
Microsoft threatens to stop hosting Gab unless posts are removed - anigbrowl
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/401129-microsoft-threatens-to-boot-gab-over-neo-nazis-hate-speech-posts
======
Nadya
A common argument in philosophy is that bad ideas should occur in the open -
where everyone may ridicule them. When they are cast to the shadows they can
grow, under everyone's noses, in private where only there are they allowed to
exist. In private, these bad ideas cannot be challenged by others and people
will be convinced to believe in them, with nobody challenging the idea as a
genuinely terrible idea.

It gives bad ideas a breeding ground to foster and _you 'd never even know
about it_. By publicly prohibiting speech all that happens is it is brushed
under a rug and people pretend it doesn't exist. That doesn't make the problem
go away, it's the same as shutting your eyes and covering your ears and
pretending the monster in front of you no longer exists. If you get to define
certain speech as unspeakable you justify the censorship of _any_ speech
determined to be unspeakable when you lose power and someone else steps up to
the plate. As history has shown - it's a matter of "when" not "if".

Actions like this serve to placate the public. The general public won't be
angry at Microsoft for censoring platforms "known for" or "complacent of" hate
speech (or worse). It's _always_ a slippery slope though. Once you open up the
can of worms that is censorship you justify future censorship.

I wait to see what will be next on the chopping block.

Edit: A few too many responses to respond to everyone, but if anyone would
like to speak with me on it more in depth feel free to email me - information
on how to contact me can be found on my profile.

~~~
braythwayt
That argument works well in relatively small social groups where people
generally can be relied upon to act in good faith, and where there are social
disincentives to clinging to bad ideas after they have been refuted.

When you have a small group with social bonds, you don't have to worry about a
bad actor constantly repeating their already-refuted arguments to people who
haven't heard the refutation.

But when you have the whole internet as your audience, no matter how many
times you are refuted, you can say it again and a whole group of people will
be hearing it for the first time.

I have been on the Internet since the 80s. What I have personally found is
that a lot of its social norms were lifted from academia, and they work very
well as defaults in a new social media context. Like Hacker News when it was
first launched.

But eventually, every "social medium" on the Internet has its "Eternal
September," when the number of new folks in any conversation outweighs the old
hands. At that point, the social norms that worked for the small, cohesive
group no longer work.

And worse, there are specialist parasites who exploit people's reluctance to
change their social norms, and the act in outrageously bad faith.

Sites like HN have survived by changing. For all of the popularity on HN of
"unrestricted free speech," HN is actually moderated, and that's why it works.

~~~
tinalumfoil
People are better off hearing a bad idea and hearing it refuted then never
hearing a bad idea. You could say, "well then detractors of the idea will have
to keep refuting it" and you'd be right. That's how public forums work, and I
hope you don't take everything your parent's believed for granted just because
their detractors have already been "refuted".

~~~
mxfh
It's too easy to come up with, spam and spread bad ideas, but actual work to
refute them. As long as people are not paid to refute bad actors with an
agenda, bad views will eventually stand unchallenged and make life worse for
everyone for the profit an amusement of a view. As said refuting partially
worked in small communities, but not on a global audience scale where the is
no effective way of social sanctions, that would happen in smaller knit ones.

So, in the light of this spreading provenly bad ideas shouldn't be made as
cheap of a process that it is now.

~~~
mirimir
Yes.

Also, you can refute all you want, but if the bad ideas are better clickbait
than your refutations, they will spread faster.

~~~
specialist
A lie is half-way around the world before the truth has its pants on. — Mark
Twain

Younger me was a free speech ultimatist. Alas, human nature.

Propaganda works, so well that people aren’t even aware of changing their
minds. Overton windows. Blowback, where refuting further cements the
falsehood. Belief as attire.

Etc, etc.

~~~
candiodari
And, as has been clearly illustrated, "trusted" news source can't always be
trusted either. So preventing "lies" (lie is almost always a matter of
perspective) to spread ... is really always also preventing people from
finding out the truth.

We just used to find that acceptable. Wars have been started by fake news from
"reputable" sources. If fake news regulations become widespread and usable,
they would be trivially easy for the rich and the government to abuse for
censorship.

Can you imagine how this would have gone had the president had the ability to
prevent "fake news" from spreading ?

[https://globalnews.ca/news/4209011/trump-immigrant-animal-
fa...](https://globalnews.ca/news/4209011/trump-immigrant-animal-fake-news/)

(I would argue that in Europe this "fake news" censorship is in fact pretty
much normal. Only ... a part of the fake news isn't fake at all, but rather
embarrassing to the government. The situation with rioting in French cities is
100x worse than sites like "Le Monde" report (which ones? Let's just say any >
1 mil ppl and there's only a few you'd be wrong about. Nice is pretty damn
bad, for instance. Destruction in the city center every friday. You should see
the security measures shops are taking, wtf). And other things that the
government doesn't like get extremely downplayed as well : France was pretty
much shut down due to a student strike in Paris for Macron's labor laws 3
times, and twice for his agricultural policy (both of which are downright
abusive, and I'd say the protests were _very_ justified) ... and there was a
small mention of a protest march in Le Monde. Mass car torchings are a weekly
occurrence since 2005 or so where I live. It baffles me, but it really looks
like they're literally doing this just to save face for that asshole Macron. I
get it ... I get it. He "saved Europe", especially after Brexit. He also
fucked up France, and that matters more to me, and should matter more to
French media and French voters. It's absurd because there literally isn't a
single person in France that doesn't know these events happen, so what's the
point of keeping them out of newspapers ? Do they think people will just
forget ?)

