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

Gab.com’s Response to Congress

news.gab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 254 posts

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#141

Post by javajosh »

thrwaway9871 wrote: post #37

Funny test: this post has 61 votes, 16 comments, is 21 minutes old and is on front page. It will be "dead" and off the front page in the next hour if usual hn moderation is applied. This usually happens to thread where majority of comments go against the grain. Edit: thread is a bit over 1 hour old, 125 points, 119 comments and on page 4. All the other threads on page 4 are of comparable vote/comment count but at lea…

It's almost certainly the right call, in general. My other top-level comment is the only one trying to come up with novel solutions. Most of the other comments are just rehashing the same old stuff.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#142

Post by aww_dang »

thrwaway9871 wrote: post #37

Funny test: this post has 61 votes, 16 comments, is 21 minutes old and is on front page. It will be "dead" and off the front page in the next hour if usual hn moderation is applied. This usually happens to thread where majority of comments go against the grain. Edit: thread is a bit over 1 hour old, 125 points, 119 comments and on page 4. All the other threads on page 4 are of comparable vote/comment count but at lea…

I assume most of us are heavily invested in the Internet as a form of earning. The future of censorship and regulation online seems like a relevant topic, even if I don't publish political material.

A bit disappointing to see this one go by the wayside. It is almost as if Internet freedom is only relevant here when it relates to partisan's favored champion in the arena.

"...and there was no one left to speak for me"

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#143

Post by tw04 »

slumdev wrote: post #136
tw04 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Before the masses were corralled into walled gardens. I'm not sure how old you are, but when is this time you speak of? AOL had users in a walled garden for decades. Then those users moved to myspace, then facebook. You're going to need to be more specific about this magical time when the average user was somehow "free of walled gardens".

Compuserve and a number of other credible alternatives to AOL existed during that time. Usenet and BBSes also existed. Myspace and Facebook (initially) were only for teenagers, college students, and people who never grew out of those phases. You might as well put Livejournal in this list, because none of those platforms (at those times) were as effective at corralling and suppressing wrongthink as Twitter and Faceboo…

CompuServe and bbs's weren't "the masses". CompuServe peaked at 3 million users to AOL's 35 million.

There have always been alternatives to the walled gardens, they have never been larger than their walled alternatives.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#144

Post by tootie »

"In each case, these people – good people, normal people without political power – were persecuted because their viewpoints were, in one way or another, perceived as a threat to the established order"

That's true, but the investigation is specifically about criminal actions, not persecution for beliefs.

And if I am reading the subpoena correctly, they're basically looking for data on moderation activity and policies. That would seem be a purely corporate function and not related to actual user postings or any attempt at user identification. Gab claims they are very responsive to government requests related to criminal activity or foreign influence campaigns and that seems to be all they are investigating with this request. If they want to see what users are talking about, they can go in the front door like everyone else. And if they identify criminal activity, they will issue subpoenas or warrants. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#145

Post by tw04 »

aww_dang wrote: post #134
tw04 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Before the masses were corralled into walled gardens. I'm not sure how old you are, but when is this time you speak of? AOL had users in a walled garden for decades. Then those users moved to myspace, then facebook. You're going to need to be more specific about this magical time when the average user was somehow "free of walled gardens".

The drink coaster distributor was popular without a doubt. They never factored into my use of the Internet. Without fact-check, there's a mild equivalence at best. It is hard not to encounter platforms and their agendas in some form today. The free hosting providers were not engaging in political censorship. Google had a maxim, "Don't be evil". They didn't have infoboxes explaining, "Experts agree that enhanced inter…

I'm not even sure how to respond other than to point out AOL is literally where the term walled garden in reference to the internet came from. They were WORSE than what is around today by an order of magnitude.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#146

Post by jrochkind1 »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #47
jrochkind1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following what you mean, what is it you say they shouldn't be allowed to do? The first ammendment does not apply to private companies at all -- well, it applies in that it gives them free speach rights themselves, so if you mean by "shouldn't be allowed to interpret" that they shouldn't be legally able to express this opinion, well, that'd be a first ammendment problem. But it doesn't restrict private company…

> they are speaking as if the first ammendment somehow requires them to do this What portion of their statement are you referring to? I didn't notice anything in this post suggesting that they're required to support free speech, only that they agree with the underlying principles which inspired that provision in the constitution.

For instance:

> It is not our place, nor should it be the place of any technology company, to interfere with Americans’ civil rights and sit in judgment over their lawful expression.

To me suggesting a private company "interferes with Americans civil rights" by deciding what content to publish, suggests that private companies have some kind of first ammendment obligation.

But I'm not really interested in arguing about it.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#147

Post by jcranmer »

josephcsible wrote: post #116
criley2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's terribly put. The American concept of freedom of speech has nothing to do with access to public forums but rather is a limit on government action against your ability to run your own forum (newspaper, etc), and if you consider that when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were actually written, most Americans had significantly less forums. A few newspapers made up almost the entirety of public forums when the ri…

> I maintain that until Fox News or conservative talk radio is mandated by the government to stop suppressing my free speech rights to have access to the network to say whatever I want, that Facebook and Twitter should not be forced to support insurrection and violence masquerading as free speech. You don't think there should be a difference between platforms and publishers?

... how do you distinguish between a platform and a publisher?

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#148

Post by aww_dang »

tw04 wrote: post #145
aww_dang wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drink coaster distributor was popular without a doubt. They never factored into my use of the Internet. Without fact-check, there's a mild equivalence at best. It is hard not to encounter platforms and their agendas in some form today. The free hosting providers were not engaging in political censorship. Google had a maxim, "Don't be evil". They didn't have infoboxes explaining, "Experts agree that enhanced inter…

I'm not even sure how to respond other than to point out AOL is literally where the term walled garden in reference to the internet came from. They were WORSE than what is around today by an order of magnitude.

I never used them and don't know of the political parallels. I know they had more biz relationships for search results as an example.

Maybe start by explaining how they were worse?

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#149

Post by effingwewt »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #118
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before the masses were corralled into walled gardens The total audience for the internet was far less in those days.

It's weird to think back to a decade or 15 years ago where it was shameful to be an "internet addict". Spending a lot of time online was generally frowned upon, and not something you would talk about. Now the entirety of society is an "internet addict". I'll admit the nerd inside me feels a bit vindicated, even if horrified overall with where the internet has taken us.

Wow, I had forgotten that term!

The other day I was thinking back to when I was younger and people freaked out at the possibility of dating someone you met online. Now with dating apps it's the norm.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#150

Post by [deleted] »

hellcow wrote: post #91
mc32 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What consequences should there be for exercising the right to free speech? What say aclu?

Is this a serious comment? Of course there's consequences for your speech. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequence. If you're an outspoken Nazi, you have the right to your speech, but I have the right to not interact with you, and companies have the right not to serve you. Those are consequences of your speech. Freedom of speech means you won't be arrested for it, not that everyone needs to listen.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN