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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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It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...
(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