Gab, Mastodon And The Challenges Of Content Moderation On A More Distributed Social Network
from the experimentation-through-federation dept
While so many of the discussions and debates about content moderation focus on a few giant platforms -- namely Facebook, YouTube and Twitter -- it's fascinating to see how they play out in other arenas. Indeed, one of the reasons why we're so concerned about efforts to "regulate" content moderation practices on social media is that focusing on the manner in which those big, centralized platforms work could serve to stifle newer, more innovative platforms, whose very set up may inherently deal with the "problems" in the first place (see my protocols, not platforms discussion for one example).
There are a few interesting platforms out there trying to take a different approach to nearly everything -- and one of the more well known is Mastodon, an open source "federated" system that is sort of somewhat like Twitter. If you somehow have missed the Mastodon boat, I'd recommend the long piece Sarah Jeong wrote about it two years ago, which is a pretty good intro to the topic. The really short version, though, is that anyone can set up their own Mastodon community and, if others so choose, they may "federate" with other Mastodon communities. You could build a Mastodon instance that is totally isolated from others, or you could build one that connects to others and allows "toots" to go from one instance of Mastodon to others. And, of course, the federating can change over time. It's kind of neat in that it allows for multiple communities, who can set different rules, norms and standards, and thus you get much more widespread experimentation. And, unlike a fully centralized system, like Twitter, the ability for different instances to just "go there own way" if they disagree, allows for much greater flexibility, without a centralized content moderation impossibility.
I'm still more interested in much more fully decentralized protocol-based systems, but a federated system like Mastodon, that allows for a distributed set of mini-centralized instances that can join together or separate as needed, is still pretty fascinating.
However, it got more fascinating and interesting earlier this month when the social network Gab moved to Mastodon. If you haven't followed this space at all, Gab likes to call itself the "free speech alternative" to Twitter, but in practice that has meant that it's the place that many trolls, racists and other general assholes have gathered after being kicked off of Twitter. Gab announced, back in May, that it was planning to shift its platform to Mastodon, setting up its own instance. In theory, this solved some "problems" that Gab had been facing -- starting with the fact that Apple and Google had removed Gab's mobile app from their app stores (something Gab sued over, in a strategy that was not very successful). Since there are a bunch of Mastodon apps that allow users to log into any particular Mastodon instance, Gab itself made it clear that this was a key reason for the move:
Of course, building on top of someone else's better tested open source code probably also helps Gab with the long list of technical issues the site was having. And then there's the pure troll factor. Besides harboring social media trolls, Gab, as a company has always sort of gleefully taken on a trollish roll in the way it works as a company as well. And, considering that part of the very reason that Mastodon's creator, Eugen "Gargron" Rochko, set up Mastodon in the first place was to build an alternative to Twitter that was free of Nazis, assholes and trolls... it was a truly trollish move to jump onto that platform and at least imply to many a plan to "invade" (or, perhaps we should say brigading) the wider "fediverse" of Mastodon.
The switch over happened earlier this month and it's been fascinating to watch how it's all played out. The shortest summary might be that the federated model has shown to be somewhat resilient so far. Mastodon itself put out a statement urging various Mastodon instances not to federate with Gab and also suggesting that the various Mastdodon app developers choose to blacklist Gab's domains from their apps (meaning that Gab's plan to use this to get back into the app store might not work as well as planned).
The Verge has a long, in-depth article about how all of this is playing out, and it seems like, as a federated system is designed to do, different parts of the system are experimenting and figuring out what makes sense. Most of the other instances have decided they don't want to federate with Gab.
If you join a major Mastodon instance right now, chances are you won’t be connected to Gab. “All the admins that I know, that I interact with myself, have already blocked Gab,” says Rochko — including Mastodon.Social. “Essentially, they’re isolated.”
As for the various app makers, they're figuring out what they want to do:
This has turned app access into a battlefield. Developers can lock Gab out by disabling login options to the instance or completely blocking content from its servers. And several have done just that. Mastodon lists six major mobile apps on its homepage. Four of them — the Android client Tusky and the iOS apps Toot!, Mast, and Amaroq — block Gab in some fashion.
Amaroq developer John Gabelmann banned Gab to avoid potential problems with the App Store. “My core objective is to keep Amaroq publicly available and to abide by all Apple policies, which keep unmoderated extremist/hateful content off the store,” he tells The Verge. “If your network is large enough and unmoderated enough to get the negative attention of Apple, Amaroq will follow Apple’s policies.”
Mast’s creator Shihab Mehboob, by contrast, blocked Gab after users requested it. He’s gotten one-star reviews from angry Gab users, but “if hate speech is masquerading as free speech on an app I’ve built, it’s upon myself to somehow moderate that and reduce it where possible,” he says. “I understand that the Fediverse is intended to be open and entirely at the user’s discretion as to what they want to see/use/partake in, but that shouldn’t cover Nazi-based ideologies. There has to be a line drawn somewhere.”
