Over at the CCN, Gab is having trouble even getting its bitcoin on.
The declaration by free speech social network Gab that the firm was still allowed on Square’s bitcoin-friendly Cash App after being banned on other platforms may have been premature.
This emerged after the social media platform that is occasionally referred to as “alt-right Twitter,” over its popularity with extremist right-wingers, disclosed that the personal Square Cash account of the firm’s founder and CEO, Andrew Torba, had been deactivated.
Things like this are just bad for business.
Earlier this month as CCN reported, Gab had posted a tweet that gave the impression that Square’s Cash App — which allows users to buy and sell bitcoin — had reactivated Gab’s access. According to Breaker magazine, Square might have unknowingly reactivated an account belonging to Gab but will continue to “pro-actively delete any new accounts that it learned were connected with Gab.”
[...] Besides Square, other platforms that have banned Gab in the recent past include cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, online payment processing firm Stripe, bitcoin payment service provider BitPay and online payments system PayPal.
Currently, bitcoin, as well as money orders and checks sent to its post office address, are the only ways for Gab to process payments for its premium service, GabPro. On January 8, Gab announced that it had integrated with open-source crypto payment processor BTCPay Server.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 13 2019, @07:21AM
Perhaps I confused you with another AC - you guys all look alike, you know. ;^)
On that, we can agree. I might not say that they are all scum - some are just misguided fools, some are fearful idiots, some are scum, some may just "go along to get along". But, yeah, the whole thing sucks.
We agree 100% on that, as well.
I well and truly despise any major platform that goes about censoring views that they don't approve of. At some point, an entity has so much power, that they should be blocked from deplatforming anyone or anything that isn't clearly illegal. It's fine for me to start a site, accumulate some small number of users, and censor their views. But, if I should reach a billion users, then censorship should be outlawed on my part. On Twitter, it's fine to have an account, with several hundred, or even thousands of followers, and to censor or block views that you don't like. But, Twitter itself is just too damned big to permit them to censor. Not only do they not have a right - they have an obligation to permit free speech.
We are going wrong, somewhere here. When 90% or more of the tech community assumes some kind of authority to censor views that they don't like, we are pretty will fucked. The bastards WILL come for me next year, and for you the following year, and eventually get around to all Soylentils, because we all share a love of free speech.
Well, they'll come for most of us.