• "Dissenter" browser addon puts a bigoted, alt-right comment box on every webpage
    110 replies, posted
https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/01/gab-dissenter-comments-extension/ https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/281778/876042c8-1513-4b1a-842c-e8043c1159c1/browser-dissent-extension-black-flat.jpg "Gab, the "free speech" social network that's become a haven for the far-right, has launched a browser extension that creates an alternative comments section for any website. The "Dissenter" plug-in -- which appears as a sidebar once enabled -- allows Gab users to discuss everything from tweets to Wikipedia pages in real-time without the fear of said comment being removed by a site's moderators. This is disgusting. Hate speech has no place online, and noone should be allowed to intrude on the spaces we've created from nazis and racists. I seriously hope this is taken down from the chrome/firefox app stores.
Can't wait for the Commentiquette on this.
I don't see the problem? Isn't this the best outcome for people who wish to avoid them? They now have their own special little safe space.
Just start using it for non-alt-right purposes.
This isn't exactly a new idea anyway. Even something like Disqus works the same, except they don't have a browser extension to just automatically add it to whatever page you want. Regardless, there's still a server behind the service. If you want to take that down, you have to convince their host to take them down.
This sounds like the perfect honeypot tbh Give people something they think is safe, then wait for them to start discussing Big Illegal Things on it
The addon also knows every website you are browsing. And it has to phone home in order to create a database entry for the comments on that site. Who knows what the maker does with all that info.
Containment does not work. It just speeds up radicalisation and creates echo chambers. /b/ and /pol/ are probably still the prime examples of how containment just made them progressively more extreme until they just kept seeping out to other boards.
You can't really cry censorship when you are actively choosing to isolate yourself from the wider conversation.
Excluding alternate ideas from debate is what causes containment in the first place.
Special snowflakes need their safe space echo chambers what a surprise.
Well what do you propose then? The internet is an open platform, for better or for worse. If people don't want them elsewhere then they will create their own platform.
ok so they're not allowed to share their opinions in the same places as us, and they're not allowed their own spaces. What is the solution in your opinion?
the execution is amazing but not the idea, I kinda wish we could make our own for facepunchers to comment on pages all around the web like our own secret comments
Reform society and education so that we can avoid these people going down these trains of thought in the first place. Remember, these aren't fundamental opinions; "alt-right" rhetoric is to eliminate certain demographics. To allow them to formally debate is to legitimize that mindset. As for what to do with this, being it already exists: I literally don't know what the solution is.
There's a lot of debate which shouldn't be legitimised, I agree, however a lot of nuance in modern platforms is lost the second people start painting debate with an alt-right or SJW brush. Everything turns to identity politics
Not that I'm defending this, but is it really intruding if you need the browser extension to see the Gab comments? They're not interacting directly with the actual page or its real comments; the extension might as well just be overlaying an /r/T_D thread linking to it. I'm more worried about how this instead keeps the bastards hidden. A universal alt-right network that they can easily pull up on every webpage out there to discuss that page out of public sight. Honestly, the implications of what they could do with something like this are daunting. It's actually pretty ingenious, but I'm not exactly fond of the idea of everywhere on the internet from now on potentially having an invisible subspace realm of chattering Nazi ghosts completely out of the control of the actual site owners. It's the ultimate echo chamber, and god knows what they could coordinate with something like this. "Oh, this event seems threatening to our agenda. Let's see if any other alt-righters are on this page and maybe we can organize a party-crash."
