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Gab will become a Mastodon fork

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Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#81

Post by scohesc »

kristianc wrote: post #24
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #18

Oh, the Mastodon community is going to be ticked about this... Purism said Librem One's server wasn't going to police speech, and they were upset about it. Gab is a whole different level. I think ActivityPub has huge potential to be a way for communities of disparate views and perspectives to exist out there, and two distinct and very opposing groups have grasped onto it: People who want space spaces who don't think…

> People who want space spaces who don't think mainstream platforms moderate enough, and the alt-right and free speech crowd. I've never really understood the 'safe spaces' line of argument. I'm a 30 year old white male, and whenever I log onto YouTube I see nothing but recommendations trying to force me down the alt-right rabbit hole. Sure, Twitter has booted off a few high profile people on the alt right but I don'…

See, alt-right is such a subjective term.

I've seen people say that wearing a hat with "MAGA" on it is alt-right.

I've also seen people say that opinions like "we want an entire race of people locked up and punished" is alt-right as well.

While one is definitively magnitudes worse than the other, they're both put under the banner of "alt-right".

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#82

Post by davexunit »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #62
davexunit wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like my feed to not be flooded with racist/sexist replies. Mastodon has been a huge step in the right direction in this regard. "Free speech" doesn't mean "no moderation allowed".

Your "feed" (at least in the context of Facebook's/Twitter's) is comprised of people/groups that you follow. If your feed is garbage, then that means you follow people/groups that post garbage. Mastodon will be a more amplified version of that.

All posts on twitter are public, which means anyone is susceptible to abuse from any other user, and twitter does next to nothing about it. This isn't the case on the fediverse.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#83

Post by asdf21 »

davexunit wrote: post #71
asdf21 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate speech isn't even a valid legal distinction in the US, first of all.* Even philosophically, it's extremely hairy to define. Would you consider harshly criticizing Scientology and its adherents to be hate speech? How about harshly criticizing Islam? It's pathetic to me how nowadays any criticism of a group, no matter how valid, has been rebranded into "hate speech" by so many. Just because you criticize something…

"I hate soup" - OK "I hate muslims" - not OK glad I could help clear up these muddy waters we're in.

[flagged]

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#84

Post by manigandham »

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…

The people who post those things also use the internet, email, chat apps, social media and everything else. At some point you have to accept that people can say and do what they want and only they are responsible for it.

Gab is no different than any other social media site in that what you see is a function of who you follow, but gab has no moderation at all so you will see things you don’t like more often. It is what it is, but it always seems strange to me to blame the platform for its users.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#85

Post by jrumbut »

loceng wrote: post #34
javagram wrote: post #4

> “Moving to the ActivityPub protocol as our base allows us to get into mobile App Stores without even having to submit and get approval of our own apps, whether Apple and Google like it or not.“ The perils (or benefits?) of open protocols. Existing mastodon/pleroma clients will be able to connect to Gab by adding a server setting. Now I wonder if mastodon client app developers will start filtering the allowed server…

The conclusion I always seem to come to is you eventually want to be able to trust those within your network. I believe that requires some level of initial openness to prove who you are to a personally selected authority you decide to trust, who can verify your identity, and then allow you to communicate/engage with your real name or one-to-many pseudonyms, so if your actions are outside whatever rules exist for that…

The conversation here goes pretty well, no real names required. I actually think it's the opposite, real names bring in our real world problems and identities.

A fresh name is a fresh start and maybe you take the chance to do better this time.

It seems like people feel free to post the most atrocious nonsense on Facebook under their real name or maybe using one of the apparently billions of fake accounts that look just like real people. I don't think trust really works in internet conversations with strangers, you can't ever know their motives even if you know their names.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#86

Post by inawarminister »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #80
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…

Every time someone sets out to create a completely unmoderated free speech platform, it immediately becomes an object lesson in why people moderate platforms.

That's because the first adopters of an unmoderated platforms are those who were kicked out from the moderated platforms, whether rightfully or wrongly.

Indeed, many settlements in the yesteryears were founded by outlaws and dissidents (also see: the Pilgrims and Mormon settlement of Utah)

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#87

Post by ocdtrekkie »

gfodor wrote: post #59

Those focused on Gab's audience should realize this kind of attempt is the best hope for a global migration off of twitter to a decentralized service. (Which to me, would be a good thing.) If it was ever going to happen at this point, it would probably be by venture backed company addressing an alienated audience from the platform who is incentivized enough to switch platforms, building a good UX around a decentraliz…

Most of the Mastodon network will ban Gab immediately (and the founder of Gab acknowledges as much in the comments of the article), community dilution is very unlikely. But they will get to share federation with a variety of other alt-right and free speech zone Mastodon servers which have been banned by the larger fediverse community.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#88

Post by kgraves »

As much as I hate the bad parts of Gab, I am glad they are standing up to their principles of being a truly free speech social network.

The other social networks just love to censor everybody they disagree with, even a particular orange looking website.

I am also excited and glad they are utilising open source software as well. (This was bound to happen sooner or later) This can make activitypub & decentralised networks mainstream.

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#89

Post by layoutIfNeeded »

loceng wrote: post #2

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network) - "Gab is an English-language social media website, launched publicly in 2017, known for its mainly far-right user base.[9] The site has been described as "extremist friendly"[10] or a "safe haven"[11] for neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right.[10] ... Antisemitism is a prominent part of the site's content[24] and the platform itself has engaged in an…

Mastodon is like email. How do email users feel about other people sending nazi stuff via email?

Re: Gab will become a Mastodon fork

#90

Post by nicky0 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #65
nicky0 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble with outlawing "hate speech" is: who gets to decide what is hate speech?

Who gets to define murder? All rules are made by fallible humans. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have rules.

I never said we shouldn't have rules. I'm saying we should not have harmful rules.

Rules which limit speech are harmful. This is because free communication of ideas is the foundation of a free and democratic soceity.

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