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _lie is almost always a matter of perspective_

This meme I do not understand. There is one physical reality[0]. A thing
either happened, or it didn't. Physics doesn't change its workings because of
_perspective_. A precise enough statement about reality can be either true or
false, there's no middle. There's no "depends on perspective". If I say, "the
Sun is shining", the truth of that fact does not depend on perspective.

Of course, very often we're dealing with complex statements that deal with
many aspects of reality simultaneously. We often talk about indirect evidence.
But that doesn't suddenly open a wormhole to a post-truth dimension. We have
tools and frameworks to deal with that. We can say, there is strong evidence
that this occurred. Or, there's strong evidence that it didn't. Or, the
current evidence points in neither way.

Arguing that truth and lies are a matter of perspective is just trying to
deliberately confuse people. After all, if we really accept this view, then
reality doesn't exist, nothing makes sense, and we can all go back to the
caves we came from.

\--

[0] - simulation ideas and other things aside, though they are all
conveniently defined in a way indistinguishable from us all being separate
minds inhabiting one reality.

~~~
Amezarak
The idea that objective truth about reality not only exists but is accessible
to the sufficiently enlightened, at least if they use the right "tools and
frameworks", is a bold philosophical thesis that has undergone quite a lot of
criticism in the past few thousand years. The idea that advocates of
'perspectivism' are simply trying to confuse people is absurd. "There are not
facts, only interpretations" people are just as passionate about trying to
make themselves understood as anyone else.

Your comment is _exactly why_ it is so important that we continue to value
free speech. Many people are utterly convinced that their views of reality
represent absolute and objective truth, totally unaware of the philosophical
assumptions underpinning their woldview. History is full of people convinced
their view of reality represented absolute and objective truth. They seldom
agreed.

Giving such people the tools to censor their opponents is very dangerous.
First, the set of people who are wielding those tools will inevitably change.
Secondly, well, where they burn books, they will someday burn people.

~~~
TeMPOraL
At no point I was trying to argue against free speech. Just about the notion
that "lie is almost always a matter of perspective". I'm aware there has been
criticism of the concept of objective reality in philosophy, but I'm also not
aware of any framework of thought that would fit the observable reality
better. In fact, all the progress of science and technology, as well as all
communications we do with each other, are based on assumption that there is an
objective reality which we can observe, and about which we can exchange
information that lead us to create a consistent, shared view.

~~~
specialist
I have no idea how to articulate these notions, please forgive.

#1

While I think of myself as a Popperian, I've begun to adopt a "true enough to
act now" view of the world. It's close to the notion "a good plan violently
executed today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow".

Mostly, I'm sick of the debate. I have relatives and friends who are
creationists, climate change deniers, supply-siders, etc. Instead of trying to
convince (persuade) people about the truth, opposing the torrent of bullshit
forces pushing these idealogical rocks up hill, I now focus on "ok, what can
we do _today_?"

In the case of evolution (vs creationism). The value of the theory isn't that
it's true (or not). Rather, the value is a set of axioms that allows us to
make reasonably good predictions about the world.

So when it comes to the complicated topics (eg current events), I'm trying to
relax my standards for objective truth, be satisfied with "true enough, for
now".

#2

We need more data. (aka You can't manage what you can't measure.)

I was a tree hugger when GIS and satellite imagery were being rolled out. They
completely changed the conversation about clearcutting, habitat loss, impacts,
etc. It was no longer a just propaganda war. Legislators could see for
themselves, if they wanted to, what was happening.

#3

Stop fighting "fake news". There's a better way.

Verifiable attribution, sources. All source data needs to be published.

Every publisher (that wants to be verifiable) would have their own
blockchain(s), sign their own works. Whenever a reader sees a news item, they
could verify the authenticity by checking the block chain.

This is no different than adding SHAs to software releases.

Each blockchain would be seeded with a CA, leveraging our current chain of
trust infrastructure.

#4

Also, the story is made in the edit. So publishers need to show their work.
Just like in science. Sure, cut down a two-hour interview to just 5 minutes.
But you still have to post the original footage.

#5

No one challenged my abandonment of "free speech ultimatism." So what's the
alternative?

Recognizing that cognition is social, that we (mostly) cohabitant a shared
reality:

Defending public discourse from the abuses of free speech is a tragedy of the
commons
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)].
This framing goes further than Paradox of Tolerance
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)]
by justifying the limitation of some speech in service of the greater good.

[Maybe call it the "marketplace of ideas" to engage the Freedom Markets™
zealots.]

I have no idea how to police the commons.

But I do think punishing parties for knowingly lying would be a good start.

There was a time when FCC broadcast licenses where contingent on serving the
public good. And license renewals were serious business.

I'd be okay with doing the same for online mediums as well.

There would be two classes of speech: anonymous and verified (per #3 above).
Verified speech, and the aggregators, would vouch for what they say.

If someone is found guilty of using verified speech to harm the public good
(jury of their peers, public hearings), their root CA would get revoked.

They can still publish anonymously, of course. But they can no longer claim to
be telling the truth.

\---

Okay. Thanks for listening, humoring me. I have these notions rattling around
in my head. And I like your comment history. And wanted to share with
someone(s), in case I get hit by a bus.

~~~
mirimir
Upon reflection, that is truly a great analysis! I just read Larry Sanger's
Everipedia proposal, and believe that the concept of trust revocation would be
a useful addition.

