Gab will become a Mastodon fork

https://gab.com/gab/posts/VnZRendFcDM1alBhNm9QeWV4d0xidz09

by betaveros • 7 years ago

91 260 7 years ago

loceng7• 7 years ago

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network) -

"Gab is an English-language social media website, launched publicly in 2017, known for its mainly far-right user base.[9] The site has been described as "extremist friendly"[10] or a "safe haven"[11] for neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right.[10] ... Antisemitism is a prominent part of the site's content[24] and the platform itself has engaged in antisemitic commentary.[13][25]" - and so on.

I'm curious how the existing Mastodon users feel about this.

black6• 7 years ago

There are existing instances which have been described as “nazi alt-right quadroons” and instance moderators can block other instances, so it’ll probably be business as usual.

smacktoward2• 7 years ago

A nice thing about Mastodon/ActivityPub is that administrators of "instances" (which means basically each running copy of the server software; you create a user account with a specific Mastodon instance, rather than with Mastodon itself) can disable federation with individual other instances, if they want to. So if a particular instance becomes a haven for trolls or other miscreants, you can block that entire instance and your users will no longer have to deal anything posted from it.

So I suspect that, if Gab really does become an ActivityPub instance, many other instances will just de-federate from them and that will be that.

loceng7• 7 years ago

Okay cool. I wonder does that mean Gab is able to use and benefit from any apps/tools created for Mastodon instances - or would it be possible for the owners of those apps/tools themselves to block/prevent certain instances from benefiting? I'd hope that's the case so everyone has the ability to 'vote' for who they are supporting.

macinjosh• 7 years ago

This is a good example of why Wikipedia is not a reliable source for many things. I have used Gab and while it is true there are clearly anti-Semitic users on Gab but there are just as many users who call out that behavior and make fun of the simple mindedness of anti-semitism. Just because a platform is for free speech absolutism doesn't mean the platform itself is bad.

anarchy8• 7 years ago

free speech absolutism

I just did a cursory glance at Gab and I already found 4 antisemitic posts and that was just on the first page.

treerock• 7 years ago

Given it's a federated service, I doubt many mastadon users will know or care that much. Those that run servers might choose to blacklist them, making them all but invisible.

layoutIfNeeded2• 7 years ago

Mastodon is like email. How do email users feel about other people sending nazi stuff via email?

rchaud4• 7 years ago

Depends on where we are in the historical timeline. I remember abandoning Hotmail in 2004 because of just how much spam got through. Gmail's spam filter was leagues ahead, but I think these days they're all pretty good.

These things take time to change. There will be an adjustment period during which Gab's hate content will spill over into other Mastodon environments. Like a spam senders list, Mastodon environments will need to continuously update the list of blocked Gab/hate group instances.

javagram2• 7 years ago

“Moving to the ActivityPub protocol as our base allows us to get into mobile App Stores without even having to submit and get approval of our own apps, whether Apple and Google like it or not.“

The perils (or benefits?) of open protocols.

Existing mastodon/pleroma clients will be able to connect to Gab by adding a server setting.

Now I wonder if mastodon client app developers will start filtering the allowed servers users can put in...

0815test3• 7 years ago

Surely there will be some client apps on F-Droid (and 'fringe' ones on iOS) that won't include any such restrictions. But I agree that the most popular apps might be highly tempted to enforce them, out of image concerns.

r3bl3• 7 years ago

Now I wonder if mastodon client app developers will start filtering the allowed servers users can put in...

That's precisely what Mastodon's creator suggested earlier today: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/102184195834215862

Of course, he has no authority over mobile apps, so it remains up to app creators to decide. I believe there are three apps that share the majority of users (Fedilab, Tusky, Mast). Most popular instances will probably stop federating with them as soon as they can.

EDIT: Fedilab's creator already expressed that he'll do so to avoid the chance of being banned from the app store.

balaksakrionon5• 7 years ago

Would it be possibly to camoflauge a gab instance as if it were a mastodon instance for the purposes of federation? It probably wouldn't stand up to the scrutiny of a follow up human review, it would bypass the federation block.

zimpenfish• 7 years ago

Toot! is going to block them.

https://mastodon.social/users/tootapp/statuses/1021853659238...

In case anyone was wondering due to recent discourse, Toot! will be blocking any gab domains.
I do not support white supremacy and hatred, and will never support any server that promotes it.

pgeorgi2• 7 years ago

Now I wonder if mastodon client app developers will start filtering the allowed servers users can put in...

Any action of that kind would only fuel the alt-right persecution complex. Servers however do filtering all the time already, and that's how the Gab folks can be left out of view of the rest of the world.

TheCapeGreek• 7 years ago

Mastodon server instances already have blocked lists of "banned" instances. There's also a common ban list on github, so new server admins can join the federation in a "normal" way. The ban list has some pretty messed up instances it rightfully bans, but they either tend to be illegal or far-right. Far-left content is spread and encouraged.

