Censorship Has Won, The Banning Of Gab Proves It. One by one various companies cut off Gab even though according to a study 94.6% of their content would not violate the rules of any other social media platform. Yet because of negative press the site continually gets banned or removed.How can the solution to censorship be to create your own site if you can't even run that site due to the numerous other companies that provide infrastructure?How can you make your own platform if the media will smear you and lie about you?After getting censored and smeared they will come for your company and this is proof.
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The social media website Gab is once again under fire.
This time they've been banned by Stripe, PayPal, and their hosting provider, which means they're likely going to shut down until they can find a solution.
The companies did give specific reasons, but it likely has to do with what happened yesterday with this tragic event.
The perpetrator of the event in Pittsburgh was a user of Gab and posted bigoted and hateful things, even at one point saying, screw your optics, I'm going in as the last thing he said.
Because of this, Gab is accused of allowing people to be radicalized on their platform, and it's likely the reason they are under fire.
In the past, they were removed from the App Store on Google and iTunes, so it's been increasingly difficult for Gab to function.
Now here's the thing.
People often say, if you don't like the censorship and the policies of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, go make your own platform.
And that's exactly what Gab has done.
Yet they're still being banned and pressured into banning people.
So it might not be possible to actually create a platform that opposes censorship.
I'm reading all of these stories trying to understand exactly what happened, and I can say that Gab is absolutely being smeared and mischaracterized in the media.
So today, let's take a look at exactly what's going on with Gab, and let's talk about the censorship double standard and the terrifying future we're facing because censorship is only going to get worse.
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First, I want to highlight this story from Mashable, because it's very biased.
This is basically an opinion piece.
They say, Gab, a racist-friendly alt-Twitter, has been banned by PayPal and others.
PayPal has banned Gab while hosting company Joyent has reportedly given the site until Monday, October 29th to find a new home.
Stripe, another well-known online payment service, is also apparently in the process of severing its relationship with the site.
PayPal has been closely monitoring Gab and was in the process of canceling the site's account before the tragic events occurred, a PayPal rep wrote in an email.
The company is diligent in performing reviews and taking account actions.
When a site is allowing the perpetuation of hate, violence, or discriminatory intolerance, we take immediate and decisive action.
Word of Stripe's and Joint's actions against Gab come from the social network's own Twitter feed.
In the case of Stripe, there's an investigation underway to determine whether or not Gab actually prevents violation of Stripe's policies, though the social network's own tweet make it sound like a lost battle.
Yesterday, Gab tweeted, I wouldn't call it collusion.
spent all day working with law enforcement to ensure that justice is served. For this,
we have been no platform from Stripe, PayPal, and Joyent in a matter of hours.
This is direct collusion between big tech giants. Real Donald Trump act."
I wouldn't call it collusion. I think a lot of these companies are just scared of the PR backlash.
When it came to banning Alex Jones across the board, CNN's Oliver Darcy said it wasn't because he violated the
rules. They believe he did, but they think he got banned because they put pressure on
these companies to ban them.
And it's probably no different when you see the stories about Gab.
They claim that Gab is a racist-friendly haven, that they support these things.
But that's just not true, because Gab only has a little bit more hate speech than, say, Twitter does.
But when you're looking at hard numbers, it's actually substantially less.
If we're going by percentages, it's about two times.
A study was done among Gab's most popular users in 2018, and they found—this is from Wikipedia— The authors also performed an automated search using hatebase and found hate words in 5.4% of Gab posts, which they stated was 2.4 times higher than Twitter and less than half of 4chan's politically incorrect board.
So if we're talking about what the media is saying about Gabble, we can say that's pretty much not true.
I mean, if you're using Twitter as where you're gonna start, then yes, it has 2.4 times the amount of hate speech.
But when you consider that 94.6% of all posts on Gab are not hate speech, it sounds like it's a fine platform for the most part.
It's just a platform where you can say your opinions without fear of being banned.
There are a lot of people on Twitter who don't get banned for breaking the rules, and there are a lot of people on Twitter who do get banned when they actually don't break the rules.
It doesn't matter what your context is, these platforms are still going to ban you.
But let's take a look at what happened with that guy mailing those suspicious packages.
Because he was doing it for months and Twitter didn't actually ban him.
If this guy was able to get away with posting actual threats to politicians for months, even when people were reporting him, why isn't Twitter facing any real punishment?
Why aren't their services cutting them off?
From Wired, Cesar Sayoc used Twitter to threaten targets.
The account linked to the suspect would often repeat the phrase, so you like to make threats after tagging a Twitter user, then invite them to Florida to take an airboat ride and hint at the possibility that something bad could happen to them in the near future.
Most of these potentially threatening messages were written using the plural pronouns of we and our to describe future actions rather than the singular I or my.
The account linked to Sayoc would often refer to him as the unconquered Seminole tribe.
Wired highlights one post where you can see a photo of Joe Biden's house and his family and then a story about a potential crime.
Another post says, See you soon, Maxim,
and shows photos of Maxine Waters' home.
Yes, people were reporting this guy, and Twitter took no action.
It seems like when it comes to what's happening to Gab, all that really matters is the PR.
These companies don't want to be involved with a company who is smeared, even though Twitter has allowed these things to flourish.
In fact, Gab actually highlighted this.
In one post, they said, and this is a story from ABC that says, and you can tell by the image, some of these are actually pretty shocking.
