
Gab.com goes down after GoDaddy threatens to pull domain - atlasunshrugged
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/28/18036520/gab-down-godaddy-domain-blocked
======
DanAndersen
Related: Gab had also posted a public statement [0] on Medium after the
shooting in Pittsburgh.

However, Medium has now suspended Gab from their platform, so that the only
way to read the statement is to use an archive link [1].

Hopefully the tech community learns from this about the dangers of using
centralized external services for your public presence. If you find yourself
under distributed political attack your voice will not make its way out there
without being filtered by intermediary media outlets unless you own the full
stack of your system from top to bottom.

[0] [https://medium.com/@getongab/gab-com-statement-on-the-
tree-o...](https://medium.com/@getongab/gab-com-statement-on-the-tree-of-life-
synagogue-shooting-a6c1de715b39)

[1] [http://archive.is/vysbL](http://archive.is/vysbL)

~~~
Amezarak
Medium's actions seem particularly bizarre and insidious. I can understand why
people might believe that Gab should be shut down, even though I disagree (not
very strongly - Gab, like Voat with Reddit, was capable only of attracting the
worst of Twitter). But Medium appears to believe that defending the existence
of a free speech platform is so _fundamentally indefensible_ that it should be
impermissible!

It also disturbs me how complete and total these lockouts tend to be - if you
get put under the wrong spotlight, it's clear how completely and totally the
corporate sphere will coordinate to shut you down. You won't even have a
platform to defend yourself on, and the situation is getting worse, not
better. Short of laying your own fiber cables and creating your own Internet,
there's nothing you can do. This makes me very uneasy.

I think the NPR interview with the founder of Gab is worth listening to. [1]
It strikes me that just a few years ago, most people would have been in
support of their position. The world has changed dramatically in just a few
years.

[https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/661676103/after-synagogue-
att...](https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/661676103/after-synagogue-attack-web-
hosting-sites-suspend-gab)

~~~
dx87
Look through this thread, people have already decided that "free speech" is a
dog whistle meaning that you are anti-semetic and support murder. It's a shame
that people are willing to throw away their personal freedoms in exchange for
fake civility.

~~~
spiderfarmer
No. You're confused.

There are anti-semetics hiding behind the 'free speech' banner, saying they
have a right to try and convert more people to anti-semetism, and that nothing
should stand in their way. It's not the other way around.

The version of Article 19 in the ICCPR amends the "freedom of expression" by
stating that the exercise of these rights carries "special duties and
responsibilities" and may "therefore be subject to certain restrictions" when
necessary "[f]or respect of the rights or reputation of others" or "[f]or the
protection of national security or of public order (order public), or of
public health or morals".

[https://web.archive.org/web/20080705115024/http://www2.ohchr...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080705115024/http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm)

~~~
Amezarak
If the government can censor free speech for the "public order" or for
"morals", it isn't free speech. Those are the exact justifications tyrants
have used for thousands of years to justify repression. Often they were even
true: expressing yourself against a repressive or discriminatory regime can
certainly be disruptive to the public order. It sounds like the ICCPR is
meaningless fluff.

~~~
spiderfarmer
Okay so if I start a Youtube channel with the specific intent of convincing
people they should kill your wife, it's all good?

Where do you draw the line?

~~~
jazzyk
There is a difference between someone convincing people about killing ALL
wives vs a particular one.

The first one obviously needs medication, and will be ignored. The second one
- depending on the specificity of the threat - a request to take the video
down or a police visit.

~~~
Faark
You say it will be ignored, but here we are after the shooting. And gab was
not willing to take it down. Nor did laws help.

I love the idea of free speech to explore the space of possible ideas even
against the current flow. But now we have easy filter bubbles and are missing
effective mechanism pushing towards consensus. I have a hard seeing how it
will not end with violence when hate speech and other surreal propaganda
doesn't have consequences. But yes, we haven't found a good solution for that,
yet.

The situation here in germany is even more... "funny". Gov decided to ban
hate-speech, but the decision per individual case isn't up to some judge, but
has to be done by the platform or face fines. Yeah, so far I prefer the
current US way of not doing business with assholes.