Other app developers maintain that this blocking doesn’t fit Mastodon’s mission. The Android-based Fedilab app’s free version initially blocked Gab because of Play Store content policy fears. But the ban has since been lifted. “I will simply not block instances with the app,” wrote Fedilab’s developer. “I clearly think that’s not my role … If you want a strong block, it’s in the hands of social network developers or your admins.”
And the developer of Subway Tooter, who goes by Tateisu, is skeptical that stores will censure apps for supporting Gab. “They can run their web app on a web browser,” Tateisu points out. “If Google wants to ban it, they should start from their Chrome web browser.”
This is all quite interesting. It's also the kind of experimentation and more distributed decision-making we'd like to see more of online. This is not a truly distributed system where the power is moved all the way out to the ends, but it is a federated system where the power is moved to various nodes -- leading to more competition and variety. The fact that most of the major Mastodon instances have said they don't want to federate or deal with Gab is an expression of preferences, and in many ways a better overall system than one in which a single company is making the decisions. And it's much better than politicians telling companies what they need to do. Of course, in a world without Section 230 -- or one with a nonsensical requirement for "neutrality" in platform moderation -- would these options even be available?
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Filed Under: content moderation, distributed systems, federation, mastodon, moderation, platforms, protocols, social media
Companies: apple, gab, google, mastodon, twitter
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Gee, it's almost like Nazis are unpopluar within larger society, and it's really not all because of some fictional cabal of (((globalists))).
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Re:
Almost. But from the Nazi-logic point of view, all of those different Mastodon groups and orgs are obviously under the control of said "cabal of (((globalists)))".
Because that's how conspiracy theories work. Anyone who acts or argues against the claims made by the conspiracy theorist is either a direct member of the conspiracy, under the thumb of some one who's part of the conspiracy, or has been brainwashed by the conspirators. And this makes the set of conspirators ever growing, until the conspiracy theorist sees almost everyone as part of the conspiracy except for those "righteous" few fighting against an overwhelming system, which really feeds into the underdog and persecution complex of the conspiracy theorist and makes them feel even more special and righteous as they "know" they are one of the few people fighting for the "truth".
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Exactly. And then they start holding up InfoWars as "The Truth" and double down.
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Re:
...or wingnuts imagine everyone a Nazi and a social network gets a bad name by association and gets banned everywhere. Gab is no more extreme than Disqus.
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Re: Re:
well - ok then.
If you support a nazi, make excuses for a nazi, or act like a nazi .....
you may very well be a nazi.
Just accept it and move on ... back to the country from which you came - LOL
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Re: Re:
"imagine everyone a Nazi"
Nah, just people like you and other Gab users who act like Nazis. Everyone else is cool - which is why they don't wish to associate with you.
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Re: Re: Re:
... or just the people the left call racist....
Everyone
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Examples would help your feeble accusations.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
By "everyone", he means "everyone I associate with", and hasn't got the brainpower to work out that maybe it's not a conspiracy. Maybe he is just grouping himself with racists.
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It's worth noting that the vast majority of Mastodon's power is in the hands of the instance run by the main developers of the Mastodon project - mastodon.social. When they blacklist an instance, they have the pull to effectively mandate the bulk of other high-population instances to follow along.
While I'm no fan of gab or its userbase, I have to say that the way the Mastodon developers treat their project is a clear case of wanting to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have a distributed & federal social network but have the power of a centralized social network.
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Re:
The whole idea of a federated system is that you can associate with who you want to, and ignore those that you want to. It also allow people to create their own instances if no of the existing ones are what they want, which is what Gab has done, but that does not mean other have to federate with them.
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Can't push decisions all the way to the edge!
Heya Mike:
I know you advocate for pushing decisions out to the edges of the network, but I think Mastodon instances are as close as you are going to get.
The reason for that is that decisions are work, and, even on Techdirt, I am happy to outsource that effort to Techdirt and its community, which, in my biased opinion, does a fine job!
Thus it is that, in my opinion, a mastodon client is a mastodon client, deciding to ignore Gab-Mastodon is something that should be in the hands of the end user.
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Re: Can't push decisions all the way to the edge!
Then you're welcome to use Fedilab or any other app which doesn't blacklist Gab, and make the decision for yourself.
But app developers are free to include or exclude any node they want.
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If someone wants to whine about Gab and their free speech rights vis-á-vis defederation, I have a simple reminder for you:
The assholes at Gab can broadcast their signal all they want. That doesn’t mean other instances must accept it.
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Re:
why call all million plus Gab users a-holes?
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Re: Re:
NotAllGabUsers
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Re: Re: Re:
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You can escape characters with a backslash. It’s how to get the proper shrug emoticon.
Unescaped: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Escaped: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(The trick is, you have to escape both the first backslash and the first underscore.)
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Re: Re:
And thats cool..
Iv said about FB, Let them SIT...dont let the group advert or anything else, but if someone want the Closed sighted opinions Let them have it. But dont let the notes/msg/what ever spread past ONLY the one that picked to have that section. you cant forward the notes.
Part of this is being able to WATCH/monitor, this type of group. All strange/different/religious/any group.
As was said of Backpage.. and any newspaper with a Social section in the Classifieds..and Probably 1000 other online sites.
If you dont give them an OPEN area to play, they will go underground. And the Worse of the Worse, already know they DONT want to be public. You might see a parascope, but that sub is still underwater..
I love the idea that people think Everything is perfect, IF' they cant see it. Fix the world before you THINK you can fix the internet.
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Re: Re:
"why call all million plus Gab users a-holes?"
I didn't think he did ... what makes you think so?
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I didn’t. Nor did I call you one, since you want to take offense on behalf of Gab’s userbase.
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Re: Re:
Because they choose to use a site that's known for assholes, as as 4chan/8chan users. You might feel you're not one of the assholes, but you've chosen to freely associate with them so the rest of us just don't want to have to put in the effort to spot the few non-assholes on those sites and just ignore them completely.
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Instances are of course welcome to federate or not with anyone they please, but I find it unbelievable that multiple app writers would be delusional enough to think they get to control who a user may or may not connect to. I have zero interest in connecting to Gab, but if I wanted to, it sure as hell would be my decision, not some idiot's who wrote an app.
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Re:
As per the article, they were more worried about being banned from app stores if their app became associated with Gab. That is they were trying to protect themselves.
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When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Children About Something...
It's probably pretty great. Race you all to sign up.
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Re: Why you still here bro?
Don’t let the door hit ya one the way out.
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Re: Re: Why you still here bro?
Why is some coward talking to me? I'm sorry, do you matter? Try having a name tiny man!
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Re: Re: Re: Why you still here bro?
Look who's talking Mr. proven liar, doesn't know grade school math, can't figure out the difference between hardware and software. You come here and on your own accord, make yourself look like a fool and an idiot with every comment you make.
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Re: Re: Re: Why you still here bro?
Bro if that’s the best insult you got maybe you’d be better off with the rest of the mental midgets and racists. This site is for nominally functioning adults. It’s a low bar but you still didn’t make the cut. Best of luck in your new home.
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Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Children About Something..
I haven't seen any "grown adults crying like little children about something" other than about the made up claims that Google/Facebook/Twitter are "censoring conservative viewpoints."
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Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Children About Somethi
Reddit actually has a spam/karma algorithm that first puts you on a 10 minute timer and then eventually makes you invisible. Reddit has admitted to manipulating the algorithm to help the left.
Why do you think Reddit is so left leaning? I stopped posting politics there because I knew I would have to be constantly creating new accounts.
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Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Children About Som
You wanna post a citation instead of a strawman bro?
No, didn’t think so.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Children About
These guys have nothing but strawmen and persecution complexes.
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Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Children About Som
"Why do you think Reddit is so left leaning?"
Because you choose to ignore the right-leaning areas? Or, because people intelligent to use Reddit outside of r/the_donald and not get immediately mocked tend not to be full on fascist?
"I stopped posting politics there because I knew I would have to be constantly creating new accounts."
That's probably the intended effect, but I bet it's not because of whether or not you were right leaning.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Children About
No... the politics should be all inclusive, but the left has a crutch because the right is on a 10 minute timer between posts and also have to create new accounts.
"That's probably the intended effect, but I bet it's not because of whether or not you were right leaning."
It's just impact of a majority/minority karma system. Whoever is in the minority will get put on a 10 minute timer and eventually labeled as spam and made invisible. If a person is right leaning and mainly posts in politics they have to create new accounts.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Children A
"No... the politics should be all inclusive"
No political arena in the history of humanity has ever been 100% neutral, especially when you're talking about a global platform like these.
Why do you think different rules need to apply to these sites?
"If a person is right leaning and mainly posts in politics they have to create new accounts."
No, people who are assholes and also happen to be right leaning need to do that. Maybe it wasn't your political views that were getting you kicked off?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Childr
"No, people who are assholes and also happen to be right leaning need to do that. Maybe it wasn't your political views that were getting you kicked off?"
There is no person worthy of judging that in a reddit political forum. It's a karma system that punishes the minority.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Ch
So?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Lik
Gotta follow the thread guy
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying
The thread appears to be a guy who's been told he's not particularly welcome in a private venue trying to force his way back in using different disguises until he gave up, and then whining that it's all an attack on his politics rather than his behaviour. Who also seems to think that if something is a minority opinion it should be forced upon everybody, rather than communities being able to choose their own members. Who is apparently too dumb to realties that there's plenty of subreddits that skew in different ways even if the main subreddit with the politics name has different opinions to him, and that he can use those at any time.
Did I miss anything?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Cr
Did I miss anything?
You missed the part where Quis made up the idea that Reddit has an algorithm that can tell if a post is left or right leaning.