Note: I'm not trying to take a side in this, and I don't try to identify with any particular "faction" in the federation space.

phoe-krk4• 7 years ago

Now I wonder if mastodon client app developers will start filtering the allowed servers users can put in...

This is not the duty of client applications. Banning instances is the duty of the operators of individual instances, and the instance(s) on which you have your account(s) are the instance(s) whose blocking policy affects you. This is a feature.

Most sane instances on the Fediverse already ban extremist and alt-right content, and Gab will be no different in that case - just another entry on the blacklist, next to https://freespeechextremist.com/ and https://rapefeminists.network and other instances who shamelessly abuse the right to free speech.

scohesc3• 7 years ago

I wouldn't say they're abusing the right to free speech, they're taking full advantage of it.

If you don't like what they're saying, you have every right to not listen to it, promote it yourself, and you also have the right to start a movement to let people know this is going on and to bring awareness to the festering shitpiles those websites are.

It's not an abuse of the right to free speech.

r3bl3• 7 years ago

This is not the duty of client applications.

It might become their duty. Since Gab's apps are banned, and those apps would be used to access Gab's servers, I could see Apple/Google blocking Mastodon apps as well.

App creators might be forced to ban Gab in order to avoid getting banned from the app stores.

robobro• 7 years ago

WAHA, brain behind a major Mastodon app, has claimed they're blocking Gab in his client and that users can't unblock Gab.

As a free software guy, this troubles me.

This is on par with firefox deciding which websites they should block.

(In fact the Oculus Browser blocks 4chan / 8ch / other sites)

loceng7• 7 years ago

The conclusion I always seem to come to is you eventually want to be able to trust those within your network. I believe that requires some level of initial openness to prove who you are to a personally selected authority you decide to trust, who can verify your identity, and then allow you to communicate/engage with your real name or one-to-many pseudonyms, so if your actions are outside whatever rules exist for that network are violated then you could get a temporary timeout ("sit in the corner and think about what you did"), to permanent ban, to if it is considered criminal by society then reporting the person to appropriate authorities; we can't have inherent fear and distrust a chain of command, there is good in the world - we of course must stand strong, strongly together, and stand guard in order to fight against abuse of power, inauthentic behaviour - and so on - in chain of commands.

How will users of the Gab network know if it is INSERT_NATION_NAME agents, paid and incentivized to manipulate them and cause unrest in a societal structure we call democracy? Perhaps they're not even thinking or caring about it and its consequences, perhaps they're even simply happy they have a helping hand?

From what we've seen it takes very few bad actors to infiltrate a nation's foundational structures once the atmosphere of a population is disenfranchised enough, once we're disconnected and disengaged enough, and that has been accelerated by the cheap economies of scale the internet has afforded.

At the end what I hope for is that security services of democracies are being intelligent and allocating resources to fully and carefully infiltrating these groups (carefully as to not escalate the situation) to know who those who are involved is: this of course comes down to potential overreach, which must be addressed not because you may more easily know/discover who bad actors are - but because it may be bad actors who actually someday may get hold or access to these systems.

jrumbut• 7 years ago

The conversation here goes pretty well, no real names required. I actually think it's the opposite, real names bring in our real world problems and identities.

A fresh name is a fresh start and maybe you take the chance to do better this time.

It seems like people feel free to post the most atrocious nonsense on Facebook under their real name or maybe using one of the apparently billions of fake accounts that look just like real people. I don't think trust really works in internet conversations with strangers, you can't ever know their motives even if you know their names.

byset• 7 years ago

You’re saying that intelligence agencies should infiltrate and spy on dissident groups?

Pretty sure they do that already, but weird to see people advocate for it.

sleepybrett• 7 years ago

While apple does have some 'technology bars' you have to clear to get into their store. You can't use private APIs in the Apple frameworks for example. There are also 'content' bars that have to be surmounted. I don't think just because they use activity pub or whatever protocol that apple is going to roll over and play nice.

Their whole social network is literally a garbage fire, Apple doesn't want to associate their brand with garbage fires. I expect Gab management is in for a rude awakening.

eugeniub• 7 years ago

Why not? You can already use existing App Store apps to connect to whatever ActivityPub server you want, no matter the content. It's like how you can use an RSS reader app in the App Store to subscribe to literally any RSS feed.

javagram2• 7 years ago

Apple allows alternative web browsers and email clients. They also allow encrypted person to person messengers like whatsapp that terrorists can use to plan attacks.

Any of this type of client app can and will be used for the worst things in the internet. So far Apple has not tried to censor it, I’d be surprised if that changed but we will see.

xrjpi• 7 years ago

Moving to the ActivityPub protocol as our base allows us to get into mobile App Stores without even having to submit and get approval of our own apps, whether Apple and Google like it or not

They also had the option of creating an ActivityPub compatible API, no? But yes I guess it's easier this way.

