Even though this is your opinion I find this statement extremely ridiculous.
I don't support or agree with their views, but free speech grants them the right to say it and I will defend that right (which includes everyone).
The great thing is that you don't have to hear it, just block them if you don't like it.
You can argue that this type of trolling is bad because helps normalize white supremacy, but that doesn't mean their motivation is actual white supremacy.
- @OldEarthNeoFash, whose description literally says they're a Nazi
- @AlexanderVI, who posts about how gay men should not be allowed to be President
- @Reality_and_Truth, whose description boasts about "exposing Leftist scum 300 chars at a time"
- @cashmoneyglock, whose posts reference Stalin "marrying Jewesses" and a conspiracy theory about MLK being a rapist
- @BruceKenneway, whose description references Jews and white genocide
- @AnthonyBoy, whose posts insinuate that Robert Mueller commits bestiality
Try it! I'm sure you'll get a similar collection of terrible people.
Remember, this is apropos of nothing. I don't have a Gab account, so they're not personalizing these for me based on accounts with which I've interacted before. It's just a random sample of people on Gab.
You can, but it's a tiny minority of people on Twitter. When I load this page on Gab, literally every single recommended account is like this. A random sample of Twitter users will be basically the same as a random sample of Internet users and brands; a random sample of Gab users seems to be entirely alt-right, white supremacists and Nazis.
Of course people who tend to get deplatformed will tend to congregate on a platform where they don't. But Gab actively courts this userbase. See for example https://twitter.com/ClenchedFisk/status/1027690034718224384
Not to say that Gab isn't a cesspool, and Mr. Torba, when he shows up here, appears to be a rather unpleasant character, but Gab being full of bad people is a function not only of Gab being bad by definition, but also of bigger players' policies as well.
I'm not saying Andrew Torba shouldn't have built Gab; I am lamenting its existence, insofar as I don't want anyone to be a white supremacist. But white supremacists do exist, and as long as they do they'll make spaces for themselves, whether on Gab or 8chan or some dark corner of Twitter. All we can do is push those spaces as far away as possible.
And in any case I just am not sure if pushing undesirables (especially if it is undesirables only of a certain political bent, but not the others) into some dark corner is a good strategy. Both sides end up in even stronger filter bubbles, and banned people get good recruiting tools and feed theior persec ution complexes -- because the "lamestream media" and "libturds" actually are out to get them.
I made no argument about the value of free speech. I am arguing that, given the fairly obvious clientele, it is reasonable to assume that principled fealty to free speech was not the driving motivation in Gab's creation. I don't think it's ridiculous to point to the specific content that makes up the majority of Gab and say you would have to be extraordinarily obtuse not to realize what and for whom you were building a social network.
Well, I believe that free speech was the reason for Gab's creation, they were getting censored from other social platforms so they built their own. It just so as happens that over time they have attracted vile users to the platform who have way more unpopular views.
So what are you really trying to say here?
My point is that there is not much daylight between the former and the latter. Gab was not created in a vacuum by neutral arbiters of free speech.
And it's just a coincidence that the official account pushes anti-Semitism, right? https://twitter.com/ClenchedFisk/status/1027690034718224384
It is sad that you would like to give up freedom of speech with such weak excuse.
I would call ISIS recruitment videos evil. If someone created a social network for ISIS under the banner of "free speech", I would call their project evil.
I don't in any way apologize for flatly condemning the kind of speech Gab is designed to harbor. And yet I happen to be a pretty big fan of free speech, somehow! If you'd read closely, you might notice I haven't called for the government to shut them down, and suggested that a Mastadon instance might be a good move. There's a case to be made that the Streisand effect means unilaterally banning neo-nazis helps spread their ideas.
In my mind, perhaps it's better to pre-empt their persecution complex by allowing them a space that the rest of us can mute. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that these spaces serve as recruiting grounds for a rising international terrorist movement. That complicates things, and I don't have an easy answer for what should be done.