This just seems short-sighted more than anything. It doesn't sound like there's anything technically wrong with the extension (indeed I have often wanted just such an extension), it's merely that the "wrong sort" of people use it. Well, banning it will keep the "wrong sort" of people using it. If everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started using the extension as a generic comment section, then the bright light of day would cleanse it. Instead, by "suppressing" it, they have basically gone out of their way to create a breeding ground.
> If everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started using the extension as a generic comment section, then the bright light of day would cleanse it
Browser extensions aside, if we've learn anything over the past two years of 'Online', it's that this simply isn't true. You can't 'debate' hate speech away.
Surely you can. To believe otherwise is to believe that hate is logically sound. It's just that people's standards for what constitutes "debate" have lowered so much (thanks to Twitter and its ilk) that it no longer holds any persuasive power. Consider that most people in the West were extremely racist just a few decades ago. It didn't take free speech suppression to change this status quo.
Even if that were true, it would still be possible to drown it. Flood the extension used by racists with an Eternal September of normal people. This is how we deal with extremist views in the real world - allowing them to sequester themselves together is what leads to the amplification chambers. Banning the extension just means that the people who already care about using it will continue to do so, while new users are pushed away.
> Browser extensions aside, if we've learn anything over the past two years of 'Online', it's that this simply isn't true. You can't 'debate' hate speech away.
When debating online, there's really two groups you need to keep in mind - the person/people you're debating, and the people reading the debate. Reading without interacting is generally accepted to be far more common than actually interacting, so that's probably the largest group. So even if you can't convince the person you're debating, you might be able to convince those who are just reading and don't have a strong attachment to either side.
Or you can give up, attempt to ban the badthink, and admit that your ideas do not have merit. Because that's what a lot of the watchers will interpret that refusal to engage as.
Not many people have an argument be it in real life or online, where one changes the other's opinion 180 degrees. But at the very least your words plant the seeds of doubt. I think it's normal that changing a point of view that you've held for many years to take time.
Why exactly would people want to share a space with racists, antisemites, and every kind of vile hatred? Why would you not go to place that does not accept that kind of utter garbage instead?
Don't you think that despite being uncomfortable with people that have opinions that you perceive as immoral, that banning them will only heighten their cause and become more radical?
It just seems evident to me that unpersoning them will force them in to a place that reinforces their own ideological biases which would make them more radical, and with being a social outcast, they'd have nothing to lose.
Rome wasn't built in a day. It might be a wretched hive of scum and villany now, but as it gets picked up by more and more people, some of those people won't be quite as extreme as the average. Unless there was someone deliberately banning users who weren't extreme enough, over time the community would inevitably become more moderate (or more likely, shrink and die).
It's practically an axiom - in any community without iron-fisted moderation and gatekeeping, the original hard core will end up complaining about how great it used to be before all the normies invaded.
With safe harbour laws the concept of editorial control comes up as a legal test that courts use to determine intermediary liability. By going this route Mozilla is now declaring that not only are they taking responsibility of what extensions they publish, but also how those extensions in turn are used by users. One level deeper of indirections.
So any site which has an EULA that forbids adblockers can use this case as a example of Mozilla exercising editorial control of extension use by users. If Mozilla is willing to exercise editorial control over users behavior for the dissenter extension, then the same apply for any other extension.
Looking in my list of extensions I can identify several which could be potential abused. I would be very sad to see the kind of restrictions that would happen if Mozilla would be forced to be liable for it.
The real question in my mind is when do browser makers start directly blocking websites they believe to be bad? After all both Chrome and Firefox are made by people with very strong political views. So far they've not abused SafeBrowsing to exercise political control over the internet, but the companies producing them are willing to block or politically rerank extensions, web links, domain names they host, news they summarise and so on.
How long do we have before browsing to gab.ai triggers a "This page has been blocked for your safety" page because a bunch of activists said the content made them feel unsafe?
This is a very good point, and one that I hadn't considered. From TFA:
> When asked for more clarity on which policies Dissenter did not comply with, Mozilla said that they received abuse reports for this extension. It further added that the platform is being used for promoting violence, hate speech, and discrimination, but they failed to show any examples to add any credibility to their claims.
If that's the case, who's to say that Firefox itself hasn't been used for these purposes?
While Brave is building from the core to the periphery, i.e. creating something based on solid fundamentals, Gab is taking Brave and polishing it a bit to their liking.
