That's not what "Safe Space" means? There's nothing stopping anybody from going on Gab and virulently disagreeing with everyone there or intentionally offending certain users.
Still, impressed with the NYT's ability to push a narrative.
FTA:
> On the Friday after the US presidential election, Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab.ai, a social network favored by conservatives, was kicked out of Y Combinator “I am actually surprised it took them this long to excommunicate me,” Torba told BuzzFeed News. “Y Combinator doesn’t accept conservatives and they don’t accept Trump supporters.”
> In the Facebook thread, before he was booted from Y Combinator, Torba wrote:
“All of you: fuck off. Take your morally superior, elitist, virtue signaling bullshit and shove it.
I call it like I see it, and I helped meme a President into office, cucks.”
I'm bewildered. I want to think that they are just trolls looking for attention. My pessimistic side says that they actually do have a persecution complex and somehow feel that the groups they regularly malign have more rights and privilege than they do.
One thing I've noticed regarding the above excerpt is a unique interpretation of free speech where they believe they are free to say anything they want without consequence. Any negative response is met with claims of censorship. If you acted that way in a coffeeshop, bar, or some community gathering you would be asked to leave as well. If you continue hurling verbal assaults after being asked to leave, that's harassment. You have the right to be a dick, but they're claiming they are exercising their right to free speech and are surprised people are being dicks back to them. I hope society never succumbs to their desires and normalizes denigrating speech and just being a complete asshole. I really hope they are trolls
EDIT: > “if you feel ‘unsafe’ from from [sic] me saying ‘fuck off’ or ‘build a wall,’ you probably shouldn’t be on the internet.”
Sigh, I had such high hopes for the Internet being the ultimate tool to elevate mankind to a more enlightened tomorrow and the promise that technology would make the world a better place. Seems it has enabled a safe space for people to unleash their inner asshole. I'm afraid of what's going to happen if they ever summon up enough courage to do these things in person and are inevitably met with violence.
I'm not a tough guy at all, but in my hometown, dem is called fightin words
Gab appears to be employing unlimited bidirectional voting. This inevitably creates a shout-down chamber, so the network will likely not attract a diverse group of opinions and is nearly guaranteed to become the echo chamber everybody is expecting it to become.
I don't find this to be the new competitor the market is really looking for.
I don't find this to be the new competitor the market is really looking for.
All the better then. A black hole that sucks up their energies (and lets them feel "validated" even though no one outside their tiny community is listening) might be just the thing for them.
Doesn't one usually associated a 'safe space' with the introduction of policies surrounding what can and cannot be said? This article seems to suggest that a 'safe space' is also a place associated with looser constraints allowing people say whatever they like.
In a way, this might be a good thing -- it substantially weakens their ability to cry "censorship". And provides a space where their drivel can be monitored and tracked: inevitably, we'll see many people connected with the new administration turning up here -- and it will be interesting to see how they expose themselves.
I know that the fake news narrative is popular right now, and maybe it's just me, but do you think maybe you might be a little biased here?
How is it not censorship when somebody actively monitors what is posted on Twitter and makes a judgement on whether or not that post is appropriate? What is appropriate and how does free speech equate to that in your mind?
A quarantine on this stuff is a nice thing for the rest of us in the short term. In the long term it could either be a bad thing because it helps the movement grow, or a good thing because without any opposition to troll within the platform it flames out.
This is the thing I keep saying. If we kick them off every other platform around rather than letting the community critique them, they'll move to echo chambers and new people won't be able to be introduced to their ideas through criticism, only through those echo chambers. Not only that, but these echo chambers tend to let conspiracy theories and misinformation brew and go wild.
I do hope they're successful in getting more users onboard. In many ways I like their libertarian-style free speech loving moderation stance personally, but I read invite only somewhere, which is concerning me even more. If they want to take a free speech stance, they need to respect that free speech needs to be for all, so we can critique and discuss these sorts of ideas.
Seems all too ripe to be an echo chamber as is. Guess we'll see how long the invite only thing lasts.
Can we stop normalizing scum like Richard B. Spencer and the alt right? Many would consider me "far right", I have nothing in common with that filth...
Also, nice to see the market filling the need for a censor-less social platform. Let them be hateful idiots over in the corner, it's their right.
