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"you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other mode“ For a non-American, could you explain how this is far

"you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other mode“ For a non-American, could you explain how this is far right? Sounds pretty liberal.

UncleMeat 6y ago
Because the people there are far right. When you go to a website and the first thing you see is calls to murder jewish people and the n-word repeated ad nauseam, all but the far right decide to just leave. The end result is that gab/parler/etc don't become places where all speech exists but instead places where extreme racism, homophobia, and sexism suck the oxygen away from everything else.
- _coveredInBees 6y ago
  And ironically enough, Parler, the bastion of "free speech" was happily banning people who were critical of right wingers or did not participate in the right-wing group think on their network. After rallying against liberals being "snowflakes" and needing "safe-spaces", Parler ironically enough ended up being just that for the extreme right.
  - pii 6y ago
    This is true, doesn't matter how much it gets downvoted
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    Much the same as /r/conservative on Reddit.
    - _coveredInBees 6y ago
      Lol, yup, I was just thinking that after I posted. /r/conservative is hilarious in that they rail against censorship and free speech issues and yet basically self censor so strongly that only "flaired" (someone vetted to be part of the group-think) users are allowed to post in pretty much all discussions. And even flaired users who dare to oppose the group-think are quickly banned. The cognitive dissonance on that subreddit is quite amazing.
      - AuryGlenz 6y ago
        I don’t think they have much of a choice. When I’ve gone there after large news events and they have unflaired people able to post it turns in to /r/politics 2.0. I have seen discussions there from people on both sides of the political spectrum where neither side was downvoted to oblivion, which is more than you can say for most of Reddit.
        throwaway189262 6y ago
        It doesn't help that seemingly half the content posted there is made up. Whenever they open the floodgates their narratives get torn to pieces by people that actually know what they're talking about. Truth isn't welcomed there. For instance, you will be banned for simply stating that Trump lost the election
        XorNot 6y ago
        This is irrelevant: you're just making the exact argument that they are ridiculing and claiming to not need about "safe spaces". That's the point: they complain about everyone else except when it happens to them, and then suddenly it's totally just and necessary. As though the reason women, gays, lesbians, transgender, black, mexican etc. communities don't have their own spaces for the exact reason that otherwise they would be brigaded by no end of people who felt just overly necessary to drop in and talk about how they think none of their problems are valid. /r/conservative isn't ridiculed because it's moderated aggressively, it's ridiculed because it's moderated aggressively by people who continuously argue that moderation anywhere else is an assault on free speech and wholly unnecessary.
    - bmarquez 6y ago
      Except /r/conservative never claimed to be unbiased. After people started brigading and posting threats (examples are occasionally shown by moderators) they had to tighten up their moderation. In contrast, /r/politics claims to be about general politics but most content to the right of AOC/Bernie gets downvoted or deleted.
      - endymi0n 6y ago
        > most content to the right of AOC/Bernie gets downvoted or deleted As Reddit has a user base that comes from the US less than 50%, this might have to do with the fact that the Overton window shifted so far to the right there that the opinions of AOC or Bernie would count as center-right pretty much everywhere else in the western world, with the Republicans being off the charts lunatic extremist right.
        logicchains 6y ago
        Are you aware that the US recently passed laws allowing the government to sterilize and mutilate the genitals of children who feel like a different gender, even if the parents don't consent? I'm pretty confident most of the world would consider that leftism more extreme than anything the right has done recently.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        SamoyedFurFluff 6y ago
        Do you have a source? I’m pretty sure that children just get puberty blockers, which neither sterilizes nor mutilates.
        nec4b 6y ago
        I don't know of any European country that would consider AOC or Bernie center right and not populist (class clown) left.
        soundnote 6y ago
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  This is a false depiction. I haven’t used Parler much but checked it out a few times and did not encounter a single piece of content advocating violence, talking about Jewish people, using the n word, or partaking in any kind of racism. Your claim that these are repeated ad nauseum suggests you never actually visited any of these sites and are just criticizing them without basis.
  - kegbuna 6y ago
    I would agree that this was not really the case on Parler though one could find a couple accounts like that. Gab has been a little more extreme but the worst by far was Voat.
  - shrimpx 6y ago
    I spent time on these apps and I disagree with you. A large subset of what I saw were conspiracy theories and racist hate speech.
  - throwaway19937 6y ago