Would you be interested in fleshing it out as an Everipedia page? If you're
not editing Everipedia yet, I can help you with that. Anonymously,if you like.
Or I could write the page, with your permission and perhaps input.

~~~
specialist
Thank you for the Everipedia tip. Hmmm, very interesting. Sending you a PM via
email.

------
CM30
This sort of thing illustrates the biggest issue with web hosting, domain
registrars and the internet's infrastructure in general; everything is
privately owned by companies who get unlimited rights to decide who and what
they want to host.

The solution is to require all hosting and domain companies to act as
utilities, and require neutrality in regards to any content that's legal.
They're not private forums or homes, they're the internet equivalent to the
electricity company or the water company. They're the internet equivalent to a
phone service provider or ISP.

Why do/did ISPs have to deal with net neutrality while large hosting companies
and registrars get free reign? The power company can't cut off your service
because you offended someone online or what not.

If you want to argue the internet is a place for free speech, then it needs
places you can host content/register domains/whatever that act like a public
square, not a shopping centre.

~~~
394549
> The solution is to require all hosting and domain companies to act as
> utilities, and require neutrality in regards to any content that's legal.
> They're not private forums or homes, they're the internet equivalent to the
> electricity company or the water company. They're the internet equivalent to
> a phone service provider or ISP.

Exactly this. When the First Amendment was authored, I don't think it was even
conceivable that any organization besides a government or state church could
effectively censor speech at scale. Now that we have "private" organizations
that effectively have that power, it's perhaps time that the law be updated to
reflect that change in facts and preserve people's right to free expression.

The internet shouldn't be another Zuccotti Park.

~~~
CM30
When the First Amendment was authored, I suspect people thought public
property was going to be where the largest audience was, with the town hall
and park and square and what not being the main platform for discussion.
Reaching the crowd meant going out with a handbell or standing on a box
passing out pamphlets. Stopping the government from arresting someone
advertising in the town square was more important than stopping a shop from
kicking out a customer they didn't like.

But that's not the case now. The platforms hosting your work are privately
owned, the large community websites/social networks/whatever with millions or
billions of users are privately owned, and a larger portion of real life
locations people frequent are privately owned too.

The way society is going seems to be making the amendment less and less
relevant as time goes on.

~~~
DanAndersen
>The way society is going seems to be making the amendment less and less
relevant as time goes on.

Exactly. As society moves more and more online, it moves more and more into a
virtual territory that is owned at every level by corporate entities who grant
no rights to their users. If we're not careful, we could end up with a strange
cyber-feudal arrangement.

The "it's their platform" argument seems strange to me when you start getting
into the question of corporations beyond a certain size or monopoly. In the
1700s I'm sure there was a lot of arguing that certain kinds of protest were
groundless because this is "the King's land." It took a re-examination of what
the boundaries should be before that changed.

------
DanAndersen
One thing that hasn't yet been remarked on here is that the 48-hour-warning
message said that the linked posts were flagged for having _phishing links_.
Notice that the statements made afterward by MS were not on the grounds of the
original "phishing links" report, but focusing on the content.

However, if you look at the posts, you'll see a fair amount of unsavory
content but no phishing links.

I feel like this was purposeful on the part of whatever political group made
these reports.

Most likely, these hosting companies have automated anti-spam/phishing systems
whereby, if a large number of reports come in, they will automatically send
out an alert to the suspected offending party.

If Outraged Group X goes to the company saying "this site you're hosting has
vile speech and so you should take it down," it probably has to go through an
internal company process, which might have a slightly higher bar for acting on
it.

However, if Outraged Group X falsely claims that "this site is hosting
phishing links", something which might trigger an algorithmic response, then
the company cannot easily reverse course -- because then the story becomes
"Company ABC actively reverses course on allowing hate speech." The PR fallout
locks them in.

------
MoveConstructor
It's disconcerting to see how many tech and free speech people are clamoring
for the censorship of dissenting opinion and are jubilant when it happens.

Free speech has always been a very counter-intuitive process. Opinions that
directly oppose yours or even your very person will rub you the wrong way, and
to be intent on defending the right of your opponent to voice his opinion
seems paradoxical, but we nevertheless conceded that this serves the greater
good.

The recent Alex Jones incident was legitimized on the basis of dissemination
of dangerous ideas. With Gab, the argument is that it is hate speech. The most
compelling argument for free speech is that it removes the subjective and
variable limits of speech and by extension, slippery slopes.

If you must know, while I do consider myself a political conservative, I
cannot bear to listen to Alex Jones and I've never used Gab. I'm radically
free speech which means I enjoy living in a world where literally everyone can
say quite literally everything. Whether there is a slippery slope angle to all
this is not even relevant for me. I want to hear the ideas of everyone who is
broadcasting.

The very arguments I am expounding on are already controversial, but they
weren't very long ago. Makes you think.

~~~
kevinmchugh
The free speech absolutists would have been more convincing had they been as
up-in-arms about the banning of ISIS or ISIS-affiliated accounts over the last
several years. This happened by the hundreds-of-thousands.

~~~
jewelthief91
For better or worse foreign and domestic terrorist speech is treated
separately. If ISIS was a domestic terrorist organization afaik they would
have 1A rights.

~~~
kevinmchugh
What's the connection to the first amendment? Did the government dictate bans?
I saw very little concern from the "free speech" crowd about the government's
ability to censor US publishers from publishing content by foreign authors.

~~~
SamReidHughes
There's been plenty of concern about that. See the Mehanna case from a few
years back. Also, the USG was giving Twitter shit about having terrorist
content on their site for years.

------
makomk
The posts in question are frankly pretty awful, but this does kind of put the
lie to the idea that if you don't like FaceGoogleBook's censorship you can
just set up your own website.

~~~
PurpleBoxDragon
Well you can host your own website on your own server.

Of course, I do wonder how far this goes. What happens if the DNS server
refuses to host the IP lookup? Host your own DNS server? What if the browsers
refuse to allow access to the site? Build your own browser? What if ISPs
refuse to transfer the data over the wire? Make your own internet?

People have defended that this vs. Net Neutrality (at least the extent of the
ability of an ISP to control what goes over its wires) as having a core
difference, but it feels to me they are closer than people realize and the
standards set by one can influence the other.

