
Goodbye Gab, a Haven for the Far Right - meris
https://www.wired.com/story/gab-offline-free-speech-alt-right/
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api
I have been such a conflicted fence-sitter on this issue.

On one hand I agree that the stuff on Gab is dangerous-- as in inciting
violence dangerous. I've visited the site a few times and it seems like it's
almost entirely peopled by doctrinaire totalitarian fascists of the most
extreme sort. Much of the speech there (and on other similar sites) does tread
pretty close to the "fire in a crowded theater" test by openly advocating
murder and genocide among other things.

On the other hand I take free speech extremely seriously. I worry quite a bit
about the potential slippery slope we are embarking down if we sanction and
legitimize platform-level and infrastructure-level censorship of speech,
especially in a post-net-neutrality world. Censors always start with the least
popular, least sympathetic forms of speech. My concern is how the definition
of "dangerous" content might widen in the future.

I am already seeing calls to more broadly ban "conspiracy theory," a term so
vague it can easily be stretched to encompass virtually any form of political
dissent or questioning of official narratives. It can even encompass non-
mainstream historical or scientific hypotheses.

I genuinely don't know what to do.

I guess the only place I can go is "meta." I have to ask why so many
apparently otherwise smart people are being sucked into this cult. Why is the
discredited and deadly political fanaticism of the early 20th century suddenly
compelling again? (I would feel the same if I were seeing mass scale promotion
of hard-line Leninism BTW... totalitarianism is totalitarianism.)

~~~
Arnt
I live in a country which has an exception to free speech. There are things
you can't say here.

It hasn't hurt much. There have been minor scandals — someone got in trouble
for selling these: [http://shop1.creativ-
world.de/index.php?page=product&info=36...](http://shop1.creativ-
world.de/index.php?page=product&info=36541) But the exception hasn't grown.
The exception was written into law about seventy years ago and has stayed
effectively unchanged. No slippery slope.

Do you know about anyone who _has_ had a slippery-slope effect from legal
exceptions on free speech? I can't think of any right now, but that doesn't
mean much...

~~~
Zuider
I think your perceptions may be compromised by the 'boiled frog' effect, where
the increasing authoritarianism in Germany and throughout the EU has escaped
your notice because it has occurred in small increments. For instance, any
discussion of the migrant crime rate, even by victims, is treated as hate
speech, and even prosecuted, making people afraid to talk.

At any rate, again taking Germany as an example, the hate-speech laws of The
Weimar Republic were vigorously prosecuted. Even so, they were ineffective in
preventing the succeeding regime from taking power, and were simply co-opted
by that vile regime to suppress dissent.

~~~
Arnt
Give me some examples of prosecution of discussion of migrant crime rate? Or
at least what law/paragraph?

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Finnucane
Torba saying that Nazi Twitter existed to protect free speech sounds
remarkably like confederates saying the Civil War was about states' rights. In
a very broad sense true, but dodging the question of what those rights were
being used _for_. Sadly for Torba, he can't force people to take his nazi
money if they don't want to.

