Everyone's in favour of the free market until it does something they disagree with. Anyone can start a new browser. Gab could fork Chromium or Firefox, even.
Or they could probably just make a bookmarklet.
But that wouldn't get any attention and hate groups like Gab thrive on controversies like this. HN is doing them a favour here. They're not doing anything new or original (remember the Genius annotator, anyone?).
Both browsers offer sideloaded extensions as well as open source cores that can be set to use their own stores. While troubling that they have such ability, they make their terms of use clear and do offer motivated users the ability to chose alternative plugin sources.
Neither browser allows sideloaded extensions in its standard build: Chrome: > As of Chrome 33, no external installs are allowed from a path to a local .crx on Windows (see Protecting Windows users from malicious extensions). As of Chrome 44, no external installs are allowed from a path to a local .crx on Mac (see Continuing to protect Chrome users from malicious extensions). https://developer.chrome.com/apps/external…
Sure you can. You can load unpacked extensions in Chrome - I do it all the time when developing extensions.
Funny how even this article, which kind supports gab, always associates them with terrorism (violence for political goals) while in both cases mentioned the perpetrators used other social media networks more and with more impact. When you get bad reputation, truth doesn't matter. Everyone "knows" they are trash so... vaguely say it's against ToS. Right now they should pull a corporate spin, rebrand and move on. Commu…
This just seems short-sighted more than anything. It doesn't sound like there's anything technically wrong with the extension (indeed I have often wanted just such an extension), it's merely that the "wrong sort" of people use it. Well, banning it will keep the "wrong sort" of people using it. If everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started using the extension as a generic comment section, then the bright light of da…
Why exactly would people want to share a space with racists, antisemites, and every kind of vile hatred? Why would you not go to place that does not accept that kind of utter garbage instead?
This just seems short-sighted more than anything. It doesn't sound like there's anything technically wrong with the extension (indeed I have often wanted just such an extension), it's merely that the "wrong sort" of people use it. Well, banning it will keep the "wrong sort" of people using it. If everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started using the extension as a generic comment section, then the bright light of da…
> If everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started using the extension as a generic comment section, then the bright light of day would cleanse it Browser extensions aside, if we've learn anything over the past two years of 'Online', it's that this simply isn't true. You can't 'debate' hate speech away.
> You can't 'debate' hate speech away.
Not sure what your definition of "hate speech" is but if it includes racism, then yes, racists can change their mind:
Funny how even this article, which kind supports gab, always associates them with terrorism (violence for political goals) while in both cases mentioned the perpetrators used other social media networks more and with more impact. When you get bad reputation, truth doesn't matter. Everyone "knows" they are trash so... vaguely say it's against ToS. Right now they should pull a corporate spin, rebrand and move on. Commu…
These are from https://gab.com/popular right now: https://gab.com/brannon1776/posts/cDQ4dUJNKzIycHRib3ZKSU9lbT... https://gab.com/TheSeven/posts/NUZFZXQrTk9qS0tJVlo5SHZsYnFEZ... https://gab.com/Doomer90/posts/MERObDkzVHlKK2dISDg0OFE2Um9rU... https://gab.com/IKNOWTHETRUTH1488/posts/Q1VhM3h1REJNa05udE93... Is this really what you are wanting to defend? Is this just a "bad reputation" where "truth doesn't matter"?
This is like grabbing bugchasing subculture screenshots from the 80s or 90s and using them to argue against the entire homosexual community.
Funny how even this article, which kind supports gab, always associates them with terrorism (violence for political goals) while in both cases mentioned the perpetrators used other social media networks more and with more impact. When you get bad reputation, truth doesn't matter. Everyone "knows" they are trash so... vaguely say it's against ToS. Right now they should pull a corporate spin, rebrand and move on. Commu…
These are from https://gab.com/popular right now: https://gab.com/brannon1776/posts/cDQ4dUJNKzIycHRib3ZKSU9lbT... https://gab.com/TheSeven/posts/NUZFZXQrTk9qS0tJVlo5SHZsYnFEZ... https://gab.com/Doomer90/posts/MERObDkzVHlKK2dISDg0OFE2Um9rU... https://gab.com/IKNOWTHETRUTH1488/posts/Q1VhM3h1REJNa05udE93... Is this really what you are wanting to defend? Is this just a "bad reputation" where "truth doesn't matter"?
If you go out looking for it, you will find a LOT more of that stuff on Twitter, Facebook, Patreon (Search for it) and Reddit. Gab is a free speech platform - similar to how phone carriers aren't held liable for what people speak on it, same way for Gab. It's not Gab's responsibility if the users are talking garbage.
This just seems short-sighted more than anything. It doesn't sound like there's anything technically wrong with the extension (indeed I have often wanted just such an extension), it's merely that the "wrong sort" of people use it. Well, banning it will keep the "wrong sort" of people using it. If everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started using the extension as a generic comment section, then the bright light of da…
> If everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started using the extension as a generic comment section, then the bright light of day would cleanse it Browser extensions aside, if we've learn anything over the past two years of 'Online', it's that this simply isn't true. You can't 'debate' hate speech away.
>You can't 'debate' hate speech away.
Surely you can. To believe otherwise is to believe that hate is logically sound. It's just that people's standards for what constitutes "debate" have lowered so much (thanks to Twitter and its ilk) that it no longer holds any persuasive power. Consider that most people in the West were extremely racist just a few decades ago. It didn't take free speech suppression to change this status quo.