Due to this I suspect that the Gab browser will only get a following in a certain sphere, i.e. ideologigcal Gab followers. Otherwise you can simply use Brave or Chrome.
There was criticism by Eich et al. who noted that Gab is sending all kinds of data back home.
Gab seems to be focused on providing a service to their followers, without having the actual technical expertise to create something solid based on true privacy.
(I.e. it doesn't matter when we collect the data because we are actually on the right side of the fence)
Nevertheless I am excited to see where all of this is going and I welcome any additional browser, which is good for creating a competitive market.
The fact that Gab can, without much knowledge, "create" a browser interface within days shows how great Chromium is for the advancement of the open web.
The only thing that needs to be solved is the governance of chromium with it becoming the de facto standard on the web.
It's actually not true, what Eich was talking about, w/r/t data collection, and Gab appreciated the feedback. Using a Google Font is not tracking, and the YouTube/other embeds which are a feature of the extension have been made opt-in. Gab has also pointed out instances of Braves data collection and analytics gathering. Unlike Brave, the Gab team doesn't benefit from betraying user privacy, they don't want it. Of course Gab is focused on providing a service; they're building and shipping, defending free speech. I find the project very interesting: A browser that focuses on free speech, on enabling easy user modification, on refusing to be limited to what the big tech app stores say is okay... It could be a big jumping off point.
Everyone's in favour of the free market until it does something they disagree with. Anyone can start a new browser. Gab could fork Chromium or Firefox, even.
Or they could probably just make a bookmarklet.
But that wouldn't get any attention and hate groups like Gab thrive on controversies like this. HN is doing them a favour here. They're not doing anything new or original (remember the Genius annotator, anyone?).
Disagreement with a particular provider or producers actions within the free market is not equal to disagreement with the free market in general. AFAIK Gab isn't calling for regulation of the market to prevent this, so there's no contradiction here.
In fact gab is participating in the free market exactly how you'd expect a believer in the free market to act, they're creating their own browser: https://github.com/gab-ai-inc/defiant-browser
HN is not doing them a favor, except when you think that HN reader are actually incapable of thinking themselves, and need to be protected from knowledge.
I refute this picture of humans.
Silencing developments with ignoring them would actually do Gab a favor, whatever that means exactly. The term "hate group" is not clearly defined, anyway, and a propaganda-term in itself, and a tool of so-called 'hate'.
.
In other words, mental gymnastics to justify that your opponents are morally wrong and you're right, and because they're wrong, I have every right to stop them by any means necessary.
It makes perfect sense. If you create tools to ban certain types of speech, say intolerance of homophobia, what happens when a homophobe acquires those tools?
Because any tool will be eventually misused and abused.
"Why the lucky stiff" from the ruby community wrote MouseHole, a local web proxy that could be used to inject a commenting overlay to the web. Only the participants would see it.
It was a lot of fun being able to comment on that overlay of the Internet.
Funny how even this article, which kind supports gab, always associates them with terrorism (violence for political goals) while in both cases mentioned the perpetrators used other social media networks more and with more impact.
When you get bad reputation, truth doesn't matter. Everyone "knows" they are trash so... vaguely say it's against ToS.
Right now they should pull a corporate spin, rebrand and move on. CommunityChat™ - a comment section for tribe and vibe; Share you goals, feelings and achievements with a global community of mind-liked users.
If you go out looking for it, you will find a LOT more of that stuff on Twitter, Facebook, Patreon (Search for it) and Reddit. Gab is a free speech platform - similar to how phone carriers aren't held liable for what people speak on it, same way for Gab. It's not Gab's responsibility if the users are talking garbage.
I wasn't saying that Gab has "good" content. I was just pointing out that press, and regular joes, associate Gab with terrorism because of 2/3 terrorism cases, In those cases the terrorists used other social media sites with a greater impact.
This association with terrorism isn't a fair representation of the truth.
This is a bizarre blog post to have on the Packt website. Can anybody write these? Packt already had a bit of a low-quality book-mill smell to it, and now they're beating the "why can't the nazis catch a break" drum. Do not want.
Readit News
Browser extensions aside, if we've learn anything over the past two years of 'Online', it's that this simply isn't true. You can't 'debate' hate speech away.
Surely you can. To believe otherwise is to believe that hate is logically sound. It's just that people's standards for what constitutes "debate" have lowered so much (thanks to Twitter and its ilk) that it no longer holds any persuasive power. Consider that most people in the West were extremely racist just a few decades ago. It didn't take free speech suppression to change this status quo.