And the part where Quis says Reddit is "biased" because of the voting system which is the users, not the owners/administrators.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Ar
Well - ya gotta admit that The_Donald is biased, they are now quarantined because of their violations of the TOS.
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And both Reddit and its userbase are legally allowed to use the karma system in that way.
Incidentally: Stop asking whether right-wing/conservative users were banned for their political affiliation and start asking about what they said or did to warrant their ban. You’ll likely find that they weren’t banned for saying “we need smaller government” or “rich people need tax breaks, too”.
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Re:
LOL... downvote follow no logic other than emotion. I was downvoted 100+ negatives votes for saying "we need to follow the scientific method better" on r/badscience.
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Re: Re:
"LOL... downvote follow no logic other than emotion"
Nor do they need to.
"I was downvoted 100+ negatives votes for saying "we need to follow the scientific method better" on r/badscience"
I guarantee that if you bothered to link to the offending comment, that's not what it actually says.
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So what?
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Re: Re:
Do you your panties in a twist when r/shittyscience disagrees with you?
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Re: Re: Re:
I do notice he didn't link to the offending comment. I wonder why...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: When Grown Adults Are Crying Like Children A
“right is on a 10 minute timer between posts and also have to create new accounts.”
You allergic to citations bro?
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Made up claims?
Then explain why Carlos Maza can incite people to commit violence from a high profile account and suffer no consequences whatsoever from those platforms.
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Re: Made up claims?
A single anecdote is meaningless.
I can just as easily point to right-leaning idiots exorting followers to be mean to people. But that would be meaningless as well.
There is literally no evidence of censoring of conservative viewpoints. There is lots of evidence of booting trolls, harassers and abusers. There is lots of evidence that content moderation at scale leads to generally uneven outcomes by its very nature. But there is zero evidence of anti-conservative bias.
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Re: Re: Made up claims?
Sure there is. There were even accounts on Twitter dedicated to simply highlighting left-wing accounts that were allowed to be "trolls, harassers and abusers" doing the same thing that got people on the right banned and no amount of reporting them would get them banned.
When you say "zero evidence" you are effectively going all-in in defense of these platforms. Do you really want to claim that these platforms simply have no problem punishing the right for behaviors that are tolerated much more often from the left?
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Re: Re: Re: Made up claims?
Forgot to mention that those "hypocrisy accounts" were stomped by Twitter whenever they were reported. It was "harassment" to simply retweet someone on the left posting bigoted content and things like that.
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Re: Re: Re: Made up claims?
"There were even accounts on Twitter dedicated to simply highlighting left-wing accounts that were allowed to be "trolls, harassers and abusers" doing the same thing that got people on the right banned and no amount of reporting them would get them banned."
That's not evidence. That's a handful of anecdotes from people with axes to grind. Has there been any actual study, or real investigation as to what the difference are, or are you just assuming that because one asshole got banned and the other didn't, that automatically means bias toward one type of asshole rather than hundreds of other factors?
"Do you really want to claim that these platforms simply have no problem punishing the right for behaviors that are tolerated much more often from the left?"
I fail to see the problem with that. If a site owner is vegan and he wants to punish people for pro-carnivore behaviour that he accepts from pro-herbivores, that's his prerogative. There's nothing to say that Twitter can't have a political bias, nor is it their fault that the competitors with open right-leaning biases tend to be incompetently built cesspools.
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Do you really want to claim that anecdotal experience is empirical evidence?
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Do you really not understand that anecdotes are data points if they're true?
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Re: Re:
That’s a mighty big IF. Hence once more for the slow of understanding citation needed.
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Re: Re:
The following two types of evidence are not the same at all.
Empirical evidence is the information received by means of the senses, particularly by observation and documentation of patterns and behavior through experimentation.
Anecdotal evidence is evidence from anecdotes: evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony.
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Re: Re:
They may be data points... but you need far more than one or two cherry picked points to make any sort of conclusion. Which is why anecdotes != data.
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Re: Re: Re: Made up claims?
I see Paul and Steven already responded to this nonsense. But even if what you claimed is true -- and it is simply not -- it still would not be proof of anti-conservative bias. At worst, it would show that there are some uneven outcomes in content moderation, which is exactly what we've been noting since the beginning. A process that has to make decisions on hundreds of millions of pieces per day, with fallible, human moderators is going to make mistakes.
And you can argue that those "fallible, human moderators" may be more likely to "lean left" and therefore undeservedly harm conservatives, but *so far there is literally zero empirical evidence to support that." You can point to anecdotes, but those are meaningless. I can too. For example, in the documentary film, "The Cleaners" about social media content moderators in the Phillippines (the largest country for outsourcing those roles to), one of the women in the film talks about how she views all of her content moderating through her strict Catholic upbringing, and therefore finds "blasphemous" and other content clearly "offensive" even if they don't seem to violate the actual rules.
Could that lead to bias? Sure could. Does it? So far, there is literally no evidence to support any argument that it is leading to systematically worse outcomes for "conservatives."
