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posted by
martyb
on Monday October 29 2018, @08:15AM
from the social-commentary-on-social-media dept.
from the social-commentary-on-social-media dept.
The social network gab.com is apparently going down on Monday, October 29th at 09:00 ET. Their ISP has terminated their services, ostensibly because Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh mass shooting suspect, had made offensive posts on Gab.
To get this out of the way: I have mixed feelings about Gab, more specifically, about the founders. However, the idea that some social network somewhere should refuse to censor anything that is not outright illegal? This is good. Social media has become the modern "market square", and free speech should be guaranteed, even if the platforms are technically private.
If you want free speech, you apparently don't want to be in the U.S.
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Social Media and the Pittsburgh Shooter: Gab.com Going Down
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I never pray before meals -- my mom's a good cook.
(Score: 2) by Walzmyn on Monday October 29 2018, @08:28AM (34 children)
Do we know what he actually posted? I've not seen it anywhere.
Was it something that actually should have been pulled or was it something Gab should have protected?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @08:29AM (22 children)
https://archive.li/k63LE [archive.li]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @08:44AM (1 child)
Right, so a bunch of tripe which if you were to sensor you'd need to also sensor your orange top.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @09:54AM
Riiight. Turn your orange t-shirt into a piss of IoT with an Arduino censor.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 29 2018, @01:10PM (19 children)
His posts indicate he is a real anti-Semite, and that he hates Trump because he reckons Trump is not an anti-Semite.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @01:54PM (2 children)
He hates Trump because he thinks Trump isn't extreme enough. It's novel, though disturbing, that a man who stokes his base by promising to punish people his base hates is disliked by someone who doesn't think Trump hates enough. Like my dad always says "People are complicated."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 29 2018, @04:51PM (1 child)
Trump has not espoused anti-Semitism. He has been the most pro-Israel of recent presidents. He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, which his predecessors feared to do because it would enrage Palestinians. Trump's daughter also married a Jew and converted to Judaism. He has also won several awards from Jewish organizations.
We can't lay this literal anti-Semitic attack at Trump's doorstep.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday October 29 2018, @07:29PM
Don't even try reason with these people. Orange man bad. Another man did a bad thing. The bad Orange man responsible. That is about the limit of their arguments. When a supposed (guy was registered Dim by screenshots I saw until after he was arrested, his social media was following lots Lefties and his pro Trump posts thus only occasionally getting a like and looked machine generated, etc. lots of alarm bells) Trump supporter sends fake prank bombs it is Trump's fault. Now a guy who hates Trump shoots up a joint and that too is Trump's fault. Bernie Bro shoots Rep Scalise and guess what, that was Trump's fault too for "creating a climate of hate." So if you piss off the left and they shoot you it is your fault for pissing them off, that is really all you need to know.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday October 29 2018, @02:55PM (15 children)
Shooter is an asshole who posted crap without threats on Gab. Gab deplatormed.
Mail bomber is an asshole who posted stuff, including a threat to a specific person, on Twitter. Twitter is fine.
https://reason.com/blog/2018/10/29/gab-shuts-down-after-synagogue-shooting [reason.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 29 2018, @05:05PM (14 children)
It is funny how that works.
"Adversity doesn't build your character. Adversity reveals your character." That's a bit of what we're seeing here. People who only support free speech when they agree with what is being said are no champions of free speech at all.
We have an Establishment-driven narrative that is trying to convince everyone that censorship is good, and that Free Speech is actually bad. The Establishment is deeply threatened by free speech, because people who are free to speak their minds are difficult to control. Control, of course, is the key to the power and wealth that the Establishment enjoys.
I'm sitting here, a progressive all my life, watching aghast as the people I thought would fight to the death for the freedom of expression, bully, shame, and coerce interlocutors into silence. I'm watching them mount character assassination campaigns, one after the other, with the mainstream media cheering them on. I just can't believe it.
Yesterday I watched footage online of several hundred young black conservatives meeting with Trump in the Whitehouse, thinking to myself they were the bravest people in America for doing that, and instead of celebrating their courage to speak their minds the mainstream media pretended like it didn't even happen.