Not sure what your definition of "hate speech" is but if it includes racism, then yes, racists can change their mind:
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/oct/08/the-white-sou...
When debating online, there's really two groups you need to keep in mind - the person/people you're debating, and the people reading the debate. Reading without interacting is generally accepted to be far more common than actually interacting, so that's probably the largest group. So even if you can't convince the person you're debating, you might be able to convince those who are just reading and don't have a strong attachment to either side.
Or you can give up, attempt to ban the badthink, and admit that your ideas do not have merit. Because that's what a lot of the watchers will interpret that refusal to engage as.
It just seems evident to me that unpersoning them will force them in to a place that reinforces their own ideological biases which would make them more radical, and with being a social outcast, they'd have nothing to lose.
It's practically an axiom - in any community without iron-fisted moderation and gatekeeping, the original hard core will end up complaining about how great it used to be before all the normies invaded.
So any site which has an EULA that forbids adblockers can use this case as a example of Mozilla exercising editorial control of extension use by users. If Mozilla is willing to exercise editorial control over users behavior for the dissenter extension, then the same apply for any other extension.
Looking in my list of extensions I can identify several which could be potential abused. I would be very sad to see the kind of restrictions that would happen if Mozilla would be forced to be liable for it.
How long do we have before browsing to gab.ai triggers a "This page has been blocked for your safety" page because a bunch of activists said the content made them feel unsafe?
> When asked for more clarity on which policies Dissenter did not comply with, Mozilla said that they received abuse reports for this extension. It further added that the platform is being used for promoting violence, hate speech, and discrimination, but they failed to show any examples to add any credibility to their claims.
If that's the case, who's to say that Firefox itself hasn't been used for these purposes?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
Due to this I suspect that the Gab browser will only get a following in a certain sphere, i.e. ideologigcal Gab followers. Otherwise you can simply use Brave or Chrome.
There was criticism by Eich et al. who noted that Gab is sending all kinds of data back home.
Gab seems to be focused on providing a service to their followers, without having the actual technical expertise to create something solid based on true privacy.
(I.e. it doesn't matter when we collect the data because we are actually on the right side of the fence)
Nevertheless I am excited to see where all of this is going and I welcome any additional browser, which is good for creating a competitive market.
The fact that Gab can, without much knowledge, "create" a browser interface within days shows how great Chromium is for the advancement of the open web.
The only thing that needs to be solved is the governance of chromium with it becoming the de facto standard on the web.
Or they could probably just make a bookmarklet.
But that wouldn't get any attention and hate groups like Gab thrive on controversies like this. HN is doing them a favour here. They're not doing anything new or original (remember the Genius annotator, anyone?).
In fact gab is participating in the free market exactly how you'd expect a believer in the free market to act, they're creating their own browser: https://github.com/gab-ai-inc/defiant-browser
As long as Gab is not demanding government intervention, it's up to the private parties to solve their conflicts.
I refute this picture of humans.
Silencing developments with ignoring them would actually do Gab a favor, whatever that means exactly. The term "hate group" is not clearly defined, anyway, and a propaganda-term in itself, and a tool of so-called 'hate'. .
Dead Comment
Because any tool will be eventually misused and abused.
You don't need tools to kick nazis off your platform. And who cares what homophobes do on their platforms? Don't use them.
"Why the lucky stiff" from the ruby community wrote MouseHole, a local web proxy that could be used to inject a commenting overlay to the web. Only the participants would see it.
It was a lot of fun being able to comment on that overlay of the Internet.
When you get bad reputation, truth doesn't matter. Everyone "knows" they are trash so... vaguely say it's against ToS.
Right now they should pull a corporate spin, rebrand and move on. CommunityChat™ - a comment section for tribe and vibe; Share you goals, feelings and achievements with a global community of mind-liked users.
https://gab.com/brannon1776/posts/cDQ4dUJNKzIycHRib3ZKSU9lbT...
https://gab.com/TheSeven/posts/NUZFZXQrTk9qS0tJVlo5SHZsYnFEZ...
https://gab.com/Doomer90/posts/MERObDkzVHlKK2dISDg0OFE2Um9rU...
https://gab.com/IKNOWTHETRUTH1488/posts/Q1VhM3h1REJNa05udE93...
Is this really what you are wanting to defend? Is this just a "bad reputation" where "truth doesn't matter"?
This association with terrorism isn't a fair representation of the truth.
Dead Comment