Yeah, it's not actually hyperbole to call Spencer a Nazi. I mean, if your political program calls for ethnic cleansing, your meetings include Nazi salutes and chants of "sieg hiel!", we can call you a Nazi.
But sure, they needed a new platform, because Stormfront and the Daily Stormer are too PC?
+1 to the normalizing piece. These folks are a few short hops away from ISIS. They've nailed hate-filled ideology, lone-wolf attacks and it's only a matter of time before they organize into something worse. Trump has opened the flood-gates for individuals like this to have a voice.
Andrew Torba and his team created Gab as a response to Twitter when Jack and his team started harassing and outright censoring people who didn't agree with far left ideology (and no, not just those who identify themselves as "right"). The most important design principle of Gab is "freedom of speech", and it is completely neutral of who are making use of this principle; Andrew has stated several times that EVERYBODY IS WELCOME no matter where you are in the political spectrum.
Yes, a large part of the population on Gab can be described politically as either "alt right" or "conservative" because these people are outright scared that their online voices will be shut simply because of disagreement. But that doesn't mean that the Gab population is 100% right wing, it also consists out of classical liberals and moderates who are sick and tired of the behavior and bullshit narrative of the far left, and do not agree with the way Twitter is handling freedom of expression, which by the way is a universal human right, on its platform.
I have an account an Gab, with the same handle as my account here. It seems to be growing very quickly and offers keyword-based timeline filters that are far better than what Twitter offers.
I've said it before on HN, but I really think it's a mistake to write off approximately half the country because you disagree with their political positions.
We've banned this account. Hacker News is not a platform for ideological battle, and creating accounts just to do so is an abuse of the site and the community.
If you're going to invoke Karl Popper, you might want to reread him. He justifies the intolerance of intolerance via the right of self defense because instead of arguing rationally, the intolerant would resort to fists or pistols.
The right of self-defense is already considered in the USA's free speech laws, which do not permit things like incitement to violence, fighting words, or true threats.
The fact that you're arguing for violence, in saying that you must be "ready to beat them back to their [...] trailer parks" to suppress ideas you find abhorrent is actually a rather complete inversion of how Popper justified his idea.
"they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
Gooulo, agreed insofar as we should reject hate in its various forms. It's ugly, terrifying, and has nothing to do with what has made this country what it is.
But even as a progressive democrat, I feel sympathy for djschnei's response here. I think we should embrace and celebrate free speech in all of its forms. And when racists speak publicly, we should publicly reject their views.
When you suggest that large swaths of people should be "systematically suppressed," I think you're driving a wedge between yourself and a lot of fairly moderate conservative folks who could be allies in protecting civil society from the likes of actual Nazi's, etc.
[+] [-] ng12|9 years ago|reply
Still, impressed with the NYT's ability to push a narrative.
[+] [-] baldfat|9 years ago|reply
Isn't news narrative? Seems like I am missing what is bad about this article.
Or did you want just the facts? New app call ____ which does ___. Move along you now have all the facts?
I want a news story to give me context and some way to sort out the narrative and do something with the raw data.
[+] [-] monocasa|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refurb|9 years ago|reply
"We might have screwed up but look at what those guys are doing!!!"
[+] [-] brighteyes|9 years ago|reply
I'm sure the NYT knows that. I assumed it was a sarcastic dig against the concept of "safe spaces".
[+] [-] Gooulo|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] minimaxir|9 years ago|reply
The NYTimes article is surprisingly charitable, although perhaps ironically.
[+] [-] FullMtlAlcoholc|9 years ago|reply
> In the Facebook thread, before he was booted from Y Combinator, Torba wrote: “All of you: fuck off. Take your morally superior, elitist, virtue signaling bullshit and shove it. I call it like I see it, and I helped meme a President into office, cucks.”
I'm bewildered. I want to think that they are just trolls looking for attention. My pessimistic side says that they actually do have a persecution complex and somehow feel that the groups they regularly malign have more rights and privilege than they do.