~~~
zkms
> Well you can host your own website on your own server.

Sure, then the people who drove you off Facebook/Amazon/Apple
iTunes/Youtube/Azure/EC2/Digitalocean/Cloudflare will go after your DNS
registrar and the ISP/CDN/colocation-facility you're using. They won't give up
and they'll ruthlessly go after every single commercial entity you do business
with. After all, if it's not the _government_ punishing you for speech, it's
not censorship and it's fine!

That's the trick of this kind of lawfare -- having _any kind_ of internet
presence inherently involves relationships with private, non-governmental
entities, and it's disturbingly easy to suborn them and shame them into
refusing to do business with unsavoury people.

~~~
s73v3r_
Yeah, I don't buy that. If Stormfront and Daily Stormer can still be up, then
there can't really be any credibility to that argument.

~~~
zkms
> Yeah, I don't buy that. If Stormfront and Daily Stormer can still be up,
> then there can't really be any credibility to that argument.

That those two loathsome websites are still up doesn't mean that the technique
I described is invalid; it just means it doesn't have a 100% kill rate, and it
certainly works on less resourced and less indefatigable targets.

I'm not worried about those specific websites -- I'm worried about the
increased spread and normalisation of the "contact everyone %s has a business
relationship with, and _shame them until they drop them as a customer_ "
tactic. Where does it end? We've established that pressuring domain registrars
and hosts _is fine_ ; what's fair game after that?

Is it fine for me to pressure and suborn an electric company into cutting off
service to someone I don't like (after all, without electricity, they can't
make those bad internet posts!). If I can rile up enough of an internet mob,
can I get them evicted from their residence, simply by annoying their landlord
until the trouble's not worth the monthly rent cheque? I've seen firsthand
these tactics used by internet mobs and it's a very ugly process, and it's not
something whose prevalence I'm happy to see expand.

Just because in _these cases_ the targets are generally disgusting doesn't
mean it's something that should be tolerated ( _if only_ because those who you
hate will positively _relish_ a chance to use that against your side of
things).

~~~
s73v3r_
"Is it fine for me to pressure and suborn an electric company into cutting off
service to someone I don't like (after all, without electricity, they can't
make those bad internet posts!). If I can rile up enough of an internet mob,
can I get them evicted from their residence, simply by annoying their landlord
until the trouble's not worth the monthly rent cheque?"

The really funny, and by funny I mean sad, thing about your argument, is that
you're all upset about this happening to racists and bigots, but you
completely ignore that this was a fact of life for many of the marginalized
communities that they terrorize.

"I've seen firsthand these tactics used by internet mobs and it's a very ugly
process, and it's not something whose prevalence I'm happy to see expand."

You know what's even uglier? The tactics used by white supremacists to
terrorize marginalized communities.

~~~
zkms
> The really funny, and by funny I mean sad, thing about your argument, is
> that you're all upset about this happening to racists and bigots, but you
> completely ignore that this was a fact of life for many of the marginalized
> communities that they terrorize.

No. This is frankly wrong. In my comment
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17730702](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17730702))
that you replied to, I described the websites in question as "loathsome" and
"generally disgusting". If that wasn't enough, I will say it explicitly: I do
not endorse/support racists or bigots or white supremacists or white
nationalists or Nazis or Neo-Nazis or the alt-right or other flavours of
fascism.

I find this incident mildly troubling not because of the targets in question
(I don't give a solitary fuck about Gab or the Daily Stormer or their
users/admins/owners), but because of the precedent it sets -- and specifically
that this precedent will be exploited _by these racists_ , against
marginalised communities.

------
tptacek
Having read the article but not knowing anything about the posts themselves, I
think most of this thread misses the point.

Clearly Microsoft knew it was hosting Gab and what Gab was. There's a troll
argument that suggests Gab is just "free speech twitter", but of course that's
not the case: I've been screenshotting the front page for months, from a
random anonymous account, and _every time I 've done it_ the front page was
full of horrible Islamophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic crap. That and bot
content.

My point here is: everybody knows that's what Gab is. Microsoft isn't pushing
back on Gab's anti-Semitism --- without anti-Semitism, there is no Gab. They
had specific harm reduction problems with a pair of posts, one of which,
according to this article, was a call for violence directed towards Jewish
people.

~~~
patrickg_zill
The original story, is apparently not available at this link, but the footer,
also written by Andrew Torba, owner of Gab.ai , is available:
[https://medium.com/@Torbahax/this-is-a-joke-and-it-is-
fake-n...](https://medium.com/@Torbahax/this-is-a-joke-and-it-is-fake-
news-a1fa3fc74228)

partial quote:

" Gab is absolutely not a “white nationalist social media platform.” We are a
free speech social media platform. We welcome everyone and have since the day
we launched. My co-founder Ekrem is a Muslim Kurd in Turkey. Our Chief
Communications Officer Utsav is an Indian and a practicing Hindu. Our “frog
logo” that the media wants so desperately to tie to “pepe,” was inspired by
Exodus 8:2–7 and was designed by our Creative Director Brandon, who is
Jewish."

~~~
tptacek
That's an interesting thing for him to say, because Gab is absolutely and
obviously a white nationalist social media platform.

Want another example? Arguing with Ken White (Popehat) on Twitter, the
official Gab account RT'd a white nationalist mocking Ken for having adopted
Asian children.