People who identify as conservatives or right-wing have been calling progressives hateful and bigoted for years, and I always dismissed that as "pot calling the kettle black," but the way progressives have been behaving the last two years is playing right into that frame. That is, progressives are making that case for them. They should stop that immediately.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @05:17PM
You should not be surprised. The Democratic Party is a right-wing party, and the SJWs and their friends in #metoo are a right-wing authoritarian movement. The only confusion is that the press keeps printing Democratic Party propaganda saying that it somehow represents progressives, and we mistake the propaganda for journalism.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jmorris on Monday October 29 2018, @07:39PM (12 children)
Notice how many dogs aren't barking here.
Where is the EFF? Weren't they founded for exactly this fight? The closest one can find on their website is a bland statement of non-support for corporate censorship. Not opposition you understand, because the effort is lead by "friends" they work with on so many other issues. So they expect virtue points for not getting on board the censorship train. But they won't oppose it either. Because no enemies on the Left, no friends on the Right.
Where is the ACLU? They would defend Nazis when they could use them to sow chaos in quiet Middle American towns. Now? Crickets. Their website is all in on the upcoming elections and reminding everyone that Orange Man Bad.
Where is the media outrage at this silencing of a social media startup? Cheering it on of course, it is $current_year, where else do you think they would be.
Where are the titans of Silicon Valley, defending the Internet against aggression and censorship that WILL (Hell, already is) getting them too? Cheering it on of course, it is $current_year and freedom to censor for corporations is the new freedom.
The entire "Free Speech Movement" basically vanished as soon as the Intersectional SJWs appeared because the two aren't compatible. $current_year has moved beyond free speech.
(Score: 2) by termigator on Monday October 29 2018, @07:51PM (4 children)
The difference here it is a corporate issue and not a governmental one wrt organizations like the ACLU. I.e. It is a matter of contract law between businesses and not between citizens and the government.
This does highlight the modern day problem that speech is now more governed by corporations and not the government, so the First Ammendment is not applicable. The challenge of the day is how do we promote free speech, including speech we may not agree with, vis-a-vis the ever increasing power corporations have on what gets heard?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by curunir_wolf on Monday October 29 2018, @08:07PM (2 children)
That's the narrative, but not the full reality. For instance, Facebook is looking to the Atlantic Council to help them censor content [fortune.com]. What's wrong with that? A private entity involved with a corporation? Well, the Atlantic Council receives a lot of funding from a lot of US Government agencies and divisions. So who is really doing the censorship? The argument can certainly be made that it IS the US Government censoring voices.
Still, don't expect the ACLU or the EFF or the SPLC to make that point. Their own funding sources like the censorship that's happening.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday October 29 2018, @08:13PM (1 child)
Correct. The whole "private company v. government agency" thing is just a convenient excuse when corporate control of the levers of government is so widespread.
In A Corporatist System Of Government, Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship [caitlinjohnstone.com]
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Monday October 29 2018, @08:58PM
Another Caitlin fan! There's a lot I disagree with her about, but we're very in sync on the establishment media.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Monday October 29 2018, @08:13PM
Don't try that crap on me, we all know it is a lie. Antifa is a terror organization. This is not debatable. The definition of terrorism is violence directed at civilian populations to induce them to vote in a certain way. That is the stated purpose of Antifa, therefore it is a terrorist organization. But it has a website, imagine a similar attempt to deplatform them. YOU would be defending them, EFF and ACLU would be defending their quantum Right to hosting that would spring into existence for that one argument only and disappear just as quickly back into corporate freedom to be SJWs when you returned to a discussion of deplatforming the Right.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday October 29 2018, @09:53PM (6 children)
You seem to conflate free speech with freedom of consequences from speech. If you spout off crap that has no other purpose other than to promote harm to others, you are going to get smacked down. This has been the case probably since the dawn of man, as most primitive societies treated that sort of nonsense harshly. No legitimate business today wants to be associated with it, and if a business becomes aware of such activity they are likely going to disassociate themselves from it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:54PM (2 children)
You don't see a problem with the fact that governments and corporations are working closely with one another to determine what should and should not be allowed on these corporate platforms? You don't see a problem with the fact that corporations are capable of controlling what people see and hear to this extent? Do you want to unleash the power of the free market when it comes to censorship, even though you'd be skeptical of corporations in nearly any other context? Then you are short-sighted.
