
The Far Right Has a New Digital Safe Space - randomname2
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/arts/the-far-right-has-a-new-digital-safe-space.html?_r=0
======
ng12
That's not what "Safe Space" means? There's nothing stopping anybody from
going on Gab and virulently disagreeing with everyone there or intentionally
offending certain users.

Still, impressed with the NYT's ability to push a narrative.

~~~
baldfat
> Still, impressed with the NYT's ability to push a narrative.

Isn't news narrative? Seems like I am missing what is bad about this article.

Or did you want just the facts? New app call ____ which does ___. Move along
you now have all the facts?

I want a news story to give me context and some way to sort out the narrative
and do something with the raw data.

~~~
ng12
Because the narrative employs obvious bias only partially grounded in reality.
The title implies that these people needed a safe space to protect themselves
from dissenting opinion -- when the simple reality is Twitter kicked them out
so they started using a different website. Yes, all news is biased but
increasingly I'm finding the NYT to be completely out of touch. It's very
obvious there's a story they want to push and so they find news that they can
make fit the story.

~~~
oxide
from elsewhere in this thread:

>On the Friday after the US presidential election, Andrew Torba, CEO of
Gab.ai, a social network favored by conservatives, was kicked out of Y
Combinator “I am actually surprised it took them this long to excommunicate
me,” Torba told BuzzFeed News. “Y Combinator doesn’t accept conservatives and
they don’t accept Trump supporters.”

this is relevant here because of what this dude was actually doing, being a
prick.

> In the Facebook thread, before he was booted from Y Combinator, Torba wrote:
> “All of you: fuck off. Take your morally superior, elitist, virtue signaling
> bullshit and shove it. I call it like I see it, and I helped meme a
> President into office, cucks.”

it took me a long time to learn that you _don 't have the right to be a prick
on the internet._

if you insist on being a prick, don't cry persecution when you get shown the
door. don't cry censorship. it's neither. it's you being shown the door
because you wanted to be a prick. full stop.

if the guy in the above example wasn't a prick, he'd still be in the program.
he could have called people cucks with donations like the big boys do, and not
on facebook like a child.

~~~
omonra
How does this in any way negate the comment you are responding to? His point
is that people go to Gab because they are thrown out of other venues.

You're just going on about how they deserve to be thrown out.

~~~
oxide
>His point is that people go to Gab because they are thrown out of other
venues

my point is that they aren't being thrown out because of their political
views.

the guy in the above example wasn't purged because he was a conservative. it's
a shock, I know, but consider the fact that he was shown the door because he
was an asshole.

~~~
omonra
Fair enough. But people did experiments like

[http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/twitter-user-replaces-
white-...](http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/twitter-user-replaces-white-black-
gets-banned)

that show how same speech applied from opposite angles produces different
results vis-a-vis being banned.

~~~
baldfat
NO! Get out! That context and subject actually matter? NO WAY. /sarcasm

------
minimaxir
Relevant backstory: [https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/trump-supporting-
startu...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitashatiku/trump-supporting-startup-ceo-
kicked-out-of-y-combinator)

The NYTimes article is surprisingly charitable, although perhaps ironically.

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
FTA: > On the Friday after the US presidential election, Andrew Torba, CEO of
Gab.ai, a social network favored by conservatives, was kicked out of Y
Combinator “I am actually surprised it took them this long to excommunicate
me,” Torba told BuzzFeed News. “Y Combinator doesn’t accept conservatives and
they don’t accept Trump supporters.”

> In the Facebook thread, before he was booted from Y Combinator, Torba wrote:
> “All of you: fuck off. Take your morally superior, elitist, virtue signaling
> bullshit and shove it. I call it like I see it, and I helped meme a
> President into office, cucks.”

I'm bewildered. I want to think that they are just trolls looking for
attention. My pessimistic side says that they actually do have a persecution
complex and somehow feel that the groups they regularly malign have more
rights and privilege than they do.

One thing I've noticed regarding the above excerpt is a unique interpretation
of free speech where they believe they are free to say anything they want
without consequence. Any negative response is met with claims of censorship.
If you acted that way in a coffeeshop, bar, or some community gathering you
would be asked to leave as well. If you continue hurling verbal assaults after
being asked to leave, that's harassment. You have the right to be a dick, but
they're claiming they are exercising their right to free speech and are
surprised people are being dicks back to them. I hope society never succumbs
to their desires and normalizes denigrating speech and just being a complete
asshole. I really hope they are trolls

EDIT: > “if you feel ‘unsafe’ from from [sic] me saying ‘fuck off’ or ‘build a
wall,’ you probably shouldn’t be on the internet.”

Sigh, I had such high hopes for the Internet being the ultimate tool to
elevate mankind to a more enlightened tomorrow and the promise that technology
would make the world a better place. Seems it has enabled a safe space for
people to unleash their inner asshole. I'm afraid of what's going to happen if
they ever summon up enough courage to do these things in person and are
inevitably met with violence.

I'm not a tough guy at all, but in my hometown, dem is called fightin words