    https://i.redd.it/om90nwadqca61.png https://i.redd.it/om90nwadqca61.png is a Parler post with a racial slur and 25k upvotes. The court documents (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/29095511/parler-llc-v-amazon-web-services-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/29095511/parler-llc-v-a...) from their case against Amazon contain other examples of hate speech.
    - dublin 6y ago
      "Hate Speech" as you call it, no matter how distasteful you may find it, is protected speech under the US Constitution, and thus (if also not a threat of violence, doxxing, or similar) is permitted on Gab. I have no problem with platforms allowing any and all speech, since it actually just allows stupid speakers to beclown themselves. Free speech is the most liberal idea there is - as Voltaire famously said, "I may disagree with everything you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
      - 6y ago
- piokoch 6y ago
  By curiosity I've looked on Gab and I don't see any content you mention. Yes, there is something about protests against banning guns, some celebrities teaming up to support Trump, etc., which is considered to be "far right" but I haven't seen anything you mention. I might have missed that obviously during my five minutes of browsing there, as a result, if they really call for murdering Jews, could you provide a link to such resource - calling to murder someone is a crime in the US, so such link would be a good evidence for prosecution.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/ is a community that tries to collect and highlight the fringes of communities like Parler, that's a good place to start.
  - 4ggr0 6y ago
    Even if most posts are definitely fine, a quick look at the comments will show you what's wrong. Unfortunately you have to sign up to see comments, I wonder why...
- jki275 6y ago
  Neither of the things you claim are tolerated on either platform. I suspect you've never looked for yourself. Gab looks like a version of Facebook that's mostly populated by Christian conservatives. Parler looks like a version of twitter that's mostly populated (or was, before) by Christian conservatives with a small side of some conspiracy theories. Christian conservatives don't subscribe to the beliefs you think they do.
whytaka 6y ago
It is liberal, in the sense that absolute liberty is anarchy is chaos is degeneracy is suffering. Non-degenerates know that long lasting liberty comes with responsibility, and that responsibility is moderation and correction. The far right operates in degeneracy. They may fly the banner of freedom but they fly it alongside nazi flags so what do symbols and ideals even mean for them.
seventytwo 6y ago
It is liberal. It’s just that the far right hides it’s entirely illiberal hate under the umbrella of “free speech”.
gizmo686 6y ago
Adverse selection. If your differenciating feature is "you can say what you want without getting banned", your userbase is going to tend towards people who get banned on other platforms. In todays climate, that is mostly the far right. Compounding this is PR and network effects. Once they become known as the place for the far right, then more far righters go there, and more distant people avoid it.
- phroobster 6y ago
  Alternative viewpoint: platforms without censorship tend to be right wing because that is what succeeds in a free marketplace of ideas. Left wing ideas require censorship to thrive.
  - dagmx 6y ago
    How many left wing dictators have there been?
    - effry-much 6y ago
      Plenty? Have you ever heard about the XX century? Bolsheviks? Fidel Castro?
      - dagmx 6y ago
        I'm not saying there are none. I'm raising the point that there's been quite a lot more right wing dictatorships than left wing through history.
    - feralimal 6y ago
      Hitler? He was a national socialist.
      - dagmx 6y ago
        That's a very obtuse and dishonest take of the the Nazi party and socialism. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-needs-stop-falsely-claiming-that-nazis-were-socialists/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-need... Besides, party names have never been a good indicator of political standing. Only policy is. You can look at the Liberals in Australia as an example of a conservative party.
jordigh 6y ago
Because the only defense they constantly employ for saying atrocious things is that it's not literally illegal to say them. It's not literally illegal to be racist, it's not literally illegal to be xenophobic, it's not literally illegal to be transphobic. So they think they should be all those things, although they don't call themselves those names. Things should be said based on the inherent merit of what they say, not be said just because it's not literally illegal to say them. If the only reason you can find for justifying what you say is that nobody has made a law yet to stop you (and we do have laws to stop some things from being said), then perhaps you need to find a better thing to say.
- young_unixer 6y ago
  I agree with you, but Twitter is rife with leftists being almost as horrible as Gab's extremists and not getting banned because Twitter execs lean left. So let's not act like Gab users are the only ones being awful.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    Good luck with that position. Too many people fail to recognise the Ying and Yang that is Twitter and Gab. Both of them are dominated by extreme ideologies, but only one has all celebrities, politicians, governments and business leaders.
  - wp381640 6y ago
    Complete nonsense false equivalence. Gab is _dominated_ by far-right racist content and conspiracy theories. My mum uses Twitter and doesn't see a single far-left opinion, 99% of the content on Twitter is that way. You're comparing an entire polluted pool that is unfit to swim in with a single floating turd in the ocean.
