
Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai - selleck
https://twitter.com/torbahax/status/797180049698983936
======
sama
We support free speech, obviously. And we're happy to fund people with all
sorts of different political views.

We do not allow harassment, for which Andrew unfortunately set a new bar in
our community. You can look at his Twitter or Facebook for plenty of public
examples, to say nothing of what he's said privately.

As per our previous comments, when a founder violates our ethics statement, we
remove them from the community.

~~~
angersock
While I'm generally rather suspect of you folks and your moral authority, this
is an example of the behavior you're referring to:

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAg4AXXcAITru4.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAg4AXXcAITru4.jpg:large)

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAbtwQUcAApPQa.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxAbtwQUcAApPQa.jpg)

[https://twitter.com/torbahax/status/797110760556167168](https://twitter.com/torbahax/status/797110760556167168)

From a pure business standpoint, fuck that guy. He didn't really articulate
his views in any way that could _remotely_ be considered constructive, and if
the rest of his behavior matches that, it's difficult to imagine keeping him
around.

~~~
hawkice
The first and third ones were clearly mean-spirited, but the second one seems
like it's in-bounds for society as a whole ("coward", while obviously
impolite, can't possibly be worse than "racist", which is apparently an in-
bounds part of political conversation). Not an insane request to abide by
either: if they are literally asking for it, naming and shaming seems opt-in-
able.

------
RickS
From the screenshot he himself provided [1], it looks like he was confronted
about making people at YC feel unsafe, and responded by saying they "shouldn't
be on the internet".

Contrarian views are one thing. Addressing the people who fund your company
like a belligerent troll is another.

You're entitled to free speech, you're not entitled to a captive ear to hear
it.

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/ReFx2Mr.png](http://i.imgur.com/ReFx2Mr.png)

~~~
atom-morgan
"feel unsafe" has been more subjective and ridiculous than ever.

~~~
mundo
"unsafe" has become a bit of a buzzword in the interminable red-vs-blue wars,
but everything else about this would've played out the same way if she had
said he was "inappropriate" or "unprofessional".

Looks to me like free speech is still free and trolling at work still has
consequences and there's not much to see here unless you're personally
involved with one of the companies.

~~~
seemingly
I both disagree and dislike both Trump and his supporters. Yet, I realize if
you want to diversity of opinion like YC says it wants you can't throw people
out when they annoy you. Diverse political discussion among laymen where no
one gets annoyed essentially doesn't exist. Peoples opinions follow their
perspective, what they understand and what they care about. Just as I take
offense to what Trump says people who like Trump will take offense when people
say he's a populist, racist or sexist. They will get frustrated and express
themselves in ways that aren't productive, but also don't seem that bad to
them since they don't think what Trump says is bad.

I've excluded people for less, but then I haven't as YC asked sometimes
awkward people to be stressed out for a long period of time while saying that
diversity of opinion is valued.

~~~
zo1
People with opposing opinions to the current pervasive narrative are for the
most part, part of a minority (yes). For most of us one miss-step or one bad
outburst because we're frustrated, and then you're fired (or kicked out).
Because you cross that "imaginary" line between dissenting but tolerable
opinion and into the "we can now legally and without consequence say you're
abusive and shut your opinion down by firing/excluding/arresting you". That's
the problem with faux-free speech.

To be fair, I think companies and individuals should have a right to
disassociate with anyone for any reason they choose (yes including the bad
reasons). But they should at least be honest about it, rather than hiding
behind some veil of "it's abusive behaviour". Just admit you don't like the
opinion _before_ it cross that line, and purge appropriately.

------
mundo
Not to sound conspiratorial, but isn't Gab.ai trying to market itself as a
censorship-free twitter clone for alt-right types? If so, what better way to
generate brand awareness and users than by picking fights with liberals?

~~~
Retra
What good is your brand if everyone hates it?

~~~
arama471
Unfortunately (as one might be able to tell from the election results) not
everyone hates Trump. In fact his supporters would likely make a sizeable
consumer base.

