(Oh the irony thread closed) Gab hosting and DNS services terminated because of user content

Community Tech Policy & News
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This needs to be addressed. I don’t want to talk politics or anything of the kind. I want to talk about the precedents being set and the dangers this poses to the internet.

Gab.ai is a platform created by Andrew Torba. The site was created to do exactly what people have told you to do when you are shut down on the internet. “Just make your own social network.”

The network has been based off the principle of being a free speech haven. Not just for people banned from other services but for anyone to go looking for a free exchange of ideas and content.

Regardless of your opinions on the website or the founder something like Gab.ai is absolutely necessary.

So when a user of the website recently committed a mass shooting. This happens.

GoDaddy is pulling their services and removing access to their domain because of “numerous instances that promotes and encourages violence towards others.”

The double standard here is mind boggling.

How are literal Terrorists organizations like ISIS allowed on places like Twitter and Facebook and have been for YEARS. Along with thousands of murderers, rapists, drug dealers and everything else. Who on frequent occasions post sickening shit on social media that never gets removed.

How on earth is that ok, but a platform that is new and based on free speech is getting basically kicked off the internet for the same thing on a smaller scale?

And don’t give me the BS free market line. I believe in the free market. When a free market exists. The internet is NOT a free market.

Entire websites have been booted from the internet in organized efforts between dozens of companies and forced to move to places like TOR for not breaking any rules or laws.

This needs to be addressed, because the same people that cry for net neutrality and ignore or advocate for things like this are complete hypocrites.

I don’t even use or like the website, in fact is always thought it sucked to be honest. But this is criminal at this point. This is not the first time something like this has happened at all and it will definitely continue the more they are allowed to get away with it.

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answer probably has two (or really 3, but it is indirectly tied to 1.) parts:

  1. SV (and tech giants like twitter) works hand in glove with the alphabet soup agencies. Gab.ai does not, and is intending not to.

  2. the genocide of non-white peoples who sit on resources ‘we’ want is much less of an issue than the killing of those more similar to those who rule.

  3. (incumbent multi-billion dollar companies do not ever get harmed.)

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GoDaddy has supported internet censorship for sometime now, I know this incident sucks, but it is something I honestly expected from GoDaddy in particular. Registrars like NameCheap and Gandi seem to be the best alternative at this point, but they don’t have the same presence as GoDaddy which is why everyone goes to the latter.

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They’re not. This is a common misconception that is easily remedied with basic research.

I don’t think this means what you think it means.

Honestly, I wrote out a whole lot more, but something tells me you’re not going to be receptive to what I have to say.

Change my mind.

After looking over the site, I have no sympathy for them. Nor did I when StormFront got rekt, nor did I when the new Reddit got slammed.

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Namecheap and others have still been shown to remove websites they do not approve of.

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Well if you advocate for censorship then there really is no point in communicating with you further. You’ll be crying to no one when its your turn to be silenced.

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Don’t put words in my mouth, boy. I said I have no sympathy for them. They could have quelled the mob, because that’s exactly what they are, a violent, angry mob that blames personal problems on others rather than take action for themselves. They’re so brainwashed and brain dead that, to them, take action means shoot up a fucking church.

I like how you ignored the other half of my post which disproved your BS crying about ISIS on Twitter.

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You are becoming extremely hostile.

Gab has shown that the SPLC told them less than 6% of their website had any signs of what they considered “hostile or problematic.”

While Twitter who is 10 fold larger employees hundreds of people and bots to clean the site still his around 3-5%.

And being glad someone has been censored does not mean you want them censored. But still shows your apathy for freedom.

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The government is not censoring them, private businesses are.

No, I’m punctuating the seriousness of the situation. Those sites have language that brings with it a history of violence. Free speech isn’t free of consequences. Their rhetoric inspired or instigated someone to murder people, and that site openly embraces the fact that people known for hating people are migrating to their platform.

I’m sure they did, but now a million eyes are on your platform and the first things they’re seeing are “we have a major kike infestation” and other colorful terms. The plight of the Jewish people is still fresh on everyone’s mind, and with the 2016 election bringing that rhetoric into the burning day of light once again, it’s probably not going to go away any time soon.

So which is it? Twitter lets ISIS roam free or they have an army of employees fighting them off?

I got “”“extremely hostile”"" because you bring with you an ignorance that is a staple on this subjects. “All they’re saying is burn the Jews! WHY ARE YOU ANTI FREE SPEECH?!”

Because people that tend to say that shit tend to act on it more than “Build a wall” or whatever else is anti-PC these days.

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You’re bringing politics in when I’m trying not so I’ll bite. Give me an example of a left wing site that promoted violence getting banned by a domain registrar.

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It’s very easy to say that all non-illegal speech should be permitted in a vacuum. I believe that myself. I believe that Gab should be permitted and indeed it is-- there is no law stopping it.

Now put yourself in the shoes of GoDaddy, or their hosting provider. You, personally, own a company that provides service to Gab. Then something like the shooting happens, and you take a look at Gab, and all you see is miles and miles of anti-semitism, racism, and misogyny. Really nasty, ugly stuff. Do you want to provide them service, do you want to be associated with that? I know I wouldn’t.

It’s just like porno. I have nothing against porn. I’m all for it, if it’s legal it should be A-OK. But at the same time, I’ve turned down jobs associated with pornography. Not because it’s wrong, necessarily, it just isn’t anything I want to be associated with.

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Let’s all calm down.

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-6% is miles and miles I guess.

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Yes, all the most popular posts were immediately and blatantly offensive. That was, after all, the point of the site, to host speech that Twitter and the like would not allow.

And I mean, Twitter’s moderation sucks. So those people were the worst of the worst.

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That’s like taking the top off a cesspool for a user base.

If you’re shtick is that you know what you posted for you banned but we’ll take it then you’re putting your foot in your mouth.

If private companies refuse you service, which is their right, then just buy a fucking physical server and distribute your stack on that. Transferring domain name is really the only complicated part of this.

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Well you still need to get your internet connection from somewhere, so it needs to be colocated in a datacenter. That’s what “bulletproof” hosts are for. They’re typically used by criminals to send spam emails, IRC servers to coordinate DDOS trojans, malware distribution, and so on. They don’t ask any questions.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/11/body-armor-for-bad-web-sites/

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Right, so there’s ways out of this for that company. Not sure what the big deal is.

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Twitter, Facebook, godaddy et al are all private companies and are allowed to not do business with people. Like all private business have no obligation to do business with me if they don’t want to. That is not censorship and never has been.

It is ofc possible to make laws that require private business to do business with everyone. That would be pretty strange and haven’t really been tried much as it is obviously a pretty intrusive thing that tramples basic freedoms.

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Oh sure. What they’re doing isn’t even illegal, so they wouldn’t need a bulletproof host, they can just host in Russia or Romania.

@Photostan: That is very common. You can’t refuse to serve any protected classes in the US. Protected classes are those that have historically faced discrimination, including race, color, and religion. Recently there’s been a lot of furor in the US over including gender and sexual preference as protected classes also.

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i don’t think people understand what gab is. It’s for EVERYONE. including Nazis, bigots, and people who don’t like soy milk in coffee. Everyone. I don’t really have any investment in gab, but people saying WELL WELL BUT THEY HAVE x GROUP seem not to understand the point of a service built to be a much less regulated social media platform than Twitter. Being allowed to say whatever they want is literally the point of the service, and crying about when people with horrible opinions use said service smacks of a fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of said service.

Are there Nazis on 4chan? Yes. Should we now ban 4chan?

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