~~~
gremlinsinc
Funny that the same people who want to be able to say anything under free
speech regardless of who it hurts, or how hateful, are the same ones who would
take away citizenship from protesters who would burn the flag as a form of
speech.

~~~
vixen99
Need to look at a specific example but rights always, without exception, come
with obligations. They are not a net bonus.

~~~
gremlinsinc
You can't say 'let us have free speech' \- by using hate speech --then say
'take away their free speech' i.e. flag burning or w/e it's a double standard.

------
ChefDenominator
Gab appears to be employing unlimited bidirectional voting. This inevitably
creates a shout-down chamber, so the network will likely not attract a diverse
group of opinions and is nearly guaranteed to become the echo chamber
everybody is expecting it to become.

I don't find this to be the new competitor the market is really looking for.

~~~
kafkaesq
_I don 't find this to be the new competitor the market is really looking
for._

All the better then. A black hole that sucks up their energies (and lets them
feel "validated" even though no one outside their tiny community is listening)
might be just the thing for them.

~~~
ChefDenominator
I would interpret your statement to indicate you are an opponent of free
exchange of ideas.

~~~
kafkaesq
Which you can, if you want. But that's not what my statement implies.

~~~
ChefDenominator
This is not correct. The people going to Gab are not going because of market
preference, they are going because they are being forced out of current market
leaders who do not desire to have free exchange of ideas on their networks.

By extension, supporting of this movement means you do not support a free
exchange of ideas.

~~~
kafkaesq
Sorry, but I don't buy your contention that the restrictions adopted by market
leaders are about blocking the "free of exchange of ideas", per se.

And apart of that, your "extension" would be a faulty generalization based on
that contention.

~~~
ChefDenominator
It is not what those leaders perceive their actions to be, it is what their
actions actually are. They are acting to reduce the capacity of people with
some viewpoint from being able to communicate that viewpoint.

It is not faulty. It is you who is applying a generalization in your claim.

~~~
kafkaesq
I would say they "choose not to foster" rather than "reduce" of the capacity
certain people to propagate their views.

(Yes, there's a distinction, and a quite crucial one in fact).

------
coherentpony
Doesn't one usually associated a 'safe space' with the _introduction_ of
policies surrounding what can and cannot be said? This article seems to
suggest that a 'safe space' is also a place associated with looser constraints
allowing people say whatever they like.

~~~
pyre
I guess it's a "Safe Space" for alt-righters because they are surrounded by
like-minded people that will shout down any dissenting opinions?

------
kafkaesq
In a way, this might be a good thing -- it substantially weakens their ability
to cry "censorship". And provides a space where their drivel can be monitored
and tracked: inevitably, we'll see many people connected with the new
administration turning up here -- and it will be interesting to see how they
expose themselves.

~~~
dforrestwilson1
I know that the fake news narrative is popular right now, and maybe it's just
me, but do you think maybe you might be a little biased here?

How is it not censorship when somebody actively monitors what is posted on
Twitter and makes a judgement on whether or not that post is appropriate? What
is appropriate and how does free speech equate to that in your mind?