Is it leading to systematically worse outcomes for assholes? Sure. But not sure that's a problem.
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Re: Or are you just happy to see ma.
You got a citation for that? A peer reviewed study in your pocket perhaps?
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Re: Made up claims?
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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WoW
Their comments are so much better than the original site comments. This is amazing. What a great product. Even here it's a better comment system than the one here. Everyone should use this. No wonder the websites don't want to lose this power.
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Re: I think we all know the answer to that.
What’s stopping you bro? Or are you the real coward?
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Gab has potential
There are plenty of websites that are BS and propaganda and they frequently don't allow comments because BS gets countered usually in the #1 rated comment. Gab created the ability to counter the BS. I expected the app to take off and grow and eventually get a diverse set of users but then the mentally challenged started seeing Nazis everywhere and that is unfortunate.
If not Gab, another program will eventually add messages to every website. It's a revolutionary idea. It just needs to get popular and hopefully next time we can keep the crazies from commenting on it next round. Maybe when Trump is gone and people aren't seeing Nazis around every corner.
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Gab was founded as a “free speech” alternative to Facebook and Twitter. It was meant to host speech those sites didn’t want on their respective platforms. When I think of the kinds of speech Facebook and Twitter tend to take action over, the usual results are racists, homophobes, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, Nazis/Nazi sympathizers, and trolls who imitate all of those groups (and more).
For most people who know of it, Gab represents the same thing as 8chan: a refuge for the refuse of the Internet. When you offer a service that you promise won’t moderate most speech, reasonable people will eventually leave when that promise allows for the kind of harassment and abuse that other sites try to stop. Once all the reasonable people are gone, all you’ll have left is the garbage — the racists, homophobes, etc.
Promising “free speech” is a fine ideal. But the approach leaves a lot to be desired in practice. When a platform becomes nothing but spam and hate and trolling, anyone not taking part in that kind of posting will go somewhere better. Gab earned a reputation for being such a platform. It does little to prove that reputation isn’t wholly deserved.
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Re: Gab has potential
There have been many tools introduced over the past two decades to "annotate" other websites. Literally none of them have caught on. I fail to see how an idea that has been tried at least a dozen times without success is "a revolutionary idea."
Also, that's not Gab's main business. It was a side effort that hasn't caught on.
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Re: Re: Gab has potential
This is where it would have caught on because it just needed a large group to get it going. Google & Mozilla and others teaming up to attack has hampered it from taking off. Dissenter would have been a big social network. All these prior instances needed was a jump start of a lot of users.
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No amount of active users will make Gab any less infested with the kinds of speech a majority of people hate seeing on other social interaction networks.
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Re:
Yes.. it will always be loaded with offensive comments. I've always been able to just skip over. It's not hard.
You ever posted on Disqus? That discussion site seldom gets moderated and my head doesn't explode.
Again... if you don't want to use the program then fine.... but lets stop trying to end the network.
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Nah, I think I’ll keep pushing for Gab to stay defederated from as much of Mastodon as possible so long as it’s a pit for the dregs of the Internet that not even 4chan wants. Don’t like it? Complain about it on Gab.
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Re: Re:
If you are so happy with posting there, wtf are you doing here?
You sound like a used car salesman.
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Re: Re: Re: Gab never had potential
Yes it would have been massive, if only for those meddling kids. And not say being synonymous with Neo-Nazis. For such a “human nature activist” you sure don’t understand basic human behaviour.
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Re: Gab has potential
"but then the mentally challenged started seeing Nazis everywhere and that is unfortunate"
If you were in nazi germany during ww2, you would be mentally challenged? ... I think I agree with this but for different reasons.
Anyone who sees someone who is acting like a nazi is mentally challenged? What about the person who was run over by one? That person is not seeing much at all anymore now are they? You do remember that right? You know - the case where the nazi is now serving two life sentences?
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Re: Gab has potential
"seeing Nazis everywhere"
Only in places infested with Nazis. You might want to examine why you frequent those places so much of the accusations are coming too close to home.
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Yes.. there will be a spam problem and a comment not worth reading problem, but people can chose to ignore. There will be worthy comments mixed in... as with all forums. I would love to read comments on IMDB again about movies & shows! I would love to post my opinion on a propaganda site!
One problem Gab has is people believe the fake news rather than check out the program. So many people have an opinion about about the posts & people on Gab and not one of them has checked it out. Again... it's no worse than Disqus.
Also... one area you didn't mention that gets banned is all the controversial stuff regarding nature & nurture. You know... understanding human prosperity is offensive and discussing it gets banned. I prefer to have a clue about how things work and discuss what the science deniers like to ban.
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I bet you’re a “race realist”.
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Re:
I'm a human nature activist. If you aren't thinking about nature & nurture in politics then your politics is clueless because human prosperity is governed by the interaction between the two and a whole lot of it is offensive. Yes I want to understand how things work.
Yes.. the science deniers find the hows & why behind human prosperity offensive, and that is one big reason to keep the offensive speech going.
