Gab Launches Dissenter: Comment on Any Internet Page | Hacker News Reader

Gab Launches Dissenter: Comment on Any Internet Page

google.com

What's old is new again. NCSA Mosaic's Group Annotations:

http://www.softlab.ntua.gr/facilities/documentation/www/Mosa...

The official page for the extension has examples of the types of comments made using this tool: https://dissenter.com/

From Andrew Torba (CEO of Gab):

> Being that I'm barred from commenting on Hacker News, I'm going to comment using Dissenter. Lol @ the Silicon Valley dweebs already screaming "reeeee natttziii" on this post.

That's funny since Torba blocked me for posting information from Gab's own financial filings.

So... it’s a mobile echo-chamber with delusions of trolling a web that isn’t even aware it’s being trolled, because they won’t sign up to see the trolling? That’s so... so weird, even by Gab standards.

The Google Toolbar project had a feature called "sidewiki" that did the same thing. https://searchengineland.com/google-sidewiki-allows-anyone-t...

It got dropped in 2011, sayeth Wikipedia; criticism included that it pulled control of comments away from a site publisher and gave that content (and data) to Google.

If it was dropped in 2011, I suspect the criticism also included the fact that every site in the world starting having their own comments section, rendering the thing kind of pointless.

...which a large number of them subsequently dropped for a multitude of reasons, varying from the deluge of spammy comments to the desire to keep unwanted opinions off the site. A universal non-censored and politically neutral comment section would actually be a good thing if only it could be kept from turning into a shit-fest. How the latter can be achieved without ending up with censorship in one way or another is a question which thus far has not been answered anywhere on the 'net.

I'd posit the extreme likelihood that "uncensored" and "not a shit-fest", as time approaches infinity, are mutually exclusive.

"Shit flows downhill," as it were. If some sites are kicking people off who (however one chooses to measure the concept) "diminish the tone" of the site, and some sites are not, it stands to reason the sites that do not will end up collecting the sort of comments that "diminish the tone" over time.

Yes, that is an unfortunate side-effect of opening up to each and everyone no matter their tastes. Not all is lost though, if they manage to implement a functioning moderation system which allows individual users to limit their exposure to 'shit' they might just pull it off. It should be possible for users to choose a level of exposure, something ranging from 'cesspit' to 'spring water' and everything in between. The default should be just above 'cesspit' so that the most odious comments are 'greyed-out' by default but can easily be seen by those who want to. This should make the system less sensitive to the various forms of group think which moderation systems often stimulate. I had a look around and saw it was possible to 'Block' and 'Report' comments or commenters, this is a start but it probably needs to be fleshed out for the site to have appeal to a larger public.

Direct URL to this story is https://www.cnet.com/news/gab-wants-to-add-a-comment-section... .

The use of the google.com domain in the post can be somewhat misleading...

This has been done quite a few times before. Google Sidewiki, Genius Annotations, Hypothesis, etc.

Will this one catch on? Not sure, but I did hear an interesting argument that context may be the difference between success and failure for something like this. Those other projects didn't launch in an era where censorship was being pushed for on social media platforms, and focused on annotating as compared to 'free speech commenting' or what not.

Could be interesting to see if Gab's angle and audience may help this more by marketing it to a passionate, dedicated audience rather than the general public, and by giving it a message/mission statement beyond 'hey you can say random things with an extension now'.

How is this different from Histori.us or any other implementation of the WCS? The title seems calculated to be confrontational but then it is Gab (which probably also means this won't amount to much).

Not only there are multiple plugins that do this now, this is something that was explored by Google itself back in 2009 with Google Sidewiki[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sidewiki

But how many of those solutions work as well as Dissenter? Do any of them hold a strong position on free speech?

Edit: I was genuinely asking because I had not heard of similar solutions prior to today. But go ahead and keep downvoting me. That'll teach me to engage in honest conversation.

I think it's reasonable for a person to have the opinion that Gab's opining on free speech is dishonest, though you, personally, may be positing the opposite in total honesty.

Does Gab hold a strong position on free speech, or freedom for a particular form of speech?

Those aren't the same thing, after all. The echo chambers of self-described dissenters often seem little different than those they claim to dissent against.

You both lost me. Gab's position on free speech is pretty simple. If it's legal in the US (where Gab is located), then it won't be censored. If people don't like what you say, they may mute you as individuals, but no one will limit or ban you from posting.

I’ve not heard of anyone banned from the platform for legal speech of any kind.

