Hey, you’re supposed to be a jingo on this forum, not think for yourself and be objective.
Here’s what Gab has to say about your freedom of speech....
The Justice Department asked Congress today to adopt a new law that would water down Section 230 of the CDA, a cornerstone for protecting free speech online. This is a horrible idea and will inevitably harm alternative technology startups like Gab in the long run while solidifying Big Tech's control over the flow of information online. This is precisely why both establishment Democrats and Republicans are pushing for this effort together. There is very little that the left and right agree on these days, yet they both seem to agree on destroying Section 230 in order to retain their control over the narrative online.
In a free country a corporation should be free to be biased. For example Apple censors music to comply with Chinese Communists. Twitter lets Pakistan tell it what users around the world, including Americans, can and can’t say. Gab is biased towards American law and freedom.
Section 230 says nothing about political neutrality, and for good reason. Who defines “neutrality” and better yet who enforces it? Any proposal to add a “neutrality” clause to Section 230 would be unconstitutional. It would require the government to police the speech of corporations and infringe on their first amendment rights.
Section 230 protects technology companies, including Gab, from being held liable for the speech others. It does NOT prevent them from exercising their own free speech rights, nor should it. The text of Section 230 is very clear: companies that act in good faith to remove content that they themselves find “objectionable” or that their users find “objectionable” whether or not that content is constitutionally protected, are shielded from being held liable for the speech of their users.
When Big Tech platforms “fact-check” posts or “editorialize” content Section 230 does not apply to that speech. That speech is them speaking, not a user. Section 230 does not prevent them from being held liable for their own speech.
Meaning if they defame someone using their speech legal action can be taken against them. If someone else defames a person on their platform, Section 230 protects the technology company from being held liable for the speech of that other person. This isn’t complicate if you read the text. Many of you may not like the way that Big Tech is exercising their free speech. I know I don’t. Which is why we started Gab back in 2016 as an alternative to Big Tech tyranny.
If you don’t like what Big Tech has to say, if you don’t like their “Community Guidelines,” and if you don’t like their moderation choices the solution is to get on Gab.com and other alternative technology platforms that support and share your values. Period.
Gab is thriving because we don’t patrol legal speech which is protected by American speech laws, particularly the first amendment and rulings on it. Gab is a threat because we violate the unspoken rule, shared by all big tech companies, media elites, and members of Congress, that every user of the Internet must be subject to aggressive content moderation, which in our experience, users hate.
From our standpoint, the mobile app ecosystems are the biggest choke point, particularly with Apple which does not permit iPhone users to direct-download third party applications to their phones. Apple and Google have an unquestionable duopoly on mobile app distribution with 98% marketshare. This where the DOJ's focus should be.
We believe the big tech companies have sufficiently close connections between them that they can and do collude to remove competitors. Gab is the perfect example of this abuse of market power in action, being banned by both Apple and Google app stores for refusing to censor “offensive” speech. Of course anyone who has ever visited Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit knows that there is plenty of “offensive” speech on those websites, yet they are allowed to remain on both app stores due to their close partnerships with Apple and Google.
Apple should lose its stranglehold over what apps users can download on iPhones, Google should be broken up, and the individual corporate officers responsible for these anticompetitive practices should be individually punished.
Google is a vast repository of private information and we believe that their App Store dominance is only one small part of their anticompetitive activity across the wider economy – which includes dominance over SEO, advertising and the flow of dollars to online publishers, as evidenced by a recent $1.7 billion antitrust fine levied against Google by European regulators.
We believe that an antitrust investigation of these companies will reveal all manner of anticompetitive conduct in areas as diverse as search ranking, advertising, mobile app distribution, browser bundling, and even browser performance.
If the Republicans, President Trump, and the DOJ want to stop Big Tech bias, watering down Section 230 of the CDA is not the answer. Taking antitrust action against the anticompetitive and monopolistic behavior of Silicon Valley while joining and supporting alternative technology platforms like Gab.com and others is.
