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Google Explains Why It Banned the App For Gab, a Right-Wing Twitter Rival (arstechnica.com)
AmiMoJo shares a report from Ars Technica: When right-wing trolls and outright racists get kicked off of Twitter, they often move to Gab, a right-wing Twitter competitor. Gab was founded by Andrew Torba, who says it's devoted to unfettered free expression online. The site also hosts controversial right-wing figures like Milo Yiannopoulos, Andrew 'weev' Auernheimer and Andrew Anglin, editor of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer. On Thursday, Gab said that Google had banned its Android app from the Google Play Store for violating Google's ban on hate speech. The app's main competitor, Twitter, hosts accounts like the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, and the virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, yet the Twitter app is still available on the Google Play store. Apple has long had more restrictive app store policies, and it originally rejected the Gab app for allowing pornographic content to be posted on the service -- despite the fact that hardcore pornography is readily available on Twitter. In an email to Ars, Google explained its decision to remove Gab from the Play Store: "In order to be on the Play Store, social networking apps need to demonstrate a sufficient level of moderation, including for content that encourages violence and advocates hate against groups of people. This is a long-standing rule and clearly stated in our developer policies. Developers always have the opportunity to appeal a suspension and may have their apps reinstated if they've addressed the policy violations and are compliant with our Developer Program Policies."
The app's main competitor, Twitter, hosts accounts like the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, and the virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, yet the Twitter app is still available on the Google Play store. Apple has long had more restrictive app store policies, and it originally rejected the Gab app for allowing pornographic content to be posted on the service -- despite the fact that hardcore pornography is readily available on Twitter.
So Google won't tolerate intolerance, but they sure will tolerate hypocrisy. Got it.
From Dr. Strangelove:
Admiral Randolph: Try one of these Jamaican cigars, Ambassador. They're pretty good.
Ambassador de Sadesky: Thank you, no. I do not support the work of imperialist stooges.
Admiral Randolph: Oh, only commie stooges, huh?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
They can explain all they want, but the Google that claimed "A free and open world depends on a free and open Internet." cannot without contradiction ban an app from its store for the crime of _not censoring its users sufficiently_.
Considering that Whatsapp and Telegram are both on the Play Store, who is lying, Whatapp/Telegram developers or Google?
Trick question, you are lying to yourself because those aren't social networking apps.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
By the same metric, the built in browser on mobile platforms should be banned as it allows access to such content.
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As long as it's hate directed towards conservatives, twitter is perfectly ok with it. Death threats, rape threats, misogyny, racism, bigotry, and so on is perfectly ok as long as it's against the "right people."
Private corporations can do whatever they want in terms of providing or not services to the general public. That is why making disability a protected status resulted in decades of business changes. Political belief is not a protected status.
Twitter was running #AssainateTrump same day Google pulled gab. And Gab is not the dark web google pretends it is. Gab bans child porn, doxing, criminal activity,
Saying gab has "sufficient level of moderation" isn't fooling anyone, it's some of the people using Gab Google doesn't like. But those people are everywhere.
Twitter hosts ISIS and other offensive speech and that's allowed in its TOS.
Facebook has kill Isreali groups, kill Republican groups, kill police groups.
Cloudflare protecting over 40 ISIS accounts according to Anonymous.
Google youtube pushing violent TYT on its trending page and specifically demonizing FCC approved content like Louder with Crowder and restricting PragerU (and many other non-left groups)
Silicon Valley pretending one groups offensive speech is acceptable and other isn't is hypocritical. This is political.
Same goes with not calling out ALT-LEFT violence. This is an ideology war, left vs right. Silicon Valley is just picking its side.
How brave of you to label an entire platform as Nazis. Really adds weight to your babble about moral and ethical obligations
These kids have spent too much time in their bedrooms fake shooting people to understand the moral and ethical obligation to destroy Nazism and all of its sympathizers.
I will defend to the death your right to free speech, unless I don't like you. Then I'll shoot you my own damn self and say good riddance to bad ideas.
"In order to be on the Play Store, social networking apps need to demonstrate a sufficient level of Hypocrisy, including for content that tolerates violence from the Left and condemns it on the Right while condemning groups of people who Google doesn't like...such as Republicans and Conservative."
Fixed.
You're a retard for implying that allowing someone else free speech has become illegal.
With the current ideological environment amongst the 15-30yo demographic and people like you, I'm sure it won't be long before the first amendment is amended.
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Wait, I'm confused. Banning Nazi's is bad??
Yes, banning Nazis is bad. Everyone should have the right to express themselves. The First Amendment does not say "Congress shall make no law respecting abridging the freedom of speech unless you are a Nazi". In addition to the principle of freedom of expression, there is also the practical argument: Sunlight is a good disinfectant. It is better for extremism to be discussed and confronted openly rather than festering in the shadows.
"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." --H. L. Mencken
If you oppose what the Nazis stand for, then you should support their right to speak.
