
Gab Launches Dissenter: Comment on Any Internet Page - CapricornNoble
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjyjrbC1tzgAhVKL6YKHTqGBvcQFjAIegQIBRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnet.com%2Fnews%2Fgab-wants-to-add-a-comment-section-to-everything-on-the-internet%2F&usg=AOvVaw19eVGq5G6N9hjmuPLzLZFP
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trimbo
What's old is new again. NCSA Mosaic's Group Annotations:

[http://www.softlab.ntua.gr/facilities/documentation/www/Mosa...](http://www.softlab.ntua.gr/facilities/documentation/www/Mosaic-
Docs-2.4/group-annotations.html)

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minimaxir
The official page for the extension has examples of the types of comments made
using this tool: [https://dissenter.com/](https://dissenter.com/)

From Andrew Torba (CEO of Gab):

> Being that I'm barred from commenting on Hacker News, I'm going to comment
> using Dissenter. Lol @ the Silicon Valley dweebs already screaming "reeeee
> natttziii" on this post.

~~~
anigbrowl
That's funny since Torba blocked me for posting information from Gab's own
financial filings.

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fixermark
The Google Toolbar project had a feature called "sidewiki" that did the same
thing. [https://searchengineland.com/google-sidewiki-allows-
anyone-t...](https://searchengineland.com/google-sidewiki-allows-anyone-to-
comment-about-any-site-26420)

It got dropped in 2011, sayeth Wikipedia; criticism included that it pulled
control of comments away from a site publisher and gave that content (and
data) to Google.

~~~
justin66
If it was dropped in 2011, I suspect the criticism also included the fact that
every site in the world starting having their own comments section, rendering
the thing kind of pointless.

~~~
Yetanfou
...which a large number of them subsequently dropped for a multitude of
reasons, varying from the deluge of spammy comments to the desire to keep
unwanted opinions off the site. A universal non-censored and politically
neutral comment section would actually be a good thing if only it could be
kept from turning into a shit-fest. How the latter can be achieved without
ending up with censorship in one way or another is a question which thus far
has not been answered anywhere on the 'net.

~~~
fixermark
I'd posit the extreme likelihood that "uncensored" and "not a shit-fest", as
time approaches infinity, are mutually exclusive.

"Shit flows downhill," as it were. If some sites are kicking people off who
(however one chooses to measure the concept) "diminish the tone" of the site,
and some sites are not, it stands to reason the sites that do not will end up
collecting the sort of comments that "diminish the tone" over time.

~~~
Yetanfou
Yes, that is an unfortunate side-effect of opening up to each and everyone no
matter their tastes. Not all is lost though, if they manage to implement a
functioning moderation system which allows individual users to limit their
exposure to 'shit' they might just pull it off. It should be possible for
users to choose a level of exposure, something ranging from 'cesspit' to
'spring water' and everything in between. The default should be just above
'cesspit' so that the most odious comments are 'greyed-out' by default but can
easily be seen by those who want to. This should make the system less
sensitive to the various forms of group think which moderation systems often
stimulate. I had a look around and saw it was possible to 'Block' and 'Report'
comments or commenters, this is a start but it probably needs to be fleshed
out for the site to have appeal to a larger public.

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schappim
Direct URL to this story is [https://www.cnet.com/news/gab-wants-to-add-a-
comment-section...](https://www.cnet.com/news/gab-wants-to-add-a-comment-
section-to-everything-on-the-internet/) .

The use of the google.com domain in the post can be somewhat misleading...

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CM30
This has been done quite a few times before. Google Sidewiki, Genius
Annotations, Hypothesis, etc.

Will this one catch on? Not sure, but I did hear an interesting argument that
context may be the difference between success and failure for something like
this. Those other projects didn't launch in an era where censorship was being
pushed for on social media platforms, and focused on annotating as compared to
'free speech commenting' or what not.

Could be interesting to see if Gab's angle and audience may help this more by
marketing it to a passionate, dedicated audience rather than the general
public, and by giving it a message/mission statement beyond 'hey you can say
random things with an extension now'.

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anigbrowl
How is this different from Histori.us or any other implementation of the WCS?
The title seems calculated to be confrontational but then it is Gab (which
probably also means this won't amount to much).

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estebank
Not only there are multiple plugins that do this now, this is something that
was explored by Google itself back in 2009 with Google Sidewiki[1].

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sidewiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sidewiki)

~~~
halfnibble
But how many of those solutions work as well as Dissenter? Do any of them hold
a strong position on free speech?