    - motogpjimbo 6y ago
      Really? It literally isn't possible to look at the "trending" panel in Twitter without seeing far-left talking points. For example, today's trending topics include the "cancellation" of Dr Seuss (with many tweets giving examples of why he should be cancelled in the author's opinion) and the use of the words "latinx" and "womxn" to avoid offending people by using gendered language.
didibus 6y ago
The big social media platforms tend to find themselves in hot water when something approaching "hate speech" trends on them. So they have a tendency to regulate that content away. The center and left in the US are normally not in favor of hate speech, while the right is more supportive of it. What happens then is people who want to discuss hateful topics and post hateful speech can't easily do it on the current popular social media platforms, so they need alternatives. That's the market for Gab and Parler mostly. At this moment, it happens that the far-right in the US has a very "hateful adjacent" messaging. They generally support and promote populist, nativist, collectivist authoritarian, and conspiracy-minded ideas. Those often overlap with hate of immigrants and non-white Christians, as well as hate of liberals and social democrats due to believing in their participation in demonic conspiracies. They also tend to suggest violent and authoritarian methods to get what they want, like killing their opposition or storming the capitol, and other forms of violent insurection. Thus they fall in the market category of Parler and Gab pretty strongly. It's mostly the far-right aka radical right, the regular right in the US does not all prescribe to these and don't all have "hateful adjacents" messaging. Also some more extremist current left movements also have "hateful adjacent" messaging, though maybe less so, when they do it's often targeted specifically at the far-right, most likely as a reactionary measure. Also, there are reports of such left-leaning accounts being banned and censored on Parler and Gab, hard to say how true this is, but even if a rumor, it keeps the less radical right from trusting them. And so they are often considered to falsy upheld free speech.
- soundnote 6y ago
  > The big social media platforms tend to find themselves in hot water when something approaching "hate speech" trends on them. So they have a tendency to regulate that content away. > The center and left in the US are normally not in favor of hate speech, while the right is more supportive of it. The left is very supportive of hate speech, it just has to have the right target. There's abject, open racism against whites all day. Black people attacking Asian people is white supremacy nowadays.
  - didibus 6y ago
    I think I mentioned that the extreme left side of things also had hateful adjacent messaging. But I personally haven't observed as much of it, and it also doesn't seem there is a big enough market on that side for a startup to capitalize on. Maybe I just never heard of them though? I'm personally more centrist overall, but I've tried as much as I could to give an unbiased summary, though being unbiased in those cases is hard. I'm trying not to judge the behavior, just observe it. One thing I have observed is that the current moderate left in the US does seem to align more with Canada/UK/France style of free speech, with a broader definition of what is considered hate speech and stronger enforcements against it. Where as the right seem more aligned with the traditional American view on it, where hate speech is limited only if it can be shown to have directly and immediately caused lawless action. This seems to be the crux of the issue as well. With the big social media platforms available today, it has enabled hateful speech to have more reach at a wider scale than ever before. It also enabled not only Americans to reach others, but even non-Americans can promote and propagate hateful messaging in a targeted and strategic way. The question is what if anything should be done about this, could it lead to instability and divide and throw the country in turmoil, or maybe it's actually a good thing and will allow more voices to be heard and considered. It's the age old trade off of free speech and restricted free speech. Where do you draw the line? What risks are there on either side of it? And my observation has been the right leaning Americans seem to still consider that there should be no regulations on this, and everyone everywhere, even non Americans, should be allowed to freely share, promote, upvote, and target any message they want, even hateful, no matter the intent behind it, because upholding the right to speak up and against the government is more important and so we should stay as far as possible from threading water or any slippery slope. And my observation is the left leaning Americans seem more cautious, and think some regulations might be needed, to make sure that no bad actor takes advantage of this, or that discourse doesn't rely purely on emotions and hate targeted reasonings. And that not doing so would actually bring more instability and chaos, and the risk of threading the line between restricted but still free speech and non free speech is worth it, or maybe an exagerated concern, where they don't think in practice it would be difficult to distinguish dissenting views from hateful ones or those with bad actors behind them.
throwaway189262 6y ago
