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Packt reports that Gab's Dissenter browser extension was removed from Mozilla's Firefox add-ons on April 10th (people already using it can continue to do so), and was booted from Google's Chrome browser the next day. Gab pitches itself as an anti-censorship social media platform that only prohibits speech that is illegal. Their Dissenter browser extension and associated website allow people to share comments about any webpage, giving users the ability to share comments on articles, videos, etc., regardless of whether or not the website hosting the content has a comments section. Mozilla's rationale for the ban was that Dissenter was being used to promote violence, hate speech, and discrimination, but they failed to show any examples to bolster that claim. Gab plans to develop their own browser in response.
(Score: 4, Informative) by r1348 on Saturday April 13 2019, @07:24PM (9 children)
...first time I hear about Gab, taken by curiosity I went to explore this supposed bastion of free speech and... it's just another alt-right echo chamber. Free speech means plurality of ideas, Gab is just a circle jerk.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @07:47PM
Hateful SJW-dominated globalist corporations have decided that mainstream conservative opinions are verboten.
Like your country? Banned, unless your country is a shithole.
Disagree with extremist LGBT advocates? Banned, unless you are Muslim.
So yeah, any place non-fascist will be full of people you call fascist.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @07:54PM
A plurality of ideas like defending virulent anti-semites who justify terrorism as "some people did some stuff" while screeching "nazi" at the center right?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday April 13 2019, @07:55PM (1 child)
Any alternative to the big social media networks starts at zero users and has to build up. Many of the initial users will be like-minded and can drive others off. So you are left with a niche, until Facebook and Twitter start pissing off a critical mass of their users. That's not to say that Gab users don't get some value out of a circlejerk, but if the goal is to create a platform that can match the giants on scale and diversity, that hasn't succeeded yet.
We could use a social network that is decentralized and respects privacy to the extent that the user wants. But getting it to run well and gain users will be big problems. If more people gain symmetric high-speed connections, that could help with running it. Gaining enough users to be useful or especially to not meet your definition of a "circlejerk" will be tough. It will probably require more high-profile missteps by Facebook and Twitter. Some people simply won't participate without censorship, but that could be done on an instance basis like Mastodon.
It could take years or decades to get this right, if we ever do.
https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-solve-the-chicken-and-egg-problem-for-a-social-networking-startup [quora.com]
Not really. Free speech could be necessary for a plurality of ideas, but not a guarantee that you will have one.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 14 2019, @12:32AM
You have the right idea, but I think the answer is with *decentralization* rather than some new, centralized platform.
I've been (as I'm sure you're aware) beating on the lack of competition and choice of ISPs, along with the abusive ToS (specifically server port blocking) of those ISPs for quite some time.
That, along with a lack of *symmetric* consumer broadband connections, creates an environment that doesn't allow for small groups to connect to other small groups (e.g., Diaspora [diasporafoundation.org] pods) to build large, federated social networks by connecting with each other.
The solution isn't as simple as something like Gab, as if it's centralized, it can be blocked or made harder to access. What's more, using something like Diaspora (not shilling for them, they just have a reasonably mature product that provides just this sort of functionality. There are others) is impossible to block, as it's not centralized and all content is owned by those hosting and posting. There are no ads, there are no corporations tracking every website access, mouse movement or keystroke to profit from profiling your behavior.
There are a whole raft of things that need to happen in order to make stuff like this feasible. Greater (or at least some) ISP competition, Municipal broadband, strong net neutrality regulation (no blocking, no throttling, no port blocking), symmetric broadband connections, as well as software (which Diaspora does *not* currently do well) that's easy to install/configure.
What's more, the centralized companies (and the every growing list of other companies in a wide variety of industries) profiting from "surveillance capitalism" [wikipedia.org] (
Video here [c-span.org]) will fight tooth and nail to keep the profits rolling in.
I was first introduced to the Internet in the 1980s, before all the commercialization and it fascinated me. I started reading RFCs and learning the protocols of the TCP/IP suite, used tools like KA9Q [wikipedia.org].
What was so amazing to me was that there weren't any gatekeepers, there wasn't anyone telling you what you could or couldn't do (except sabotage and stunts like the Morris Worm [wikipedia.org] and the like).
There were no servers, per se and no clients. Just peers. Sometimes they were servers and sometimes they were clients.
Once commercialization came onto the scene, that all started to change. Back then there were technical reasons why we saw asymmetric download/upload speeds, but those issues have been long solved -- yet we still see asymmetric links. Why? Because the big ISPs are content providers and they want to keep the broadcast to consumer model alive.
In the middle of all this, people wanted to communicate, share and interact with each other online. Since decentralized hosting was impractical due to the severe asymmetry in download/upload bandwidth, centralized sites sprang up (The Free-net [tedium.co] is a good, early example. Note that I do *not* mean The Freenet Project [freenetproject.org], although that's a good idea too!).
As more ad-supported centralized platforms emerged, it set the stage for the dominance of Google and the eventual rise of Facebook and Twitter.
Search engines are necessary (anyone want to go back to Archie/Veronica and anonymous FTP lists?), but they don't need to be data sucking monsters like Google.
We don't need stuff like Twitter and Facebook. With current technology, decentralized social media platforms are absolutely feasible and vastly superior to the centralized garbage we have today.
Given the resistance by powerful organizations like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and pretty much every large ISP, getting where we need to be won't be easy.
Pester your elected officials. Not so much your Federal representatives (although they should get attention too), but state and local elected officials that grant ISP monopolies, decide whether or not municipal broadband is to be built, and all manner of other *local* issues that keep us from getting the symmetric bandwidth and non-abusive ToS we need.
Freedom isn't free, nor is it safe. And if we want freedom of expression that can't be controlled or dictated by large corporations or the government, we need to fight for it. Not with guns, but with organization, communication and strong pressure on those we put into office (most importantly state and local folks) to ensure that we can realize the promise that open protocols and widespread access to the Internet can provide.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Saturday April 13 2019, @08:27PM (1 child)
That's because they are ideological refugees from other platforms that have been kicking them off, and cutting them off and yet somehow expect to keep raking in their dollars after they're gone. So the people on Gab are angry right now. Some of them are nazis. Some of them are anti-vaxxers. Others hate 5G. Some of them are Islamophobes. But there's also a large number who are just disgusted with the "wokeness" that is driving more well-established social media platforms and the media establishment at the moment.
As a user on Gab, though, it is trivial to dial down the shrillest among them. Click "mute" next to a tedious poster's name, and they're gone from your feed. The knock-on effect is all those who bandwagon on the odious poster quiets their dittos for you as well.
It's perfectly OK for non-conservatives to start groups on Gab or post, but it's understandable why they might not want to bother yet, if ever. For the intrepid, though, I would suggest saying things that are organically your thoughts rather than regurgitating talking points. There will be raspberries, sure, but it's much more likely to get authentic replies.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 14 2019, @08:00AM
and the remainder is an empty set. Oh, forgot about the anti-gays but not-nazi crowd. Right, there is them too ;)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by crafoo on Saturday April 13 2019, @09:48PM
Anything not outright communism is labelled "alt-right", so of course that's what you found there.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @10:33PM
Free speech means plurality of ideas
That's bullshit. Free speech means no censorship. All ideas are welcome on Gab. It's good to see them survive all the attacks. The more bulletproof, the better. Once the ISP problem is dealt with, we might have a viable internet, secure against ALL interference, free of ALL censorship! Wipe out the tyrants!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:11PM
So? Let them circle jerk in their little corner of the web. Who cares what they say on their platform?