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Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai

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Re: Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai

#51

Post by gotlove »

nols wrote: post #50
mundo wrote: post #22

Not to sound conspiratorial, but isn't Gab.ai trying to market itself as a censorship-free twitter clone for alt-right types? If so, what better way to generate brand awareness and users than by picking fights with liberals?

Seems like it, I Googled him to get a better understanding and several prominent links were Breitbart articles about other posts of his that were removed from Twitter and Facebook. Looks like a lot of it is just drumming up support for his completely free speech Twitter clone.

Also, not really 'completely free speech' either. From the Breitbart article:

> a zero tolerance policy for promoting terrorism

Everyone has their own version of acceptable free speech. Him using 'free speech' as his tagline and yet having restrictions is hypocritical.

Re: Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai

#52

Post by tafeminist »

sama wrote: post #36

We support free speech, obviously. And we're happy to fund people with all sorts of different political views. We do not allow harassment, for which Andrew unfortunately set a new bar in our community. You can look at his Twitter or Facebook for plenty of public examples, to say nothing of what he's said privately. As per our previous comments, when a founder violates our ethics statement, we remove them from the com…

@sama Sam Altman, can you explain your reasoning for banning a company that merely wrote something on Twitter, but you allowed Jumpcut from S16 who actually went into the streets and filmed street harassment (forcefully kissing women without permission, massaging them without permission, and "motor-boating" them as an incentive for charity) with their brand Simple Pickup?

Here are links proving my point: http://www.dailydot.com/irl/simple-pickup-youtube-sexual-ass...

http://www.dailycal.org/2012/02/29/youtube-pickup-artists-co...

Here's the petition to remove their YouTube channel -> www.change.org/p/youtube-com-end-street-harassment-remove-simple-pickup-s-youtube-channel-13bef5b3-1dcc-4f8a-be88-ef3f69cc7e1c

They are still making money with their Project Go program which shows their instructor Willy molesting a woman without her knowing she was being filmed.

Seems like this type of harassment is an embodiment of what you would disagree with.

Or were you just not aware of this?

Re: Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai

#53

Post by hawkice »

angersock wrote: post #41
sama wrote: post #36

We support free speech, obviously. And we're happy to fund people with all sorts of different political views. We do not allow harassment, for which Andrew unfortunately set a new bar in our community. You can look at his Twitter or Facebook for plenty of public examples, to say nothing of what he's said privately. As per our previous comments, when a founder violates our ethics statement, we remove them from the com…

While I'm generally rather suspect of you folks and your moral authority, this is an example of the behavior you're referring to: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAg4AXXcAITru4.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAbtwQUcAApPQa.jpg https://twitter.com/torbahax/status/797110760556167168 From a pure business standpoint, fuck that guy. He didn't really articulate his views in any way that could remotely be considered co…

The first and third ones were clearly mean-spirited, but the second one seems like it's in-bounds for society as a whole ("coward", while obviously impolite, can't possibly be worse than "racist", which is apparently an in-bounds part of political conversation). Not an insane request to abide by either: if they are literally asking for it, naming and shaming seems opt-in-able.

Re: Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai

#55

Post by [deleted] »

angersock wrote: post #41
sama wrote: post #36

We support free speech, obviously. And we're happy to fund people with all sorts of different political views. We do not allow harassment, for which Andrew unfortunately set a new bar in our community. You can look at his Twitter or Facebook for plenty of public examples, to say nothing of what he's said privately. As per our previous comments, when a founder violates our ethics statement, we remove them from the com…

While I'm generally rather suspect of you folks and your moral authority, this is an example of the behavior you're referring to: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAg4AXXcAITru4.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAbtwQUcAApPQa.jpg https://twitter.com/torbahax/status/797110760556167168 From a pure business standpoint, fuck that guy. He didn't really articulate his views in any way that could remotely be considered co…

[deleted]

Re: Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai

#56

Post by nickthemagicman »

angersock wrote: post #41
sama wrote: post #36

We support free speech, obviously. And we're happy to fund people with all sorts of different political views. We do not allow harassment, for which Andrew unfortunately set a new bar in our community. You can look at his Twitter or Facebook for plenty of public examples, to say nothing of what he's said privately. As per our previous comments, when a founder violates our ethics statement, we remove them from the com…

While I'm generally rather suspect of you folks and your moral authority, this is an example of the behavior you're referring to: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAg4AXXcAITru4.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAbtwQUcAApPQa.jpg https://twitter.com/torbahax/status/797110760556167168 From a pure business standpoint, fuck that guy. He didn't really articulate his views in any way that could remotely be considered co…

Wow, just wow. Jerk!

Also that dude needs to get off /b/ every now and then. He sounds like hes got a box of chicken tendies next to his keyboard...