~~~
Amezarak
> You say it will be ignored, but here we are after the shooting. And gab was
> not willing to take it down. Nor did laws help.

What was the direct/specific threat that Gab refused to take down?

------
_trampeltier
I don't know Gab. But if they did something illegal, then the police should
shutdown the service. Of course the hoster, Domain service or PayPal is free
to choose there customer. But in my opinion it's a bad thing to shut down just
somebody because somebody don't like there nose or mind.

In future, this will be in a cashless world, even more problematic.

------
orf
It's funny how those who cry hardest about being censored, when given a
completely free space to express themselves, fill it to the brim with
xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism.

As much as free speech advocates may decry this, it works. Alex Jones audience
has suffered since popular _private companies_ have terminated their
relationship with him.

~~~
oldsklgdfth
As much as I can't stand hate speech rants on social media. I would much
rather have these people in plain sight, where their views can be somewhat
challenged, rather than sentencing them to the dark echo-chamber corners of
the internet for them to brew up storms. Just my two sense. It's hurtful to
hear some extreme views, but ignoring and ostracizing these people is not
equivalent to eliminating hate.

~~~
freehunter
On the other hand, putting those views out there to be seen by others also has
the effect of encouraging others to either subscribe to those viewpoints or to
feel comfortable expressing those viewpoints as well. If it's allowed on
SOCIAL_MEDIA_X, it's implicitly socially acceptable. If SOCIAL_MEDIA_X shuts
it down, it sends a message that it's _not_ socially acceptable.

The rate of cigarette smoking among young people has dropped dramatically over
the past few decades. This isn't because of any change in scientific finding,
we've known cigarettes are harmful and cause cancer for decades prior to that.
What changed is we stopped advertising them on TV and putting cigarettes in
kids cartoons and movies. We stopped letting people smoke them in
restaurants/airplanes/schools/hospitals/etc. Cigarettes became uncool, became
socially unacceptable.

In one generation, smoking went from the coolest thing you could do to one of
the least cool things you could do. Because it was made abundantly clear that
it wasn't socially acceptable anymore, and that message was sent by banning
smoking from public view.

~~~
leereeves
> In one generation, smoking went from the coolest thing you could do to one
> of the least cool things you could do...that message was sent by banning
> smoking from public view

Being made illegal or banned only makes things cooler. Marijuana is cool now
despite being illegal.

Attitudes toward tobacco changed because of the power of advertising. There's
a certain justice in that, since advertising made it popular in the first
place.

~~~
freehunter
No one said anything about illegal. A ban on smoking in restaurants is not the
same thing as making smoking illegal. You can still walk into any gas station
and buy cigarettes, you can smoke them in your house and your car and on the
sidewalk and in public parks and even right in front of a police officer.

My university banned smoking on campus years back, and no one said "aww man
smoking is so cool now that I can't do it on campus". It's just so
inconvenient to smoke now that fewer people bother to do so. It's not cool to
have to put on your coat and walk three blocks to go have a smoke every hour.

~~~
leereeves
All of that applies equally to marijuana. Yet the public image of one is
improving while the other is declining, for reasons other than your
explanation.

~~~
freehunter
To be socially unacceptable, society has to agree that it's unacceptable. But
the process works both ways, and something that was socially unacceptable can
also become socially acceptable over time. Right now it seems society is
rejecting the notion that marijuana is unacceptable, which is leading to it
become more socially acceptable and more legally accessible. The realities of
the drug seem to have failed to live up to the picture painted by anti-
marijuana marketing and so the marketing failed.

For a long time being homosexual was illegal and socially unacceptable, but
that has changed over the years after the expected social harm from
homosexuality had not been realized. It's the same process, just in reverse.
Society is attempting to minimize harm to itself, whether that's rejecting
ideas that are socially harmful or demanding the decriminalization of
activities that are not socially harmful.

------
DanAndersen
Also potentially relevant to the tech community here and anyone who works on
currently-non-dominant social media platforms: politicians are already
demanding that Gab be held criminally liable for the speech and actions of
their users.