Having said that I wonder if they'll allow federation to happen. Most Mastodon instances restrict and censor speech so they will probably add Gab to the blocklist immediately but it would be cool if they could federate with other free speech instances. But then, what would be the point of using Gab instead of just other Mastodon instance?

coldpie2• 7 years ago

Deciding what content is allowed on your private platform is not censorship. The platform owner is exercising their own form of speech.

dcolkitt3• 7 years ago

Incorrect.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient".[2][3][4] Censorship can be conducted by a government[5], private institutions, and corporations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

hedora3• 7 years ago

Privatized censorship is legal in the US, but it is still censorship.

For example, the MPAA was formed because the movie industry felt it was better to self-censor than to have the government censor them.

If your movie contains anything the censors don’t approve, then it will not get an R rating, and will not be distributed to theaters, etc.

They even censor political speech sometimes: https://boingboing.net/2007/12/20/mpaa-censors-torture.html

linuxftw• 7 years ago

I don't use gab.

what would be the point of using Gab instead of just other Mastodon instance?

This question answers itself. "Gab" is a brand name. Other Mastadon instances are not. People will join the brand name, the underlying technology is irrelevant.

0815test3• 7 years ago

Regardless of how you feel about the Gab folks in particular, this is great news that clearly shows the power of the federated web in enabling, empowering and preserving diverse audiences.

krapp7• 7 years ago

Maybe now they'll stop concern-trolling about the inevitable slippery slope into an Orwellian fascist nightmare the world will descend into every time a site bans them. They have their own playground where they can be as racist and edgy as they want.

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1357/

rchaud4• 7 years ago

That won't happen because the constant alarmism about censorship is part of the appeal. "Your rights are being violated by the Hollywood/feminists/liberal elites! Send me money so I can tell you how to combat this scourge with Logic & Reason (TM)"

People like J Peterson and Sargon could deal with being deplatformed in the way they preach to their disciples, but instead they whine about it while shaking their e-collection boxes.

anon1234569012• 7 years ago

uh theres a big story right now about china attacking activists. theres a story about google and amazon tracking everything and using facial recognition. everyone freaks out when google builds a china search engine.

but ok, yea its all fake because you think theyre racists. whatever.

belorn• 7 years ago

The right to free speech in the US is indeed a specific law with a narrow scope to only limit the US government. This is why people that do end up in court often go the route of using anti-discrimination laws rather then freedom of speech. It has much bigger scope and it can actually demand that a company host people which they politically disagree with.

In EU, if a place cancel a reservation because someone is homosexual then they are likely breaking a human rights law. Anti-discrimination laws covers ideology, political, philosophical, religious and other identities, and showing people the door is often illegal if it done on the grounds of difference in ideology or politics.

In the US I don't know if a hosting company has the same right to show the door to a racist (that follow the law) as a racist hotel owner has the right to show a non-white person the door. I suspect the law does not really distinguish between online and offline so my guess would be that racist hotel owners can discriminate if they wish to not host a customer regardless of reasons.

gargron• 7 years ago

Gab solicited $5M [1] in investments just to use open source software that anyone can use for free. Wonder how those investors feel about it.

[1] https://thinkprogress.org/social-network-that-caters-to-whit...

ryanmarsh• 7 years ago

In spite of the fact that Gab is a known cess pool (cis pool?), I funded it because we need more alternatives to the big social networks. I would have funded Tor and 4chan had I the opportunity many years ago.

Not too long ago this was a classical liberal position. Today free speech is passé. Guess I'm just old fashioned.

I'm happy to see that Gab is switching to Mastodon. I think it will increase the survivability of the platform. They've struggled under the engineering challenges of scaling a social network. Mastodon fans should be happy that this may mean an influx of hosts and developers.

paulgb• 7 years ago

Not too long ago this was a classical liberal position. Today free speech is passé. Guess I'm just old fashioned.

It's not old fashioned, it's just that people differentiate free speech in principle from paying the server bills. Just as freedom of the press never meant the newspaper had to publish your op-ed, free speech online doesn't mean Twitter has to give anyone server space to post Nazi stuff.

(I agree that there should be more platforms, but that's why I've supported other Mastadon instances instead of Gab.)

UncleMeat2• 7 years ago

Why are free speech absolutists only supporting fascists?

Where are the people advocating for the destruction of intellectual property rights, for widespread declassification of state communications, for suffrage rights for felons, and for unionization and striking rights? I don't exactly see the gab users advocating for laws permitting sympathetic striking.

justin662• 7 years ago

I would have funded Tor and 4chan had I the opportunity many years ago.
Not too long ago this was a classical liberal position.