Re: Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai

#57

Post by hyperpape »

predius wrote: post #25
hyperpape wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) The Clint Eastwood case seems to be a fake account: http://nypost.com/2016/11/10/clint-eastwoods-twitter-account... , which doesn't entirely answer the question of why it was banned, but definitely muddies the waters. Do you have an example of someone not potentially impersonating a celebrity? 2) The Wikipedia page primarily concerns cases where Twitter is ordered to engage in censorship by other countries, not Tw…

Brittany Pettibone offered evidence that Twitter is shadow-banning her, here: https://twitter.com/BrittPettibone/status/797186228894322688

So that's weird. I looked at her feed, didn't see anything beyond the pale.

On the other hand, I can't quite replicate her search. When I search, I get more results than she does, maybe not as many as I'd expect, but importantly, not the same as her. I can't say "obviously there's nothing here" but I also don't think there's a smoking gun.

If you're concerned about this, you really should not be pointing me to one tweet by one user. You should have reams of evidence, documented, with a timeline, with comparisons to what other users see, etc, etc. If you don't care about convincing people who haven't already bought in, that's ok, but if you do want to persuade, you're going to have to provide something better than this one tweet. (Case in point, downthread, we have a person who's convinced they were shadowbanned, then all of a sudden they check, and they aren't: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12935624).

Re: Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai

#58

Post by [deleted] »

hawkice wrote: post #53
angersock wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm generally rather suspect of you folks and your moral authority, this is an example of the behavior you're referring to: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAg4AXXcAITru4.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAbtwQUcAApPQa.jpg https://twitter.com/torbahax/status/797110760556167168 From a pure business standpoint, fuck that guy. He didn't really articulate his views in any way that could remotely be considered co…

The first and third ones were clearly mean-spirited, but the second one seems like it's in-bounds for society as a whole ("coward", while obviously impolite, can't possibly be worse than "racist", which is apparently an in-bounds part of political conversation). Not an insane request to abide by either: if they are literally asking for it, naming and shaming seems opt-in-able.

[deleted]

Re: Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai

#59

Post by hyperpape »

Torgo wrote: post #35
hyperpape wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which users were banned for expression of opinions? I initially wrote "high profile", following your comment, but I don't actually care. High profile or not, that would make me worry. I know Milo was banned based on the accusations that he'd orchestrated harassment of Leslie Jones, but I haven't heard of anyone being banned simply for expressing a political position. As far as hashtag manipulation goes, I'm not sure…

Look into why Charles Johnson was banned. They took a statement he made that obviously meant "I am going to write a news story about this person that will be very bad for them" and tortured it into a death threat, and banned him for life. There is literally no defense of this because it was so obviously a bad-faith interpretation, and yet other people have very obviously put people in actual danger, like Spike Jones…

1) Interesting that you mention doxxing in the context of Chuck Johnson, since when he was banned for his tweet about Deray, he had already posted home addresses of two NYTimes reporters. That both a) indicates that he was a bad actor, and b) colors how you might interpret comments about "taking out" someone. It doesn't turn it into a threat of violence, but it does make it look a lot more like using Twitter to organize harassment.

The other thing is that this is just a tough way to argue. There's massive amounts of harassment on twitter, and enforcement is incredibly haphazard. Did Spike Lee get a pass because he's a liberal? Or because in 2012, Twitter was completely clueless about any kind of response to harassment?

2) Hashtags: as it stands, everything you've said is your own personal observation and too vague for me to even try and confirm. Rather than repeat myself, let me just reference my other comment about doing the work to prove your accusations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12936414

3) I will however, repeat my question from before: is there any political opinion that I can utter as an American citizen that will get me banned from Twitter?

Re: Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai

#60

Post by 1337biz »

tafeminist wrote: post #52
sama wrote: post #36

We support free speech, obviously. And we're happy to fund people with all sorts of different political views. We do not allow harassment, for which Andrew unfortunately set a new bar in our community. You can look at his Twitter or Facebook for plenty of public examples, to say nothing of what he's said privately. As per our previous comments, when a founder violates our ethics statement, we remove them from the com…

@sama Sam Altman, can you explain your reasoning for banning a company that merely wrote something on Twitter, but you allowed Jumpcut from S16 who actually went into the streets and filmed street harassment (forcefully kissing women without permission, massaging them without permission, and "motor-boating" them as an incentive for charity) with their brand Simple Pickup? Here are links proving my point: http://www.d…

And here we go. That is exactly what happens once censorship is not any longer based on legal evidence but personal judgement. The 'my feelings are hurt more than yours competition' starts.

Edit: Actually watched some of the videos mentioned. Totally amazed how anyone can get offended by prank videos and doesn't know about actors involved.

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