I think I understand why that would lead to being banned just about anywhere. It doesn’t serve anyone in any useful way.
I don’t believe they should allow advocating assassination either, but I wouldn’t pretend these things are equivalent or that gab is politically unbiased. Regardless, what you were doing was unnecessary in its own right and i don’t see how it’s much different from what you’re criticizing.
it's different because it's an intentional jab at the hyprocracy - free speech, yet bans those who don't agree with the site's concensus.
Free speech is not outright trolling or spamming get rich quick schemes or pumping meme stocks, as is popular of late. And it never has been. Though censorship has gotten out of hand - mostly from the left- few sites have ever allowed this type of stuff, and most worked hard to keep it off their sites.
That's pretty much the online equivalent of peeling-out in your car and thinking it made you look awesome.
Unless trolling doesn’t count as free speech?
Free speech platform so long as it doesn't step on any in-group toes.
Free speech, as far as I can tell, to them, means they can make any claim they want, << have nobody challenge them >>, and not have to be consistent or responsible for any consequences.
To them, oppression is someone challenging their claims, at all, ever. They believe it's a form of control and a violation of their core liberties.
You violated that.
I'm a member of DSA and volunteer for leftist anarchist groups like food not bombs. My account on gab is fine because I don't do those things.
You might think debate is what gets to truth. They do not. They believe humans are fundamentally rational and if you let a thousand flowers bloom by "hearing the other side" or the "alternative facts" then the truth will rise among the multitude.
In fact, they think being challenged is so oppressive and against american values that it's in the same category as totalitarianism.
It's the same homo-economicus model that the free market people use. They want to be "free of coercive forces", like say, a rational counterargument so they can use their (alternative) facts and (faulty) logic to promote a "marketplace of ideas".
I'm sure you've heard these phrases before. They aren't being coy, this is what they actually believe.
That's why they have Alex Jones, Pizzagate, Qanon and facilitate quacks talking about free energy, time travel, mole children, etc. It's also why way out there alternative medicine about earth vibrations and celestial magnetism is part of the far right now. Remember those quack doctors and phony covid cures Trump talked about? It's also why Trump's or Marjorie Taylor Greene's behavior doesn't bother them.
It's also why they think militant blood libel white nationalists are just people exercising liberties but someone telling them to use a different pronoun is A Huge Honking Problem.
That's also why when you show them, say, that ping pong pizza has no basement they shrug their shoulders, almost as a challenge like "pshh, you're not going to stop me from my exercising my freedoms!"
You see problems with their models? Good, me too. Dunno what to tell you. If you want to join their party you gotta play by their rules. They're actually pretty chill if you stay in these lanes.
People on Gab will say far worse, and as long as it aligns with their political beliefs it is fine with Gab. In fact, I think it aligns with the owner's beliefs based on his comments. I just wanted everyone to know it isn't a free speech platform.
> telling minorities and people of a different sexual orientation that they are subhuman.
Remember what I said about about "facilitating speech"? The kinds of people who think in strict eugenicist hierarchies are welcome in the "let a thousand flowers bloom" model.
If you get a chance to go to a rally or watch one on youtube, I recommend it, especially when they have open speech time. People get up there, say the wildest things in the world, like decoding bible passages to decipher stock tickers as an investment strategy, and they give them their time. So of course racist nonsense is welcome as well.
They have values and principles in a comprehensible framework of mutual respect (again, a totally different kind) as long as you take the time to understand it.
Now to the rest:
Would you believe they have different definitions of "censor" as well as "politics"?
Everything they say makes sense in their head. I promise.
But what's in their head is pure madness.
For instance, a woman I was listening to back in April, stay with me for all of it, said we should stay home for covid because she believed covid is fake and was invented by trump so he could do "the storm" and arrest the hidden pedophile network. She thought it was her patriotic duty to stay home during the fake virus so the secret plan could happen. Really... she ends up doing the right thing but the reasons are just padded-room level insane.
So far removed from reality. It's a truly broken way of dealing with the world but they didn't ask for you to pull them out of cartoonland and they're actually happy there. So make gab a trip to the petting zoo and don't fight the animals.
> To them, oppression is someone challenging their claims, at all, ever.
This is entirely backwards. The right is extremely open to debate, but are banned from platforms owned by the left. Hence new popular platforms popping up to cater to them. The left is literally using every ounce of power they have to silence debate (Twitter bans, un-reported news stories from mostly left-owned media, etc). They don't even believe the peasants should be able to dictate the topics of conversation, which is why they jam narratives down peoples throat and use cancel culture to punish anyone speaking against them.
Also, what's the "faulty" logic aspect you mention in regards to a marketplace of ideas? It more-so sounds like your cognitive dissonance is kicking in once some common-sense logic is used to knock down your beliefs.
> Twitter bans
They don't want to be accused of "inducement", the same kind that got Kim Dotcom locked up. Bullshit posts leading to death and murder will come back to the platform owners - there's precedence with tabloid press cases. That's what they are doing here. Not facilitating brazenly illegal acts, it's from the lawyers. Silk road guy is sitting in jail for simply providing a marketplace. The platform providers have legal responsibilities.
> the peasants should be able to dictate the topics of conversation
Total nonsense. Their agenda is constructed by think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, AEI, the Cato institute, the Heartland institution, all backed by powerful multinational billionaire media moguls and heads of industry. SPN and Sinclair isn't "peasant directed".
Salem media group practically owns the AM band of radio with hundreds of stations doing nationally syndicated talk shows that pay their hosts millions of dollars to pretend like they're some poor working class oppressed group. They Are The Only Voice On AM Radio. Who is oppressing them when they're the only voice?
Rush Limbaugh died with $600 million. They own almost all of it and pretend like they're some snappy underdog.
Second, the left doesn't even have a major political party, how do they have any power?
How many Socialist or Communist party senators are there? 0. How many have there ever been? 0.
SPUSA, the largest socialist political party holds ZERO seats in any office, local county, district, state, federal. Z e r o. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_USA
When was the last time there was a Peace and Freedom governor? A Green Party president, heck even a Party for Socialism and Liberation dog catcher? Hasn't happened since literally the 1930s.
Absolute and total made up nonsense.
Also the liberals and the left are oppositional. They killed each other in the Paris commune, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish civil war, and the French revolution so go learn the difference, they hate each other.
You can go do that on gab and parler and I'll be ok with it there but on hn the rules are about verifiable reality.
This is why the "thousand flowers bloom" "marketplace of ideas" petting zoo model is so toxic.
People get pilled on multiple 7-layer bullshit cakes
Then they "disagree" with measured, quantifiable, quantitative, verifiable analysis by calling that "personal beliefs".
Take the wacko medical theories during covid for instance. Real data wasn't as important as the most comfortable fiction.
When shown to be wrong they'll make up excuses, play with word definitions, move goal posts, anything at all Except for updating their beliefs. Because their made up story feels true so they try to force their perception of reality to fit.
This same method was used by the Tobacco industry and Exxon on climate change. It's like how religious people say how a lack of evidence is only a test of your faith. The lack of evidence is the evidence.
Speaking of religion, it's also how completely baseless free market theory took hold as well. In fact milton friedman penned numerous essays about how evidence based analysis disrupts the purity of thought when people did quantitative studies showing him wrong. He said his made up logic was way more important than actually testing it.
That's why the Chicago school taking over policy has been a total disaster. Because they decided to stop looking at actual results and consequences.
So no, common sense logic is totally made up and the fantasies it leads to doesn't mean anything except in the head of the person saying it.