[https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1026849669425520640](https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1026849669425520640)

~~~
manfredo
I think it's important to distinguish between platforms that host content of a
given topic, and platforms that are specifically set up for a certain topic.
For example, Reddit has /r/motorcycles, but I wouldn't call it "a motorcycling
discussion platform". I'd call advrider.com or bayarearidersforum.com
motorcycle discussion platforms. They're websites specifically set up for
motorcycling related discussion. A website that takes a strong stance on free
speech like Gab probably has a significant overrepresentation of White
Nationalists, by virtue of displacement - most other big platforms ban this
content so they migrate to the few places that do allow it. In that sense I
think it's fair to call Gab "a platform that tolerates white nationalist" but
not "a white nationalist platform".

Equating tolerance of an idea as endorsement for an idea is the root of a lot
of problems we see today, in my opinion.

~~~
MajesticHobo2
Are you just going to ignore the fact that _the official Twitter account for
Gab_ actively promotes white supremacist talking points? It only takes about
30 seconds of scrolling through their feed to see this.

~~~
manfredo
I scrolled for not only 30 seconds or so but at least a minute. Nowhere do I
find Gab actively promoting white supremacy. As far as promoting "white
supremacist talking points" this is a pretty substantially different actually
supporting white supremacy, and support for that allegation is still pretty
vague. The closes things I found are:

> “Hate speech” is free speech, as decided unanimously by the Supreme Court of
> the United States of America.

Sure, white supremacists may be more keen to protect hate speech but this
statement is factually correct.

> Right-wing platforms provide refuge to digital outcasts — and Alex Jones

Again, hosting a speaker is not the same as promoting or endorsing what is
said. By this logic, Berkeley endorsed Milo Y.

> At some point you have to ask yourself: just who is pushing for the
> censorship? Once you learn who, there is no going back. You can’t unsee what
> has been seen. You can’t unlearn what has been learned.

Arguably echoes allegations that Jewist people control the media, but this is
vague at best.

Furthermore, the account states that it would not ban left-wing speakers that
had written hateful message about whites:

> The @verge defends the anti-white hate of @sarahjeong then turns around and
> maligns Gab as “alt right” for defending free speech for everyone (including
> Sarah!)

I think official Gab twitter account is consistent Gab's claim to allow all
legal speech, including hateful speech regardless of political leaning.

~~~
pcwalton
> Arguably echoes allegations that Jewist people control the media, but this
> is vague at best.

Don't insult our intelligence. It is obviously a vile statement about Jewish
people.

[http://archive.is/q8Guu](http://archive.is/q8Guu) if you need it to be even
more obvious.

------
samlevine
Threats of violence already violate Gab's ToS:

"Users are prohibited from calling for the acts of violence against others,
promoting or engaging in self-harm, and/or acts of cruelty, threatening
language or behaviour that clearly, directly and incontrovertibly infringes on
the safety of another user or individual(s)."

[https://gab.ai/about/guidelines](https://gab.ai/about/guidelines)

~~~
Scooty
I wonder what this says about Gab's reaction.

Why would they give Little the option to delete his posts instead of banning
him and removing the posts themselves? If I was in their position, it wouldn't
even be a question of free speech considering he was breaching the ToS.

------
fareesh
The content here is quite disgusting, and I certainly do not defend it, but I
really take issue with what is happening here in principle.

Overall this is similar to a runaway effect that negligence of the environment
can have. At a certain point it will be too late to solve the problem i.e.
control emissions or oppose this kind of authoritarianism under different
circumstances. The very means to do so will either be impotent or impossible.

By then you are reliant on some new magical invention to resolve the problem,
or a large death toll in the millions, which changes the entire landscape.

Corporations certainly have the right to do this, but they are only choosing
to do so because there are strong winds blowing in this direction. It's
important that they are opposed, before this paves the way for big mistakes to
be made.

It's important that these kinds of ideas see sunlight. Ideas that promote
tolerance, peace and common sense will win in the end, provided we keep
talking. If talking comes to an end, we know what comes next. These ideas will
only find more room to grow, and see greater validation when they are opposed
in this kind of authoritarian manner.

Rather than advocating a strategy where we are relying on governments and
corporations to solve these problems, we should be the ones fixing our
societies and arguing against disgusting ideas such as this, with well
reasoned arguments, or even humor, both of which have historically been great
at winning ideological battles.

I am sure this crowd knows their Aaron Satie.

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the
first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."

~~~
genericid
I hope this crowd knows their Joseph Goebbels.

"When our enemies say: But we used to grant you freedom of opinion -- yes, you
granted it to us, that is no proof that we should do the same for you! That
you gave us that just proves how stupid you are!"

(source:
[https://de.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels](https://de.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels)
and [https://www.sr-mediathek.de/index.php?seite=7&id=37143](https://www.sr-
mediathek.de/index.php?seite=7&id=37143) ; translation by me)

~~~
fareesh
So take Goebbels' advice? Not sure what you are getting at.

Our enemies are fascists who will take away our rights, therefore anyone
suspected of eventually becoming a fascist will have their rights preemptively
taken away so that it does not come to that?

------
hartator
Little's posts on Gab are awful, and Microsoft is in his rights to refuse
service to anyone. However they don't have the capacity to do a fair manual
triage of all the services they are hosting, and they should avoid doing it
until legally constrained.

~~~
Someguywhatever
Too lazy to actually look it up but I think that MS are getting ahead of the
lawsuit from Europe. Europe will fine you X dollars for every second / minute
/ hour or something that a bad post is left online. So even if GAB does not
comply with EU regs then Azure surely will and EU will go after the weakest
link. MS knows this, and they don't care about GAB or Free Speech or whatever
so they're going to shut them down if they don't comply.