I'm not sure who or what you're thinking of, but the classical liberal position would be to support something like the Cambridge Union, Cleveland City Club, or some other free speech and debate forum where social norms exist.

gfodor3• 7 years ago

In terms of value, the software IP of social networking companies is dwarfed by their network, their brand, and their operational capacity. Just getting code doesn't get you any of these. Investors should be pleased they are not re-inventing the wheel.

tptacek• 7 years ago

Presumably, they're more irritated by the fact that the social network they invested in is a ghost town populated by bots and spammers† punctuated by virulent white supremacy. As I'm fond of pointing out, even the Gab accounts that post inspirational landscape photography and "hang in there" photos are, when you dig into their post history, white supremacists. I'd have to imagine anyone who gave a material amount of money to Gab is already comfortable enabling the kind of forum that gave rise to the Tree of Life shooting. But I can't imagine any investor being OK with a moribund social network.

The fact that, in 2019, you can't post on Gab without effectively declaring an affinity for white supremacy (whether you agree or not, that's certainly the message you'd broadcast by doing so) can't help user acquisition either.

† It's been a minute since I looked, but all the accounts I had there, none of which have ever interacted with the site, seem to be, err, popular with the ladies in my area just looking for a good time.

vikingcaffiene6• 7 years ago

I had heard about Gab but never visited the site before. I just spent 30 seconds perusing the trending feed. I saw the following:

1. a video of a man being shot and killed during an armed robbery 2. 3 anti islam posts 3. the usual pro trump propaganda 4. a meme warning about the evils of feminism urging women to get back to their "place" in the family.

Gab is a festering pile of trash. Anyone responsible for making any technical decisions on it should be ashamed of themselves.

saagarjha2• 7 years ago

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

village-idiot2• 7 years ago

GP isn't recommending that congress ban Gab. They're just using their own free speech to condemn it.

wpietri9• 7 years ago

The right to say something is different than people giving material support to it. E.g., I will defend your legal right stand on the corner with a pro-holocaust placard. But anybody printing those placards or otherwise helping you is an asshole. I will happily tell them so, and I will refuse to do business with them. That's me exercising my rights of freedom of speech and freedom of association.

Freedom of speech isn't freedom from criticism. And it's also not freedom from any other lawful reaction. Anybody helping with Gab richly deserves criticism and shunning in the technical community.

rhcom2• 7 years ago

It's not nearly cut and dry as this quote as defining what "right to say it" means in the age of the internet is a massive open question.

UncleMeat2• 7 years ago

Will you defend my right to distribute IP I don't own? Or to vote if I am a felon? Or to share state secrets? Or to defraud people or slander people?

Do you believe that if the people on gab became state leaders that they'd protect your right to dissent?

vikingcaffiene6• 7 years ago

Since we're doing quotes:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

Hate speech should not be allowed a safe haven. Gab is a business and, as such, is not required to adhere to the first amendment.

lukifer• 7 years ago

Relevant: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...

vorpalhex5• 7 years ago

The darkness is only ever undone by shining a light. By all means, people of reasonable sense should take a moment to look at Gab and realize what counter-factual nonsense it is, because banning it or censoring it will only make it more powerful.

wpietri9• 7 years ago

That's a common claim, but I've seen precious little evidence for it. For decades US Nazis and other loons were justifiably obscure. But the rise of the Internet, which enabled all sorts of connection, also enabled our country's worst to more easily connect, network, and recruit. A good book on the topic is Neiwart's "Alt-America", written by a journalist who studied American white supremacists starting in the 1980s.

As a counterpoint, just recently we saw Tommy Robinson, far right activist and repeat felon, get crushed in the European elections. Why did fail? He himself says social media bans were the reason: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/european-elec...

Deplatforming works. If we need people to understand awful people and awful ideas, history provides us with plenty of examples. Similarly, if we want people to understand tigers, we don't just turn tigers loose in the classroom. We read books, we see videos, maybe we visit a zoo.

Fomite• 7 years ago

I mean, the last time Nazi's came to the front, darkness was undone by carpet bombing and years of grueling war.

rchaud4• 7 years ago

All that does is create a filter bubbles. On subreddits like the_donald, cringeanarchy and others that slowly turned into hate-filled cesspools, there have been users who had a bout of self-realization and left the sub.

Over time, there's a larger exodus of regular people, leaving only the crazies talking to each other.

iamshs• 7 years ago

Seems like Indian Twitter. Replace Trump with Modi. Indian Twitter uses Hindi language to escape notice and censorship. Worst posts fester there.

nicky0• 7 years ago

Fortunately there are more heavily moderated alternatives available to you.

DominoTree• 7 years ago

The moment I clicked on this link, without even browsing, I was greeted with a recommendation to follow an account with a racial slur in the name. No thanks.

dcolkitt3• 7 years ago

I mean Tor is used for some pretty bad stuff. Much of the dark net, if not most of the dark net is pretty heinous. Definitely worse than Gab. Do you feel similarly about Tor developers?