Edit: I was genuinely asking because I had not heard of similar solutions
prior to today. But go ahead and keep downvoting me. That'll teach me to
engage in honest conversation.

~~~
krapp
Does Gab hold a strong position on free speech, or freedom for a particular
form of speech?

Those aren't the same thing, after all. The echo chambers of self-described
dissenters often seem little different than those they claim to dissent
against.

~~~
LyndsySimon
I’ve not heard of anyone banned from the platform for legal speech of any
kind.

It’s sad that it’s associated with a political faction, though Torba’s
statements make it clear why. Gab actually has (or had, it’s been over a year
since I logged on to it) far superior stream filtering tools to Twitter.

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jmcarp
[https://hypothes.is](https://hypothes.is) also does this and is non-profit
and open source.

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noobiemcfoob
Here's the Dissenter comment page for this comment thread:
[https://dissenter.com/discussion/begin?url=https://news.ycom...](https://dissenter.com/discussion/begin?url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19266319)

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whamlastxmas
Pretty funny that this got flagged and removed. Proving the point we need
tools like this.

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tengbretson
Didn't the devs behind genius.com have something like this too?

~~~
jimmy1
I believe genius approached it from the angle of "annotating the web" versus
"commenting the web"

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the_mitsuhiko
Anyone remember why the lucky stiff’s thing that did exactly that? I forgot
the name but it was pretty quirky in its implementation.

//edit: might have been hoodwinkd

~~~
mey
MouseHole

Edit:
[https://viewsourcecode.org/why/redhanded/inspect/hereIsMouse...](https://viewsourcecode.org/why/redhanded/inspect/hereIsMousehole12.html)

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julianz
This is an excellent idea. All of those Gab types can go and shout at each
other over there, and the rest of the world can ignore them. Everybody wins.

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DevKoala
Why does the link point to a Google redirect to CNET? It this on purpose for
attribution purposes?

~~~
lemcoe9
Someone right-clicked a link from a Google search results page.

~~~
CapricornNoble
Oops. That's what I get for not using DuckDuckGo for this. Also I found it
interesting that the CNET was the best non-Breitbart source for this
announcement....I found it interesting that no other tech site seemed to even
mention it yet.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Is it really even worth mentioning? It's a literal plea for attention from a
group of white guys shouting at clouds about how the unfair world is
oppressing them. The technology has been done before and better.

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halfnibble
Lol. Andrew Torba is banned from Hacker News so he's commenting on here now
with Dissenter. Classic.

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tenpies
I had no idea Hacker News was so anti-gab. I guess we know which side of the
free speech argument won.

~~~
belltaco
When did freedom of speech turn into freedom to hate and be rude?

The founder on gab has been on here calling other commenters "cucks" and
"gullible morons". And telling a mod "Cry about it" when it was objected. Free
speech is about ideas, not being a dick.

~~~
ben509
> Free speech is about ideas, not being a dick.

You want to _personally_ try to have civilized discussions where you resolve
thorny issues that people are passionate about, and may hold utterly
objectionable views about. Any given person should do that even if only from
self-interest; why waste your life trolling?

The entire Gab application promotes an intellectual sewer, and that's because
its business model (same as Twitter's) rewards bad behavior.

But "free speech" in the context of a protection is generally about needing to
protect the speech of people who aren't polite, who have objectionable views,
etc. And that's because they are still human beings and, absent material harm,
have an inalienable right to self-expression.

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm not that worried about protecting the rights of people to abridge the
rights of others, since they're demanding a double standard. Specifically I
mean people who say groups of people should suffer a loss of rights due to
some perceived inherent defect as opposed to behavior.

~~~
krapp
What rights have been lost or abridged here? We're in a thread about a site
that Gab launched in order to express itself, and they seem to be expressing
themselves freely.

And people object to their behavior, specifically their political ideology. I
don't think anyone has mentioned "inherent defects," whatever those would be.

~~~
anigbrowl
Read it in context, it's a reply to the last argument int he previous comment
which is a general one.

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tacyarg
fuck yea!

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new_guy
Remember Pushnote[0], wasn't that basically the same thing? It's definitely an
interesting concept and there's a market there but not when it's a 'Nazi' site
backing it.

[0][https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/14/fry_pushnote_bye/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/14/fry_pushnote_bye/)

~~~
livestyle
“Ad hominem is a notoriously weak logical argument. And is usually used to
distract the focus of a discussion - to move it from an indefensible point and
to attack the opponent."

~ Lord Aquitainus Attis

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sagichmal
It is entirely appropriate to attack literal self-claimed Nazis.

~~~
livestyle
Libel much?

