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Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

arstechnica.com

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Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#111

Post by anigbrowl »

errantmind wrote: post #28
kumarvvr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When free speech turns to hate speech, filled with lies and distortions, can it still be called free speech? Is free speech absolute? If tomorrow, fox news falsely says your family is defrauding the IRS, qould you be ok with that because thwy have the right to free speech? The intent of free speech is to have tge freedom to criticise those in power. Not to spread hate and divisions in the society.

Yes, it can be called free speech, although there can be repercussions when that speech falls into slander / libel / defamation. Outside of that, why would you ever want the government deciding what you can and cannot say? Right now you may be aligned with the government, but that can change very easily in the future

Well, suppose there's a group of people saying that another group of people (which happens to include you) should be killed as soon as possible. In an ideal world, they probably wouldn't do that because they'd recognize that collective aggression against others could rebound on them, but in the imperfect world we actually occupy it happens all the time. Of course, you could just figure they'll limit their social opportunities and eventually grow out of it or develop some higher wisdom, but just how long should you have to put up with threats from random strangers and anxieties about your personal safety while you are waiting for your antagonists to become enlightened?

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#112

Post by _e21c »

asabjorn wrote: post #106

As much as I love open source, Gab should have never been open source. It seems very unwise to make a highly targeted free speech social media platform available for easy backend code analysis. No wonder they were hacked. https://git.rip/gab/gab-social

I believe they had to release their source code in order to comply with the AGPL, because they forked off mastodon right? I’m not sure if they decided to go with mastodon as the basis for their codebase in the beginning or if that was a later decision.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#113

Post by dave_sullivan »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #91
dave_sullivan wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes? Con: LOL no...no not those views Me: So....deregulation? Con: Haha no not those views either Me: Which views, exactly? Con: Oh, you know the ones

Do you genuinely believe that "debating" a cartoon parody of your opponents is a reasonable method of discourse?

"yes"

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#114

Post by lenkite »

baix777 wrote: post #66
leesalminen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both market to the (mostly American) far right, with their shtick being basically "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended.

"Break into Congress and kill the swamp creatures". This is a quote from Parler, and this is known as incitement, which is often illegal. The first amendment does not apply to child porn for obvious reasons, but it also doesn't apply to threats of violence, which isn't so obvious to everyone. To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.

I can cherry-pick several thousand twitter messages (probably more) that make this quote seem like a soft, fluffy teddy bear. But no one here accuses twitter of being a terrorist platform.

Your last line is absolutely correct: To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#115

Post by naniwaduni »

TylerE wrote: post #94
covermydonkey wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a South African all of this is fascinating. Especially the shift of where the "center" is. It seemed every American not on the left is called "far right" from where I am sitting. Half a dozen of my friends have moved to the States and a few have scolded me for my understanding saying that plenty of centrists are labeled far right. I'm beginning to glaze over the label now. It doesn't hold any sway for me because i…

What’s labeled centrist in the US would be considered basically authoritarian fascism in most of the rest of the western world.

Not as much as you'd like to think of the "western world" is northern and western Europe. The "rest" of it includes, among other things, most of eastern Europe and pretty much all of South America.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#116

Post by asabjorn »

_e21c wrote: post #112
asabjorn wrote: post #106

As much as I love open source, Gab should have never been open source. It seems very unwise to make a highly targeted free speech social media platform available for easy backend code analysis. No wonder they were hacked. https://git.rip/gab/gab-social

I believe they had to release their source code in order to comply with the AGPL, because they forked off mastodon right? I’m not sure if they decided to go with mastodon as the basis for their codebase in the beginning or if that was a later decision.

Thats a good point. And because of this they are limited in their mitigation strategies.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#117

Post by kegbuna »

throwawaysea wrote: post #76
UncleMeat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the people there are far right. When you go to a website and the first thing you see is calls to murder jewish people and the n-word repeated ad nauseam, all but the far right decide to just leave. The end result is that gab/parler/etc don't become places where all speech exists but instead places where extreme racism, homophobia, and sexism suck the oxygen away from everything else.

This is a false depiction. I haven’t used Parler much but checked it out a few times and did not encounter a single piece of content advocating violence, talking about Jewish people, using the n word, or partaking in any kind of racism. Your claim that these are repeated ad nauseum suggests you never actually visited any of these sites and are just criticizing them without basis.

I would agree that this was not really the case on Parler though one could find a couple accounts like that. Gab has been a little more extreme but the worst by far was Voat.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#118

Post by barbacoa »

throwawaysea wrote: post #73
baix777 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Break into Congress and kill the swamp creatures". This is a quote from Parler, and this is known as incitement, which is often illegal. The first amendment does not apply to child porn for obvious reasons, but it also doesn't apply to threats of violence, which isn't so obvious to everyone. To make this obvious, this is not a free speech issue.

The number of messages on Parler that had content like that was probably very limited. You’re cherry picking one message on a platform with double digit millions of users to paint a certain picture. But let’s not forget about all the violence in BLM riots over the last year, much of which was organized and popularized on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, who all get a pass. And yes it is a free speech…

>not forget about all the violence in BLM riots over the last year, much of which was organized and popularized on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, who all get a pass.

Elaborating on that:

There was a mass shooting in New Zealand that was live streamed on Facebook. Now, imagine for a moment, what the public response would be if that had been on parler.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#119

Post by breuleux »

oceanplexian wrote: post #50
mint2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slippery slopes for everyone one. And a ceo that thinks catering klan rallies makes good business would soon find it their only business. Oh wait that’s what gab and Parler is doing! And that “perhaps people new to...etc” is a nice backhanded appeal to authority and it falls flat. Edit: hacker news has rigorously enforced comment guidelines, why is that okay? Why is it not bad per what you say: > “ Because IMHO the o…

I don’t disagree with comment guidelines. Their platform, their rules. But my point is if it was my platform, I wouldn’t moderate it any more than the law requires: Imminent threats of violence, illegal pornography, libel, etc. I guess I would probably go beyond and ask people not to Dox others, and ask others not to bully or disparage one another. I find it no different from two people discussing communism in a priv…

What if other people exploit your platform in order to direct culture, though? If you run a bar and after a year or two you realize that all of your patrons are nazis, presumably because their passionate discussions drove away anyone who overheard them, then any action you take to promote your bar is effectively promoting that ideology and directing culture in a rather unsavory direction. What do you do then?

You don't need to actually own a platform to leverage it for your side in a culture war, you only need to know how to exploit it. If you want your platform to be neutral, you need to monitor and moderate it carefully: if you don't choose what culture permeates your platform, others will be glad to choose for you, and I think it's foolish to think it'll be any better.

Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked

#120

Post by anigbrowl »

errantmind wrote: post #27
uniqueid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gab is a site that caters to hate groups. I guess the targets of their hatred take it personally. That seems rational to me.

Can you provide some evidence they catered to hate groups? It was my understanding they attracted hate groups due to their policy of 'free speech', but did not specifically cater to them

https://gab.com/ANS

https://gab.com/CNSM

For example

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