When traditional platforms are restrictive, it's common advise to go start your own platform and make your own rules. Yet, when someone does that, the web host can cut them off, and they have to hope they can find another one. So much for a free and open web. And thank you, dear sir, for supporting multi-billion dollar corporations; they truly need the help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @11:06PM
Nope, don't see a problem. Now if we could just get jmorris to shut up about the SJW convergence in his mom's basement, that would be an achievement!
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday October 30 2018, @10:26PM
How is the government involved with this? I see that the ISP shut them down, I have seen nothing that shows the government was involved. It's an unfortunate fact of life on the internet, one I learned some twenty years ago, that if you use someone else's service as a platform you are completely at their mercy as far as your continued existence there goes. They are not going to expend any time and money to defend you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday October 29 2018, @11:34PM (1 child)
The consequences of Gab letting this guy spout is that we know the motive and can up the charges. In contrast, you seem to think the consequence of unpopular speech should be censorship which makes your opening sentence a real twisting of logic, better phrased thus: "do not conflate free speech with the freedom of government/corporations to censor your unpopular speech." Which is fine and good while the government/Twitter/Facebook/Google all have pure motives (LOL).
I'm not writing this as some right wing nazi-sympathizer -- I'm Jewish -- I'm writing this as one who looks at the media situation we have right now and cringes in fear about what the future holds for anyone with unpopular views or who wishes to dissent from whatever direction the media and government decide we should be going. Crap like that is how we got the Espionage Act, it being a reaction to people protesting our involvement in WWI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 29 2018, @11:45PM
Hate crime charges are unnecessary. Charge him with the 11 murders and 6 attempted murders. That puts him away forever. In fact, they are going for the death penalty.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @05:18AM
That's a load of bull. The two go hand in hand. By that metric, North Korea is a bastion of free speech, talking bad about Dear Leader has no other purpose than to disrupt the harmonious social fabric that has been perfected by the revolution! Legitimizing violence against people you disagree with defeats the point of having free speech at all, I thought you people were smart.
You think too small, business is apolitical. Money from terrorists, money from moral busybodies, money from government is still money. Are you going to personally inspect every commercially available product to ensure they have never ever associated with undesirables up to the N-th degree?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 29 2018, @10:26AM (10 children)
Does it matter? We don't pull posts around here unless they're illegal, which is a higher standard than Gab even. This could just as easily have been us.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheFool on Monday October 29 2018, @01:34PM (6 children)
I have to wonder what you'd do if SoylentNews's host threatened to pull the rug out from under you if you didn't delete a single user's posts, though. Hopefully we never have to see that happen, but who knows with how things are going.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 29 2018, @02:44PM (3 children)
We have multiple backups going back daily for a week, weekly for a month, and monthly for three months of everything worth saving (and a bunch of stuff not worth saving) from each server with an entirely different hosting company. We'd just switch hosts.
Frankly, if it wouldn't be a huge pain in my ass, we'd stop using any payment processor that doesn't support free speech before year's end. Unfortunately that would exclude both of our current payment processors and mean I'd have to find a new processor and code an interface for their API in addition to all the other stuff I have on my plate already.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @04:26PM
implement coinpayments.net gateway with privacy capable and standard coins. you can apply a discount for privacy coins or coins in general. coinpayments.net will even auto reconcile your wallets to USD for you if you want them to. once you've gotten enough people paying with coins you can disable PP/stripe, etc if you want.
(Score: 4, Informative) by jmorris on Monday October 29 2018, @07:44PM (1 child)
There aren't any. The banned have already tried everything. Visa and Mastercard are the blockage, none trades without the mark of one or both of those beasts. When you get the Paypal / Stripe ban you find every smaller processor will also refuse your business and you can't even make your own. Loss of hosting is bad, loss of the financial system is death. Ask Alex Jones or RooshV, both have tried everything to run a credit card and hit a brock wall. Roosh has already put his website in deep freeze mode because he can't get money and Alex Jones will run out of operating reserves soon enough.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 30 2018, @10:44AM
I wouldn't sweat it. If big corps can have shell companies, so can we. Hell, we've been meaning to set up a 501(c)(3) since the very beginning. Plus, we've got nothing against taking checks, money orders, or cash.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday October 29 2018, @02:47PM (1 child)
It is an interesting question. The green site had its share of pressure, I remember the scientologists being particularly difficult.
Back then, /. did in fact start pulling articles and topics/posts when pressured, and it did cause quite a bit commotion in the community, but in the end, it survived another 10+ years, so it wasn't a death knell.