One thing I've noticed regarding the above excerpt is a unique interpretation of free speech where they believe they are free to say anything they want without consequence. Any negative response is met with claims of censorship. If you acted that way in a coffeeshop, bar, or some community gathering you would be asked to leave as well. If you continue hurling verbal assaults after being asked to leave, that's harassment. You have the right to be a dick, but they're claiming they are exercising their right to free speech and are surprised people are being dicks back to them. I hope society never succumbs to their desires and normalizes denigrating speech and just being a complete asshole. I really hope they are trolls
EDIT: > “if you feel ‘unsafe’ from from [sic] me saying ‘fuck off’ or ‘build a wall,’ you probably shouldn’t be on the internet.”
Sigh, I had such high hopes for the Internet being the ultimate tool to elevate mankind to a more enlightened tomorrow and the promise that technology would make the world a better place. Seems it has enabled a safe space for people to unleash their inner asshole. I'm afraid of what's going to happen if they ever summon up enough courage to do these things in person and are inevitably met with violence.
I'm not a tough guy at all, but in my hometown, dem is called fightin words
[+] [-] ChefDenominator|9 years ago|reply
I don't find this to be the new competitor the market is really looking for.
[+] [-] kafkaesq|9 years ago|reply
All the better then. A black hole that sucks up their energies (and lets them feel "validated" even though no one outside their tiny community is listening) might be just the thing for them.
[+] [-] coherentpony|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pyre|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kafkaesq|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dforrestwilson1|9 years ago|reply
How is it not censorship when somebody actively monitors what is posted on Twitter and makes a judgement on whether or not that post is appropriate? What is appropriate and how does free speech equate to that in your mind?
[+] [-] gdulli|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] problems|9 years ago|reply
I do hope they're successful in getting more users onboard. In many ways I like their libertarian-style free speech loving moderation stance personally, but I read invite only somewhere, which is concerning me even more. If they want to take a free speech stance, they need to respect that free speech needs to be for all, so we can critique and discuss these sorts of ideas.
Seems all too ripe to be an echo chamber as is. Guess we'll see how long the invite only thing lasts.
[+] [-] djschnei|9 years ago|reply
Also, nice to see the market filling the need for a censor-less social platform. Let them be hateful idiots over in the corner, it's their right.
[+] [-] Finnucane|9 years ago|reply
But sure, they needed a new platform, because Stormfront and the Daily Stormer are too PC?
[+] [-] Zaheer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swang|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] h4nkoslo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindcrash|9 years ago|reply
Andrew Torba and his team created Gab as a response to Twitter when Jack and his team started harassing and outright censoring people who didn't agree with far left ideology (and no, not just those who identify themselves as "right"). The most important design principle of Gab is "freedom of speech", and it is completely neutral of who are making use of this principle; Andrew has stated several times that EVERYBODY IS WELCOME no matter where you are in the political spectrum.
Yes, a large part of the population on Gab can be described politically as either "alt right" or "conservative" because these people are outright scared that their online voices will be shut simply because of disagreement. But that doesn't mean that the Gab population is 100% right wing, it also consists out of classical liberals and moderates who are sick and tired of the behavior and bullshit narrative of the far left, and do not agree with the way Twitter is handling freedom of expression, which by the way is a universal human right, on its platform.
[+] [-] heartbreak|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monocasa|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LyndsySimon|9 years ago|reply
I've said it before on HN, but I really think it's a mistake to write off approximately half the country because you disagree with their political positions.
[+] [-] Gooulo|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sctb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Natsu|9 years ago|reply
The right of self-defense is already considered in the USA's free speech laws, which do not permit things like incitement to violence, fighting words, or true threats.
The fact that you're arguing for violence, in saying that you must be "ready to beat them back to their [...] trailer parks" to suppress ideas you find abhorrent is actually a rather complete inversion of how Popper justified his idea.
"they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
- Karl Popper
Ref: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Popper
[+] [-] djschnei|9 years ago|reply
You are just as terrifying as any racist, sexist, homophobic trailer trash.
[+] [-] tdb7893|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gooulo|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] djschnei|9 years ago|reply
You are just as terrifying as any racist, sexist, homophobic trailer trash.
[+] [-] ngould|9 years ago|reply
But even as a progressive democrat, I feel sympathy for djschnei's response here. I think we should embrace and celebrate free speech in all of its forms. And when racists speak publicly, we should publicly reject their views.
When you suggest that large swaths of people should be "systematically suppressed," I think you're driving a wedge between yourself and a lot of fairly moderate conservative folks who could be allies in protecting civil society from the likes of actual Nazi's, etc.