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Ah, so you’re a libertarian.
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Re: Re:
And I have been thinking that the term science denier referred to those who think the earth is flat, we did not go to the moon, government is poisoning us with chem trails ... you know, that sort of thing.
Damn, I've been wrong all this time. Oh well. If they can change the word literally to mean figuratively, I suppose they can also change what the word science means.
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Re:
"I would love to read comments on IMDB again about movies & shows!"
Why, when you can use the numerous sites that have taken up the mantle with far better ways of discussing movies? That's the problem with your kind - you'd rather force others to host a service they don't want to host, rather than use the ones that provide it naturally.
"I would love to post my opinion on a propaganda site!"
Why do I get the feeling you already do, but you just happen to agree with the particular flavour of propaganda?
"One problem Gab has is people believe the fake news"
I have a feeling its biggest problem is that it's infested with people who call anything that isn't Fox and right-wing echo chambers "fake news".
"So many people have an opinion about about the posts & people on Gab and not one of them has checked it out"
So, same as right-wingers who rail against other races/cities/countries without ever visiting?
Unless you can provide reliably factual rebuttals to the stories in the following link, I'm happy that others have taken the bullet for me on this occasion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)#Users_and_content
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Re: Re:
Damn that's a whole lot of straw man.
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Re: Re: Re:
So, no evidence or rebuttals to any of the actual points? Yeah, I didn't think there would be.
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Gab is an acronym for Gay and Beautiful?
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Re:
You can make it whatever you want it to be. Come to the program and make it gay and beautiful if you want to. We need the ability to look at written messages on every website. That's a VERY useful feature.
... and yes... different cultures find all sorts of things offensive...if you aren't the dominate culture, you may find your self banned.
Gab is Multiculturalism because it prevents the dominate one from banning you!
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For what reason do we need that ability? We’ve gotten along fine without it for…shit, most of the Internet’s existence.
It also allows the dominant culture of Gab (i.e., hate, trolling, harassment) to overrun the site. If you want to deal with that bullshit, feel free.
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Re:
"It also allows the dominant culture of Gab (i.e., hate, trolling, harassment) to overrun the site."
It does no such thing. It's separate from every website it comments on.
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Re: Re:
"We need the ability to look at written messages on every website"
You're not being denied that ability. However, if the people who own that website don't want to host the particular words that you want to see there, they have the right to tell you to use someone's else's private property to host them instead.
"Gab is Multiculturalism because it prevents the dominate one from banning you!"
So... use that instead of whining about the other platforms? If you're right, then it should naturally become known as something other than a haven for white supremacists who have already been rejected by the rest of society, right?
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And the line they draw is anything center-right. We're not stupid, and we remember how even GWB, a man who was dedicated to offering aid to Africa (so much so that he is very popular in sub-Saharan Africa) and supported Israel was called "Chimpy McBushitler" by this sort of person. We're all Nazis, even people like one of my best friends who is a staunchly right wing black man.
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Re:
Understanding human prosperity is offensive and taboo, but yet mankinds most important issue to understand. This is what many on the left don't understand.
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…what in the blue hell are you even talking about?
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Re:
Nature & nurture my simple science denying friend. So many issues of it are offensive, but it's the most important issue for mankind to understand.
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Again: What the blue fucking hell are you talking about?
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Re:
no cure for.....
If you have had your head stuck in the sand forever, then I doubt you will get it. You've banned it from your head for too long.
Wealth, poverty, crime, homicide rates, etc.. & etc... all have many offensive issues in regards to both nature & nurture. I prefer to understand and that is offensive to some.
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Once more with feeling: what the fuck are you talking about
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Re:
He really wants to talk about poor black people, but gets frustrated when faced with people don't understand the dog whistles he normally uses.
That's what I'm getting from that, anyway.
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Re: Re:
Yes I could of but didn't.
That's one of the many issues that involves a whole lot of offensive positions but yet we still need to be talking about it.
You see the left's politics operates only on good feelings & emotion where as the rights politics gets more into the offensive areas. There are many offensive issues with nature & nurture and the left will take advantage and think they should ban. But what they ban is important to talk about.
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Re: Re: Re:
Well, as long as you get to feel superior to the other side of the false dichotomy your simplistic politics is based on, and get to whine about being the victim rather than do anything to improve your lot, that's fine I suppose.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
If you're not looking at all the issues of nature & nurture, then your politics is clueless. It's the science of human prosperity and it's offensive.
Simple? I get banned by you simpletons all the time.
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what the fuck does this even mean
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So, you're still hiding behind dogwhistling and pretending you're superior to everyone who disagrees with you? Got it.