When the choice is between censoring the public forum, or buckling under pressure (that may extend beyond just soylent into the staffs private lives), there is no real easy answer, both have quite bad consequences.
Hopefully it will not come to this, but the world is slowly being stifled and segregated into opposing groups, then fed propaganda and turned against each other.
Things are looking more dire as the days pass by (the USA is just ahead of the curve, being polarised between two parties for a long while now).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 30 2018, @10:49AM
I wouldn't sweat it. We'll take up a collection for some cheap servers and run the thing out of someone's bedroom if necessary. Our modest bandwidth needs make that a very real possibility, so we're going to be exceedingly hard to kill.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Walzmyn on Monday October 29 2018, @08:25PM
That was my point, was it actually illegal stuff that should have been pulled?
From what I saw in that archive, it was stupid, but not illegal
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @03:00AM (1 child)
Hey you stupid nigger, the difference is that our culture isn't centered around racism. A post like mine will get modded down below threshold, or perhaps modded Funny if mods get the humor; but we're not a bunch of kikes making observations in front of brick walls. We're far more serious than that.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 30 2018, @10:50AM
Neither, it appears. You didn't troll well enough.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @08:44AM (4 children)
You have to develop a peer to peer network. We have to tear down the walls the ISPs are putting up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @08:50AM
I expect some of the Gab crowd will move on to the dark web.
The censorship by payment processors was used to threaten WikiLeaks years ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @01:56PM (2 children)
Wouldn't that be a sneer to sneer network?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 29 2018, @05:13PM (1 child)
Is that to insinuate that their speech is less deserving of freedom than others'?
I hear and read speech all the time that is stupid, uninformed, and hateful. That, though, is the price of living in a free society. If I muzzle them, then why shouldn't they also muzzle me?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @08:46PM
Not the original AC but I am going to take this opportunity to give my $0.02 worth.
No, it is not. But perhaps I can put this in a way that even you might understand. They have the right to speak what we might charitably refer to as "their minds". I, on the other hand, have the right to sneer and ignore them. See? No one's rights are infringed.
Yes, I do too.
The obligation is not to muzzle them. Rather it is to rightly evaluate what they have to say and reject it. That will take wisdom, but I have some optimism that we as a society can manage this. If we can't then we are all truly fucked.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @09:03AM (10 children)
I have mixed feelings about bradley13, first, that he may actually be 13. Second, that he purports to be a teacher, and as such should have gotten the lovely "active shooter" training that all American Teachers have gotten, where you are supposed to hide, flee, or crap your pants. So I can only hope that bradley is not actually 13, or does not have access to PVC pipe, or ever encounters an "active shooter" situation. I much prefer the "inactive shooter" situations, but even that is somewhat disconcerting, because the potential is there. And, everyone who posts to Gab.ai needs to be arrested, and shot if they resist arrest. We cannot have Americans acting like Nazis like this, even if they do live in the Deutschsprache parts of Switzerland.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:26AM (9 children)
And thirdly because he has feelz and he mixes them. Nothing wrong with the crap the shooter posted, but his feelz got mixed, more specifically, by the Gab founders.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 29 2018, @10:34AM (8 children)
And forthly, because he wants his speech for free.
As in Gab and the ISP right to property must take second place to bradley13 right to speech for free and they must pay for the speech of bradley13 and his ilk.
Also, "speech for free" as in "no responsibility to be paid by bradley13 for the said freedom" - see? any responsibility is a limitation and his free spirit refuses to be limited.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Monday October 29 2018, @11:08AM (7 children)
Except that if the social control media service happens to market itself as a pubic forum [theatlantic.com], especially when it gets used as a public forum by government officials for communications of office [eff.org], then in the freedom of speech obligation applies. Government officials are not using Gab, but the question applies more widely than just a single social control media platform. Control is easier the more centralized social media remains so there are several major interests that benefit from making sure that the outlier services get shut down or at least become perceived as being associated with illegal activities. No, I don't condone most of what the current Gab is about, nor many other sites both popular and unpopular. However, again, the matter concerns far more than a single site.
As for the ISPs getting into censorhip, shutting down non-illegal communications, common carrier protections exist for many beneficial reasons. Getting rid of common carrier status helps a lot of totalitarian agendas and puts the burden on the ISPs.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 29 2018, @11:14AM (6 children)
And you think this overrides the right to property?
