Gab Wants To Add a Comments Section To Everything On the Internet (cnet.com)

Okian Warrior writes: Free speech social network Gab has launched a new comments platform, Dissenter, which allows users to make comments on every single website on the Internet without fear of censorship or banning. The Dissenter platform, which integrates with Gab as either a website or a browser extension, allows users to comment on any web page in the world, with the ability to upvote, downvote, and reply to other comments.

"A free, open-source utility that allows people to dissent from orthodoxy and express what they are really thinking, without fear of reprisal, is essential in order to wrest control of the Internet and public discourse from Silicon Valley tech giants," said Gab founder Andrew Torba. "Gab.com and dissenter.com lead the way in keeping the Internet free. All people are welcome to use our products to express themselves freely." One example of recent comment censorship was review website Rotten Tomatoes' removal of comments for unreleased movies this week, which the review website claimed was due to "trolling."

Comments

First post

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless everyone is commenting using Gab or Dissenter ...

Good potential

[onyxruby]

The interesting thing will be to compare the comments left via the extension and those left directly on the website. It could be a good way of exposing just how prevalent censorship has become in the modern town square.

Re:Good potential

[aitikin]

It could be a good way of exposing just how prevalent censorship has become in the modern town square.

I don't think it would. As, based on my understanding of the tool, one would have to be using "Dissenter" in order to view the comments on it, while anyone can view the comments directly on the website, many people will never see the "Dissenter" comments.

I foresee it being more of a situation where one side will primarily post publicly and then the other side would post on "Dissenter" and it turns into a twisted echo chamber...kind of like Facebook.

Re:Good potential

[Anonymous Coward]

Gab is basically a haven for the extreme right wing who have been cut off from traditional platforms like Twitter. The comments on anything mainstream (even main stream conservative like Fox News) will be foaming at the mouth insanity which won't tell you anything aside from how the people who want to bring back the Holocaust need to start with themselves.

Re:Good potential

[squiggleslash]

This is unlikely. What it's more likely to do is mean that the comments on the Gab version of the forum will reflect the clientelle of Gab.

Imagine, for the sake of argument, this wasn't Gab's project, but Slashdot's. All of a sudden you'd get comments comparing things to systemd, complaints about the MAFIAAAA with relation to copyrights, and so on. Does this mean that the New York Times is censoring comments about copyright and has some hard-on for systemd?

No, it doesn't.

Now look at the type of people who currently use Gab. Are they representative of the nation as a whole? Do you think you'll be able to tell what kind of content gets censored from, say, Breitbart or the Wall Street Journal by comparing the comments sections to Gab's?

Re:Good potential

[Austerity Empowers]

Possibly true, but not all things are political. I know of a particular situation on an old game (EverQuest) where the company is known for blatant, over the top censorship and sock-puppeting. An alternative, well known forum like this would be welcome. Just last week they did a mass ban and lockdown on anyone who disagreed with their particular "rebranding" of a long-awaited, but ultimately bizarrely out of touch pair of servers. After spending two weeks grappling with all the rants and negative feedback, they just started locking things down and banning, while issuing a very slight but inconsequential modification (and changing their words).

It is quite welcome to have contrasting points of view as up front as possible, quite often companies take a giant shit on something you are paying good money for, and try to silence all opposition. Sure, it undoubtedly will involve a lot of racism, trolling, off-topic posts and namecalling, so some form of meta moderation will be needed to squelch people who just cannot control themselves.

Gab, the reichtard supremacist infowars cult site?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah we sure need to pay attention to them trying to put unfiltered comments on everything on the internet, what a great fucking {SLUR} {SLUR} {THREAT OF VIOLENCE} the fucking {SLUR} {CONSPIRACY THEORY} {SLUR}'s will have then!

You {SLUR} {SLUR} {EXPLITIVE} eater.

Re:Wrest control from the tech giants

[magarity]

and put it in the hands of the trolls. Great idea! I can't wait to see the result...

No need to wait. Browse this site at -1 and you'll get the idea pretty quick.

They need to step up their naming game!

[ToTheStars]

Come on, using an actual word? Real tech start-ups make creative (and trademarkable) misspellings by dropping vowels and stuff...I would take them much more seriously if they called it "Dissentr".

Re:The only way this works is if people trust Gab.

[PopeRatzo]

Gab has proven not to censor things so far and taken a lot of heat for it.

Gab has its own speech rules, and they have banned users over certain speech. For example, no doxxing, child porn, revenge porn, credible threats, spam, or selling drugs or weapons.

So see, there are always limits. There is no freedom that exists without limits and/or consequences. We can discuss where to draw the line, but there is always a line. If someone tells you that there is such a thing as an "absolute freedom", they're full of shit.