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Social Media and the Pittsburgh Shooter: Gab.com Going Down

posted by martyb on Monday October 29 2018, @08:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the social-commentary-on-social-media dept.

bradley13 writes:

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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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @08:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @08:46PM (#755343)

    Not the original AC but I am going to take this opportunity to give my $0.02 worth.

    Is that to insinuate that their speech is less deserving of freedom than others'?

    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.

    I hear and read speech all the time that is stupid, uninformed, and hateful.

    Yes, I do too.

    That, though, is the price of living in a free society. If I muzzle them, then why shouldn't they also muzzle me?

    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.