TMB has a word to name those who feel entitled to use other people's money, mind if you ask him what that word is?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday October 29 2018, @11:20AM (4 children)
They waived that intentionally and with premeditation by presenting their service as a public service and building their marketshare upon that claim. If they had stayed a private, members-only club behind some kind of paywall or other obstruction then of course they can behave in whatever way they want, within the law. However, they have not done that. Again, if ISPs want common carrier protections, they have to act as common carriers instead of opening the floodgates for lawsuits from anyone over anything.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 29 2018, @11:28AM (3 children)
Really now.
Show me where they did so or the law that stipulate this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday October 29 2018, @11:30AM (2 children)
Re-read the links two levels up. One is from the EFF the other from The Atlantic.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Monday October 29 2018, @11:58AM (1 child)
Ok. The Atlantic
So... nope.
EEF
Nope again. Trump cannot ban Tweeter users.
Tweeter is still free to kick-out anyone it likes (or actually doesn't like) - unless you can show a breech of contract, Tweeter is still owned by... whoever owns Tweet. 1st amendment does not apply to private entity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday October 29 2018, @04:31PM
... Tweeter is still owned by... whoever owns Tweet. 1st amendment does not apply to private entity.
That would be the Saudis, in part. Just like with Faux News.
However, regardless of who owns what, the tricks going on are rather transparent. Politicians are trying (and partially succeeding) in doing an end run around the First Ammendment of the US Constitution by outsourcing censorship while squawking about private companies. I see that it is the activity which is governed by the 1st, not the medium. So if protected activity moves to a new medium, then the medium is also governed by the 1st: social media, ISPs, and payment systems. With the court decision against Der Apfelsine we can see things heading that direction. Whether full 1st Ammendment support can be achieved, indpedendent of medium, will continue to be a matter of intense and expensive political fights.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @11:06PM
I'm on the left and I've always been extremely skeptical of corporations. Maybe instead of suddenly shilling for the "free market" when it comes to censorship of people you don't like, you should try to be principled.
It never ceases to amaze me when people who are otherwise critical of corporate control of our societies suddenly come out in favor of corporate control in a select few instances. Why would you want corporations to have this much control over information? Especially since they often work with governments to decide what type of speech should be restricted on their platforms, meaning that the restrictions can hardly be considered "private."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by inertnet on Monday October 29 2018, @09:10AM (13 children)
I think it's unwise to block people on the fringes. They will only move to realms that are much harder to monitor. It would be better to allow as much free speech as possible, not just because it's the right thing to do, but also to be able to keep an eye on those that may go evil. Let others be disgusted and complain about the extremists, it's good to have more eyes to check the crazies.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @09:36AM (8 children)
NO, we need to keep these fringe people on the fringes, wearing their fringes, so that they know that they are fringe, or not normal. We need to keep them embarrassed enough to not state their opinions in public, we need to make "Politically Correct" a force to be reckoned with, so that if one of these wacko Gab denizens were to appear in polite company, say, as a member of Congress, they would be very careful about what they say, for example, not promoting completely fantastic "False Flag" conspiracy theories that say the Democrats passed the Trump tax bill just so they could blame it on the Republicans.
The problem has not be division, or increased rancour, the problem is the normalization of complete stupidity. For this I blame Reagan and his early onset dementia, and the Republicans that went along with it. We do not have to allow "free speech" to crazies, we need to lock them all up before they elect another Congress as crazy as the one presently seated. Block the fringes. Punch a Nazi. Shame a racist. Stump a believer. MAGABombers, yo!
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 29 2018, @10:18AM (7 children)
Mmmmm-hmmmm. Make the world safe for normies, right? Lemme think a second or two. How many neat things are there that were invented by normies? Hmmmm - I'm having a hard time with this one. How about Turing? He's pretty normal, isn't he? Except he was queer as a three dollar bill. No matter your views on gay rights, gay marriage, religion, queer isn't a "normie" thing. Einstein? That funny looking fuck wasn't any "norm" that I'm aware of. Make your own list - how many normals have done really outstanding stuff? Normies are mostly just plain fucking MEDIOCRE! And, that's on their good days!