IMO Europes rules are designed this way on purpose, they are sort of exporting
their rules, and eventually if that's allowed to continue the internet will
devolve to the lowest common denominator. Whomever has the biggest most
enforceable fines rules the internet.

~~~
alkonaut
I don’t think there is a pan-European set of free speech laws. These are per
country.

------
Endy
I have an alternate solution especially for Gab and Voat. Rather than allowing
them to become known cesspits, advertise them to people and say, "see how
others' opinions exist" \- people will sign up for curiosity, they'll sign up
to argue, etc. But most importantly, they'll be there on that platform and
perhaps some people will actually learn to communicate openly with people they
disagree with or whose views they despise.

~~~
s73v3r_
Yeah, no. People will see the vile toxicity right up front (it's not hidden at
all there), and they'll leave in 5 minutes.

~~~
Endy
I think I understand what you're saying, but if it was so vile and so toxic,
why would people keep returning to it and stay so involved? Whether you happen
to like it or not, these are communities just as much as any other. I think it
would be better for the human condition if, instead of dismissing them as
"vile toxicity", we looked at what they're saying and what's caused them to
feel a need to say it.

Then again, that takes more than five minutes.

~~~
Sol-
Their opinions are plainly wrong by any modern standard (i.e. killing
"subhumans", etc.), so there's no merit in approaching them on that front.

Though as you say, it might be necessary to understand them to prevent such
extremism from spreading. But at that point it's very well worth asking if all
that 'understanding' is really more effective than just banning such
platforms.

Worked for Reddit, for instance. There was a study that showed that the
prevalence of hate-speech was decreased after they banned the racist
subreddits. Even people engaged in those communities became less extreme after
you've removed their echo chamber.

~~~
Endy
It "worked" for Reddit because people moved over to Voat or back to the chans.
Just because the community moves off a certain platform doesn't actually
change the existence of either the people or their opinions. I want to make
clear that I agree with you that an opinion that terms any member of genus
Homo as subhuman is wrong; and that killing is also wrong. On the other hand,
I for one am curious about how these memes originated and continue to
propagate; and I feel that direct engagement is the only way we'll find that
out. Massive cultural impact cannot be made by simply avoiding other opinions.
After all, Columbus massively underestimated the circumference of the Earth
compared to Eratosthenes - but the Portuguese still funded his travels, and
his trip was successful, even if by complete accident. Engaging with those who
have wrong opinions can sometimes have unexpected positive impact.

------
test001only
This is a very clear example of hate speech and people in the comment section
seems to unknowingly or deliberately conflating it with free speech. Free
speech does not mean you call upon people to incite violence against a
particular set of people.

~~~
another-cuppa
Yes it does, actually, whether you like it or not. But maybe you'd like to
call into question whether such speech should still be protected as free
speech. The difficulty is in establishing where you draw the line.

------
gammateam
Who can make better tools for IPFS and other services that are more difficult
to take down?

The tooling is the main thing stopping people from using more autonomous
decentralized services.

------
Forge36
I spent done time digging through the posts (and researching the view points).
My conclusion: This article and the Twitter posts feel like an advertisement
for Gab. It's currently building a userbase, primarily from people banned from
Twitter for expressing extreme views. In this case it's capitalizing on a very
well known user, a stance supporting the user, and the user self censoring.

Something feels off (see my quote). This is timed around Gab seeking funding
(see Twitter:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/getongab/status/10275500729328517...](https://mobile.twitter.com/getongab/status/1027550072932851713))

I suspect further exposure will push Gab to censor. However in the interim: it
will grow based on the controversy to ban/remain open

quoting my own reply >Researching Gab: the posts from Gab was immediately
followed by a funding request. Users pointing out how it appears to be
"Twitter for racists" add (cherry picked) posts highlighting the advocation of
destruction if Jewish memorials (and enslavement of the Jewish people).

>To comment on the article: this appears to be shining the sun on what appears
a racist bastion advocating violence. (I might be wrong. Gab didn't remove the
posts, the user did) Or to rephrase Microsoft's threat as I'm seeing it: if
[Gab] does not remove a post [advocating violence] , Gab must seek hosting on
another platform.

>So which strategy worked? Ban or exposure? For Microsoft? For Gab? For the
user?

>I don't know that the answer is the same for each group. I suspect given the
article, exposure pushed Microsoft to push for a ban. A ban pressured the
user, by thinking their platform. So where does Gab stand?

------
chvid
Who are the organisations pushing for these bans? Are they completely
anonymous?

~~~
dragonwriter
Who said they are organizations? It to doesn't take much to see some content,
do a little research to identify a responsible host, and file a ToS complaint.

~~~
chvid
Yeah. It just seems very coordinated. I would have thought had it been random
individuals there would be a lot of chatter and cheers when a call for a ban
succeeded. And some chatter on who to pick. But I could be wrong.

Just wondered if someone could put a face on who is pushing for this.

------
jasonvorhe
Microsoft should be able to decide who they do business with. That's typical
contract law almost everywhere.

If they decide get certain content is against their own values, culture and
risks the safety of their own staff, even if that risk isn't an immediate one,
they should always have the option of termination the contract.

That's not censorship, that's business. A company doesn't owe anyone their
service, unless they provide a public utility or because they're a monopoly.
In terms of web hosting, neither is the case with Microsoft.

------
bovermyer
Microsoft's comments are in keeping with a common misconception about the
First Amendment.

For clarity, the relevant part of the First Amendment is here:

> Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
> press ...

Nowhere does it say anything about private companies, other groups, or even
other branches of government having to obey this rule.

I don't have data on how many people actually believe the First Amendment lets
them say whatever they want wherever they want. I'm guessing it's a pretty
high number, though.

------
jve
Or just use this secure key fob holder:
[https://youtu.be/-MILCnDczC0?t=9m17s](https://youtu.be/-MILCnDczC0?t=9m17s)

------
IanDrake
Good for Microsoft for drawing the correct line in the sand. Calls to violence
are not protected speech.