But let's take a look at some of the highlights other people had about Twitter.
Nick Monroe said, according to the rules, PayPal has to cut ties with Twitter now.
And he highlights Louis Farrakhan.
He highlights several posts from Louis Farrakhan where he specifically targets Jews, insults them, and recently, he actually referred to them as termites.
Censorship is here, and there's likely very little we can do about it.
Gab was trying to create a platform where you wouldn't have to be worried about being banned.
And according to one study, 94.6% of all posts on Gab are not hate speech.
Yet, they are still being smeared, they are still having their services stripped for them.
So what's the alternative?
It seems like the only thing you can do is use Twitter, use Facebook, and use YouTube.
Meanwhile, elements of the far left are demanding censorship.
Glenn Greenwald called these people the one group that has the least ability to learn from their mistakes.
Because, who do you think's gonna get banned first when you give people this power?
We saw a bunch of accounts calling for police accountability, and some left-wing pages banned from Facebook recently.
One example is Reverb Press.
This is a site that cheered when Alex Jones was banned, and then they got banned.
This is exactly what happens.
And let me tell you this.
This video has been extremely, extremely difficult to make.
This may have been one of the most difficult videos I've ever made.
Because there are so many words that exist across the board in these stories that I know YouTube will scan for.
Yes, YouTube scans the audio of your videos, and they will restrict this video because of it.
I try to make sure I'm in compliance with the rules of YouTube, and Twitter, and Facebook, but sometimes it's impossible.
People will get banned for posting things out of context.
And here's the problem.
Gab is being banned from these platforms due to the actions of one person.
But we have something called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
According to the EFF, they say no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
According to Section 230, you can't hold someone responsible based on what their users say.
So these lawsuits against Twitter are failing.
Because Twitter says, look, we can't be responsible.
We're allowed to ban people.
We are immune from the rules.
Twitter actually argued, successfully, they don't have to even follow the Civil Rights Act.
They can ban people for any reason.
We shouldn't be allowing these platforms to have it both ways.
You're either a publisher or a platform.
Look, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, they're publishers.
They choose what appears on the front page.
That means if they publish defamation or incitement to violence, they're going to be responsible for it.
You can sue them.
However, Twitter is a platform.
Meaning, if people are just gonna post whatever they want, they can't be responsible.
The problem is, these sites are becoming publishers.
They are curating what is or is not allowed on their platform.
It's beyond just hate speech.
Twitter said they're gonna start banning dehumanizing language.
If Gab is going to be held responsible based on the posts of one person, then why isn't Twitter?
Should Gab be able to sue these companies and say, you can't remove me because I am protected under Section 230?
Unfortunately, I really doubt that's going to happen.
And that means we're all going to be stuck on these tech platforms, being restricted in what we can say, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Someone once asked me why I thought Twitter was biased against conservatives, and to an extent I believe it is.
You know, Jack Dorsey says he's left-leaning.
Facebook admitted to taking down conservative posts.
But they asked me why it's happening, and I said, well, plain and simple.
Do you think Sargon of Akkad is going to rally a group of liberalists with Molotov cocktails and crowbars down a Twitter HQ and vandalize property?
No, of course not.
There's no threat there.
They're just going to go on Twitter and complain about it.
But what about Antifa on the far left?
The people demanding that hate speech be censored.
The people who burn signs that say free speech.
Will they show up?
Absolutely.
Therein lies the problem.
There is no real weight behind Gab and these users to do anything about what's happening.
People are going to keep using Twitter and YouTube and these other platforms because it's the most viable option.
Look, I'm on YouTube.
You're watching YouTube right now.
Why?
Well, it really is the best chance I have.
They have a monopoly.
They strangled out the competition.
What am I supposed to do?
If we're facing a massive tech giant monopoly and Gab can't even stand up and create an alternative, Then perhaps we are looking at monopolies that need to be split up or regulated.
Something needs to happen.
Look, I'm a lefty, I'm center-left, so I'm not opposed to regulation.
A lot of people on the right have argued against regulation.
I think you're wrong.
I think we need to guarantee the right to free speech, and we should tell these platforms you can't ban people unless they're breaking the law.
Think about this.
The motive of the man yesterday in Pittsburgh is known because he was posting on Gab.
If he was on Twitter, he would have been banned and we wouldn't know.
And then you look at the guy mailing those packages.
He got away with it!
And no one cares.
Twitter's not in trouble.
Twitter had to apologize for it.
But where's the massive backlash against Twitter for something like this?
So I'll end by saying this.
Gab did nothing wrong.
Gab is not more so a haven for racists or the alt-right than any other platform.
It probably just has a lot of conservatives and anti-SJW types.
But according to that study I showed you, they have about 2.4 times the amount of hate words.
But that means 94.6% of Gab is not hate speech.
Why then should they be shut down?
It's absolutely ridiculous.
And what's the alternative?
If it wasn't for Gab, we wouldn't know the motto of this guy.
So, look, let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
I just want to say one more time, this was an extremely difficult video to make because I have to avoid using certain words, and much of this story revolves around certain topics that I can't talk about because YouTube will censor me, restrict my content, or demonetize me.
And that's the future we're walking towards, and it's only going to get worse.
So, comment below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast.
Stay tuned, new videos every day at 4 p.m.
I've got more videos coming up on my second channel, youtube.com slash TimCast at 6 p.m.
