Earlier quoted context omitted.
> By supporting freedom of association I support that company’s can ban you for saying things they don’t agree with The US already limit companies "Right of Association" by virtue of things like Providers of Last Resort (that's the extent of my knowledge on this topic in the context of America) so it's not an alien concept. Do you feel that the electricity company should be able to cut off your power supply because y…
If you're planning on a violent assault on others, all those protections disappear. Free speech has well established limitations that are pretty easy to understand.
Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked
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Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked
#32Ratting people out to the government is hip now... crazy times.
Gab is a site that caters to hate groups. I guess the targets of their hatred take it personally. That seems rational to me.
Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Parler is basically a direct clone of twitter's basic features. They use different names but have features similar to that of Twitter's tweet/like/retweet. Gab's current iteration is a mastodon fork (although iirc they don't participate in the fediverse via activitypub). Gab is similar to Twitter like Parler but is less of a direct clone, offering other features Twitter doesn't have. Gab has been along for longer and…
> Both market to the (mostly American) far right, with their shtick being basically "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended.
A) the actual full scope of the problem of censorship in the real world,
B) the actual rights that other people have to freely associate or filter content they find objectionable, and
C) the actual practical ways to increase free speech access.
Ignoring for a second the ideologies these people espouse, purely speaking as a free speech advocate far right people make my job harder, both because they only seem to show up to advocate for free speech in very selective situations, and because most of their ideas on how to preserve free speech are, frankly, really bad.
Most of the far right crowd isn't going to show up to bat for concepts like Net Neutrality, they're not going to be out campaigning against LGBTQ+ or sex censorship. These are the people I see in my timelines cheering on government intervention into public university curriculums. They push dangerous concepts like Section 230 repeals or nationalizing media companies, and some of their more experimental proposals are just blatantly unconstitutional. It's wild to hear proposals from people who claim that they're free speech advocates that would not hold up under almost any Supreme Court ruling. These people also don't have sophisticated ideas on how to handle spam, pornography, or copyright other than to shrug their shoulders and say that the 1st Amendment shouldn't apply to those things. And their big solution to Twitter censorship is to make new centralized platforms that (for now) cater to specifically them; there's nothing realistic or interesting or permanent about what they're proposing. It's a demographic that likes to say that they're pro-free-speech, but in my opinion a lot of that is just thoughtless rhetoric around the fact that they're mad that different people than them now have power to form their own communities and organize their own social campaigns.
So I would not call Gab or Parler bastions of free speech, and it irritates me that those sites steal headlines and place themselves at the center of these debates. Both sites are far right echo chambers filled with a lot of people who's primary experience with censorship begins and ends with the idea that nobody should be allowed to block them on Twitter. And neither site is afraid to engage in its own censorship -- the sites bill themselves as 1st Amendment advocates purely based around who they censor, not because they have compelling or innovative ideas about how to run a community in general.
I'm being a little uncharitable here, but I'm not being very uncharitable. I have almost completely given up trying to engage with far right ideas on free speech, because a significant portion of that demographic is only interested in free speech in ways that personally benefit them, and trying to assemble their views into an internally consistent philosophy has frankly been kind of a giant waste of my time. If you're worried about tech censorship, go donate to Mastodon or Matrix -- projects that are filled with people who are actually thinking about free speech in deep, thoughtful, and practical ways.
Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked
#34At Ars Technica, few of the commenters are concerned about the erosion of privacy and freedom of speech of Gab users.
Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
> By supporting freedom of association I support that company’s can ban you for saying things they don’t agree with The US already limit companies "Right of Association" by virtue of things like Providers of Last Resort (that's the extent of my knowledge on this topic in the context of America) so it's not an alien concept. Do you feel that the electricity company should be able to cut off your power supply because y…
I presented an example along those lines, but more apt. I noticed you didn’t explain why you thought it was less applicable. And yes, the internet service provider should not be able to monitor your communication and selectively block it. But why do should people be forced to associate with neonazis against their will? Expressing neonazi and white nationalist propaganda does not make one a a protected class so busine…
While the ideology is terrible, hateful, close minded, harmful, etc, we tolerate their right to speech because no one knows when you might be the next “Neo Nazi”. A flick of the switch politically, and TPTB might find that LGBT speech is hateful. Perhaps people new to the tech industry don’t remember a time when being a computer nerd was anti-social, and clashed with the norms of society. Sure there are consequences to this ideology. People can get hurt and people’s lives can be impacted. But that is the price to live in a free society. Speaking to your last question, I think McDonalds should absolutely have the right to refuse service to a Klan member. But if I was in charge of McDonalds I would serve them. Because IMHO the outcome of a society where speech is no longer free, either by corporate cancel culture or government regulation, is not a society I want to live in.
Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gab is a site that caters to hate groups. I guess the targets of their hatred take it personally. That seems rational to me.
Can you provide some evidence they catered to hate groups? It was my understanding they attracted hate groups due to their policy of 'free speech', but did not specifically cater to them
Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gab is a site that caters to hate groups. I guess the targets of their hatred take it personally. That seems rational to me.
Can you provide some evidence they catered to hate groups? It was my understanding they attracted hate groups due to their policy of 'free speech', but did not specifically cater to them
Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
why do so many people confusedly assume free speech means forcing printers to print neo-nazi propaganda. Whatever happened to freedom of association? Some businesses and people don’t want to associate with neonazis and don’t want to be known as the company that helps neonazis. Why do people who espouse free speech want to take away freedom to choose who one associates with?
The argument I've heard from friends on the left opposed to free speech is that barely-moderated forums inevitably turn into "white supremacist" sites.
Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Parler is basically a direct clone of twitter's basic features. They use different names but have features similar to that of Twitter's tweet/like/retweet. Gab's current iteration is a mastodon fork (although iirc they don't participate in the fediverse via activitypub). Gab is similar to Twitter like Parler but is less of a direct clone, offering other features Twitter doesn't have. Gab has been along for longer and…
> Both market to the (mostly American) far right, with their shtick being basically "you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other moderation". It’s incredible that supporting free speech is considered to be only important enough to the “far right” now to be worth marketing to. Free speech used to be something all Americans supported and defended.
Re: Gab has been hacked and 70GB of data leaked
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
When free speech turns to hate speech, filled with lies and distortions, can it still be called free speech? Is free speech absolute? If tomorrow, fox news falsely says your family is defrauding the IRS, qould you be ok with that because thwy have the right to free speech? The intent of free speech is to have tge freedom to criticise those in power. Not to spread hate and divisions in the society.
Yes, it can be called free speech, although there can be repercussions when that speech falls into slander / libel / defamation. Outside of that, why would you ever want the government deciding what you can and cannot say? Right now you may be aligned with the government, but that can change very easily in the future