Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#391

Post by tptacek » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #297

tptacek wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting thing for him to say, because Gab is absolutely and obviously a white nationalist social media platform. Want another example? Arguing with Ken White (Popehat) on Twitter, the official Gab account RT'd a white nationalist mocking Ken for having adopted Asian children. https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1026849669425520640

I think it's important to distinguish between platforms that host content of a given topic, and platforms that are specifically set up for a certain topic. For example, Reddit has /r/motorcycles, but I wouldn't call it "a motorcycling discussion platform". I'd call advrider.com or bayarearidersforum.com motorcycle discussion platforms. They're websites specifically set up for motorcycling related discussion. A websit…

Respectfully, I think you want that to be important, and in the airless vacuum of a message board it might be, but common sense says that a "free speech" venue that is absolutely overrun with white supremacist speech, run by a committed white supremacist, simply is a white supremacist site.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#392

Post by tptacek » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 7:53 AM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #338

pcwalton wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cowardly obscurantism is the standard tactic of white supremacists and others with loathsome views. They know that if they come right out and say what they believe, they will get nowhere. So they engage in slight of hand and dog whistles in order to recruit the gullible. Andrew Torba's entire platform is built on this obscurantism. It would be an insult to my intelligence to claim that the target of this tweet is any…

Yikes, hadn't seen that one. That really is too bad, I hope this attitude doesn't permeate the company, because the platform is gaining steam.

No, it isn't. It's floundering, because it is a site that caters to white supremacists, with an aspirational sideline in catering to normal people. Among people who have any name recognition for Gab whatsoever, simply having a Gab account with your name on it is a pretty icky social signal to be sending.

In practice, what I see as I regularly check up and screenshot it is a whole lot of bot content punctuated by an occasional neo-Nazi post. I don't even think the white supremacists are all that invested in it.

Maybe the ICO will work out for them.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#393

Post by tptacek » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 7:55 AM UTC

pvg wrote: post #390

tptacek wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know why. Something just made me think I was going to want data about it someday.

I'm getting pretty close to getting some Citation artwork commissioned.

You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall, &c.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#394

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 7:57 AM UTC

s9w wrote: post #385

tptacek wrote: post #146

Having read the article but not knowing anything about the posts themselves, I think most of this thread misses the point. Clearly Microsoft knew it was hosting Gab and what Gab was. There's a troll argument that suggests Gab is just "free speech twitter", but of course that's not the case: I've been screenshotting the front page for months, from a random anonymous account, and every time I've done it the front page…

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#395

Post by moduspol » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 8:00 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #344

moduspol wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the point? There are a lot of people here completely in support of this, and it's not hard to trace an IP address to an ISP. When brigades start calling for ISPs to stop serving these sites, do you really think that's when they'll stand up for free speech? Keep in mind in the span of just a few days, we've seen the jump from application platforms (Facebook, Google) to now infrastructure providers. The leap to…

We already have organized brigades demanding ISPs stop providing service to certain people. That is to say, people who spam on an industrial scale. Do you think ISPs should instead be required to host spammers? Perhaps even to provide them extra resources to help them overcome the unfair way people's spam filters censor their valuable free speech?

I'm open to simply acknowledging the Internet is no place for free speech. My point is that ISPs are just as vulnerable to brigading as Facebook or Microsoft, so arguing that it's not a big problem because they're still free to host content on their own hardware is missing the point.

It just seems odd how rabidly pro-Net Neutrality places like this were only to make cases like yours a few months later when free speech on the net actually arrives on the chopping block. How long will it take before my ISP blocks Netflix ostensibly because of complaints of offensive content?

But besides that, it's easy to draw a pretty clear distinction between allowing someone's web site to be accessible as compared to being actively compelled to send whatever outgoing transmissions a group likes. Packets are packets, but just as we don't allow screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre, freedom of speech is still incredibly important even if not absolute.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#396

Post by Mikhail_Edoshin » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 8:04 AM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #376

1123581321 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they may have meant that the conspiracy theory that an interconnected federal government planned Ruby Ridge and Waco, and planned more such incidents, led to the OKC bombing. What the government did was wrong and arguably it was systemically predisposed to do wrong in situations like that. But it wasn’t planning more such actions, the OKC bombing wasn’t connected (I think), and even if so the belief that bomb…

Exactly, Ruby Ridge and Waco for that matter were completely bungled operations, and imo were largely unjustified hamfisted responses. However they weren't inherently nefarious, just sheer incompetence and cowboy minded policing. Yet their mere existence fueled a far right movement that believes they were. In an unfortunate turn, the OKC bombing was a direct result of that. It fell right into the preaching of Koresh…

Well, that sheer incompetence indeed disappeared when it was time to cover all this up. Was that nefarious? Because this is what eventually motivated McVeigh, not some strange conspiracy theories. Let me quote:

"I waited two years from "Waco" for non-violent "checks and balances" built into our system to correct the abuse of power we were seeing in federal actions against citizens. The Executive; Legislative; and Judicial branches not only concluded that the government did nothing wrong (leaving the door open for "Waco" to happen again), they actually gave awards and bonus pay to those agents involved, and conversely, jailed the survivors of the Waco inferno after the jury wanted them set free.