The Alex Jones censorship is another matter. His stuff is pretty crazy, but
not worthy of being taken down. Louis Farrakhan says lots crazy stuff and I
don’t believe he’s been censored at all. There is definitely a double standard
at play.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
From Robert Bolt's A Man For All Seasons (substitute "principle of free
speech" for "law").

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to
get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned
'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This
country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not
God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you
really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes,
I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

\-----------

People in positions of power generally assume that they will always be in
power. Many of people during the Obama presidency, wished that the president
was less susceptible to gridlock between the various branches of government.
In January 2016, most people never even considered the possibility that in 1
year, Donald Trump would be sworn in as President.

Right now, the progressive, center left is in a very strong position with
regards to the tech industry. All the major players are sensitive to their
causes, and against the alt-right. A lot of people are unhappy that the
current norms of free speech are causing the social media companies to be slow
in taking down alt-right, hate content.

People forget, that things change. What if Zuckerberg decides that as a rich,
white, male who is accused of indirectly helping Trump get elected, his future
political prospects are better if he goes all in and casts his full support
behind Trump? What if Twitter continues to have monetization problems and get
bought out by a group of wealthy GOP donors?

How easy would it be to call any discussion of European colonialism and
imperialism or of slavery in the United States, hate speech against whites?
How easy would it be to label any discussion of increasing taxes because the
0.1% are not paying their fare share as hate speech against the rich. How
about labeling any post advocating protest against ICE as targeted harassment?

If you knew that in 5 years, it would be the right that was running Facebook,
Twitter, the ISPs, etc, what mores concerning free speech would you want to
preserve, even when it involves a private entity.

I think a successful democracy in a polarized country involves both sides
realizing that there will come a time when they will be out of power and
encouraging cultural mores and norms that make sure they are able to
communicate freely and have employment even when the other side is in power -
either in government or in the private sector.

------
inevitable2
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -John Gilmore

Lately this is getting absurd. I believe this quote is still true, but the
amount of 'I don't like what is being said so therefore you should be
silenced' is going too far. I don't agree with what this guy said (or even
know who he is aside from what was said in the article), but I'm alarmed that
Microsoft would go after Gab for a user on Gab's platform.

~~~
bitwize
Lately we're sort of learning that absolute freedom to express any opinion you
like is kind of a bad idea, especially at web scale. The example of Germany,
which is freer and more democratic than the USA despite having strict laws
forbidding expressing any sort of Nazi-like opinion, supports this.

~~~
jewelthief91
How is Germany more free and Democratic? Aren't they purposefully less free
because of anti-Nazi laws?

~~~
bitwize
Germany consistently places higher than the USA on international press freedom
indices. The press, in general, is a protected institution there, whereas
here, blowhards like Trump do their damnedest to intimidate journalists out of
doing their job, which is to expose the dealings of government to the public.

And you don't have to read Hackernews for long to see how terminally fucked
and anti-freedom the U.S. justice system is. Things like plea bargaining,
money bail, and systemic racism in law enforcement and criminal proceedings
make U.S. "freedom" illusory unless you're white and wealthy.

As for democracy, it's well known that votes in Congress can be easily bought
in the US, far more easily than in Germany's parliament.

~~~
jewelthief91
How is this freedom attributable in any direct way to restrictions on "hate
speech"?

~~~
bitwize
Well, you could argue that Germany successfully avoided renazifying in part
because of its anti-hate-speech laws.

Even absent this, the point is that Germany is, in practice, freer than the
USA _despite_ having a less absolute stance on free speech.

------
inevitable2
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -John Gilmore

Lately this is getting absurd. I believe this quote is still true, but the
amount of 'I don't like what is being said so therefore you should be
silenced' is going too far. I don't agree with what this guy said (or even
know who he is aside from what was said in the article), but I'm alarmed that
Microsoft would go after Gab for a user on Gab's platform.

------
stealthmodeclan
Religions? Do they've all scientifically verified ideas? People still believe
in them. Not only that, religion is also given special place in the
constitution and law of some countries.

Religion is still going strong. Try to take away anyone's religion based on
refutations then tell me that refuting bad idea really works.

Till then many others will try to mix mash bad ideas into new religions.

------
driverdan
> Neo-Nazi deletes anti-Semitic posts from 'alt-right' Twitter

Who writes these terrible headlines? Why do these blogspam sites refuse to put
the actual topic in the subject?

This makes it sound like Twitter is alt-right. It's not even accurate since
Gab isn't political or "alt-right," Nazis use it because they refuse to
censor.

~~~
slater
> Gab isn't political or "alt-right"

haha, good one!

~~~
devmunchies
its the last recourse for the alt-right because other platforms censor them.
I'm sure if you posted far-left stuff on there it wouldn't be censored either,
but there is no point because most social media platforms don't censor far-
left thoughts anyway.

~~~
int_19h
> most social media platforms don't censor far-left thoughts anyway.

They do, though.

[https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/09/google-censors-
block...](https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/09/google-censors-block-access-
to-counterpunch-and-other-progressive-sites/)

~~~
devmunchies
google results are a social media platform?

And i said "most".

~~~
ubernostrum
Well, there are all the people who point out that Twitter will take ages to
respond to a report of a conservative-leaning account making threats and will
usually end up saying "that doesn't violate our guidelines". But somehow
quickly suspends left-leaning accounts which say similar things. Especially if
you say them in the direction of a blue-checkmark conservative-leaning
account.

------
rainbowmverse
This thread is a good example of the "sunlight is the best disinfectant"
fallacy.

