Most of you have probably heard about what's going on with gab.com.
For those who don't know, the recent Pittsburgh Synagogue shooter was apparently a regular user of gab.com, the free speech alternative to twitter. Because of this fact, gab has lost payment processors like PayPal and Stripe, and even their server has dropped them, which is why their website is currently just a simple message.
The reasons for these actions are, as far as I can tell, only political, because if it were a fair and even process then platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube would also be dropped because they also have hateful content on them, and in fact they even have/do hosted(ed) videos of people being assaulted ant tortured, and have accounts for known terrorists and terrorist groups.
It's an obvious double standard, the point of which is to stifle a competitor to Twitter that isn't controlled by some globalist interest.
You see, Gab had been growing. They've had several sessions of successful crowdfunding, and were becoming increasingly relevant as the reputation for being the "free speech Twitter alternative" grew with disenfranchised users of other mainstream platforms had either been censored, kicked off, or oppressed by their national legacy systems (as was seen in Brazil).
But there's one important thin when it comes to all of this: are these sites "PLATFORMS" or are they "PUBLISHERS"?
You see, if social media are platforms then they cannot be held responsible in this way for what their users say. It's simply an untenable situation. With a platform, users are welcome to engage with and use the services as they please, and there's no active central editing or curating process in place to ensure content is of a particular character. With a publisher, however, where each item goes through a central editing process, the publication at large is responsible for the content of its creators.
So which is it? Is Gab a publisher or a platform? If they're a publisher and thus rightfully responsible for the content of their users in the same way that a newspaper is responsible for the content of its writers, then why isn't Twitter or YouTube treated the same?
What is it about Gab that magically makes it a "publisher" while Twitter remains a "platform"? Is it the focus on freedom of speech for users? Why on earth would that make any difference in the way the site is categorized?
In any case, the powers that be don't seem to realize what a hornets nest they're stirring up with this.
It's not like taking down platforms where people say things we don't like makes those things themselves go away. Quite the contrary: the bad things DON'T go away, they go UNDERGROUND.
Gab has vowed to never quit doing what they do, and have already found new hosts and payment processors - thankfully. So all this means is that the naturally growing, edgy, INTERESTING content on the Internet is going to increasingly go to platforms like Gab, Bitchute, and Steemit, as their creators get banned or censored off of the legacy platforms like Twitter, YouTube, and Medium.
What we are in the process of seeing is a new, above-ground Internet forming. It's one based on openness, transparency, distributed networks, and cryptocurrency. It's a much more exciting and disruptive Internet. It's the place where all the naughty kids go to share their content.
I'm hoping that the developers of these new systems are up to the task, because the pressure is on and we need places to go that are going to keep our freedom to speak, transact, and share ideas.
Let's hope.
Yep. And steem must be more robust and defended due to it decentralised nature. So future of the free speech is on blockchain!
We must get rid of flagging yet. It's an option for whales (potentially owned by global players) to censor steem content.
Check out the Novusphere it has selfcensorship and anonymous posting
God I love a good white racist censorship. It makes my day.
What?
Freedom of speech was meant to protect speech people don't like! Driving offensive speech and ideas underground, deprives of the opportunity to openly discuss issues. Without open and free discussion, resentment grows and people cling tighter to the prohibited ideologies being expressed.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his famous dissent wrote,
Abrams v. United States 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919)(dissenting opinion)
EXACTLY!
Hey, guys check out Novusphere.io DECENTRALIZED IMMUTABLE reddit style forum built on EOS and is censorship opt-in, you censor media yourself. Tired of Tyrants censoring media ? You can even build your own novusphere. Every post in the Novuphere gets put in blocks so it is an Immutable forum as well. You can even do everything anonymously and get tipped for your articles ANON style if you choose.
Well said. I couldn't agree more. I had never heard of Gab before but then again I was never one to ever use the abysmal platform of Twitter. Was a sole Fakebook user but have since quit for the far better alternative that is Steemit. I think that these events and assaults on free speech are doing just what you say, drawing attention to the platforms and messages we are trying to convey. There are certainly lots of people who have their head in the sand and want to stay that way but there are also countless others, like me, that have never heard of Gab but are now intrigued and will check it out to see what's going on over there. When people do that they then learn more about topics or ideas that are considered taboo in the mainstream. It's then a cascading effect. I was actually just chatting this weekend with a woman about the increased censorship of Fakebook and all the bullshit involved with it and she agreed with me. I then started to tell her about Steemit and the freedom we have here from censorship (flagging exists, I mentioned but it doesn't prevent you from seeing anything, just not getting rewards) and she said she would look into it. We had about a 15-20 minute conversation about this whole situation and it was great to see that more people are realizing how ridiculous this censorship is. She also noted how there is so much hate on platforms like Fakebook and Twitter but I informed her that a lot of it is due to bots; one of the YouTube'rs I follow showed some evidence of a company that uses bots to argue on peoples posts to stir up hate and negative thoughts.
I thought stripe and paypal quit due to porn, since that came out weeks ago...
Either way, gab is a shit hole neo nazi den, and is beyond irrelevant for anyone with any knowledge of politics at all. Defending gab is basically defending hitler and you can freeze peach all day and night but it doesnt change the fact that nazis are losers.
Imagine being such a bad fascist that you can only exist on gab, when donald trump is in the white house and david duke has a twitter account. Christ, these whiny babies make me sick.
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Defending the rights of others to communicate ideas with which you may disagree is noble. Gab is not Hitler's Nazi mouthpiece, there were never any members of the German National Socialist Worker's Party there. To demean an entire platform owing to the actions of a few bad actors is most disingenuous; but, with this nonsense you appear to be among the group of ochlocrats dead set on abolishing the concept of having an open marketplace of ideas.
No, it's not "noble", it's naive. Nazis don't care about freedom or speech, they want to kill all minorities (including me). There's no freedom in genocide. They go in the bin, and anyone who placates them goes in the bin. End of story. Buh-bye.
YES, seems your thinking is based on fear when the real threat you should fear will be when the government takes your children away for home schooling them or feeding them only food you grow yourself. You type about the last few nazi's alive when the real threat is you to yourself. One day when this happens you will tell reach out to people trying to get help on twitter or social media. Then they will CENSOR you because they don't want to scare others with your problem that they caused. I am on your side but you are not.
Anyway Novusphere is Censorship free, feel free to join a place that does not stop you from saying whatever you want to say