"Other "checks and balances" likewise proved futile: media awareness and outcry (the major media failed in its role as overseer of government ally); protest marches; letter campaigns; even small-budget video production; etc. - all failed to correct the abuse."

Source: https://www.webcitation.org/5wow5v4MK?url=http://www.foxnews...

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#397

Post by zaarn » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 8:16 AM UTC

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #292

anigbrowl wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, proposing that a group have more rights that they don't currently enjoy is just like saying a group should be suppressed and have their rights curtailed.

People don’t get more rights than others. All individuals get the same unalienable rights, and that is a universal truth which is self-evident.

How is this "universal truth self-evident"?

I'd love you to show me that there is a repeatable and measurable experiment that determines that as a fundamental function of the universe, people should have equal rights.

Personally, I don't believe that (the fact it's a universal truth) to be true, morals and ethics are a subjective topic and stuff like "everyone should have equal right" is something that most people including me can agree on fairly easily. Other people might not agree.

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#398

Post by ubernostrum » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 8:51 AM UTC

moduspol wrote: post #395

ubernostrum wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have organized brigades demanding ISPs stop providing service to certain people. That is to say, people who spam on an industrial scale. Do you think ISPs should instead be required to host spammers? Perhaps even to provide them extra resources to help them overcome the unfair way people's spam filters censor their valuable free speech?

I'm open to simply acknowledging the Internet is no place for free speech. My point is that ISPs are just as vulnerable to brigading as Facebook or Microsoft, so arguing that it's not a big problem because they're still free to host content on their own hardware is missing the point. It just seems odd how rabidly pro-Net Neutrality places like this were only to make cases like yours a few months later when free speec…

I'd argue that the pipe -- that is, the entity which owns and controls the physical fiber/wires/etc. through which the packets flow -- should operate under a certain level of enforced neutrality, in the sense that if A and B each are customers of C paying for access to the pipe, C shouldn't decide to disallow, filter, or throttle traffic between them. C (the ISP) should only be able to choose whether or not to take on or keep a particular customer, and to charge fees according to usage. The net neutrality debate is basically over whether to allow C to double dip by refusing to provide the paid-for service unless it's paid for again (and again, and again...).

But that says nothing about whether an ISP should be forced to accept any and all people as paying customers. And it's very far from saying that particular web sites should be forced to accept any and all users and any and all behaviors from those users.

Which means you've basically failed in your quest to label people as hypocrites. Would you like to try again?

(also, you may want to learn a bit more about First Amendment jurisprudence if your go-to is "fire in a crowded theater" -- it makes you look about as well-informed as someone who genuinely insists "the internet is a series of tubes")

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#399

Post by samat » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 8:54 AM UTC

zkms wrote: post #378

s73v3r_ wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't buy that. If Stormfront and Daily Stormer can still be up, then there can't really be any credibility to that argument.

> Yeah, I don't buy that. If Stormfront and Daily Stormer can still be up, then there can't really be any credibility to that argument. That those two loathsome websites are still up doesn't mean that the technique I described is invalid; it just means it doesn't have a 100% kill rate, and it certainly works on less resourced and less indefatigable targets. I'm not worried about those specific websites -- I'm worried…

Can you tell the story about the eviction which took place because of internet trolls?

Re: Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed

#400

Post by s9w » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 8:55 AM UTC

exikyut wrote: post #369

tptacek wrote: post #146

Having read the article but not knowing anything about the posts themselves, I think most of this thread misses the point. Clearly Microsoft knew it was hosting Gab and what Gab was. There's a troll argument that suggests Gab is just "free speech twitter", but of course that's not the case: I've been screenshotting the front page for months, from a random anonymous account, and every time I've done it the front page…

Well, I don't have an account, but this blew up sufficiently enough that I only needed to click "explore" and stumbled on a repost containing a screenshot of the original post. Here you go: https://gab.ai/PNN/posts/31263515 Wow, what a sad website. I don't quite understand the mindset/vitriol/hate/anger/etc here (the reason for it or need for it) psychologically speaking. In any case I've taken my own simple screensh…

> Wow, what a sad website

How is a website sad just because it offers true free speech? I think it's sad the the perception of free speech is being tainted in such a bad light. Free speech is _only_ relevant if it covers the controversial things, too.