Hey, you’re supposed to be a jingo on this forum, not think for yourself and be objective.
Here’s what Gab has to say about your freedom of speech....
The Justice Department asked Congress today to adopt a new law that would water down Section 230 of the CDA, a cornerstone for protecting free speech online. This is a horrible idea and will inevitably harm alternative technology startups like Gab in the long run while solidifying Big Tech's control over the flow of information online. This is precisely why both establishment Democrats and Republicans are pushing for this effort together. There is very little that the left and right agree on these days, yet they both seem to agree on destroying Section 230 in order to retain their control over the narrative online.
In a free country a corporation should be free to be biased. For example Apple censors music to comply with Chinese Communists. Twitter lets Pakistan tell it what users around the world, including Americans, can and can’t say. Gab is biased towards American law and freedom.
Section 230 says nothing about political neutrality, and for good reason. Who defines “neutrality” and better yet who enforces it? Any proposal to add a “neutrality” clause to Section 230 would be unconstitutional. It would require the government to police the speech of corporations and infringe on their first amendment rights.
Section 230 protects technology companies, including Gab, from being held liable for the speech others. It does NOT prevent them from exercising their own free speech rights, nor should it. The text of Section 230 is very clear: companies that act in good faith to remove content that they themselves find “objectionable” or that their users find “objectionable” whether or not that content is constitutionally protected, are shielded from being held liable for the speech of their users.
When Big Tech platforms “fact-check” posts or “editorialize” content Section 230 does not apply to that speech. That speech is them speaking, not a user. Section 230 does not prevent them from being held liable for their own speech.
Meaning if they defame someone using their speech legal action can be taken against them. If someone else defames a person on their platform, Section 230 protects the technology company from being held liable for the speech of that other person. This isn’t complicate if you read the text. Many of you may not like the way that Big Tech is exercising their free speech. I know I don’t. Which is why we started Gab back in 2016 as an alternative to Big Tech tyranny.
If you don’t like what Big Tech has to say, if you don’t like their “Community Guidelines,” and if you don’t like their moderation choices the solution is to get on Gab.com and other alternative technology platforms that support and share your values. Period.
Gab is thriving because we don’t patrol legal speech which is protected by American speech laws, particularly the first amendment and rulings on it. Gab is a threat because we violate the unspoken rule, shared by all big tech companies, media elites, and members of Congress, that every user of the Internet must be subject to aggressive content moderation, which in our experience, users hate.
From our standpoint, the mobile app ecosystems are the biggest choke point, particularly with Apple which does not permit iPhone users to direct-download third party applications to their phones. Apple and Google have an unquestionable duopoly on mobile app distribution with 98% marketshare. This where the DOJ's focus should be.
We believe the big tech companies have sufficiently close connections between them that they can and do collude to remove competitors. Gab is the perfect example of this abuse of market power in action, being banned by both Apple and Google app stores for refusing to censor “offensive” speech. Of course anyone who has ever visited Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit knows that there is plenty of “offensive” speech on those websites, yet they are allowed to remain on both app stores due to their close partnerships with Apple and Google.
Apple should lose its stranglehold over what apps users can download on iPhones, Google should be broken up, and the individual corporate officers responsible for these anticompetitive practices should be individually punished.
Google is a vast repository of private information and we believe that their App Store dominance is only one small part of their anticompetitive activity across the wider economy – which includes dominance over SEO, advertising and the flow of dollars to online publishers, as evidenced by a recent $1.7 billion antitrust fine levied against Google by European regulators.
We believe that an antitrust investigation of these companies will reveal all manner of anticompetitive conduct in areas as diverse as search ranking, advertising, mobile app distribution, browser bundling, and even browser performance.
If the Republicans, President Trump, and the DOJ want to stop Big Tech bias, watering down Section 230 of the CDA is not the answer. Taking antitrust action against the anticompetitive and monopolistic behavior of Silicon Valley while joining and supporting alternative technology platforms like Gab.com and others is.
Andrew Torba CEO, Gab.com September 23rd, 2020