The way I see it building platforms for detested people is a pretty good canary in the coalmine. If Internet technologies aren't resilient enough to keep the most hated people in the world online, then that's a pretty bad sign that those technologies wouldn't stand up to motivated state actors.

52-6F-622• 7 years ago

Tor being a protocol, I think the better analog would be the people developing the "host anything you want here, no limits" servers would be more the type of developers OP was addressing.

Traster• 7 years ago

Gab specifically isn't a technology though. This article is specifically about the technology Gab is going to use. So I think the more apt comparison is between Tor and Mastodon. Gab is a website in the same that that a website on the dark net is a website- both of which can and should be judged on their merits.

PhasmaFelis5• 7 years ago

Every time someone sets out to create a completely unmoderated free speech platform, it immediately becomes an object lesson in why people moderate platforms.

inawarminister• 7 years ago

That's because the first adopters of an unmoderated platforms are those who were kicked out from the moderated platforms, whether rightfully or wrongly.

Indeed, many settlements in the yesteryears were founded by outlaws and dissidents (also see: the Pilgrims and Mormon settlement of Utah)

balaksakrionon5• 7 years ago

Why do you think it's unmoderated? I saw this same statement in another comment and pulled up their guidelines: https://gab.com/about/guidelines. Essentially they aim to moderate according to US law

manigandham2• 7 years ago

The people who post those things also use the internet, email, chat apps, social media and everything else. At some point you have to accept that people can say and do what they want and only they are responsible for it.

Gab is no different than any other social media site in that what you see is a function of who you follow, but gab has no moderation at all so you will see things you don’t like more often. It is what it is, but it always seems strange to me to blame the platform for its users.

vikingcaffiene6• 7 years ago

Gab is no different than any other social media site in that what you see is a function of who you follow
At some point you have to accept that people can say and do what they want and only they are responsible for it.

I could not disagree with you more. It is very different and they are known as a haven for some of the vilest viewpoints out there. These fringe viewpoints reach a larger audience and bad things happen. Literally every social media platform of any scale is grappling with this problem. Since, as you say, Gab has no moderation, this is what you get.

It's very easy to just throw your hands up and yell "freedom" with this stuff but I'd be willing to bet you aren't part of a demographic that gets regularly demonized in these corners of the internet. There are stakes. It matters that things like this get called out for what they are.

kerkeslager4• 7 years ago

I don't like most of the content you mention, but I still don't understand your pro-censorship viewpoint.

What's your goal here? Do you honestly think that preventing these people from having a public voice will make them disappear? Or do you simply want to brush them under the carpet so you can pretend they don't exist?

I think a much better approach is to allow free speech, and to spend some of our time kindly and empathetically trying to understand these people so we can address the underlying issues that cause them to believe what they believe. That's what Martin Luther King did, if you read his more theoretical writings. And I think it's what we should be trying to do today. Gutting free speech isn't the solution.

vikingcaffiene6• 7 years ago

If you read my original comment you'll see I am not actually calling for censorship. I am calling for any developers responsible for providing Gab with technical assistance to re-evaluate what they are doing with their skills. It's a matter of professional ethics and it matters quite a bit to me. If they are helping Gab in any capacity they either agree with the content on it, or are taking a cynical payday. Either way its repulsive and it needs to be called out.

While we are on the subject of censorship: yes people with vile viewpoints exist. Yes they have a right to express those viewpoints. NO a platform does not have to help them spread said viewpoints. I would like to remind you that Gab is a _business_, not a government. They are under no obligation to honor the 1st amendment. It's no different than places like Hacker News which heavily moderates its content. Codes of conduct exist for a reason and it is to protect the vulnerable. If you don't feel that deeply in your bones it's likely because you aren't a member of a demographic that is under threat.

Gab, by its very existence and prominence legitimizes racism, nazism, sexism, violence, etc. It creates a community and a sense of moral righteousness around it. People are _dying_ and the country is on the brink of chaos. We can't ignore this threat any longer. Gab _can_ in fact moderate hate speech on their platform. They just don't either because they believe it or because it's profitable. Either way I hope their business dies and they go broke because what they are doing is wrong.

Keverw2• 7 years ago

I first heard of Gab when big social media sites were accused of censoring conservatives during the 2016 election. One of the idea of Gab is if you don't like what people say you can block them and don't visit their profile...

So for example many social networks banned Alex Jones... With Gab if you don't like what he says, you don't have to follow him... So instead of the site itself trying to censor people, the users can censor things themselves. I believe the only thing Gab censors is if the content itself is illegal in some way, but other than that they support free speech giving users more choices and freedom.

samfriedman• 7 years ago

Sure you can block specific users, but if I don't want to see (for example) anti-semitism how can I block that topic completely? It's not as if users tag their posts with each brand of hate speech.

