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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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QOTD:
"My life is a soap opera, but who gets the movie rights?"
(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.