It became bad when I started to classify everyone who does not adhere to my ideology and my moral values as a Nazi. Oh, and since I'm pretty sure you will not adhere to my ideology and my moral values, it means you are a Nazi, and therefore you should not be allowed to speak. We live in a very sad world when people like you can express their opinions.
Seriously, when did people forget that we must allow everyone to speak, including Marxists and Nazis, in order to explain to them why they are wrong (or to realize why we are wrong)? When did people forget that if people can't speak, their only solution will be to use violence?
Sure it can. They aren't preventing people from using the app on their phones, they just aren't carrying it in their store.
It's like saying Barnes and Noble is against free speech because they don't stock every book in print.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Corporations own everything now. I'm not against business. Hell. I'm a republican, but if we let them silence speech, no matter how vile when they control the public square, we will by default lose the right to free speech. Popular speech doesn't need protection, it's unpopular speech that needs protecting. Were it not for the first amendment the entire civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s wouldn't have happened.
An advertiser friendly world is a totalitarian hell hole whereeverything has to work as a billboard for skittles and Budweiser. Fuck that.
Here, read that again and please tell me how a simple response of 'first amendment only applies to government' isn't disingenuous.
AC is correct to assert that free speech is threatened when what now serves as the defacto public commons is completely dominated by monopolistic corporations who are now using that position to suppress any speech they dislike, and deplatform anyone they disagree with. Having a internet presence without the cooperation and approval of corporate interests really isn't an option. Actual free speech platforms being suppressed, delisted from search, removed from app stores, and genuinely made unavailable from the public should be cause for anti-trust action.
"Because Nazis" is the excuse for censorship that's used today, "Because fuck you" is the reason of tomorrow.
Speech that everybody agrees with doesn't need defending. The test of whether we have free speech or not is the tolerance of speech you don't agree with. The answer to hate speech has always been more free speech. Drown them out.
Whether it's "accurate and true" makes no difference. Who determines if it is or not? You? Me? The government? Exactly who? See, there's the flaw in your idea.
You must be one of those 15 - 30 year old know-it-alls who has no real education. Read any books lately?
Just remember that the laws you create to oppress your enemies today will be used against you tomorrow.
Just ask this guy.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
And by banning certain sites, Google abandons any claim to be a common carrier and can now be held liable for ANY infringing sites.
OK, rather burn a mod point and not be able to comment, I'll comment. You are falling into the classic trap of "purity". By your measure, child porn - to use another extreme example - would be allowed. Likewise, ISIS beheading and recruiting videos... In the same way that I have the freedom to travel within America (leaving aside the 100-mile Customs area) at will, there are limits on routes, maximum speeds, seat-belt requirements, etc. to which I must adhere. According to your logic, any of those limits are "OH NO! My FREEDOM is GONE!!". Very stupid, mate.
You are the moral successor of the killers of Socrates.
Several. The good one is Clover, which was punted from the play store for refusing to block /pol/, the politically incorrect (read: alt right and leftist tired of the alt-left) board. So people use the alternate f-droid "store" to install it. Still annoying.
Google. Google is lying. You can find child trafficking and child pornography rings on Candid and Twitter -- especially if you understand Arabic.
This was a political decision based on the Mass Hysteria that people are falling under this week.
"Hate speech," which is Google's complaint here, doesn't exist. It has no definition and what little definition it has shifts to mean "things I personally find offensive and that target a group I feel should not be targeted."
There is no legal definition of such and it is protected by the first amendment -- and any laws against "hate speech" would be struck down under those grounds.
The only legal liability involved is Google screwing up and surrendering their Common Carrier status due to discriminating against Youtube channels and Google Play apps. They are now liable for every single youtube video and app on the google play store -- and anything anyone does with them. If someone gets an app on Google Play that breaks Wifi passwords, Google is now liable for damage, because they gave up their Common Carrier status.
Wrong. There is no "hate speech" provision in the 1st amendment. To suggest otherwise shows:
1. A complete lack of understanding of American ideals.
2. A disgusting, horrifying level of illiberal authoritarianism, which makes me think you're some kind of arch Neo-Con on par with George Bush Jr or Hillary Clinton.
Like it or not, the most vile among us have the right to speak and assemble in public. This does not include having some hipster douchebags cosplaying as ISIS attacking them.
Now, you can make some argument about Google, Cloudfire, etc being private companies, but we're approaching the point where a handful of companies' decisions can have massive effects on citizen's free speech, which brings forth the idea that maybe, just maybe, the Government isn't allowed outsource censorship and oppression to corporations to do it for them -- in other words, that the 1st amendment prevents Google et all from discriminating like this.
It happened a couple of days ago, if you've been watching the idiotic alt-right (nazi sympathizers) on YouTube. It started when trump threw them their next meme to bounce off their echo chamber walls: "alt-left".
Yes, and now opposing right wing extremists, nazis, and white supremacists is considered to be an "alternate" viewpoint.