It is debunked by research. The thread has countless instances of it. In each,
someone goes to the trouble of debunking it. The "exposing bad ideas reduces
their power" camp is unmoved. The "the research says you're wrong" camp is
unmoved.

The false notion is firmly wedged into the public mind because the research
came too late. I don't know a good way to prevent this while not shutting down
good but unpopular ideas. Letting Nazis, goofballs, and fascists on to all the
big social media platforms has obviously not reduced their numbers.

~~~
Forge36
Can you source that? Otherwise I can't tell if I'm arguing with you, your
source, or a straw man.

~~~
rainbowmverse
No one asked for a citation on the widespread claim that exposing bad ideas to
the light makes them go away, or at least decline in popularity. It's stated
and taken as truth, but no one provided proof that it's true. I matched the
standard of evidence applied to the original claim.

It might be wise to actually investigate that bit of "common sense" before
betting the future of the world on people's ability to deal with a flood of
misinformation. Maybe I'm wrong. No one bothered to back it up with evidence
though. Start there, not with my response to the claim.

You could wisely point out I claimed there's research, and I could at least
provide it. The research I've seen tells me this won't help since people tend
to discount research that goes against their beliefs, and use research that
supports those beliefs as reinforcement. It won't do you any good if you start
out with a strong belief in the unsupported original claim, as seems to be the
case with most people I see here making it.

~~~
retsibsi
> You could wisely point out I claimed there's research, and I could at least
> provide it. The research I've seen tells me this won't help since people
> tend to discount research that goes against their beliefs, and use research
> that supports those beliefs as reinforcement. It won't do you any good if
> you start out with a strong belief in the unsupported original claim, as
> seems to be the case with most people I see here making it.

Come on man, I think I'm on your side here, but this is a cop-out. If you're
not sure where to find the studies, just say so -- otherwise, why hold them
back at this point? (Surely you don't hold the extreme view that everyone is
completely impervious to evidence, so you can't just say that the evidence
proves itself not to be worth sharing.)

I too remember reading about evidence contradicting the 'sunlight is the best
disinfectant' meme -- for example, studies demonstrating that false claims
stick with people and continue to affect their thinking, even to the point of
being held as beliefs, after they are convincingly refuted (or perhaps even
withdrawn by the person who presented the original claim, who admits that they
completely made it up). If I have time later, I'll see if I can find some good
sources to link to.

~~~
Forge36
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds -
[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-
dont...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-
our-minds)

------
gammateam
'alt-right' Twitter just sounds like a subculture on Twitter, not a separate
network called Gab.

take note journalists... or take note devs that happen to work in open office
plans next to the writers. lets not refer to things off of twitter as
analogous to subcultures of twitter.

------
microcolonel
GL;HF Microsoft Azure, attempting to force your customers' content policy (in
cases for which Azure is clearly not liable) is one more excellent reason not
to buy Azure, right around only supporting IPv6 on load balancers (not
directly on hosts).

Though on the flip side, I think some of these posts could violate Gab's own
ToS, so even if their OP didn't remove them voluntarily, they would likely not
have survived long anyway.

------
h4b4n3r0
Slippery slope, if I've ever seen one. This can and will be used against
legitimate dissidents and protesters at some point, that I can pretty much
guarantee. Bottom line: I'd be much more comfortable if takedowns could only
be done in response to illegal activity on the account, and only after a court
order. Otherwise some techno-bureaucrat serves as a judge, jury, and
executioner, and I'm categorically not OK with that.

------
ironjunkie
We are living in a new century of censorship. BigTech companies have become so
big, that they are the one deciding what to allow or not allow based on some
weird guidelines ("Hate speech" means everything and nothing). It became
extremely difficult to put an opinion out there and not relying to at least
one of them at some level.

This weird censorship is perfectly legal since it's coming from private
entities. What really annoys me is that it's always the same side that is
"censored". All the FAANG//MAGA being extremely left leaning.

There is going to be a backslash. It is mounting, and people start to realize.

~~~
darpa_escapee
> What really annoys me is that it's always the same side that is "censored"

Untrue. Religious extremist content has been silently taken down for years.

People advocating for workers rights, anarchists and communists have all had a
history of facing censorship online.

------
hkon
I don't know, somehow along the way, videos of beheadings and other cruel
content became ok and simple text/opinions can now put entire sites at risk. I
am not familiar with the content of the messages, but from now on it's enough
to get certain ideas labeled same as these, then it will have to be deleted.
The number of labels will increase, and so will the reporting and the
deleting.

------
reader5000
The letter is encouraging in that it at least softly implies Microsoft applies
a First Amendment analysis to take down issues. A First Amendment analysis is
much superior and more just compared to the injustice applied to Alex Jones
and any number of 10000s of removed youtube videos and so on. At the end of
the day, tech companies need to realize they are just common carrier pipes and
do not have authority to police the bits on their servers anymore than a city
bus has the authority to police the politics of its passengers.

------
lesserroneous
I'm not convinced this is a true example of censorship. Historically,
censorship relates to an institution's ability to prevent information before
it becomes public, or to manipulate information to serve its own means. It
assumes an almost complete control over the means of information production,
whereby a populace barely even sees a glimpse of the censored information.
Since Little's neo-nazi propaganda is public and is being openly discussed, he
cannot truly be censored. It's more a publicity stunt by Microsoft. There is
certainly censorship in the U.S., but this doesn't seem like a true example of
it to me. I also think it's a slippery slope fallacy to say that removing a
forum about torturing Jews (and other hate speech) will inevitably lead to
totalitarian censorship of all provocative ideas. Please show me an example
where a government or a private institution withdrew its support of speech
like this, which then led to the wholesale censorship of free speech in a
country.