------
rebootthesystem
Freedom of speech does not mean one is free from the consequences of speech.

This is something a lot of young folks don't seem to understand. You can say
anything you want. Go for it. And you will own the consequences of what you
said, whatever they might be.

I offer this as a general comment. Not taking sides on the issue highlighted
by the post. I simply think it is important to point out this reality in case
it is lost in all the nonsense this election has managed to produce.

~~~
sabertoothed
"Freedom of speech does not mean one is free from the consequences of speech."

Not sure this makes sense. It's like saying you are free to murder someone.
But then you have to live with the consequences. Which leads the concept of
freedom ad absurdum.

My point is that freedom of speech has never been unlimited. In my country it
is slightly more restrictive than in the US but even the US does not have a
100% perfect freedom of speech. And that is a good(!) thing.

~~~
maverick_iceman
If in your country government censors _any_ speech then you're not living in a
free country.

~~~
sabertoothed
If that is the case, then you do not live in a free country. And then a free
country would not even be desirable.

Examples for the US that apparently are exceptions to free speech: \-
Incitement / fighting words \- False statement of facts \- Child pornography
\- Commercial speech (special rules apply) I am not sure if you are allowed to
insult a police officer.

------
eeeeeeeeeeeee
It sounds like the "build the wall" comment was not the entire issue. This guy
sounds like a huge asshole and that is what got him booted.

------
minimaxir
Important context: Said founder entered YC working on an ad optimization
platform, but recently pivoted to Twitter for the alt-right.

~~~
rvcamo
Wrong.

It's the Twitter for free speech.

~~~
hyperpape
...you mean Twitter?

~~~
gfosco
Twitter has been extremely heavy on censorship this year. Dozens of high-
profile users banned, hundreds 'shadow-banned', and unbelievable levels of
hashtag manipulation. Twitter is not in favor of free speech, on top of being
a terrible business.

~~~
hyperpape
Which users were banned for expression of opinions? I initially wrote "high
profile", following your comment, but I don't actually care. High profile or
not, that would make me worry.

I know Milo was banned based on the accusations that he'd orchestrated
harassment of Leslie Jones, but I haven't heard of anyone being banned simply
for expressing a political position.

As far as hashtag manipulation goes, I'm not sure what you mean. If you just
mean they don't put some hashtags on trending, that may or may not be a bad
approach to promoting healthy debate, but it's not a free speech issue.

~~~
Torgo
Look into why Charles Johnson was banned. They took a statement he made that
obviously meant "I am going to write a news story about this person that will
be very bad for them" and tortured it into a death threat, and banned him for
life.

There is literally no defense of this because it was so obviously a bad-faith
interpretation, and yet other people have very obviously put people in actual
danger, like Spike Jones tweeting George Zimmerman's parents home address, and
nothing happened to them. Johnson, whatever you might think of him personally,
was banned forever for something he obviously did not even do when you look at
the tweet. If they like you, you can say almost anything. If they don't almost
anything can get you suspended.

The hashtag trending thing is another case of this, if they basically like
your message then they'll let it trend, if they don't then they'll suppress
it. You can only really derive that this is happening from observing in very
specific ways, no one actually tells you they do this. They have other tricks
too, if an undesirable hashtag gains popularity, out of nowhere a misspelled
hashtag autocompletes, to "nudge" you to a dead end hastag that nobody is
listening to. It's fairly obvious once you become aware of it, because popular
hashtags autocomplete, unpopular or not-trending ones don't, but "roach motel"
hashtags somehow bypass this. Nobody knows globally what this single
corporation decides to let be widely heard and what it invisibly suppresses.
It is a free speech issue because private or not, as the Arab Spring stuff
demonstrated how much influence Twitter has on society, which makes it one.
This is the bog-standard, not-full-of-shit liberal position. It's even
Chomsky-endorsed.

~~~
hyperpape
1) Interesting that you mention doxxing in the context of Chuck Johnson, since
when he was banned for his tweet about Deray, he had already posted home
addresses of two NYTimes reporters. That both a) indicates that he was a bad
actor, and b) colors how you might interpret comments about "taking out"
someone. It doesn't turn it into a threat of violence, but it does make it
look a lot more like using Twitter to organize harassment.

The other thing is that this is just a tough way to argue. There's massive
amounts of harassment on twitter, and enforcement is incredibly haphazard. Did
Spike Lee get a pass because he's a liberal? Or because in 2012, Twitter was
completely clueless about any kind of response to harassment?

2) Hashtags: as it stands, everything you've said is your own personal
observation and too vague for me to even try and confirm. Rather than repeat
myself, let me just reference my other comment about doing the work to prove
your accusations:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12936414](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12936414)

3) I will however, repeat my question from before: is there any political
opinion that I can utter as an American citizen that will get me banned from
Twitter?

