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Gab will become a Mastodon fork

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Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#271

Post by PhasmaFelis »

zzzcpan wrote: post #230
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> They don't naturally gravitate to any place that lets them spread their ideas.

Why wouldn't they? Everyone else does, you and me included.

Voat was a tiny site of 30,000 users in April 2015. Two months later, Reddit banned r/ShitN*ggersSay, and Voat's user base exploded. That was four years ago. Go take a look at the front page of https://voat.co/ right now. Don't do it at work, though.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#272

Post by gizmo686 »

justin66 wrote: post #255
gizmo686 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The classic liberal position was also to support the rights of Nazis to march down a Jewish neighboorhood. Regarding free speech, the classic standard is "content neutrality", which means that, regardless of the media, the decision on allowing certain speech cannot be based on what the speech is.

> The classic liberal position was also to support the rights of Nazis to march down a Jewish neighboorhood. Well then!

https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-sp...

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#273

Post by gubbrora »

paulgb wrote: post #98
ryanmarsh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Not too long ago this was a classical liberal position. Today free speech is passé. Guess I'm just old fashioned. It's not old fashioned, it's just that people differentiate free speech in principle from paying the server bills. Just as freedom of the press never meant the newspaper had to publish your op-ed, free speech online doesn't mean Twitter has to give anyone server space to post Nazi stuff. (I agree that t…

All the big sites face government pressure to censor. In addition anyone inside these companies that would support free speech has to walk on eggshells not to be fired for creating an unsafe environment - again the government's hand this time indirect.

Imagine the conversation: this is fake news, we should remove it. No it isn't fake. You're making me feel unsafe, ill have the government put you in a cage.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#274

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

Hamuko wrote: post #96
eugeniub wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? You can already use existing App Store apps to connect to whatever ActivityPub server you want, no matter the content. It's like how you can use an RSS reader app in the App Store to subscribe to literally any RSS feed.

Most likely because it has gone under the radar thus far. I'm just waiting for the first scandalous "here's how Apple is promoting rampant racism" article to pick up steam.

Let us hope that nobody tells them about http.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#275

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #208
rlt wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

... The "OK" hand sign?

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#276

Post by dang »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #52

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

It's different people. You might as well complain about the human race this way.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#277

Post by Fins »

DanBC wrote: post #197
Fins wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that Twitter's definition of "nazis" basically is "anyone we don't like, which isn't exactly useful for the overall benefit of humanity. Sort of like how FB recently said that they are going to deplatform white supremacists. Why not all supremacists, while you're at it, or don't pretend that you are doing something for any kind of greater good...

> The problem is that Twitter's definition of "nazis" basically is "anyone we don't like No, it really isn't. It's a minority of people calling for violent white supremecy.

According to their hipster in chief though, actually doing ethnic cleansing is perfectly fine though, if you are Burmese... That's rather hypocritical -- either ban all nazis, or don't pretend that you are not picking sides. And speaking of sides, if you ban nazis but not the equially murderous communists then I don't see how you can claim any high moral ground. And I haven't heard of any communist purges in the social media platforms.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#278

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

graenxa wrote: post #243
kgraves wrote: post #88

As much as I hate the bad parts of Gab, I am glad they are standing up to their principles of being a truly free speech social network. The other social networks just love to censor everybody they disagree with, even a particular orange looking website. I am also excited and glad they are utilising open source software as well. (This was bound to happen sooner or later) This can make activitypub & decentralised netwo…

Gab is not a free speech social network. Gab is a white supremacy social network. Gab has actively courted white supramcists[0], white supremacists make up the vast majority of their userbase[1]. I understand and respect your deep support of free speech. But please, take a step back here and think about what you are saying you are glad about. Are you really glad a group of people decided to roll up their sleeves and…

If those people become the majority (which, terrifyingly, no longer seems outside of the realm of possibility), you and those who share your beliefs might become the ones needing the protections of free speech and the ability to circumvent deplatforming.

_Now_ do you see why maintaining free speech protections is important?

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#279

Post by Fins »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #199
Fins wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, if you look you can find people equally odious on Twitter as well. but if only people leaning in one direction get deplatformed there, of course they will congregate on a platform where they do not get deplatformed. Both end up as self-perpetuating filter bubbles (although Twitter might be slightly better just because its older and larger).

> Frankly, if you look you can find people equally odious on Twitter as well. You can, but it's a tiny minority of people on Twitter. When I load this page on Gab, literally every single recommended account is like this. A random sample of Twitter users will be basically the same as a random sample of Internet users and brands; a random sample of Gab users seems to be entirely alt-right, white supremacists and Nazis.…

Same thing -- people calling for odious thing Y (whgich, unlike odious thing X doesn't get them kicked out of Twitter) would not care to go to Gab with its tiny number of users. Of course Gab would court those who might actually be interested in joining.

Not to say that Gab isn't a cesspool, and Mr. Torba, when he shows up here, appears to be a rather unpleasant character, but Gab being full of bad people is a function not only of Gab being bad by definition, but also of bigger players' policies as well.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#280

Post by Fins »

spamizbad wrote: post #195
Fins wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that Twitter's definition of "nazis" basically is "anyone we don't like, which isn't exactly useful for the overall benefit of humanity. Sort of like how FB recently said that they are going to deplatform white supremacists. Why not all supremacists, while you're at it, or don't pretend that you are doing something for any kind of greater good...

But it's not limited to "white" nationalists. They recently deplatformed infamous anti-semite and black nationalist Louis Farrakhan. And before anyone says this guy has always been a crank: he was actively being courted by Repulicans like Jack Kemp in the 1980s back when his anti-communist views were deemed politically useful.

That seems to be a prime example of "too little, too late", and looks like a rather han-fisted attempt to appear fair.
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