311–320 of 335 posts
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yeah, but only if everyone agrees on what constitutes rights and freedom. Is the BDS movement abusing or using their rights to free speech?
AFAIK they are fighting for the right to live of palestinians
Let's flip this around - if I started a movement to Boycott, divest, and sanction palestinians would my speech create real world harm?
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That's a common claim, but I've seen precious little evidence for it. 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. A good book on the topic is Neiwart's "Alt-America", written by a journalist who studied American white supremacists starting in the 1980s.…
So American firms are guilty of foreign interference in elections now, are they? Oh the irony.
Gab solicited $5M [1] in investments just to use open source software that anyone can use for free. Wonder how those investors feel about it. [1]: https://thinkprogress.org/social-network-that-caters-to-whit...
The fact that, in 2019, you can't post on Gab without effectively declaring an affinity for white supremacy (whether you agree or not, that's certainly the message you'd broadcast by doing so) can't help user acquisition either.
† It's been a minute since I looked, but all the accounts I had there, none of which have ever interacted with the site, seem to be, err, popular with the ladies in my area just looking for a good time.
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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?
In my view, believing that if you defend free speech hard enough the forces of fascism and hate will become interested in "hearing all perspectives" is incredibly naive.
To be clear, I do not think it should be illegal or impossible to express hateful views. I don't think there needs to be some effort to block their forking of Mastedon (if it were even possible).
I think it _is_ wrong to celebrate a company which trades in hate and has provided a platform for radicalization which has contributed to at least two major terrorist attacks.
I take issue with the sentiment that it is somehow good they are
> "standing up to their principles of being a truly free speech social network"
It's not true that they are a "free speech social network," they are a platform deliberately cultivating hate. And I think it's wrong to give anyone working to promote hate a pat on the back.
Don't hold up Gab as some free speech hero, you're just playing into their narrative.
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Speech there is free-er than on twitter.
Which is odd, because in every other instance with every other platform, any censorship no matter how benign is denounced as a slippery slope towards an inevitable and irreversible Orwellian nightmare dystopia. I guess Gab is the exception to the rule for some reason.
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Which is odd, because in every other instance with every other platform, any censorship no matter how benign is denounced as a slippery slope towards an inevitable and irreversible Orwellian nightmare dystopia. I guess Gab is the exception to the rule for some reason.
Was that censorship in order to conform to US law? If not, sorry but you're comparing apples to oranges.
Censorship can be (and in the most heinous cases, is) compelled by a government, and can even arguably serve the public good, as is often argued with hate speech laws, or (less controversially) with laws against libel and slander. But as far as free speech is concerned, all censorship is equally dangerous.
It's hypocrisy for defenders of Gab to complain about platform owners and businesses de-platforming them, while accepting Gab doing the same.
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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 w…
You ARE calling for censorship. It's no less censorship just because it's developers doing the censorship instead of governments.
> 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.
The thing about unalienable human rights is that they are UNALIENABLE. The right to free speech doesn't simply go away when you put a business in charge.
I agree that the first amendment doesn't apply to businesses, and this is one of the largest reasons that we should be concerned about the increasing control that businesses have over the most influential of our communications platforms. This how free speech dies--all mainstream communications are moved onto corporate platforms where free speech isn't protected, and then opponents of free speech call for censoring views they disagree with.
You seem to be under the misconception that free speech is only important because of the first amendment, but the opposite is true. The first amendment is only important because it protects free speech, which is what really matters.
> It's no different than places like Hacker News which heavily moderates its content.
It's different because Hacker News purports to be a forum for specific topics, rather than a general communications platform like Gab or Twitter.
> 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.
And here we get to the crux of what you completely ignored in my previous post: the censorship you're demanding DOESN'T PROTECT THE VULNERABLE. It just doesn't work. The people who hold racist, nazi, sexist, violent, etc. viewpoints don't simply disappear because you censor them. They still exist, and censoring them merely drives them together, into more unified communities, since they can't talk to anyone else. We lose the opportunity to talk to them, and change their minds. The censorship you're demanding is not the solution to to the division in our culture, it's the CAUSE of the division in our culture.
When you call for censorship, you're opening Pandora's box. Maybe today you can successfully censor Nazis, but only a few short decades ago, Nazis were in power and censoring other people. Censorship doesn't benefit the right ideas, it benefits the ideas that are in power, and the ideas that are in power aren't always right. Before you throw away free speech and call for censorship, consider that free speech allows YOU to say what YOU'RE saying, and in the future it may be YOUR ideas that are censored.
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> 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.
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... The "OK" hand sign?
https://www.adl.org/blog/how-the-ok-symbol-became-a-popular-...
You can argue that this type of trolling is bad because helps normalize white supremacy, but that doesn't mean their motivation is actual white supremacy.
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https://www.adl.org/blog/how-the-ok-symbol-became-a-popular-...
Did you read the article or even the headline? The ADL literally says it's a trolling gesture, not a white supremacist sign. You can argue that this type of trolling is bad because helps normalize white supremacy, but that doesn't mean their motivation is actual white supremacy.