~~~
Torgo
McKesson chose to interpret it as an open death threat, it obviously wasn't
but nobody was going to call him on it, and it got Johnson booted off Twitter.
I see your point, but that wasn't how McKesson and his fans used it.

Regarding the Spike Lee thing, I'd say he got a pass because he's a celebrity,
but who knows. This is kind of my point. You have to piece together pattern
out of Johnson's activity on and off Twitter to decide that maybe he was
trying to get deray killed by paying people for his home address. On the other
hand spike lee directly tweeted "here's george zimmerman's address, share this
as much as you can" and nothing happened to him at all. Twitter was aware of
it, because many, many people made them aware of it, and they pay special
attention to their celebrity accounts. it didn't happen off twitter, it
happened on twitter. and it wasn't tangential to some other threat, it was a
direct threat. on twitter. tons of people reported it. I just can't hurdle
this one. they let it happen and they didn't care.

the commonality across these is that in the best circumstances you're probably
a scummy person if you do that, Johnson or Lee, but it's extra terrible when
people just tweet addressed with death exhortations and they didn't even know
or care if it was correct info. johnson was pretty scummy but his point was
made, if you're the new york times nobody seriously is going to hold you to
that. if you're spike lee, nobody is seriously going to hold you to that. if
you're charles johnson, you're booted off twitter, lose your internet hosting
and two dozen newspapers write stories about you.

2\. it's not actually that vague, you could take what I said and watch and see
if you can observe it. I gave you enough information if you were truly
interested. You're not obligated to believe me or do it, of course, I was just
sharing my experience. I kind of have a problem proving this is intentional,
because I don't run twitter. i used to live close by what I suspected was a
crack house once, people were always coming and going, and doing crack
outside. Maybe the police could prove it, I can't. but I can tell you what I
saw.

You are very correct that it's hard to tell what is intentional and what is
not on the part of twitter. I see a lot of bogus claims of shadowbanning where
it's really just that twitter is eventually-consistent, and sometimes you try
to look at data from one location and its there, someone in another country
can see it, though. Roach-motel hashtags, some are more obvious than others,
and some are just legitimate misspellings that catch on because that's what
everybody types. Example, for a while podestaleaks was autocompleting as
podestraleaks. On the other hand, SpiritCooking trended for almost 24 hours
before it stopped autocompleting and was replaced with spiritualcooking, which
roach-moteled you into ancient sparse tweets about cooking. I can't prove
anything, but come on. As far as straight up suppressing trending tweets, it's
not even arguable. things trend, then abruptly stop autocompleting and drop
off the site globally. they already do this to prevent spam, and it's obvious
they do it to shut up some hashtags.

3\. Have we not yet gotten to the point where that odious xkcd cartoon has
been thoroughly debunked? Freedom of speech goes far beyond being a simple ban
on things you can or cannot say or else you will be punished by some
authority.

I am sorry if this is long and rambling, I wanted to say what I've been seeing
because I am not the only one who has made these observations, and this is a
particularly good place I could say it and people with more ability than me to
investigate this might see it.

~~~
rdl
The oddest part is, IIRC, it wasn't even Zimmerman's address, but some
uninvolved person.

