Gab.com, A Social Site that the Pittsburgh shooter used, is being deplatformed
251 replies, posted
There really isnt a news article for this yet as its still developing and companies are still slowly dropping them.
For context, Gab.com is a site where people usually go to voice /pol/ tier shitposts about racism and anti-semitism. Thing is one of the users was The pittsburgh shooter.
https://youtu.be/GHfFAevq8Cg
As a result of people figuring out Gab.com is a anti-semetic hate site, Companies that are used to fund/host the site are telling them to fuck off.
https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1056362626077220865
https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1056381133821112321
Meh, the hosting provider is a private company. If they don't want to do business with Gab that's their choice.
dont worry the guys running gab are handling it well
https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1056392668404637696
their hoster is cutting them off
gab.com with the hot response
https://twitter.com/getongab/status/1056411641246507008
Freedom if Speech means you can't be arrested for what you say, but it doesn't mean the population can't collectively come together and say We're not listening to your shit or giving you a platform to say it. Brings warmth to my dying heart
I like how they don't realize the difference between Twitter and Facebook having harmful material and trying - incompetently, but still trying - to get rid of it, and Gab having harmful material and saying "eh, it's okay".
Also: Gab goes far beyond ignoring harmful content, it actively seeks to promote it, as was previously shown the official Gab social media accounts are laundry lists of alt right dogwhistles.
I really like the first tweet, criticizing everyone who uses twitter through their own twitter account. It clearly shows how much Gab supports terrorists, pedophiles, and criminals since they enjoy using the same channels as them.
"The most censored website in the history of the internet"
I think Stormfront would like a word. You seem like you'd be good buds with them anyways.
Gawker's shuffling corpse says "bitch, please".
"Deplatforming" is just now blatently being used as a tool to justify censorship here. After all, if you're not allowed to publish your book to begin with there's no need to burn it afterwards, deplatforming is antithetical to a free speech oriented society. Unless corporations are people and money is speech... which are stupid ideas and usually not consistently believed by the people who are now in favor of this.
You know, if it was someone you politically supported getting deplatformed you'd be crying bloody murder and calling it censorship. Either agree that hosting companies have massive control over public discourse nowadays and probably shouldn't be allowed to remove people for legal speech, or agree that some speech should be restricted. I don't think it's logically consistent to claim to support full free speech and support this type of deplatforming (which is not to say that all forms of private citizens/companies discouraging speech violate free speech).
Good, close all of their platforms, force them to be dispersed. Don't let them to regroup in any public place, drive them into obscurity.
Or just assign proper moderators, a basic thing big social sites lacks for unknown reasons.
Imagine thinking this is a bad thing after all the news that's happened last week.
Just imagine.
oh no a site full of people talking about exterminating the jews can't find anyone who wants to do business after someone tried exterminating the jews
They're not being censored. They're being denied service from all the other companies they rely on to host and run their website.
They can of course keep the site running with either their own resources, or by finding other partners that are ok with giving bigots a platform to grow in.
Man, this is the first I've heard about the site in ages. Just find it a bit funny that the two "big" twitter clones are either full of skinheads (Gab) or communists (Mastodon)
I really wanna say not much is lost though. If all you're doing is tweeting about how big the shit you took last night is then I doubt twitters going to ban you for any kind of wrongthink
I must admit that while I can't be too distraught about a site like this being taken down, I disagree with the idea that as long as it's not perpetrated by the government, it can't be called censorship. If you have a society where every publisher refused to publish books by communists for example, or every university fired their communist professors, etc. it would still be censorship even if you could call it "deplatforming" or whatever.
I find it worrying that - more and more - people are actively encouraging big companies to be the arbiter of what should and shouldn't be allowed. People pin companies as being responsible for the content that people share/upload onto their services. I honestly don't find that to be a great idea.
Just a quick question then, if FP had a child porn thread and the mods did nothing about it, would FP not be responsible for it?
Child porn and its distribution are explicitly illegal. If FP knowingly lets CP stay up on its servers for distribution, I suppose they would be legally responsible for it. But contrary to popular belief, expressing a hateful or controversial viewpoint isn't child pornography, and thus is (or at least might be) free speech.
And this is an issue of scale - is it a problem that Garry bans users that he dislikes? No, not really. Is it problematic if enormous platforms like Facebook and Twitter (or ISPs) get to decide which beliefs you can and cannot express? Most definitely.
Can we maybe have this discussion when it actually involves questionable opinions as opposed to this garbage?
I mean the discussion is sorta one of principle so why not have it now? What if things go south and one day "spreading LGBT propaganda" on social media is a break of the ToS? I mean obviously I can only argue from hypotheticals, but you've just seen Trump getting elected, and despite that everyone seems to think it's obvious that only Nazis could ever be hit by this.
There's also the simple principle of valuing free speech - should functional censorship be allowed? If people want some form of censorship, is it alright that companies are the stewards of it?
I have a hard time understanding that people can see nothing problematic about this, even if you think it's gonna work out overall.
What's happened recently literally has no bearing on whether or not organized deplatforming is a significant impingement on free speech, nor will it ever be. Do not let some crazy asshole with truly terrible views be the catalyst for justifying deplatforming as the modern free speech suppression tool, and i would like you to apologize to me for trying to associate me with an antisemetic idiot.
And youre making a false equivalency between communism and advocating to genocide. See, one is not like the other.
It's not censorship. And even if it was, it'd be a good thing.
Your freedom stops at the freedom of others. Freedom of not being victim of genocidal ideologies is more important than freedom of speech of a few nazis spreading that ideology and actually acting on it.
I'm extremely glad I live in a country where advocating for genocide is illegal and this bullshit "freedom of speech of nazis" conversation is never a thing. We learned from history.
I have a hard time understanding that people can see nazis losing a platform is even remotely problematic.
It's a valid discussion.
I almost agree with you, but I think that a line is being crossed here.
It's very understandable that these companies do not want to be associated with people who are perpetuating violence and bigotry. While allowing free speech is of course important, there's always a line that can be crossed - and that's a bit arbitrary, but it seems most would agree that it's been crossed in this case.
This is censorship by definition. It doesnt stop being censorship because the mechanism is companies, popular opinion, or whatever.
Like people here often think there's some degree of institutional sexism in the corporate world by some companies, and there is. Saying only the government can censor would be like if you said it was only possible for the government to implement institutional sexism, when obviously, a company can also implement policies that create institutional sexism. In the same way, companies can censor things they disagree with... and maybe if we hadnt made progress on LGTB rights years ago every company could have gone ahead and banned all discussion of homosexuality for "spreading the gay agenda".
Then maybe someone tries to set a website up to discuss those things, and then there was a news story about a singular gay man intentionally spreading aids to other people or something and he happened to use this site, and due to widespread homophobia at the time, every company decided they just "didnt want to do business with any site that promotes homosexuality" and the site gets forcibly taken down. This is a directly analogous situation and i think most people here would agree that this example constitutes censorship. Seriously you need to separate the part of your brain that agrees or disagrees with the people from the part that thinks about the bigger picture.
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