It’s sad that it’s associated with a political faction, though Torba’s statements make it clear why. Gab actually has (or had, it’s been over a year since I logged on to it) far superior stream filtering tools to Twitter.

https://hypothes.is also does this and is non-profit and open source.

Here's the Dissenter comment page for this comment thread: https://dissenter.com/discussion/begin?url=https://news.ycom...

Pretty funny that this got flagged and removed. Proving the point we need tools like this.

Didn't the devs behind genius.com have something like this too?

I believe genius approached it from the angle of "annotating the web" versus "commenting the web"

Anyone remember why the lucky stiff’s thing that did exactly that? I forgot the name but it was pretty quirky in its implementation.

//edit: might have been hoodwinkd

MouseHole

Edit: https://viewsourcecode.org/why/redhanded/inspect/hereIsMouse...

This is an excellent idea. All of those Gab types can go and shout at each other over there, and the rest of the world can ignore them. Everybody wins.

Why does the link point to a Google redirect to CNET? It this on purpose for attribution purposes?

I'm guessing someone copied the link from Google results.

Yeah, most likely that. From my experience, Google loves to profit off these oversights.

Someone right-clicked a link from a Google search results page.

Oops. That's what I get for not using DuckDuckGo for this. Also I found it interesting that the CNET was the best non-Breitbart source for this announcement....I found it interesting that no other tech site seemed to even mention it yet.

Is it really even worth mentioning? It's a literal plea for attention from a group of white guys shouting at clouds about how the unfair world is oppressing them. The technology has been done before and better.

Lol. Andrew Torba is banned from Hacker News so he's commenting on here now with Dissenter. Classic.

I had no idea Hacker News was so anti-gab. I guess we know which side of the free speech argument won.

When did freedom of speech turn into freedom to hate and be rude?

The founder on gab has been on here calling other commenters "cucks" and "gullible morons". And telling a mod "Cry about it" when it was objected. Free speech is about ideas, not being a dick.

That has always been freedom of speech.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/a-...

> Free speech is about ideas, not being a dick.

You want to personally try to have civilized discussions where you resolve thorny issues that people are passionate about, and may hold utterly objectionable views about. Any given person should do that even if only from self-interest; why waste your life trolling?

The entire Gab application promotes an intellectual sewer, and that's because its business model (same as Twitter's) rewards bad behavior.

But "free speech" in the context of a protection is generally about needing to protect the speech of people who aren't polite, who have objectionable views, etc. And that's because they are still human beings and, absent material harm, have an inalienable right to self-expression.

I'm not that worried about protecting the rights of people to abridge the rights of others, since they're demanding a double standard. Specifically I mean people who say groups of people should suffer a loss of rights due to some perceived inherent defect as opposed to behavior.

What rights have been lost or abridged here? We're in a thread about a site that Gab launched in order to express itself, and they seem to be expressing themselves freely.

And people object to their behavior, specifically their political ideology. I don't think anyone has mentioned "inherent defects," whatever those would be.

Read it in context, it's a reply to the last argument int he previous comment which is a general one.

Actually, that's exactly what freedom is speech is supposed to protect.

To play devil's advocate for both sides. I think there is a freedom of speech problem online. I think the idea of an the internet being an open forum for discussion of ideas (even controversial) is a major benefit.

But there is a problem with free speech absolutist sites like 4chan and Gab in that they attract all of the bad actors that are banned from traditional media for their fringe beliefs.

I'm really interested in finding a solution to this. To make a free speech platform that attracts conventional users but allows for fringe discussion as well. The only thing I can really think of is for established platforms like youtube and twitter to do away with any rules limiting speech (with exceptions for material that is illegal). They already have a base of conventional users that wouldn't leave. I don't think this will happen though.

fuck yea!

Remember Pushnote[0], wasn't that basically the same thing? It's definitely an interesting concept and there's a market there but not when it's a 'Nazi' site backing it.

[0]https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/14/fry_pushnote_bye/

“Ad hominem is a notoriously weak logical argument. And is usually used to distract the focus of a discussion - to move it from an indefensible point and to attack the opponent."

~ Lord Aquitainus Attis

It is entirely appropriate to attack literal self-claimed Nazis.

Libel much?

It's not an ad hominem to note past history of a group that will be moderating a public forum when they have a demonstrable poor track record of moderating public fora.

Unless something changes relative to the user ecosystem Gab has attracted in the past, I predict I'll be blackholing their domains on every machine I personally administer because nobody in my family needs to be exposed to that nonsense.

Nobody made a "logical argument", it's a fact or opinion.

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