TLDR: You can be super racist, describe how you're going to kill everyone you don't like, spread crazy fake stories without any consequence. It's liberal in the same way it would be liberal to have a party where you walk around naked and smear feces on each other. Definitely a liberal party, but not one that most people want to participate in. Most people would rather have moderation where you're not allow to scream the N word at blacks. Which concentrates N word screamers and similar onto these free speech forums
deleted 6y ago
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jb775 6y ago
The real reason is that American tech company execs and most American tech workers are leftists, and leftists try to censor and ignore any political opinion they disagree with (rather than discuss, etc). Since free speech platforms don't censor any content, leftists naturally hate them...and they'll do anything in their power to slow them down. Rather than acknowledge this, they make themselves feel better by claiming any non-censoring platform is "hosting far right terrorists".
- jpgvm 6y ago
  There is a difference between allowing free speech and allowing hate speech. Free speech: I don't think America should engage in an open immigration policy for reasons X, Y, Z that disadvantage us in A, B, C ways. Hate speech: BUILD THE WALL TO KEEP OUT THE RAPISTS. If you can't see the difference then that is why will get banned from platforms that allow free speech but ban hate speech.
  - jb775 6y ago
    I don't consider your example of hate speech to be anything close to actual hate speech. I consider your example to be an example of an ignorant and un-intelligent statement. This is a perfect example of two major issues going on: 1) America is catering to the lowest common denominator of who is offended and therefore creating a race to the bottom for societal norms (i.e. you considering your example to be hate speech, but I don't...but society currently feels the need to make sure you feel comfortable in your safe place) 2) 95% of the platform discussion may be in the form of your "Free speech" example, but if there's any occurrence of your "Hate speech" example, the entire platform is labeled a "Hate speech" platform....and this feeds back into issue #1
    - jpgvm 6y ago
      I don't know how implying an entire country of people are rapists isn't hate speech but ok. At the very least it's racist and intolerant which has no place in public discourse. I do agree with 1. America goes too far to cater for people having "safe spaces". This cuts both ways though though and I would say the American right go much further to create and enforce safe spaces where their views won't be challenged. (r/conservative and TD before that). 2. I don't think this is true at all. Reddit definitely has its share of hate speech and nonsense but it's not considered a hate speech platform. It's only when the overwhelming majority of content is hateful garbage that you get to that point. Gab/Parlor being the 2 main current examples. To me your argument is like many others, trying to find a way to excuse hateful, racist, homophobic nonsense as "free speech" as if in some way this speech should be protected because it provides some value to society (it doesn't). Many also argue it's a bias against conservatism but that isn't true either. Conservatism isn't meant to be any of those things and if they could drop all of that they might find people much more receptive to their ideas. There are constructive ways to push conservative views, I myself would measure myself as a centrist. I see both sides of many arguments but I am definitely tired of the right wing rhetoric. Just because I think fiscal conservatism is a good idea and small-ish government can be a good thing in certain areas doesn't mean I should need to read/tolerate all the crap currently being pedled.
toomim 6y ago
Indeed, liberals are now commonly being mis-labeled as "far-right" in America. The left has become intolerant of conservative views, and labels anything conservative as "far-right". Liberals tend to entertain views across the spectrum, and thus are labeled as "far-right" by many people in the left.
- pron 6y ago
  Are conservative views -- low taxes, low regulation, strong military, opposition to abortion, opposition to gay marriage -- banned on Twitter? Let's be honest, we're talking about racism and anti-democracy, and if that's not far-right, what is?
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744 https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/105039166355267174...
  - toomim 6y ago
    No, you missed the part where this isn't about conservative values — it's about even liberals being banned and called far-right and racist and anti-democracy when they are nothing of the sort. Liberals are being called racists and anti-democracy as a way of attacking and deplatforming anyone who disagrees with the leftist tribe. This isn't about values, it's about tribal allegiance. If you actually believe that these people are far-right racists then there is a strong chance that you are being fooled by tribal manipulation.
    - pron 6y ago
      You're being far too abstract, so it's easy to think you're making this up. Who did Twitter ban for disagreeing with the leftist tribe about, say, higher taxes, unions, civil equality -- all these cornerstones of the left?
pelliphant 6y ago
The problem is that it isn't true, you can say things that they agree with without being banned, but say anything even slightly leftish and it's insta-ban.
user-the-name 6y ago
I mean, it's a lie, to start with. They are happy to censor anything they don't like, far more than most platforms.
krageon 6y ago
> how this is far right Generally the argumentation presented is a dogwhistle for fringe elements (nazis, other unpleasant people, etc). Sadly they are currently dominated by far-right ideologies (and ofc the inevitable sexual predators).