The issue is that it's the other way around. The alt-right don't want anyone else anywhere. Their platform is completely intolerant of disagreement. You're either one of them or you deserve to be violently eliminated. There's zero room for negotiation or discussion. This immediately runs counter to any curated public platform for open discussion, because you can't just browbeat, intimidate, or threaten someone into believing what you believe but that's all they've got. But because of alt-right mental gymnastics, being a genuinely shitty person and getting banned from a community for breaking rules means that community is "an echo chamber" or "sucking up to the left" or whatever. They can't function in any sort of setting where you're expected to remain civil, back up your points with facts, argue rationally, etc. (hence why the biggest alt-right communities are either completely unmoderated like /pol/ or under draconian thought-policing like the_D) and somehow that's everyone else's problem. Suddenly, despite being the people who literally want to subjugate or murder the rest of the world, they're the ones who are horribly oppressed and need protection and special treatment and promotion. There is no way to integrate people like that into a community because their notion of integration is being in charge and also eliminating all opposition and they're just going to keep inventing double-standards to justify their shitty actions until they either win or force us to take an action that would prove them right (which is, incidentally, any action at all).
iirc there used to be plugins or sites like this that would work in a similar way. One of my favorites was the one where you could doodle on webpages and see what other people have doodled on the same page.
Theoretically it could be used to gameplan arguments/raids as they're in the middle of doing it. Imagine a small group of people arguing in a thread here while talking to like minded people in the same thread with the extension to figure out how to attack with #factsandlogic
Goggles?
is every idea worthy of respect do I need to entertain the legitimacy of someone who wants me and my family to die
That's another thing. For many years now, there have been arguments I've seen (and been in) where I've suspected that one side was actually coordinating their arguments in a private chatroom or Discord to take turns dogpiling the other side, and this would just make that a cakewalk for alt-righters. Where they could plan out things like "I'll use a throwaway to lead him down a fallacious line of reasoning, then you call him out on it and destroy his credibility while I duck out." Or "You false-flag for his side with extremist rhetoric so that he looks like a radical via association with you."
What is it about every single "free speech" alternative being some nazi shit? good example is that reddit clone. Do these people realize their shit is getting deleted for breaking rules and shit? Nobody has some personal vandetta against them. Stop posting death threats and fake news shit and you wont get your shit deleted ironically, most of these alternatives delete content that isnt promoting their nazi shit ideas
Ideally this is what we should have been doing ahead of time. Now that the roots are dug in we're going to have a really difficult time reversing course.
There's a difference between having your own space, and having a space where increasingly radical ideas are shared without question. Where questioning at all is dissent and gets you fuckin unpersoned. What's the solution? I dunno, I'm not a sociologist or whatever. But shitholes like Gab having their own "layer" of the Internet where they can (and likely will) organise harassment for websites without it being as in the open as posting straight to Gab itself isn't a great thing.
Why does there need to be a solution? I can't speak for what else Hexpunk thinks on this, but in that post he was only countering the idea that "this is the best outcome", by pointing out there is a downside in how it creates a self-perpetuating echo-chamber
And I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: remember, a lot of these people know they're the bad guys. They know they're in the wrong and they don't care because they just want to see it all burn. For one reason or another, they've got a chip on their shoulder against the entire world and tearing as much down and causing as much chaos as they can is how they get their derisive kicks, because they think life is a zero-sum game and the only way they can get joy is at others' expense. The internet has bred an entire generation of anarcho-nihilists who just want to make everyone miserable because "lulz". That's these guys. They're what the Maddox readers, South Park-watching preteens, and ED trolls of the 2000s internet dark age have grown into.
How exactly is this "intruding"? It doesn't appear for anyone who doesn't install the extension Also the concerns about the damage this can do are understandable but you guys need to realize you're arguing against people being able to communicate because they might communicate to do bad things. The same arguments used to ban encryption.
See there's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of a comments section for every web page. As you said, it's been done before. It's just the combination of that idea and this being specific to Gab that's kinda the problem. All of these "alt-x" websites set up when some noteworthy far-right Neanderthal got banned from Twitter or Reddit are just trash fires. They aren't "free speech" platforms like they claim to be. They're echo chambers, that ban anybody who shares opinions or views they don't like. Maybe keeping one or two around who aren't super vocal so they can point to them and say "SEE WE DIDN'T BAN THE LEFTISTS!!!". Their ownership are usually borderline criminals and have all the tact of a wrecking ball slamming into your crotch.
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