How about our members? Me? Don't make me laugh. MDC? That's another laugh. Buzzard? Aristarchus? Azumi? I've got news for you - the god-damned normies are still at the green site. (well, "normal" for techies and geeks, I suppose) How about we all line up here, and you can kiss all of our non-normative asses. You'd like that, wouldn't you?
I've got another great idea. How about you define what you mean by "normal"? I suspect that your definition would include some phrase similar to "respects and obeys the government". Hey, if we all just obeyed the edicts from Washington, we could all get along, couldn't we?
Speaking of stupid, and crazies - in what ways do YOU fall outside the norm? Don't even try to tell us that you're "normal". Silly bitch, "normal" people aren't found in places like this. Normies would be as afraid of you, as they are of any of us on this site.
You should get your dumb ass out of here, and start reading. Assuming that you have basic reading skills, that is. Maybe you can work your way through a couple of philosophers? Try Tolstoy. He's a nice down-to-earth sort of philosopher, who puts things on a level that you might understand. But, if you can't understand him, don't feel too terribly bad.
I, for one, am proud to be a non-normative fringe case. I'll bet many of our members will tell you the same.
Now, get off the grass, dumbass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:39AM (4 children)
Not your lawn, old hillbilly man!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 29 2018, @10:46AM (3 children)
It sure as hell isn't your lawn. But, I'll have to agree that it's not mine. It's the wife's lawn. Some of her people have lived here for thousands of years. And, the wife expects me to shoot dumb animals that become nuisances.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Monday October 29 2018, @11:26AM (1 child)
Oh dear. Living daily only one step away from death.
We really don't like to see you being asked to commit suicide, take good care not to annoy her, will you?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday October 29 2018, @11:35AM
"Get the armadillo gun [cnn.com], Bernie [wikipedia.org]!"
(Score: 5, Funny) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday October 29 2018, @02:07PM
Obligatory notice that all lawns may in fact belong to me. (c) (tm) (arr) (wahdahte)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday October 29 2018, @01:33PM (1 child)
On a tangent, the main purpose of recent psyops has been to redefine free speech as non-leftist speech as being inherently wrong and requiring censorship. Its assumed that leftist speech would never be free nor censored because they're in charge and might is right. That redefinition project has been pretty successful so far.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @03:08PM
War, censorship, and the invention of “fake news” [wsws.org]
The “new cold war,” censorship, and the future of the internet [wsws.org]
Facebook’s purge of left-wing media: A frontal assault on freedom of speech [wsws.org]
The US military’s vision for state censorship [wsws.org]
Silicon Valley’s corrupt nexus: War, censorship and inequality [wsws.org]
New York Times covers up Google’s censorship [wsws.org]
As social opposition mounts, Silicon Valley and Washington step up internet censorship [wsws.org]
Facebook escalates censorship of left-wing, anti-war organizations [wsws.org]
Facebook censorship targets the left [wsws.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:37AM
Simple, don't block them, round them
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 29 2018, @01:13PM
I agree this is the right way to go. Suppressing their speech only drives them underground and intensifies their sense of persecution. To them, suppression proves they're right. Worse, it proves to others around them that they are right. Contrary to what censors think, censorship greatly increases the problem rather than eliminating it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday October 29 2018, @01:40PM
I'm not sure that mental model is scientifically useful to explain observed phenomena or predict future observations.
How about this hypothesis... what if the dominant propaganda doesn't actually work, and they're the crazies? Then, for self protection they'd need to censor somewhat more rational individuals who promote ideas that make more sense, that better model the past and better predict the future. Some of them of course will be violent nuts as all groups have a similar fringe, but thats somewhat orthogonal to the discussion about which propaganda needs to be censored... A dying obsolete worldview will lash out and try to censor a better healthier worldview, not exactly anything new.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by curunir_wolf on Monday October 29 2018, @08:32PM
Right, that's one of the benefits of true free speech. When people actually feel free to say whatever they want, others can look at some of their ideas and point them out as wrong. It's how humans actually make real progress. Like back when the law said you're allowed to literally own other people, it was still okay for the Abolitionists to spread their viewpoint, even if the law and majority of society disagreed. Now everyone realizes the abolitionists were right.
So the ACLU pointed out that the Nazis had a right to talk about their own views of racial superiority. And the more they try to spread those ideas, the more people rejected them.