Keverw2• 7 years ago

I'm not sure if you block someone if it also hides their topics created by them but I would assume so. I know they have a way to block words too. I guess they call it mute users and words instead of block.

I know some people were calling this the alt tech space.

I haven't really been following it other than I remember the developer was interviewed talking about it. Another idea instead of verification badge being reserved for large celebrities, supposed to be more to show it's truly them.

I do think we're going down a slippery slope with all this censorship though and a few large players in Silicon valley controlling everything. I know there was a lot of accusations going on, that some search engines and sites were rigged to rank Hillary higher than Trump... Even the people in the media were saying Trump had no chance and Hillary was going to win. It's like they tried to rig the whole thing. But even then the mainstream media is all controlled by a few hands anyways too.

Then there are only really two main operating systems... On Mobile iOS and Android. Desktop Mac and Windows... So seems like more choices and freedom is a great thing, so power is spread out more instead of a few having large amounts of influence. However I also feel like people will pick things based on ease of use and features over being open. I like the ideas of Linux but I find myself using MacOs when it comes to desktop operating systems.

I know people are building alternatives to Facebook and YouTube on the blockchain (such as Steemit). Then there are even projects aiming to build alternatives to Wikipedia as some people don't even trust them either, forget what it's called though off the top of my head though. I know some of these companies have a lot of control and power, and can't even provide decent technical support.

I know Elizabeth Warren recent thing is talking about breaking up big tech, Google and Facebook... I like a lot of what Google does though, as a geek they are doing awesome things technically. I'm not sure if breaking them up is a good idea or not, but I think more competition and choices would be great as lack of tech support is a concern(and many recent HN posts on that topic already) and ideally I wish they'd be neutral in ranking things but I know people debate about that anyway as a whole other topic.

neetdeth• 7 years ago

Personally I think Curt Yarvin had a decent idea about how to handle this type of thing with Urbit. Of course Urbit itself is terminally esoteric and nigh unusable, but here are the principles:

“Urbit will do everything possible to help you block content you don't want to see. It does nothing to help you block content you don't want others to see. ... If you post content on Urbit which may offend or disturb any significant group of users, it is your responsibility to mark it properly for automatic blocking.”

https://urbit.org/posts/beliefs-and-principles/

There was a wordier post related to this but I think some stuff might have been purged with his separation from Tlon.

Anyway, the point is, if I’m writing from an alt-right perspective it’s my responsibility to tag it as such. Properly tagged, anti-semitism (for example) would not be an abuse of the platform. I don’t see how this is any less enforceable than the outright banning that e.g. Twitter practices now, and in fact it may be quite a bit easier, as you’ll get fewer “outlaws” who have to cycle through alts every week or two to get their message out to their followers.

One problem of course is establishing a small and universally recognized set of tags that work well enough for most people. Instead of very specific “content warning” types of things, it’s probably good enough to indicate broad political allegiance - black flag, red flag, brown flag etc. It’s rare that just a single word in isolation sets people off - offense taken seems to have more to do with the worldview motivating a given statement.

Then there’s the question of asymmetry. Say, for example, that As are mortally offended by B content but Bs don’t seem to care much about A content. In effect, you’d be creating an unfair burden on Bs simply because they’re more tolerant than As.

NLP algorithms can obviously help here, as well as crowdsourced tagging. So a single A user might have to be exposed to a B-type post to apply the tag, but we might consider that an acceptable loss over a large enough base.

This of course all assumes good faith. I suspect that As will simply be furious that Bs are able to talk to other Bs and neutral Cs, even if they never see those posts.

ocdtrekkie3• 7 years ago

Oh, the Mastodon community is going to be ticked about this... Purism said Librem One's server wasn't going to police speech, and they were upset about it. Gab is a whole different level.

I think ActivityPub has huge potential to be a way for communities of disparate views and perspectives to exist out there, and two distinct and very opposing groups have grasped onto it: People who want space spaces who don't think mainstream platforms moderate enough, and the alt-right and free speech crowd.

In the long run, I think you'll see a lot of ActivityPub servers, but two distinct federations, with very few links between them: One radically liberal and one radically conservative.

kristianc• 7 years ago

People who want space spaces who don't think mainstream platforms moderate enough, and the alt-right and free speech crowd.

I've never really understood the 'safe spaces' line of argument. I'm a 30 year old white male, and whenever I log onto YouTube I see nothing but recommendations trying to force me down the alt-right rabbit hole.

Sure, Twitter has booted off a few high profile people on the alt right but I don't think I've ever seen anyone argue that the debate on Twitter isn't pretty robust.

Where's the censorship? And how attractive is a community of people only for people who have been kicked off larger platforms?

ocdtrekkie3• 7 years ago

I tried Diaspora a while ago, and found the lack of "the center" very unappealing in discussions, and see some of the same today on Mastodon: People who end up on these alternate networks tend to be people who were either banned from mainstream or bullied off of them, so they tend to be the very far ends of the political spectrum on both sides.

