calling for persecution of white people.

What you’re proposing sure sounds like a logical fallacy to me. It sounds like you’re accusing others of having the following thoughts: 1. Trump supporters are fascists 2. I don’t like fascists 3. Trumps supports are overwhelmingly white 4. Therefore I don’t like white people because they’re fascists. This is the fallacy of the undistributed middle.

You understated 2. Its more correctly described as hatred.

You inverted 3. I said majority of white people support Trump, not majority of Trump supporters are white.

Finally you are overstating my conclusion. Here I refer to to the majority rather then all.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#227
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is why free speech exists. Where?

As an idea and ideal. In practice- to greater and lesser degrees, with varying overton windows, in different places.

yes that's what I meant. The concept of free speech.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#228
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…

Why are free speech absolutists only supporting fascists?

Where are the people advocating for the destruction of intellectual property rights, for widespread declassification of state communications, for suffrage rights for felons, and for unionization and striking rights? I don't exactly see the gab users advocating for laws permitting sympathetic striking.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#229

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 do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

Will you defend my right to distribute IP I don't own? Or to vote if I am a felon? Or to share state secrets? Or to defraud people or slander people?

Do you believe that if the people on gab became state leaders that they'd protect your right to dissent?

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what does it say that unmoderated platforms always seem to become sinkholes of bigotry? They don't become that. Or rather this is orthogonal to moderation.

Voat and Gab seem to have done. Which ones haven't? The way it seems to work is that unmoderated forums attract the toxic bigots that aren't allowed to speak their minds elsewhere, and they attack anyone who disagrees with them until most of those people get tired of it and go elsewhere, leaving the forum to the jerks. (Or else the owners have second thoughts and start moderating.) It happens to any unmoderated forum…

But bigots are allowed to speak their minds elsewhere, in many many places, especially in private, hidden from people who don't like them. They don't naturally gravitate to any place that lets them spread their ideas.

What I've seen happens is different, no actual genuine bigotry, but some organized effort to spread hateful propaganda and moderators not banning any of that, taking sides, especially when the organized effort comes from the government and is supported by mainstream government propaganda, so the moderators are naturally conflicted. Owners, moderators sometimes realize it's hurting the site, but still don't like to compromise on their views and eventually ban entire topics, not hate, personal attacks or anything like that and still being soft to the views they share even if they are against new rules.

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