"you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other mode“ For a non-American, could you explain how this is far right? Sounds pretty liberal.

UncleMeat 6y ago

Because the people there are far right. When you go to a website and the first thing you see is calls to murder jewish people and the n-word repeated ad nauseam, all but the far right decide to just leave. The end result is that gab/parler/etc don't become places where all speech exists but instead places where extreme racism, homophobia, and sexism suck the oxygen away from everything else.

_coveredInBees 6y ago
And ironically enough, Parler, the bastion of "free speech" was happily banning people who were critical of right wingers or did not participate in the right-wing group think on their network. After rallying against liberals being "snowflakes" and needing "safe-spaces", Parler ironically enough ended up being just that for the extreme right.
- pii 6y ago
  This is true, doesn't matter how much it gets downvoted
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  Much the same as /r/conservative on Reddit.
  - _coveredInBees 6y ago
    Lol, yup, I was just thinking that after I posted. /r/conservative is hilarious in that they rail against censorship and free speech issues and yet basically self censor so strongly that only "flaired" (someone vetted to be part of the group-think) users are allowed to post in pretty much all discussions. And even flaired users who dare to oppose the group-think are quickly banned. The cognitive dissonance on that subreddit is quite amazing.
    - AuryGlenz 6y ago
      I don’t think they have much of a choice. When I’ve gone there after large news events and they have unflaired people able to post it turns in to /r/politics 2.0. I have seen discussions there from people on both sides of the political spectrum where neither side was downvoted to oblivion, which is more than you can say for most of Reddit.
      - throwaway189262 6y ago
        It doesn't help that seemingly half the content posted there is made up. Whenever they open the floodgates their narratives get torn to pieces by people that actually know what they're talking about. Truth isn't welcomed there. For instance, you will be banned for simply stating that Trump lost the election
      - XorNot 6y ago
        This is irrelevant: you're just making the exact argument that they are ridiculing and claiming to not need about "safe spaces". That's the point: they complain about everyone else except when it happens to them, and then suddenly it's totally just and necessary. As though the reason women, gays, lesbians, transgender, black, mexican etc. communities don't have their own spaces for the exact reason that otherwise they would be brigaded by no end of people who felt just overly necessary to drop in and talk about how they think none of their problems are valid. /r/conservative isn't ridiculed because it's moderated aggressively, it's ridiculed because it's moderated aggressively by people who continuously argue that moderation anywhere else is an assault on free speech and wholly unnecessary.
  - bmarquez 6y ago
    Except /r/conservative never claimed to be unbiased. After people started brigading and posting threats (examples are occasionally shown by moderators) they had to tighten up their moderation. In contrast, /r/politics claims to be about general politics but most content to the right of AOC/Bernie gets downvoted or deleted.
    - endymi0n 6y ago
      > most content to the right of AOC/Bernie gets downvoted or deleted As Reddit has a user base that comes from the US less than 50%, this might have to do with the fact that the Overton window shifted so far to the right there that the opinions of AOC or Bernie would count as center-right pretty much everywhere else in the western world, with the Republicans being off the charts lunatic extremist right.
      - logicchains 6y ago
        Are you aware that the US recently passed laws allowing the government to sterilize and mutilate the genitals of children who feel like a different gender, even if the parents don't consent? I'm pretty confident most of the world would consider that leftism more extreme than anything the right has done recently.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        SamoyedFurFluff 6y ago
        Do you have a source? I’m pretty sure that children just get puberty blockers, which neither sterilizes nor mutilates.
      - nec4b 6y ago
        I don't know of any European country that would consider AOC or Bernie center right and not populist (class clown) left.
      - soundnote 6y ago
throwawaysea 6y ago
This is a false depiction. I haven’t used Parler much but checked it out a few times and did not encounter a single piece of content advocating violence, talking about Jewish people, using the n word, or partaking in any kind of racism. Your claim that these are repeated ad nauseum suggests you never actually visited any of these sites and are just criticizing them without basis.
- kegbuna 6y ago
  I would agree that this was not really the case on Parler though one could find a couple accounts like that. Gab has been a little more extreme but the worst by far was Voat.
- shrimpx 6y ago
  I spent time on these apps and I disagree with you. A large subset of what I saw were conspiracy theories and racist hate speech.
- throwaway19937 6y ago
  https://i.redd.it/om90nwadqca61.png https://i.redd.it/om90nwadqca61.png is a Parler post with a racial slur and 25k upvotes. The court documents (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/29095511/parler-llc-v-amazon-web-services-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/29095511/parler-llc-v-a...) from their case against Amazon contain other examples of hate speech.
  - dublin 6y ago
    "Hate Speech" as you call it, no matter how distasteful you may find it, is protected speech under the US Constitution, and thus (if also not a threat of violence, doxxing, or similar) is permitted on Gab. I have no problem with platforms allowing any and all speech, since it actually just allows stupid speakers to beclown themselves. Free speech is the most liberal idea there is - as Voltaire famously said, "I may disagree with everything you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
    - 6y ago
piokoch 6y ago
By curiosity I've looked on Gab and I don't see any content you mention. Yes, there is something about protests against banning guns, some celebrities teaming up to support Trump, etc., which is considered to be "far right" but I haven't seen anything you mention. I might have missed that obviously during my five minutes of browsing there, as a result, if they really call for murdering Jews, could you provide a link to such resource - calling to murder someone is a crime in the US, so such link would be a good evidence for prosecution.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/ is a community that tries to collect and highlight the fringes of communities like Parler, that's a good place to start.
- 4ggr0 6y ago
  Even if most posts are definitely fine, a quick look at the comments will show you what's wrong. Unfortunately you have to sign up to see comments, I wonder why...
jki275 6y ago
Neither of the things you claim are tolerated on either platform. I suspect you've never looked for yourself. Gab looks like a version of Facebook that's mostly populated by Christian conservatives. Parler looks like a version of twitter that's mostly populated (or was, before) by Christian conservatives with a small side of some conspiracy theories. Christian conservatives don't subscribe to the beliefs you think they do.