From Howard Dean [0]:

>You are a facilitator of neo nazis and other haters. You should be tried for
being an accomplice to murder. You’re lucky shutting you down is all you get.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/GovHowardDean/status/1056710782342311938](https://twitter.com/GovHowardDean/status/1056710782342311938)

~~~
someone454
Gab can reasonably claim safe-harbor over this. If they are not censoring
user’s posts, then they shouldn’t be held liable.

Go-Daddy is 100% within their rights to kick Gab off of their service. But
silencing certain speech is not, in my opinion, a smart way to prevent
atrocities like this in the future.

~~~
candu
As summarized in [1], whether or not they _should_ be held liable is still up
for discussion. How the law works and how it _should_ work are two different
things, the latter being subject to continuous debate.

IMHO, we can _at the same time_ hold that Gab should not be liable for the
actions (arguably) resulting from these posts, but that they have a _legal_
responsibility to identify, report, and remove imminent incitements to
violence.

For instance: one could argue that profiting from such incitements constitutes
support / endorsement of said incitements. This is similar in spirit to the
"business activity" approach mentioned in the above Wired article. One could
also argue that failing to identify and report such incitements is negligence.

Are these commonplace interpretations of these legal terms? Perhaps not, but
there are some signs of a general recognition that perhaps this should change.
"Disruption" and "technology" are not valid reasons to shirk civic
responsibility; if you cannot provide your service responsibly, perhaps you
shouldn't provide it. After all, we demand the same of engineers who build
bridges and contractors who repair houses - because there is demonstrable harm
to be done by failing to exercise responsibility. What we're rapidly
discovering is that demonstrable harm is equally possible in a digital realm;
it makes perfect sense for our understanding of legal responsibility to be
updated accordingly.

Also IMHO, while it is impossible to "silence" extreme hate speech like this,
we should certainly try. The harder it is for neo-Nazis and other militant
racists to self-organize, the better. By giving their ilk any kind of easily-
accessible platform, we make it that much easier for atrocities like this to
be supported, normalized, organized, etc. Sure, we should be very careful as
to what we tar with the "militant racist" brush - but there are some very,
very, very clearcut examples.

[1] [https://www.wired.com/2017/01/the-most-important-law-in-
tech...](https://www.wired.com/2017/01/the-most-important-law-in-tech-has-a-
problem/)

~~~
someone454
Conflating bridge building with public speech is not a good analogy: one is
physics, the other chaos.

I do not like to see distasteful ideas put forth where i can see them, but
what happens when our opinions on what is distasteful are in opposition?

It is Gabs right to, but not a responsibility to block content they find
objectionable on their platform. And the first amendment clearly defines our
RIGHT (note:defines, not gives) to say whatever we want, no matter how
distasteful some may think it.

Edit for fumble fingers

------
ChrisGranger
[http://gab.ai/](http://gab.ai/) has their full statement.

~~~
russelldc
> We have been smeared by the mainstream media [...] for working with law
> enforcement to ensure that justice is served for the horrible atrocity
> committed in Pittsburgh

That's quite an interesting spin.

~~~
Zuider
If you believe this statement is false, I would be most interested in
understanding why you think so.

~~~
shrikant
I wonder if you're being obtuse, but I'll try to explain anyway (I'm not
parent commenter, but let's see if I can capture why they think this statement
is spin.)

Gab claim they're being smeared for "defending free expression and individual
liberty" AND "working with law enforcement".

People and organisations attempting to shut Gab down, and/or be critical of
them, are assuredly not doing so because Gab are working with law enforcement.

That renders Gab's claim spin, as per parent commenter.

~~~
Zuider
Your argument is mistaken on both counts. The smear and de-platform campaign
began when Gab reported the details and profile of the synagogue murderer to
law enforcement, providing them with "concrete evidence for a motive that they
can use in a case to seek justice against this awful monster."

As for the 'people and organizations attempting to shut Gab down, or and/or be
critical of them', they are 'assuredly not doing so' on the grounds Gab hosted
violent anti-Semitic and extremist material. Otherwise they would express
equal outrage at the violent anti-Semitic tweets from Louis Farrakhan, one
example among many, who uses the exact same rhetoric as the Pittsburgh
shooter. The 'mail bomber' Cesar Sayoc Jr. also made numerous violent threats
on twitter. In neither case are there calls to shut Twitter down.

------
eriken
Is there a large enough presence of "non deplorables" on these sites to worry
about unnecessary and unintended polarization due to these purges?