What happens in Germany and other places where those views are actually illegal, and those kinds of speech can subject the speaker to arrest and jail, it just goes underground and festers. It isn't brought out into public forums where the problems with it are exposed, and people holding those views see themselves and persecuted and righteous. Eventually it bubbles up and turns into violence. "Oh, I'm oppressed by society and the government, it must be because my ideas are wrong," said no one ever.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Unixnut on Monday October 29 2018, @09:13AM (10 children)
Based on what I have read, the shooter had accounts on facebook, twitter and gab (and probably others), and he posted the same general tripe on all of them.
Yet so far it seems only gab that is having the rug pulled under it, despite gab apparently being the first one to pull the guys account and remove his posts (and coooperate with law enforcement). Why hasn't there been any blowback against FB or twitter? Almost all the news is about how gab provided a platform for the shooters views, (some going as far as to link gab ideologically with the shooter), yet none (except a RT article I read) mention the others complicity in the same.
While I suspect FB and twitter don't have a need for third party hosting or paypal, I would have expected a bit more even coverage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @09:19AM
Source? Links?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @09:19AM (2 children)
Yes! Why, oh why? Could it be that they are not filled with asshat anti-semites like the shooter and jmorris? Is this a serious question, or just another Russian operative like Runaway1918 trying to stir the shit? We are beyond "punch a Nazi in the face." Now it is "shoot them in the head before they enter the synagogue", like Trump says.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 29 2018, @10:56AM (1 child)
You must be taking you meds, Ari. That post was almost lucid. Good boy!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @12:09PM
> russian troll deflects by not responding the the assertions made in the post
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Monday October 29 2018, @09:35AM (2 children)
My guess is that the blowback is being directed to Gab.ai to take the heat off of the more culpable combination of Twitter and Faecebook.
The mainstream media should be protecting the freedom of the press if not also more generally the freedom of speech. However, they are doing the opposite. There is a lot of effort by the mainstream media to pair freedom of speech and freedom of the press with illegal activities. Their ongoing narrative about Gab.ai may be part of that. Gab.ai is a competitor to the officially sanctioned social control media and thus they aim to be rid of it. It's easier if it has become or is perceived to have become a haven for illegal activity.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:56AM (1 child)
Gab is an offsite version of the very ideological echo chambers that these dipshits and their algorithms have spent the last decade creating. And how many crimes [cnn.com] broadcast [newsweek.com] on rapebook? [nytimes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @08:03PM
I don't know, I think I have grown to understand over the years that Civil Discord is nearly impossible in person, and totally impossible on the internet. In person at least you know you go to far the person will hit you, unless that is what you want, which it often is.... But on the interne? Forget it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by nobu_the_bard on Monday October 29 2018, @12:31PM (1 child)
Gab is presumably easier to cut off. Facebook and Twitter are presumably not contained in a single data center behind a single ISP.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 29 2018, @04:20PM
I would be surprised to learn that Facebook isn't its own ISP.
But if anybody decides to cut off Twitter over the raving posts of some dangerous lunatic, I'm not gonna shed a tear at the loss.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Monday October 29 2018, @08:04PM
Don't over think this. Everybody and their dog had been trying to shut gab down for over a year. As "reasons" appear or can be rationalized, they will be deplatformed. Do not overthink the tenuous or non-existent linkage between the two events because there really isn't one.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday October 29 2018, @09:22AM (12 children)
This is ridiculous.
Who is Gab's ISP? so I can add them to my shit list...
(Score: 3, Informative) by bradley13 on Monday October 29 2018, @09:41AM (9 children)
Joylent, based in California. It seems stupid for Gab to use a US-based provider, much less one in California.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 29 2018, @10:33AM (6 children)
In Gab's defense, they're Americans. Not only are they Americans, but they are American's whose voices are on the list to be silenced. Gab exists because the media has attempted to silence them, but they are still Americans. They naively believed that if they could escape the corporate bullshit censorship at Facefook and Twitstorm, they would be alright.
We can probably presume that they'll take this lesson to heart, and find a host in Russia or someplace outside the US. Chances are slim they'll find a host in the US after this. Unless, or course, they just fold. They wouldn't be the first to fold and be forgotten.
But, as pointed out earlier in this discussion, the individuals will go underground. I2P, TOR, and any other darkweb places they can think of. And, some will join ranks with Stormfront, where their views are welcome. Where is Stormfront hosted? I've never even looked to see . . .