~~~
__derek__
Technology does weird things to conversations about the First Amendment.
Twitter benefits from freedom of speech/the press/assembly in the sense that
it can operate a platform that broadcasts individuals' writings. By the same
principle, it has the right to only broadcast what it wants. Twitter isn't the
government or a public entity. It's the publisher printing a paper. So, no,
that's not really censorship, whereas requiring Twitter to broadcast speech
against its will seems like it would be.

NB: I am not a constitutional lawyer.

------
gdulli
A quarantine on this stuff is a nice thing for the rest of us in the short
term. In the long term it could either be a bad thing because it helps the
movement grow, or a good thing because without any opposition to troll within
the platform it flames out.

~~~
problems
This is the thing I keep saying. If we kick them off every other platform
around rather than letting the community critique them, they'll move to echo
chambers and new people won't be able to be introduced to their ideas through
criticism, only through those echo chambers. Not only that, but these echo
chambers tend to let conspiracy theories and misinformation brew and go wild.

I do hope they're successful in getting more users onboard. In many ways I
like their libertarian-style free speech loving moderation stance personally,
but I read invite only somewhere, which is concerning me even more. If they
want to take a free speech stance, they need to respect that free speech needs
to be for all, so we can critique and discuss these sorts of ideas.

Seems all too ripe to be an echo chamber as is. Guess we'll see how long the
invite only thing lasts.

~~~
Steltek
The free TV time gifted to Trump for saying outrageous things gave him a
decided signal boost over his rivals. On the other hand, the media did not
give sufficient time to a sane counterargument whereas a well-regulated forum
might offer that opportunity.

Unfortunately, that's not what we see from the balance of Trump supporters
online, who are not at all hesitant to flag or brigade opposing viewpoints
regardless of merit.

~~~
problems
I'm not so sure, I think the media gave plenty of time to sane
counterargument. Even CNN, which I constantly see blamed as an evil by both
the left and right, they'd air his stuff, then go and critique it and debate
it for quite a while afterwards.

I think ultimately not as many people are interested in the critique and
debate portion and perhaps more importantly, and I think many supporters just
didn't care about a lot of the outrageous stuff he said because their
alternative seemed even worse. They were basically left no choice but to
dismiss it.

If the options were better, even just one of them I think this whole thing
would have worked out a lot nicer. But instead a lot of people were caught in
the middle debating the better of two evils.

I'm sure many will argue it was clearly one way or the other, but I'm pretty
sympathetic to both arguments here. Education, debate and rationality can't
solve that in a really significant way, only better options can.

------
djschnei
Can we stop normalizing scum like Richard B. Spencer and the alt right? Many
would consider me "far right", I have nothing in common with that filth...

Also, nice to see the market filling the need for a censor-less social
platform. Let them be hateful idiots over in the corner, it's their right.

~~~
Zaheer
+1 to the normalizing piece. These folks are a few short hops away from ISIS.
They've nailed hate-filled ideology, lone-wolf attacks and it's only a matter
of time before they organize into something worse. Trump has opened the flood-
gates for individuals like this to have a voice.

~~~
djschnei
Couldn't vote for him, never liked him, he scares me for a lot of reasons; but
you think Trump has opened that flood gate? I don't think I buy that. I think
the media has opened the flood gate/given it a soapbox in order to link it to
Trump. For all his obvious faults, I don't think he is actually a racist.
Nothing in the man's history, until he ran for president, shows that... if
anything his history shows the opposite.

idk, but yea, we agree these guys suck.

(down votes incoming...)

~~~
thenewwazoo
Please don't preemptively complain about downvotes. It poisons the well.