~~~
nailer
Honestly: no. I'm a classical liberal and a long time Twitter user, and I
intensely dislike Twitter's recent move to the left (Peter Fonda making death
threats against the president, Sarah Jeong making a massive series of racist
tweets, and Louis Farrakhan comparing Jewish people to termites, all still
having Twitter accounts) but gab doesn't appeal since I don't want to be in a
right wing vacuum either.

Currently Twitter with a long list of block words is about the best I can get.

~~~
claudiawerner
As someone on the other side of that, I have to agree with your strategy; I'm
on the far-left side of Twitter (about as left as it gets) and although my
list of blocked words is short (usually to get rid of right-wing posts but
liberal ones too sometimes), it's the best I can do without moving to a much
smaller platform.

------
new_guy
This is amazing free publicity for them. But what it really is is Torbas's
exit. He'd never get acquired by SV so he's taking his donations and running.

GAB basically deplatformed themselves, they waded into the shooter debate by
willingly handing over all their info to the Feds and then shouting about it
and made such a stink that every company that deals with them had to distance
themselves i.e 'deplatforming' them, there's zero reason for them to be
offline now.

It's either publicity or an exit, or both.

------
atlasunshrugged
"Gab is presently inaccessible through its website, with a message stating
that the company is “under attack” and “working around the clock to get
Gab.com back online” with a new provider. “We have been smeared by the
mainstream media for defending free expression and individual liberty for all
people and for working with law enforcement to ensure that justice is served
for the horrible atrocity committed in Pittsburgh,” the statement reads."

------
pictur
What does this site do? Is it one of the ridiculous free speech sites?

------
vfclists
The proper thing to do for Gab.com is to become their own domain registrar,
and the same goes for the Daily Stormer and Alec Jones.

The hosting issues and the potential DOS attacks they face can be handled
separately.

~~~
dexen
> _The proper thing to do for Gab.com is to become their own domain registrar_

...and payment processor & bank, and hosting provider, and internet access
provider. Still could be blocked on DNS resolution level and IP routing level,
so better build out alt-Internet while at it.

At some point it becomes more cost-efficient to skip the grind of fighting-or-
building every service provider tier, and go lobby the legislators for some
protections.

I, and many others, don't like Gab's speech, going by the 2nd hand accounts of
it.

Which is _exactly_ why it needs free speech protections from various pressure
groups.

~~~
vfclists
The fact is that service providers in the desire to control content are
distorting what an internet connection actually is in the courts, especially
when that corporate shill Ajit Pai insists on claiming that internet providers
are information service providers rather than providers of dumb pipes who are
supposed to link the customers wherever they want to go.

Blocking at the DNS level and routing level is technically a breach of the
contract with the customer, because an internet service is simply an agreement
to connect your equipment to an IP address, and the providers are in breach of
contract when they do that.

~~~
dexen
> _Blocking at the DNS level and routing level is technically a breach of the
> contract with the customer, (...)_

A salient point. Throw in "False advertising", because they advertise
providing providing _Internet_ access but instead provide their own "walled
garden internet" access.

I would add that it should also strip the ISPs of their safe harbor
protections[1] if they choose to perform editorial function of the Internet's
content, instead of being providers of _dumb pipes_. If they want to
editorialize, sure, by all means, go for it - but play by the relevant legal
rules.

How about this: when an ISP is found to have excercised editorial control of
the internet, we penalize the ISP by stripping of save harbor protections[1]
for 1 years into the future, and also deem them to have willingly rescinded
the save harbor protections[1] during the whole period they were making
editorial choices? Effectively making the editorializing ISPs liable for every
single copyright infringement, libel, and any other relevant transgression
that went on their platform while they were performing editorializing, and
would be otherwise shielded from if they were proper _dumb pipes_.

Let the ISPs decide whethey they want editorial control, or safe harbor
protections. No more Schrödinger's ISPs holding on to both privileges that are
supposed to be mutually exclusive.

[1] DMCA 512, aka Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, and
any other relevant.