I have no problem believing it's your behaviour and not politics that's getting you banned elsewhere.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
a simple google search for " science of human prosperity " makes me conclude that you probably made this up.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Let me help you on this my simple friend. Think what nature & nurture is and then examine almost any issue in regards to human prosperity. Lets take income inequality and then examine how elements of nature & elements of nurture could all impact income inequality. If you are smart enough, you will note many issues that impact this are offensive. For instance IQ impacts income inequality. On the nurture side differences in culture impact income equality. Even if you dismiss innate differences and think people who score high IQ and achieve many great things are because of culture.. discussing pros & cons of different cultures is still offensive. So thus by banning offensive things we have in effect become science deniers on figuring out human prosperity.
You see my simple friend.... the science of human prosperity is looking in detail at all the issues of nature & nurture and many of them are offensive. The real problem with this is politics is suppose to be about improving human prosperity and if people are offended at the science of human prosperity, then a good many people's politics is clueless.
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IQ can measure for some types of intelligence, but not all types. Besides, it is inevitable that trying to turn the abstraction of “intelligence” into a single numerical measurement, disadvantaged groups of people will be found “unintelligent” and thus deserving of their disadvantaged status. In short: IQ is a bunch of bullshit made up by assholes to proclaim superiority over everyone else.
This is true. Because some cultures value things like coöperation amongst the populace for the greater good of all, and other cultures (like that of the U.S.) value the hoarding of wealth and “fuck you, got mine” capitalism over making society better for everyone.
“By ‘banning’ the scientifically bullshit idea that some people are inherently inferior to others based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and other innate traits over which people have no control, we have in effect become deniers of the inherent superiority of people like me and suppressors of my absolute right to tell them that they’re inferior subhuman filth.” That’s you. That’s you right now.
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Re:
Yeah, he does seem to be trying to say "some people are automatically inferior" in a lot of words, then getting angry when people recognise the racism inherent in that. He doesn't seem to understand that the concepts are the issue,
I do notice he has left out the next step in the conversation - if true, what do we do about it? I suspect that "society should help those who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own" is not how he's used to continuing the thought process on his usual sites.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Lets take income inequality"
The pretzel logic here is less than impressive and does not even come close to the actual cause(s) of income inequality.
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“You see my simple friend”
The best part is you’re condescending to people who are obviously way, way smarter than you are. It’s cute in a puppy got its head stuck in bucket kind of way. Let me lay it out for you because you are, again, obviously not very smart. You lost the argument about 100 posts ago, and the rest of it has just been people trying politely, to point that out to you. One final piece of advise from the peanut gallery: have you tried digging up yet?
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Re: Re:
"Understanding human prosperity is offensive and taboo, but yet mankinds most important issue to understand. This is what many on the left don't understand."
Are you one of those prosperity gospel types? How is your new G6?
Prosperity is hardly the most important human issue.
You are correct in that there are many out there who do not understand the money grubbing selfish attitudes that led us to racism, class warfare and real blood n guts war. Perhaps you could explain it.
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If you conflate conservative ideology with Nazism/White supremacy, even for the sake of argument, perhaps the issue is less about who is pointing that out and more about the fact that it can be pointed out.
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Re:
It's never made for the sake of argument. To the sort of person who sees Nazis everywhere, GWB was Literally Hitler despite the fact that his heart bled for the plight of sub-Saharan Africa. I didn't personally like him as a President because I am a nationalist and don't like seeing our military being used to violently force alien ways of life on other peoples. However, all of us noted that if GWB could be unironically called Hitler, we're all Hitler and that means "punch a Nazi" is fungible with "punch anyone to the right of us."
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Thankfully, not a whole lot of those people exist. But if someone sees Nazis in the group of White supremacists who marched at Charlottesville, or in parts of the federal government that are locking people up in concentration camps without a trial or a hearing, or in the man in the White House who engages in stochastic terrorism and pulls out racist fearmongering and “jokes” about staying in office longer than the Constitution allows…well, I’d say they’re pretty fucking perceptive.
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Re:
You mean jails, and under federal law everyone locked up gets a day in immigration court. And funny enough, every illegal in those "concentration camps" can leave if they choose to wave their right to a hearing and make arrangements with ICE to go home instead of trying to stay in the US.
People like you rhetorically shit all over people who died throughout the 20th century in real concentration camps.
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No. No, I do not.
The question is, how much time will pass before someone gets that day in court?
I hope you can understand why most of the people in the camps refuse to give up that right, then. If they’re trying to get away from some awful shit in their home countries (or the countries they passed through on their way to the U.S.), saying “send me back please” defeats the entire purpose of their attempt at immigration — legal or otherwise.
“Scholars in the humanities and social sciences rely on careful and responsible analysis, contextualization, comparison, and argumentation to answer questions about the past and the present. By ‘unequivocally rejecting efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary,’ the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is taking a radical position that is far removed from mainstream scholarship on the Holocaust and genocide. And it makes learning from the past almost impossible.”
When more than a hundred scholars who are well-schooled in the facts of the Holocaust (and on genocide in general) essentially say “yes, calling them concentration camps is perfectly fine”, maybe listen to them instead of whoever told you to avoid the term. And by the by: The Nazis didn’t start with death camps. They started by rounding up Repugnant Cultural Others (or “undesirables”, if you prefer), then putting them into large detention facilities to segregate them from the rest of the populace. If that doesn’t sound like what the Trump administration is doing, by all means: Tell me how.
