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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'm mentally OVERDRAWN! What's that SIGNPOST up ahead? Where's ROD
STERLING when you really need him?
(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?