Of late, there has been a growing realization that our internet overlords are controlling the public square. In 2016, Facebook faced some consternation when the social media giant's curation of news in the sidebar consistently slighted conservative news stories. Twitter took to banning some who defied the politically correct weltenanschauung that our cyber elites favor in their posts. Milo Yiannopoulos was permanently banned from Twitter for posting alt-right opinions while similar sort of liberal content continued unabated. It is not uncommon for conservative sites to experience shadow-blocking, which covertly thwarts wider dissemination of posts through censoring algorithms. Platforms can summarily block access based on anonymous, spurious complaints, and due to the Star Chamber handling of such charges, it is almost impossible to protest much less redress any alleged issues.
To counter efforts of cyber-censorship, Andrew Torba et ali. created GAB during the summer of 2016. As a social media platform, GAB exhorted users to #SpeakFreely and vowed not to censor posts unless it advocated violence or child pornography which was against laws.
As a start up, GAB not only faced typical challenges of funding and creating a market, but faced difficulties from a politically correct driven cyber community. GAB encountered tremendous difficulties from Apple to have a i-phone mobile app approved because of the Speak Freely philosophy. Even after GAB successfully developed and started distributing an Android mobile app, there are concerns that the GAB appl will be removed from the Play Store because users might post objectionable contention on GAB's platform.
Alas, it is not only technology giants who are exerting their power as internet overlords. The latest controversy involves a fat meme posted from a neo nazi (who has been banned from other sites and platforms). Torba politely responded to the post that it was a violation of the Terms of Service and asked that it be taken down. This uncharacteristic action roiled users who wrapped themselves around the mantra of #SpeakFreely.
Torba later clarified that Asia Registry, demanded that the post be banned or else GAB's registry would be revoked. The GAB leadership is currently scrambling to address the issue.
It is ironic that a fat joke would be used as the linchpin to destroy GAB, however that is the cause celebre which is being exploited by small time internet player Asia Registry, but they have the power. Yet is mirrors the other tech giants efforts to obstruct alternatives to their virtual monopolies by using politically correct Trojan Horses.
In an age in which alleged micro-agressions, such as a Hobby Lobby customer is triggered by the "racist" notion of using cotton flowers in a vase, that the left countenances bilious blurtations when it tracks the progressive agenda of the moment. Such in loco parentis progressive sensibilities prompted a Zerohedge pundit to wonder if Internet behemoths are acting as colonial powers.
UPDATE: September 19, 2017
GAB was successful in finding other registrar for the domain which would not play games with them.
No comments:
Post a Comment