whytaka 6y ago

It is liberal, in the sense that absolute liberty is anarchy is chaos is degeneracy is suffering. Non-degenerates know that long lasting liberty comes with responsibility, and that responsibility is moderation and correction. The far right operates in degeneracy. They may fly the banner of freedom but they fly it alongside nazi flags so what do symbols and ideals even mean for them.

seventytwo 6y ago

It is liberal. It’s just that the far right hides it’s entirely illiberal hate under the umbrella of “free speech”.

gizmo686 6y ago

Adverse selection. If your differenciating feature is "you can say what you want without getting banned", your userbase is going to tend towards people who get banned on other platforms. In todays climate, that is mostly the far right. Compounding this is PR and network effects. Once they become known as the place for the far right, then more far righters go there, and more distant people avoid it.

phroobster 6y ago
Alternative viewpoint: platforms without censorship tend to be right wing because that is what succeeds in a free marketplace of ideas. Left wing ideas require censorship to thrive.
- dagmx 6y ago
  How many left wing dictators have there been?
  - effry-much 6y ago
    Plenty? Have you ever heard about the XX century? Bolsheviks? Fidel Castro?
    - dagmx 6y ago
      I'm not saying there are none. I'm raising the point that there's been quite a lot more right wing dictatorships than left wing through history.
  - feralimal 6y ago
    Hitler? He was a national socialist.
    - dagmx 6y ago
      That's a very obtuse and dishonest take of the the Nazi party and socialism. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-needs-stop-falsely-claiming-that-nazis-were-socialists/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/05/right-need... Besides, party names have never been a good indicator of political standing. Only policy is. You can look at the Liberals in Australia as an example of a conservative party.

jordigh 6y ago

Because the only defense they constantly employ for saying atrocious things is that it's not literally illegal to say them. It's not literally illegal to be racist, it's not literally illegal to be xenophobic, it's not literally illegal to be transphobic. So they think they should be all those things, although they don't call themselves those names. Things should be said based on the inherent merit of what they say, not be said just because it's not literally illegal to say them. If the only reason you can find for justifying what you say is that nobody has made a law yet to stop you (and we do have laws to stop some things from being said), then perhaps you need to find a better thing to say.

young_unixer 6y ago
I agree with you, but Twitter is rife with leftists being almost as horrible as Gab's extremists and not getting banned because Twitter execs lean left. So let's not act like Gab users are the only ones being awful.
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  Good luck with that position. Too many people fail to recognise the Ying and Yang that is Twitter and Gab. Both of them are dominated by extreme ideologies, but only one has all celebrities, politicians, governments and business leaders.
- wp381640 6y ago
  Complete nonsense false equivalence. Gab is _dominated_ by far-right racist content and conspiracy theories. My mum uses Twitter and doesn't see a single far-left opinion, 99% of the content on Twitter is that way. You're comparing an entire polluted pool that is unfit to swim in with a single floating turd in the ocean.
  - motogpjimbo 6y ago
    Really? It literally isn't possible to look at the "trending" panel in Twitter without seeing far-left talking points. For example, today's trending topics include the "cancellation" of Dr Seuss (with many tweets giving examples of why he should be cancelled in the author's opinion) and the use of the words "latinx" and "womxn" to avoid offending people by using gendered language.