I remember when Wil Wheaton tried to join Mastodon, and some transgression he had against one gender identity or another led to him getting bullied off the network, despite him being... fairly bloody liberal. He just wasn't liberal enough for the crowd.

village-idiot2• 7 years ago

I've never really understood the 'safe spaces' line of argument.

Because it's a disingenuous argument, and it's always been about:

1. Making one side feel like the victim, which maintains coherence

2. Playing the refs

cannonedhamster4• 7 years ago

The persecution complex among predominantly white males right now is high because there's a significant social change occurring that is causing those who've been disadvantaged the same privileges that white males have enjoyed alone for much of recent human history. It's a natural human reaction to care more about loss than to see the potential upside. We've also seen this numerous times before. The rise of Nazism was the natural response to the harsh restrictions of WW1 which is why the Marshall plans included Germany in the rebuilding opportunities.

Many of those on the right address looking for power and utilize this gut reactionary response by those who feel disenfranchised for their own purposes. It's why fighting against a populist like President Trump with facts doesn't work. If reality don't fit the narrative, make a different reality. It's a very effective propaganda technique that usually requires an outside force to break. The US did something similar with the fight against communism and really had a hard time redefining Americanism once the Soviet Union collapsed. That's why the so called war on terror will never end. In order for America to be the good guys there needs to be bad people too. So in order for the alt-right to be the victim they either find villains on the left or they make them up. AOC is a perfect example of a toothless villain. She's a junior congresswomen with no real power, but she's constantly villainized far beyond the risk she poses to anyone on the right. Physically though she embodies the fears of white guys being replaced from their positions of power.

scohesc3• 7 years ago

See, alt-right is such a subjective term.

I've seen people say that wearing a hat with "MAGA" on it is alt-right.

I've also seen people say that opinions like "we want an entire race of people locked up and punished" is alt-right as well.

While one is definitively magnitudes worse than the other, they're both put under the banner of "alt-right".

anon1234569012• 7 years ago

do you want a safe space on youtube? twitter banned people for saying "learn to code" but not leftists saying they wanted to kill the covington kids. if you think theres no censorship then youre not paying attention.

egypturnash2• 7 years ago

I run a Mastodon instance. This morning I blocked Purism's server for openly declaring that they plan to be free-speech absolutists who will not bother with any kind of moderation at all, which my years on the net has made me feel is akin to founding a city and declaring you will not have a sewer. This afternoon I preemptively blocked a couple guesses at what Gab's instance will be named. If and when I hear that Gab's instance is actually running and is using a name that doesn't match my guesses, I'll block that one too.

It's really not a big thing to me. I've been blocking Pleromas run by people with anime girl avatars who like to post swastikas for the entire time I've been running an instance. This is just a bigger one.

Your theory about how this will sort out in terms of federation topology matches mine.

travisoneill12• 7 years ago

Most HN posts: HN users hate internet controlled and censored by governments or corporations

This post: HN users hate it when things they don't like manage to get around corporate and government censorship

kgraves6• 7 years ago

Absolutely.

anon1234569012• 7 years ago

lol and another big story is talking about china attacking activists and everyones freaking out. people who want to censor are the worst.

travisoneill12• 7 years ago

And they're such losers too. They just downvote because they can't even present a counterargument.

antepodius9• 7 years ago

Maybe there's a selection effect on who comments on the thread? People who know and heavily dislike Gab already might be more motivated, when scrolling past the thread, to comment on it.

dang• 7 years ago

It's different people. You might as well complain about the human race this way.

gfodor3• 7 years ago

Those focused on Gab's audience should realize this kind of attempt is the best hope for a global migration off of twitter to a decentralized service. (Which to me, would be a good thing.)

If it was ever going to happen at this point, it would probably be by venture backed company addressing an alienated audience from the platform who is incentivized enough to switch platforms, building a good UX around a decentralized alternative, and then hoping you can get enough critical mass for network effects to kick in. In the limit, the alt-right focus of Gab will eventually dilute away if the edges of the network get built up and Gab is just another (big) node in the network -- nascent services have an audience focus to get traction that self-evidently goes away as they reach global scale. You don't have to like their choice of initial audience, but this strategic execution certainly seems one worth keeping an eye on, not just to see if the migration starts to happen at a larger scale but also because if they validate the strategy other companies can target similar niche audiences.

ocdtrekkie3• 7 years ago

Most of the Mastodon network will ban Gab immediately (and the founder of Gab acknowledges as much in the comments of the article), community dilution is very unlikely. But they will get to share federation with a variety of other alt-right and free speech zone Mastodon servers which have been banned by the larger fediverse community.

gfodor3• 7 years ago

As it should be -- by community dilution I was referring more to mind share around Mastodon and also the likelihood that Gab's community would soften its alt-right focus if it's able to get traction with a wider audience that may lean right but is not hard right.