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Re:
"My country sucks" is not an argument for asylum. Unless you can prove that you are a dissident who faces particular punishment for civil disobedience, you don't deserve political asylum. Too often "I am a dissident" means "I targeted the King and the King won, now the King wants me dead." Sorry, not an argument unless you were mostly on the side of the angels (ex. Vaclav Havel or Lech Walesa)
This is especially true of ordinary circumstances like crime, poverty and domestic violence. It is laughably insane that people are lamenting that women cannot flee to the US to get away from domestic violence as though that is our problem or obligation.
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Re: Re:
“Too often "I am a dissident" means "I targeted the King and the King won, now the King wants me dead." Sorry, not an argument unless you were mostly on the side of the angels”
The view most be nice from that ivory tower you live in.
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Re: Re:
From where do you think these refugees came from? You think they were living the life of Riley? Who is funding the guerrillas and who is funding the corrupt governments in central america? Why do you think they have no right to come knocking at our door?
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Re: Re:
The issue isn't whether or not these people "deserve" asylum. The issue is the horrifically inhumane treatment you're subjecting them to before you even attempt to hear their case.
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Re: Re:
"every illegal in those "concentration camps" can leave if they choose"
Based upon the past performance of border patrol, I find the above difficult to believe.
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Re: Re: Re:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/immigrants-free-leave-detention/
Yes, yes, I know that he'll just claim that documented evidence and fact checking aren't valid if they don't come from his chosen echo chambers or disagree with his politics, but it's worth educating others.
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Yeah - it figures
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Re:
Also, it's a sign of the willful hypocrisy to the #MeToo era that the woke complain about "muh harassment" of women in the workplace while turning a blind eye toward the amount of child trafficking that is involved in the current immigration crisis. Over 33% of those children aren't even related by marriage to the adults with them.
So congratulations, son, you're effectively arguing for keeping at least tens of thousands of kids with human/sex traffickers. And no, that's not some right wing fantasy. ICE and CBP have been making public statements about based on interviews with the kids and DNA tests.
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Re: Re:
Why are people whine like this unable to believe that people can care about more than one issue at a time?
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Re: Re: Re:
Because 90% of the trending problems that get attention are first world problems and people regularly demonstrate that they don't give a shit about third world problems that come to their doorstep.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
You’re less ThePhilosopherAnonymous and more RandomRacistDoucheNozzle
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, people in the first world do tend to care about things that directly affect them more.
Those people are also able to have concern about the third world while dealing with their own problems.
Why is this a mystery to your type?
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People can care about both the harassment/abuse of women and child trafficking in equal measure. But the average person can do little-to-nothing about child trafficking on their own. They can, however, more easily speak out against and help change the culture that allows the harassment/abuse of women to flourish.
Also:
No. No, I am not.
And I’m sure they have no reason to lie about or exaggerate those results~.
If traffickers are caught with children, yes, separate those children from the traffickers. But for God’s sake, I hope you can agree that keeping those children in concentration camps for no reason other than they came across the border with a human trafficker is bullshit.
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Re: Re:
Wow - interesting argument there, lets see if I can summarize.
A woman who is the victim of sexual harassment should not think of only herself but should think of all the others who are also being harassed.
How are the meetoo folk not thinking of others, upon what do you base this allegation? Inquiring minds want to know.
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Re: What ARE the odds
Oh you have a black friend too?!?
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Re:
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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All the right leaning people's comments get flagged and hidden somewhat on this forum despite none of them are offensive.
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Offensiveness is in the eye of the beholder. Besides, foul language isn’t necessary to express heinous ideas, spread misinformation, and generally present arguments with no basis in fact or reality.
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Re:
Politics still has nothing to do with you being told you're an asshole, even if you were trying to be polite in the process of annoying everybody.
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Re:
"All the right leaning people's comments get flagged and hidden"
This is simply not true.
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Yea... I should of put a lot. "All" is almost always wrong.
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As, presumably, is your assumption of the political viewpoints both of those blocking and those blocked. But, you have to keep the false dichotomy alive to avoid self-reflection, I get it.
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But, you have to keep the false dichotomy alive to avoid self-reflection, I get it.
He has the "science" of human prosperity to let him feel good, he doesn't need our upvotes Paul. (Master Degree in Master Race relations.)
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Re:
Uh, hey dumbfuck - your pathological lying, gaslighting, dogwhistling, and general fallaciousness is plenty offensive to the morally and rationally competent despite your sealioning about not containing profanities.
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Apps supporting Mastodon.
[(meaning that Gab's plan to use this to get back into the app store might not work as well as planned).]
It's working really well. All Gab needs is one app.
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Re: Apps supporting Mastodon.
Well, until that app gets banned for allowing that sort of content, anyway.
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