The Far Right Has a New Digital Safe Space

That&#x27;s not what &quot;Safe Space&quot; means? There&#x27;s nothing stopping anybody from going on Gab and virulently disagreeing with everyone there or intentionally offending certain users.<p>Still, impressed with the NYT&#x27;s ability to push a narrative.

Relevant backstory: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.buzzfeed.com&#x2F;nitashatiku&#x2F;trump-supporting-startup-ceo-kicked-out-of-y-combinator" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.buzzfeed.com&#x2F;nitashatiku&#x2F;trump-supporting-startu...</a><p>The NYTimes article is surprisingly charitable, although perhaps ironically.

Gab appears to be employing unlimited bidirectional voting. This inevitably creates a shout-down chamber, so the network will likely not attract a diverse group of opinions and is nearly guaranteed to become the echo chamber everybody is expecting it to become.<p>I don&#x27;t find this to be the new competitor the market is really looking for.

Doesn&#x27;t one usually associated a &#x27;safe space&#x27; with the <i>introduction</i> of policies surrounding what can and cannot be said? This article seems to suggest that a &#x27;safe space&#x27; is also a place associated with looser constraints allowing people say whatever they like.

In a way, this might be a good thing -- it substantially weakens their ability to cry &quot;censorship&quot;. And provides a space where their drivel can be monitored and tracked: inevitably, we&#x27;ll see many people connected with the new administration turning up here -- and it will be interesting to see how they expose themselves.

A quarantine on this stuff is a nice thing for the rest of us in the short term. In the long term it could either be a bad thing because it helps the movement grow, or a good thing because without any opposition to troll within the platform it flames out.

Can we stop normalizing scum like Richard B. Spencer and the alt right? Many would consider me &quot;far right&quot;, I have nothing in common with that filth...<p>Also, nice to see the market filling the need for a censor-less social platform. Let them be hateful idiots over in the corner, it&#x27;s their right.

This is a absolutely dishonest headline.<p>Andrew Torba and his team created Gab as a response to Twitter when Jack and his team started harassing and outright censoring people who didn&#x27;t agree with far left ideology (and no, not just those who identify themselves as &quot;right&quot;). The most important design principle of Gab is &quot;freedom of speech&quot;, and it is completely neutral of who are making use of this principle; Andrew has stated <i>several times</i> that EVERYBODY IS WELCOME no matter where you are in the political spectrum.<p>Yes, a large part of the population on Gab can be described politically as either &quot;alt right&quot; or &quot;conservative&quot; because these people are outright scared that their online voices will be shut simply because of disagreement. But that doesn&#x27;t mean that the Gab population is 100% right wing, it also consists out of classical liberals and moderates who are sick and tired of the behavior and bullshit narrative of the far left, and do not agree with the way Twitter is handling freedom of expression, which by the way is a universal human right, on its platform.

Is this the same as the former YC company?

I have an account an Gab, with the same handle as my account here. It seems to be growing very quickly and offers keyword-based timeline filters that are far better than what Twitter offers.<p>I&#x27;ve said it before on HN, but I really think it&#x27;s a mistake to write off approximately half the country because you disagree with their political positions.