Gab will become a Mastodon fork • Hacker News Board

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#201

Post by spamizbad » Thu, May 30, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

0815test wrote: post #91

cannonedhamster wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The persecution complex among predominantly white males right now is high because there's a significant social change occurring that is causing those who've been disadvantaged the same privileges that white males have enjoyed alone for much of recent human history. It's a natural human reaction to care more about loss than to see the potential upside. We've also seen this numerous times before. The rise of Nazism was…

And yet, many SJW's and Berniebros are white dudes... Self-hating, perhaps? Or maybe the whole narrative that "the right is powerful because White guys are furious about having to give up their inherent power!" just doesn't stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny. It's blatant propaganda; fake news meant to demonize and discredit conservative thought, even to make it "radioactive" in the eyes of the (largely bandw…

It's interesting you're lumping those two groups together. Generally, it's well-understood in in democratic circles that the so-called "Bernie Bros" are far more preoccupied with issues of economic than social justice, and less concerned with race. They face a good bit of criticism from not just the left, but also the "woke" pro-capitalist centrists on the matter.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#202

Post by dang » Thu, May 30, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

davexunit wrote: post #21

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #18

Oh, the Mastodon community is going to be ticked about this... Purism said Librem One's server wasn't going to police speech, and they were upset about it. Gab is a whole different level. I think ActivityPub has huge potential to be a way for communities of disparate views and perspectives to exist out there, and two distinct and very opposing groups have grasped onto it: People who want space spaces who don't think…

Nice job equivocating nazis and the people that don't like nazis.

Please don't post snarky one-liners to HN, least of all on divisive topics, where the guidelines ask you to be more thoughtful and substantive, not less.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#203

Post by rmtech » Thu, May 30, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

davexunit wrote: post #71

asdf21 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate speech isn't even a valid legal distinction in the US, first of all.* Even philosophically, it's extremely hairy to define. Would you consider harshly criticizing Scientology and its adherents to be hate speech? How about harshly criticizing Islam? It's pathetic to me how nowadays any criticism of a group, no matter how valid, has been rebranded into "hate speech" by so many. Just because you criticize something…

"I hate soup" - OK "I hate muslims" - not OK glad I could help clear up these muddy waters we're in.

"50% of Trump supporters are a basket of deplorables"

- hate speech?

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#204

Post by zzzcpan » Thu, May 30, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #188

inawarminister wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the first adopters of an unmoderated platforms are those who were kicked out from the moderated platforms, whether rightfully or wrongly. Indeed, many settlements in the yesteryears were founded by outlaws and dissidents (also see: the Pilgrims and Mormon settlement of Utah)

So what does it say that unmoderated platforms always seem to become sinkholes of bigotry? Or are you saying that, like the Pilgrims, they will eventually transmute themselves into something less unpleasant if left alone? That's stretching the metaphor a bit far, I think.

> 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.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#205

Post by rmtech » Thu, May 30, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

amiga-workbench wrote: post #154

I tried to find some remotely interesting content on that site, all I found was boomer political rambling and bile. If they do this, I'll be making sure I blacklist their instances. While there are plenty of free-speech oriented or even right wing mastodon instances, the signal to noise ratio on these is pretty good and there is actually content worth engaging with.

> there are plenty of free-speech oriented or even right wing mastodon instances, the signal to noise ratio on these is pretty good and there is actually content worth engaging with.

any recommendations?

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#206

Post by dang » Thu, May 30, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

village-idiot wrote: post #37

rmtech wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gab is a festering pile of trash. That's your opinion. To some people, Gab is an alternative source of information that's independent of the narrative exerted by the mainstream media. > meme warning about the evils of feminism Do you want people to be kept in the dark about criticisms of feminism? What about feminism is so fragile or deceitful that criticism of it must be suppressed? In the end this is what free sp…

I'm not sure how you got from someone criticizing what’s posted on gab to suppression of free speech, but it makes me think you have absolutely no idea what free speech really is.

Please don't cross the line into personal attack on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#207

Post by village-idiot » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

rmtech wrote: post #193

village-idiot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how you got from someone criticizing what’s posted on gab to suppression of free speech, but it makes me think you have absolutely no idea what free speech really is.

They were criticising developers who worked on Gab, not just some specific piece of content, presumably with the aim of removing Gab as a platform.

> They were criticising developers who worked on Gab

Sure. But remember, criticizing the developers is also free speech.

> presumably with the aim of removing Gab as a platform.

You're making up their aims, but again, free speech.

You don't have to agree with them, but it's absolutely their free speech right to call the Gab developers all kinds of nasty things. You cannot create a definition of free speech that includes the right of people on Gab to say whatever they want, but doesn't include the right for other's to tell the Gab developers that they've done a bad thing and should feel bad.

Edit: To further bolster my point, I will quote from Ken White about another famous free speech spat a few years ago when a twitter troll lost his job at Business Insider.

> But speech has private social consequences, and it's ridiculous to expect otherwise. Whether sincere or motivated by poseur edginess, controversial words have social consequences. Those social consequences are inseparable from the free speech and free association rights of the people imposing them. It is flatly irrational to suggest that I should be able to act like a dick without being treated like a dick by my fellow citizens.

> Some criticize social consequences as being chilling to free speech. That misappropriates the language of First Amendment scrutiny of government restrictions on speech and seeks to impose it upon private speech. It is true, superficially, that I am chilled from saying bigoted things because people will call me a bigot, or chilled from saying stupid things because people will call me stupid. But how is that definition of chill coherent or principled? How do you apply it? If Pax Dickinson suggests that "feminism in tech" is something to be scorned, to we treat that as something that as first-speaker speech that we ought not chill with criticism, or do we treat it as a second-speaker attempt to chill the speech of the "feminists in tech" with criticism? What rational scheme do you use to determine what speech is "legitimate disagreement," and what speech is abusive and "chilling"?

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#208

Post by jakelazaroff » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

rlt wrote: post #173

jtr1 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair request. I did sign up some months ago to see for myself, but you can get a good idea perusing the references on their wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)

I think it’s important to separate the actions and intents of the company from their users. Any platform that has free speech as a core value will tend to attract objectionable people and content. That wiki page is mostly about the horrible things some of their users say and do.

Elsewhere in the thread, I've posted a link to screenshots of their official Twitter account making anti-Semitic comments. Here's an image of their founder using a white supremacist hand sign: https://web.archive.org/web/20190530190836/https://inshorts....

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#209

Post by antepodius » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #198

rmtech wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> classical definition of free speech is easily abusable the classical definition of unfree speech is easily abusable, which is why free speech exists. If an idea is bad, the best way to beat it is with better ideas. Of course some bad ideas are good at spreading, or otherwise persuasive. But if you take the big picture view, the vast majority of really bad ideas and statements have been imposed centrally and have pe…

> 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.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#210

Post by antepodius » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

pgeorgi wrote: post #51

Dirlewanger wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did nothing of the sort. And his assessment is correct. Mastodon, and federated social networks, are the wrong direction for social media. I don't understand how more people don't see this; open-source or not, walled gardens only worsen polarization and demonization of the "other side".

> federated social networks, are the wrong direction > walled gardens only worsen polarization So walled gardens worsen polarization but federated social networks (that provide a way out of walled gardens) are the wrong direction?

It's a way to make your very own extra-walled-in garden, for those who want that- just block every instance you don't like, or disagree with, and every instance that doesn't block those you don't like, or disagree with.