I think this kind of federation for under-served audiences, combined with good productization, is a necessary step towards a future where fan-out 'microblogging' has the same place in our society as email. To me, it was quite a sight to see Congress speaking to half a dozen white men about how to decide what words people can say to each other over the Internet -- the absence of a representative for regulating "email speech" made it clear the importance of decentralizing these services.

egypturnash2• 7 years ago

Shit, I pre-emptively banned gab.com and gab.ai on my Mastodon instance and they ain't even up yet.

kgraves6• 7 years ago

Precisely, to me this is a big experiment in decentralised networks. Like Gab or not, this is an interesting observation.

tw042• 7 years ago

You don't have to like their choice of initial audience

And what exactly leads you to believe that gab is going to somehow morph into a site for anything other than their "initial audience"? Why would "normal" folks actively seek out and participate in a forum full of racist, radical white supremacists?

jtr17• 7 years ago

Gab has certainly carved out a niche for some of the worst speech on the internet, including at the very least the announcement of terrorist activity (see Tree of Life, New Zealand massacres) if not the wholesale coordination of it. I don't think we can have a serious discussion about free speech without acknowledging that members of these groups have moved along a path from speech to actions that include mass murder.

On the other hand if we're serious about free speech absolutism, this is probably the best case scenario. Federated Mastadon instances should have the option of blocking harassment from Gab users. Allow them to have their free speech, but the rest of online society should have the option to shun them - a real-world dynamic that is not well reflected on platforms like twitter _because_ of centralization. Rather than hopelessly petitioning Jack to ban the nazis, users + communities should be empowered to do it themselves.

DuskStar• 7 years ago

When you found a town that is extremely vocal in its ban on witch burning, it really shouldn't be a surprise to have it filled with witches. But that doesn't mean that witch burnings aren't a bad thing, or that towns with such a ban shouldn't exist.

kgraves6• 7 years ago

As much as I hate the bad parts of Gab, I am glad they are standing up to their principles of being a truly free speech social network.

The other social networks just love to censor everybody they disagree with, even a particular orange looking website.

I am also excited and glad they are utilising open source software as well. (This was bound to happen sooner or later) This can make activitypub & decentralised networks mainstream.

jtr17• 7 years ago

I don't share any such appreciation for Gab. IMO, "free speech" in this case was a thinly veiled excuse for white supremacism, which has plenty of other homes on the internet. The developers of Gab chose to devote substantial portions of their lives to creating a platform for people who promote ethnic cleansing and the suppression of minorities. I don't think it's possible to do that without your eyes wide open, and I think that makes it a profoundly evil project.

kgraves6• 7 years ago

..."free speech" in this case is a thin wrapper over white supremacism,

Even though this is your opinion I find this statement extremely ridiculous.

I don't support or agree with their views, but free speech grants them the right to say it and I will defend that right (which includes everyone).

The great thing is that you don't have to hear it, just block them if you don't like it.

anon1234569012• 7 years ago

free speech is free speech. that means people say bad things sometime. you know theres a big story on the frontpage right now about china activists being attacked? bet they would like some free speech.

graenxa2• 7 years ago

Gab is not a free speech social network. Gab is a white supremacy social network. Gab has actively courted white supramcists[0], white supremacists make up the vast majority of their userbase[1].

I understand and respect your deep support of free speech. But please, take a step back here and think about what you are saying you are glad about.

Are you really glad a group of people decided to roll up their sleeves and build a platform for white supremacists? Is that really an admirable use of someone's time, energy, and expertise?

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/30/tech/gab-anti-semitic-speech-...

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/31/silicon...

ThrowawayR23• 7 years ago

If those people become the majority (which, terrifyingly, no longer seems outside of the realm of possibility), you and those who share your beliefs might become the ones needing the protections of free speech and the ability to circumvent deplatforming.

_Now_ do you see why maintaining free speech protections is important?

amiga-workbench3• 7 years ago

I tried to find some remotely interesting content on that site, all I found was boomer political rambling and bile.

If they do this, I'll be making sure I blacklist their instances. While there are plenty of free-speech oriented or even right wing mastodon instances, the signal to noise ratio on these is pretty good and there is actually content worth engaging with.

rmtech5• 7 years ago

there are plenty of free-speech oriented or even right wing mastodon instances, the signal to noise ratio on these is pretty good and there is actually content worth engaging with.

any recommendations?

amiga-workbench3• 7 years ago

I see a lot of people in my feed from bsd.moe and liberdon.com, I'm on layer8.space at the moment but am considering hosting an instance just for myself.

I feel like a burden being on someone else's server, using their bandwidth.

Millennium• 7 years ago

Good. This will make an excellent test of the ability of Mastodon servers and users to ostracize malicious actors, and a solid driver for new features in this area of development.

Gab will become a Mastodon fork

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