To your point, Trump was sued in 1973 for racial discrimination in his housing
business[1]. Most recently, he has advocated for banning Muslim people from
entering the country based on their religion. The list goes on. The guy is
racist to his bones in a way that has been normal but unspoken in America
since the 1970s. He did not create the racism, but now the racists who want to
be active have his tacit support.

[1] [http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2016/sep/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2016/sep/27/hillary-clinton/true-hillary-clinton-says-
federal-government-sued-/)

~~~
djschnei
eh, I think I will if I want to. Telling people what do to also poisons the
well.

Just spent the last 30 minutes reading about that case... doesn't look good,
that's for sure. Was also 40+ years ago. We can go back that far in just about
any politicians life (Hillary, Bernie, etc...) and find extremely questionable
to outright disgusting things. Not sure it's relevant today, maybe it is.

As for the immigration moratorium from certain regions of the word, or
similarly, deportation of undocumented immigrants; these are both things we
have done VERY commonly in the past. Hell, Obama has done both. I wouldn't
consider either to be racist, would you?

Don't fall into the trap of thinking Trump won because of some white uprising.
The numbers just aren't there. Trump won because the country is revolting
against the establishment. (I think people are kind of silly for thinking
Trump is going to "fix" that, but that's a separate conversation I suppose.)

Should Trump come out in staunch opposition to every nutcase that get's in
front of a microphone? Idk, maybe. Would take a lot of his time.

Anyway, here is to the country healing.

~~~
pyre
When you say something like:

> Nothing in the man's history

then I don't know why you then retort with "well, that was a long time ago."
You made a statement that someone was proving false. Heck, you made that
statement so broad in an attempt to bolster / underscore your point, so I
think it's fair game.

> As for the immigration moratorium from certain regions of the word, or
> similarly, deportation of undocumented immigrants; these are both things we
> have done VERY commonly in the past. Hell, Obama has done both. I wouldn't
> consider either to be racist, would you?

I'm unclear how "Muslim" classifies one as being from a certain region of the
world rather than describing their religious affiliation. Could you explain
this?

~~~
djschnei
> then I don't know why you then retort with "well, that was a long time ago."
> You made a statement that someone was proving false. Heck, you made that
> statement so broad in an attempt to bolster / underscore your point, so I
> think it's fair game.

He did prove me wrong, that is something in his history. But my comment
regarding time and other politicians still stands.

> I'm unclear how "Muslim" classifies one as being from a certain region of
> the world rather than describing their religious affiliation. Could you
> explain this?

The man is a professional wind-bag, but he has multiple times expanded on that
and specified he means "terror-prone regions", which is something we do all
the time and is totally legal.

[https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-1994-title8/pdf/USCODE-...](https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-1994-title8/pdf/USCODE-1994-title8-chap11-subchapII_2-partII-
sec1182.pdf)

------
mindcrash
This is a absolutely dishonest headline.

Andrew Torba and his team created Gab as a response to Twitter when Jack and
his team started harassing and outright censoring people who didn't agree with
far left ideology (and no, not just those who identify themselves as "right").
The most important design principle of Gab is "freedom of speech", and it is
completely neutral of who are making use of this principle; Andrew has stated
_several times_ that EVERYBODY IS WELCOME no matter where you are in the
political spectrum.

Yes, a large part of the population on Gab can be described politically as
either "alt right" or "conservative" because these people are outright scared
that their online voices will be shut simply because of disagreement. But that
doesn't mean that the Gab population is 100% right wing, it also consists out
of classical liberals and moderates who are sick and tired of the behavior and
bullshit narrative of the far left, and do not agree with the way Twitter is
handling freedom of expression, which by the way is a universal human right,
on its platform.

------
heartbreak
Is this the same as the former YC company?

~~~
monocasa
Yep.

------
LyndsySimon
I have an account an Gab, with the same handle as my account here. It seems to
be growing very quickly and offers keyword-based timeline filters that are far
better than what Twitter offers.

I've said it before on HN, but I really think it's a mistake to write off
approximately half the country because you disagree with their political
positions.