Meet Eric Clanton, an Antifa -- Alt Left -- icon.
He's a professor at Berkeley. He teaches ETHICS.
He tried to murder 7 people with a Bike lock during the Berkley riots. Here's a video of one of his attacks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Note that there are two female Alt-Left domestic terrorists that provide a distraction and point his victim out to Eric. Note that the other ISIS cosplaying losers protect Eric by opening a hole in the wall so he can attack and then preventing anyone from restraining Eric for the police.
Eric's reasoning? The students wanted to see a Gay Jewish Immigrant speak about the dangers of Islam and a Conservative woman talk about how great America is, and he felt that they shouldn't be allowed to do that.
Fortunately, thanks to 4chan tracking him down, he's looking at a long, LONG time in jail: http://www.berkeleyside.com/20...
There's an Alt Left, they're way worse than the Alt Right, and the more the "enlightened left" pretends they don't exist the more people like Clanton out there feel emboldened to try to murder people in the streets.
Being a communist is every bit as bad as being a neo-nazi.
Worse, actually, given how many people Marxism has killed and how much suffering they have caused. Hitler has nothing on Marx, Stalin, or Lenin. At least Nazis don't try to indoctrinate kids and preach that "it wasn't real nazism."
The hammer and sickle should be considered every bit as offensive as the swastika, and for the same reason.
If I say "cats are less intelligent than humans", does that mean I hate cats? Of course not.
I hate corrupt politicians. I hate socialists. I hate communists. I hate fascists. I think I'm perfectly justified in "spewing hate" towards those "subsets of society".
Hate speech is legal in the US. Furthermore, there is no such thing as "society's view". The majority may decide something, but the majority does not get to curtail freedom of speech.
Oh, and I also hate you: I think you are a totalitarian prick.
The existence of those accounts isn't indicative of selective enforcement - Twitter's moderation operates at the content level, not the account level. So you can set up an account for a white supremacist organization but the moment you post a call for genocide, you'll get banned. Do the same on Gab, and nothing will happen, other than an overwhelming response of support from other users.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Why lie? What do you get from it? Gab specifically allows anything as long as it follows the DOST test. That means it allows for any permitted speech under US law and the drop point is "fighting words" are banned and actual child pornography(as defined under US law) is banned. It believes that if a person finds something offensive they should block it on their own.
The only thing you're showing is just how much you're against free speech though. What do you gain by letting a corporation be the gate keeper for your speech?
Om, nomnomnom...
Inaccurate and untrue speech is still protected by the First Amendment.
No, not in all cases. Yell fire in a crowded theatre or slander someone and you are not protected. Is this really news to you?
Uh, it's been known for *years* that the "fire in a crowded theater" thing is BS.
https://www.popehat.com/2012/0...
Google allows plenty of hate speech on their site. Just take a look over at Gazi "Black Hitler" Kodzo and his related videos. Hate speech is perfectly OK by Google and the left, as long as you target the right people with your hate.
Look at your nonsensical bigotry against Islam, for example. First you set up the straw man that someone is claiming that radical Islam doesn't exist, then you assert through sarcasm that all of Islam is inherently violent and therefore cannot be allowed to exist, against whole nations existing as proof of the opposite. Then you assert that a purely Islamic world would kill all LGBT people, cherry-picking by suggesting that any other Abrahamic faith wouldn't have the exact same inclinations for the exact same reasons at similar levels of radicalism.
I'm exposing your logical flaws. Have you changed your mind?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
In both cases the overwhelming majority of the claimed casualties were not killed by gubmint bullets, but by the results of economic policies.
No! Mao and Stalin's apologists certainly tried to claim that. The truth about the Holodomor got out though. Stripping the entire Ukraine of food at gunpoint to start millions is not economic policy, it's mass murder! You have noticed there is conflict between Russia and the Ukraine now, right? You seem like a Holodomor denier, don't you?
How about Mao's great leap forward? How many millions dead? When he invited public criticism and then exterminated any who spoke up? 50 million dead? What's your answer? everyone dies eventually Ah yes, compassion. And against hate speech. How... conveniently defined too.
Stalin's gulag prison death camps? The Gulag Archipelago slightly more convincing than hand waving you know.
Shrill hysteria like "Ideology X killed N people! Reeeeeee!" does nothing to advance our understanding of politics or economy.
You are a denier. I bet you're a special kind, that believes in the Nazi holocaust but not Mao's or any of Stalin's. 'Bolshevik labeled authoritarianism is good' does seem to be trendy.
That fight has already hit the supreme court. Certain things are illegal when it comes to free speech. Inciting violence is one of them. Free speech doesn't mean I have to listen. Free speech also doesn't mean free from consequences. The only way to effectively address speech we don't like is to allow it to exist in a society that allows open discord on the subject. As soon as you make it illegal you create the need to keep it in private which only strengthens it. If you aren't exposed to contradictions to your belief you cannot change your belief. Surround yourself with the same view, creates a stronger reality of that view.