~~~
Torgo
This is a big reason why nobody should do it, regardless of how "righteous"
their outrage is. It ends up hurting uninvolved people.

------
coolswan
sort of sad:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVI1NpCBF88](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVI1NpCBF88)
(tldr; same guy on how he overcame bullying - the very thing he's now doing)

~~~
merb
money makes people dirty.

------
tomohawk
Sounds like YC is building their own wall

~~~
ec109685
Why does it sound like that? Did you take a look at the content posted?

------
merb
well even if his ban wasn't deserved... he made it deserving, just watching
his twitter account (not facebook etc), looks like he is somebody that is not
a great guy and can't stand such things. I mean he actually posted a picture
of him self and his middlefinger pointing at ycombinator?! seriously he is a
hater and not somebody that should be taken seriously.

insulting people or a group of people is not free speech anymore it's actually
a crime.

~~~
maverick_iceman
It's insulting and objectionable speech that is in the highest need of
protection. Freedom of speech is not really an issue for bland pronouncements
like "I love my mother" or "I stand for peace."

~~~
merb
if I say "fuck you" it's not really freedom of speech. I directly insulted
you, I didn't even want a conversation, I directly harmed you. People who
think they can the "free speech" excuse for insults are just horrible, they
don't understand that free speech is to actually say something in a nice
manner which needs to be addressed not just to hammer on some people who do it
wrong, that's a different thing and people actually don't get that right,
probably because there is a really small line between insulting and
objectonable speech, but still you know when somebody insulted somebody and he
actually did, he didn't want to address his behavior he just expressed his
meaning with insults and not any objectonable speech.

If I would've been banned, I would try to address that as well, but not in
such a hateful manner than he did.

~~~
anon_adderlan
> if I say "fuck you" it's not really freedom of speech. _I directly insulted
> you, I didn 't even want a conversation, I directly harmed you_.

But you didn't insult me because that wasn't _a statement regarding my
character_ , you clearly established you don't want a conversation, and you
caused me no harm whatsoever, direct or otherwise.

#SticksAndStones

That's the problem with restrictions on 'insulting and objectionable' speech.
Beyond the fact you just demonstrated how easy it is to get wrong by
misapplying _the very rules you brought up in this discussion_ , it also opens
the door to claiming _any_ statement regarding someone's character (such as
'incompetent', 'unemployed', 'hypocrite', 'terrorist', etc) is an insult,
regardless of how true it is.

Speech becomes harmful when it isolates and marginalizes. It does _not_ become
harmful just because it's offensive or enraging. So in the context of this
story calling everyone a 'cuck' wasn't harmful, but the otherwise innocuous
phrase 'build the wall' _was_ , and coming up with a set of rules which fairly
and consistently cover cases like that is likely impossible.

------
livestyle
Funny how YC is quickly becoming the antithesis of all the great PG essays..

~~~
Hydraulix989
Explain?

------
Hydraulix989
I wonder how different he must have been for YC to make the call to fund him
in the first place. Even watching his old YouTube videos, I can tell something
is "off" with his personality (maybe confirmation bias at play).

------
dang
The submitted title was "Y Combinator blacklists founder of Gab.ai for saying
“build the wall”", but we shortened it because it doesn't sound like that was
the reason.

(I don't have any information about this beyond skimming the current thread
and looking at a few of the things people have linked to.)

------
internaut
Torba, if you're reading this, consider that Curtis Yarvin's Tlon receives
angel investment from well known SV VCs and he also posts here regularly.

So the guy who literally invented neoreaction isn't suppressed by YC because
of his views then it is pretty unlikely you're getting persecuted because of
yours.

Nick Denton constantly overreached in using freedom of speech as a cover for
just simply fucking with people until it blew up in his face. Don't be the
alt-right's version of that. You can afford to be magnanimous and give some
gesture of conciliation.

Do you really want to be giving Pao material to work with?

Fighting censorship is serious business, forget this teacup war, nobody will
remember any of it in a year.

------
phonon
Reminds me of

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633270#11633517](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11633270#11633517)