didibus 6y ago

The big social media platforms tend to find themselves in hot water when something approaching "hate speech" trends on them. So they have a tendency to regulate that content away. The center and left in the US are normally not in favor of hate speech, while the right is more supportive of it. What happens then is people who want to discuss hateful topics and post hateful speech can't easily do it on the current popular social media platforms, so they need alternatives. That's the market for Gab and Parler mostly. At this moment, it happens that the far-right in the US has a very "hateful adjacent" messaging. They generally support and promote populist, nativist, collectivist authoritarian, and conspiracy-minded ideas. Those often overlap with hate of immigrants and non-white Christians, as well as hate of liberals and social democrats due to believing in their participation in demonic conspiracies. They also tend to suggest violent and authoritarian methods to get what they want, like killing their opposition or storming the capitol, and other forms of violent insurection. Thus they fall in the market category of Parler and Gab pretty strongly. It's mostly the far-right aka radical right, the regular right in the US does not all prescribe to these and don't all have "hateful adjacents" messaging. Also some more extremist current left movements also have "hateful adjacent" messaging, though maybe less so, when they do it's often targeted specifically at the far-right, most likely as a reactionary measure. Also, there are reports of such left-leaning accounts being banned and censored on Parler and Gab, hard to say how true this is, but even if a rumor, it keeps the less radical right from trusting them. And so they are often considered to falsy upheld free speech.

soundnote 6y ago
> The big social media platforms tend to find themselves in hot water when something approaching "hate speech" trends on them. So they have a tendency to regulate that content away. > The center and left in the US are normally not in favor of hate speech, while the right is more supportive of it. The left is very supportive of hate speech, it just has to have the right target. There's abject, open racism against whites all day. Black people attacking Asian people is white supremacy nowadays.
- didibus 6y ago
  I think I mentioned that the extreme left side of things also had hateful adjacent messaging. But I personally haven't observed as much of it, and it also doesn't seem there is a big enough market on that side for a startup to capitalize on. Maybe I just never heard of them though? I'm personally more centrist overall, but I've tried as much as I could to give an unbiased summary, though being unbiased in those cases is hard. I'm trying not to judge the behavior, just observe it. One thing I have observed is that the current moderate left in the US does seem to align more with Canada/UK/France style of free speech, with a broader definition of what is considered hate speech and stronger enforcements against it. Where as the right seem more aligned with the traditional American view on it, where hate speech is limited only if it can be shown to have directly and immediately caused lawless action. This seems to be the crux of the issue as well. With the big social media platforms available today, it has enabled hateful speech to have more reach at a wider scale than ever before. It also enabled not only Americans to reach others, but even non-Americans can promote and propagate hateful messaging in a targeted and strategic way. The question is what if anything should be done about this, could it lead to instability and divide and throw the country in turmoil, or maybe it's actually a good thing and will allow more voices to be heard and considered. It's the age old trade off of free speech and restricted free speech. Where do you draw the line? What risks are there on either side of it? And my observation has been the right leaning Americans seem to still consider that there should be no regulations on this, and everyone everywhere, even non Americans, should be allowed to freely share, promote, upvote, and target any message they want, even hateful, no matter the intent behind it, because upholding the right to speak up and against the government is more important and so we should stay as far as possible from threading water or any slippery slope. And my observation is the left leaning Americans seem more cautious, and think some regulations might be needed, to make sure that no bad actor takes advantage of this, or that discourse doesn't rely purely on emotions and hate targeted reasonings. And that not doing so would actually bring more instability and chaos, and the risk of threading the line between restricted but still free speech and non free speech is worth it, or maybe an exagerated concern, where they don't think in practice it would be difficult to distinguish dissenting views from hateful ones or those with bad actors behind them.

throwaway189262 6y ago

TLDR: You can be super racist, describe how you're going to kill everyone you don't like, spread crazy fake stories without any consequence. It's liberal in the same way it would be liberal to have a party where you walk around naked and smear feces on each other. Definitely a liberal party, but not one that most people want to participate in. Most people would rather have moderation where you're not allow to scream the N word at blacks. Which concentrates N word screamers and similar onto these free speech forums

