Gab will become a Mastodon fork • Hacker News Board

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#281

Post by cannonedhamster » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:02 AM UTC

anth_anm wrote: post #263

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…

> that is causing those who've been disadvantaged the same privileges that white males have enjoyed alone for much of recent human history No. Black people can't own slaves. They aren't going to get to profit off centuries of colonial oppression. They aren't going to get to be the only enfranchised people in the country. They won't even get to enjoy the comfortable middle class lifestyle that persisted until the late…

I was trying to limit the context to recent times specially for this reason. You're absolutely correct, they won't get all the rights and privileges that previous people in power had, not should they. And you're correct that they won't receive those rights alone. However they should receive the benefits that they are entitled to by the efforts of their work and their character and the arc of history is slowly bending in that direction Unfortunately none of this means that there won't be an inevitable backlash against those who deserve it the least.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#282

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:11 AM UTC

Fins wrote: post #279

jakelazaroff wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 functi…

[deleted]

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#283

Post by ohithereyou » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:25 AM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #274

Hamuko wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or email. Some of the most racist shit I've ever seen has come in as a forward from some distant relative who then gets autoshitcanned in the future.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#284

Post by vikingcaffiene » Fri, May 31, 2019, 2:41 AM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #99

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #13

I had heard about Gab but never visited the site before. I just spent 30 seconds perusing the trending feed. I saw the following: 1. a video of a man being shot and killed during an armed robbery 2. 3 anti islam posts 3. the usual pro trump propaganda 4. a meme warning about the evils of feminism urging women to get back to their "place" in the family. Gab is a festering pile of trash. Anyone responsible for making a…

I don't like most of the content you mention, but I still don't understand your pro-censorship viewpoint. What's your goal here? Do you honestly think that preventing these people from having a public voice will make them disappear? Or do you simply want to brush them under the carpet so you can pretend they don't exist? I think a much better approach is to allow free speech, and to spend some of our time kindly and…

If you read my original comment you'll see I am not actually calling for censorship. I am calling for any developers responsible for providing Gab with technical assistance to re-evaluate what they are doing with their skills. It's a matter of professional ethics and it matters quite a bit to me. If they are helping Gab in any capacity they either agree with the content on it, or are taking a cynical payday. Either way its repulsive and it needs to be called out.

While we are on the subject of censorship: yes people with vile viewpoints exist. Yes they have a right to express those viewpoints. NO a platform does not have to help them spread said viewpoints. I would like to remind you that Gab is a _business_, not a government. They are under no obligation to honor the 1st amendment. It's no different than places like Hacker News which heavily moderates its content. Codes of conduct exist for a reason and it is to protect the vulnerable. If you don't feel that deeply in your bones it's likely because you aren't a member of a demographic that is under threat.

Gab, by its very existence and prominence legitimizes racism, nazism, sexism, violence, etc. It creates a community and a sense of moral righteousness around it. People are _dying_ and the country is on the brink of chaos. We can't ignore this threat any longer. Gab _can_ in fact moderate hate speech on their platform. They just don't either because they believe it or because it's profitable. Either way I hope their business dies and they go broke because what they are doing is wrong.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#285

Post by jakelazaroff » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:04 AM UTC

Fins wrote: post #279

jakelazaroff wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 functi…

Sure, granted. But who cares? It doesn't make Gab come off any better. Opportunistic bigotry is just as bad as… well, bigotry.

I'm not saying Andrew Torba shouldn't have built Gab; I am lamenting its existence, insofar as I don't want anyone to be a white supremacist. But white supremacists do exist, and as long as they do they'll make spaces for themselves, whether on Gab or 8chan or some dark corner of Twitter. All we can do is push those spaces as far away as possible.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#286

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:04 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #268

vorpalhex wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deplatforming is like trying to cure cancer with an axe. Even when you have a temporary win, it's at a terrible and horrible cost. Plenty of folks have tried to ban history books too.

Nobody is talking about banning history books about Nazis. They're not even talking about about preventing Nazis from speaking. They're just choosing to exercise their freedom of association and not provide a platform for Nazis, the same way they boot harassers and spammers. And the same way that publishers have for centuries declined to publish works they don't want to stand behind. You can handwave all you like abo…

> You can handwave all you like about the (vague, unspecified) horrible cost.

There is a place on Earth where opinions deemed to be bad are vigilantly monitored for and instantly deplatformed: The People's Republic of China. Is that truly the future you wish for?

Reading these posts from the modern left is ghastly to those of us who remain old school liberals. To defeat their opponents and prevent them from crushing the human rights of innocents, the modern left has become willing themselves to crush various other human rights that they deem unimportant. Thus we see Nietzsche spake truly: "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#287

Post by jakelazaroff » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:11 AM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #275

jakelazaroff wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

https://www.adl.org/blog/how-the-ok-symbol-became-a-popular-...

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#288

Post by vikingcaffiene » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:19 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #28

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #13

I had heard about Gab but never visited the site before. I just spent 30 seconds perusing the trending feed. I saw the following: 1. a video of a man being shot and killed during an armed robbery 2. 3 anti islam posts 3. the usual pro trump propaganda 4. a meme warning about the evils of feminism urging women to get back to their "place" in the family. Gab is a festering pile of trash. Anyone responsible for making a…

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

Since we're doing quotes:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

Hate speech should not be allowed a safe haven. Gab is a business and, as such, is not required to adhere to the first amendment.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#289

Post by phoe-krk » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:43 AM UTC

robobro wrote: post #245

phoe-krk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now I wonder if mastodon client app developers will start filtering the allowed servers users can put in... This is not the duty of client applications. Banning instances is the duty of the operators of individual instances, and the instance(s) on which you have your account(s) are the instance(s) whose blocking policy affects you. This is a feature. Most sane instances on the Fediverse already ban extremist and al…

WAHA, brain behind a major Mastodon app, has claimed they're blocking Gab in his client and that users can't unblock Gab. As a free software guy, this troubles me. This is on par with firefox deciding which websites they should block. (In fact the Oculus Browser blocks 4chan / 8ch / other sites)

Use free software instead, change it as you please, and build it yourself. WAHA's client is not free and they can do as they please with it.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#290

Post by vorpalhex » Fri, May 31, 2019, 3:47 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #269

qball wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why did fail? He himself says social media bans were the reason. Politician blames everything but his own politics for his failure to get elected. News at 11. >For decades US Nazis and other loons were justifiably obscure. But the rise of the Internet, which enabled all sorts of connection, also enabled our country's worst to more easily connect, network, and recruit. And yet the number of race riots and violent cri…

Experts who study the topic make pretty clear that this is a problem. That you, an anonymous person on the internet, believe otherwise, is not much in the way of evidence. It's also ridiculous that you conflate the 1992 riots (which were a spontaneous reaction to police violence) with the sort of things that Nazis would like to get up to. It's even more ridiculous that you ignore things like the Charlottesville car a…

You are missing a lot of understanding not just on the initial cause of the 92 riots but the effects including racial violence - which is exactly the sort of thing Nazis would get up to.

Can you quote some experts? And, preferably not some far right quack blaming twitter for him losing.

Likewise, you seem to be caught up in some epiphenomenon issues - you blame the internet for these attacks yet similar attacks and much worse ones preceeded the internet. Therefore deplatforming is a red herring, you're literally just using tragic attacks to push deplatforming messages you disagree with - and I don't like those messages either, but censorship isn't the answer.