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:42AM
Boo-bloody-hoo 🎻🎶
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:47AM (3 children)
Correction: They are not Americans. Some of them may be physical residents, but they are no Americans.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 29 2018, @10:52AM
citation needed
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @01:48PM (1 child)
No True Scotsman [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]
Honestly, I rarely see it stated so plainly; usually when people display their inability to think they're at least not quite as obvious about it.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @07:25PM
git trulled biatch
(Score: 3, Informative) by J053 on Monday October 29 2018, @08:36PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:45AM
Ja! Wenn sie nur einen in Österreich oder Bayern finden könnten! Sieg Heil, bradley13!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @09:30PM
Also please note that Joylent is owned by Samsung.
So the US taxpayers pay for a military that protects South Korea, where Samsung is, so that Samsung's subsidiary can turn around and attack the freedom of speech of Americans. How very nice of them.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by jmorris on Monday October 29 2018, @08:02PM
Add Microsoft's Azure to the list, they booted them earlier. They were at least White[1] about it, giving two weeks notice so Gab could move without downtime. The really damnable thing here is this Korean owned (supposedly Samsung is at the top of the who owns who tree for Joylent, always hard to really know who owns who though, who can actually exert control, etc.) took Gab on a few months ago knowing full well they were controversial and then, citing no specific TOS violation, banned them on a Saturday effective at 9am Monday. That was a trap Torba walked into.
[1] Yes I know Microsoft is now essentially an Indian IT company, that is the joke.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Monday October 29 2018, @11:08PM
According to a ping gab.com the IP address is 104.20.85.251
According to http://whois.domaintools.com/104.20.85.251 [domaintools.com] it is hosted on cloudflare.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Monday October 29 2018, @10:51AM (7 children)
All this vitriol and harsh talk! Surely it would have been better to have a nice, rational, middle-of-the-road aristarchus submission [soylentnews.org] on this topic?
Peace and love to all Soylentils!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 29 2018, @11:42AM (1 child)
Sorta has a ring of truth to it.
Alas, no matter if Gab would have remained active or not, there's no warranty that certain people could express themselves through words. Even if only for 'ctelectual development, see?
Question: should Trump helps them too?
And another: who will help Trump express himself through words?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday October 29 2018, @11:53AM
But what does an ed say?
Thank you, choromas, your sympathy is much appreciated. However, I have now submitted an updated submission, which most probably should not be merged.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @01:15PM
11 people are dead. SN censors aristarchus subs.
And yet, they still have the gall to act like victims.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 29 2018, @01:16PM (2 children)
I think that submission would have been fine if you hadn't taken potshots at other Soylentils in it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @07:27PM (1 child)
You know that editors quite frequently modify the text of submissions yes?
It is amusing that for "free speech" SN seems to draw the line at story submissions. So SN is free but not really, color me surprised (please don't shoot me in the back)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:30PM
Nobody's stopping you from publishing a journal entry. Regulars around here will likely comment on it.
But to meet the standards for publishing something on the front page, there should be a little editorial discretion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @03:18PM
If the R team still has a majority in the House after the 6th, I hope somebody kicks your nuts in, old man.
You idiots truly do not get that your brand of right-wing authoritarianism is no better than the other brand of right-wing authoritarianism. In fact, it's idiots like you that created the alt-right by embracing and normalizing postmodernist irrationality while telling the working class to eat cake.
A pox on both your houses.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @12:06PM (3 children)
Let's get some data instead of opinion, for example from the Anti-Defamation League. [adl.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @12:37PM (1 child)
A measly 28 deaths per year. Doesn't seem like it's worth eliminating free speech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @01:15PM
Alt-math? 2+2=5
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @08:18PM
Oh yes, the "impartial" ADL.
I would think you were smart enough to see bullshit when you see it, but I guess not. Here are classic trappings of a framing. No breakdown by year (harder to fact check), no definition of "extrimist-related" (what does that mean?), and of course the fucking topping on the cake: a shitty "disclaimer". So if a guy shot someone in a dispute, and he had an Alex Jones tatoo, well then he was a Nazi doing terrorism?
I'd love to find what study they linked this shit to, just os I can tear it to pieces, but being on that site just fucking sickens me. It's the most disgusting peddler of victimhood and disinformation I seen in recent month.