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jb775 6y ago

The real reason is that American tech company execs and most American tech workers are leftists, and leftists try to censor and ignore any political opinion they disagree with (rather than discuss, etc). Since free speech platforms don't censor any content, leftists naturally hate them...and they'll do anything in their power to slow them down. Rather than acknowledge this, they make themselves feel better by claiming any non-censoring platform is "hosting far right terrorists".

jpgvm 6y ago
There is a difference between allowing free speech and allowing hate speech. Free speech: I don't think America should engage in an open immigration policy for reasons X, Y, Z that disadvantage us in A, B, C ways. Hate speech: BUILD THE WALL TO KEEP OUT THE RAPISTS. If you can't see the difference then that is why will get banned from platforms that allow free speech but ban hate speech.
- jb775 6y ago
  I don't consider your example of hate speech to be anything close to actual hate speech. I consider your example to be an example of an ignorant and un-intelligent statement. This is a perfect example of two major issues going on: 1) America is catering to the lowest common denominator of who is offended and therefore creating a race to the bottom for societal norms (i.e. you considering your example to be hate speech, but I don't...but society currently feels the need to make sure you feel comfortable in your safe place) 2) 95% of the platform discussion may be in the form of your "Free speech" example, but if there's any occurrence of your "Hate speech" example, the entire platform is labeled a "Hate speech" platform....and this feeds back into issue #1
  - jpgvm 6y ago
    I don't know how implying an entire country of people are rapists isn't hate speech but ok. At the very least it's racist and intolerant which has no place in public discourse. I do agree with 1. America goes too far to cater for people having "safe spaces". This cuts both ways though though and I would say the American right go much further to create and enforce safe spaces where their views won't be challenged. (r/conservative and TD before that). 2. I don't think this is true at all. Reddit definitely has its share of hate speech and nonsense but it's not considered a hate speech platform. It's only when the overwhelming majority of content is hateful garbage that you get to that point. Gab/Parlor being the 2 main current examples. To me your argument is like many others, trying to find a way to excuse hateful, racist, homophobic nonsense as "free speech" as if in some way this speech should be protected because it provides some value to society (it doesn't). Many also argue it's a bias against conservatism but that isn't true either. Conservatism isn't meant to be any of those things and if they could drop all of that they might find people much more receptive to their ideas. There are constructive ways to push conservative views, I myself would measure myself as a centrist. I see both sides of many arguments but I am definitely tired of the right wing rhetoric. Just because I think fiscal conservatism is a good idea and small-ish government can be a good thing in certain areas doesn't mean I should need to read/tolerate all the crap currently being pedled.

toomim 6y ago

Indeed, liberals are now commonly being mis-labeled as "far-right" in America. The left has become intolerant of conservative views, and labels anything conservative as "far-right". Liberals tend to entertain views across the spectrum, and thus are labeled as "far-right" by many people in the left.

pron 6y ago
Are conservative views -- low taxes, low regulation, strong military, opposition to abortion, opposition to gay marriage -- banned on Twitter? Let's be honest, we're talking about racism and anti-democracy, and if that's not far-right, what is?
- user-the-name 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1050391663552671744 https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/105039166355267174...
- toomim 6y ago
  No, you missed the part where this isn't about conservative values — it's about even liberals being banned and called far-right and racist and anti-democracy when they are nothing of the sort. Liberals are being called racists and anti-democracy as a way of attacking and deplatforming anyone who disagrees with the leftist tribe. This isn't about values, it's about tribal allegiance. If you actually believe that these people are far-right racists then there is a strong chance that you are being fooled by tribal manipulation.
  - pron 6y ago
    You're being far too abstract, so it's easy to think you're making this up. Who did Twitter ban for disagreeing with the leftist tribe about, say, higher taxes, unions, civil equality -- all these cornerstones of the left?

pelliphant 6y ago

The problem is that it isn't true, you can say things that they agree with without being banned, but say anything even slightly leftish and it's insta-ban.

user-the-name 6y ago

I mean, it's a lie, to start with. They are happy to censor anything they don't like, far more than most platforms.

krageon 6y ago

> how this is far right Generally the argumentation presented is a dogwhistle for fringe elements (nazis, other unpleasant people, etc). Sadly they are currently dominated by far-right ideologies (and ofc the inevitable sexual predators).