Andrew Torba / Gab (Gab.com / Gab.ai) / Dissenter (dissenter.com) - An incompetent captain sinking millions of other people's dollars.

[cecograph]

What service was he using that's as ubiquitous as VISA? There are hundreds, maybe thousands of payment processors out there.

How speedy is their integration process? A lot of payment processors are fairly 90s era tech, largely existing to serve merchants in meatspace, like your local corner shop. Even some of the big ones have an average integration time of several months, mostly because they're not doing anything other than acting as an intermediary between banks, which is an absolute nightmare of protocols that were set up before anyone had imagined the modern internet. An integration means going through a whole load of crap trying to get the merchant's bank to talk with the customer's banks.

Paypal is notorious for being able to do this significantly faster, but they're acting partly as a credit card in their own right.

 

[AnOminous]

Facebook is kind of a rogue thing in this convo and has always had a pretty solid monetization scheme (that they basically stole from Google and made less secure and more scummy) but I assume alot of its protection comes from the fact that it's the only social media platform that the geriatrics who run the government and lots of old guard companies can understand.

It also worked because it started with Zuckerberg, whose entire philosophy was literally, to quote him: "They trust me, the dumb fucks."

 

[Destro1986]

It also worked because it started with Zuckerberg, whose entire philosophy was literally, to quote him: "They trust me, the dumb fucks."

See, Google is just as greedy but they're much more subtle and (perhaps as a side effect, perhaps on purpose) less scummy and they keep all their cards.

Google harvests so much data about its users that it's insane, but they also don't give that data out. Because data is everything. What they DO sell is analytics based on that sea of data; they will sell companies all sorts of information about patterns, and markets, and where to put things to get engagement. But as far as I know they don't actually sell your data.

Facebook, being run by the Zucks, takes your shit, does the minimum to not get the everloving shit sued out of them, and then sells randos not only your information but the ability to harvest data themselves through Facebook's app on your phone.

It reminds me of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Edit: Which leaves Twitter, acting all dumb and innocent, with it's stupid bird logo, harvesting pattern information that will probably actually revolutionize our understanding of how people behave in aggregate in 200 years when we can actually analyze it properly.

 

[cecograph]

Can't say I'm a fan of tards and "skeptics" putting themselves infront of free speech causes and making the idea look exceptional but I'd rather there be some public place in the world where people can say whatever they want. The USA and the digital sphere is the only place where this happens and what these places have is worth defending.

Being a sperg on the internet should be every-bodies right, not just the privilege of a few skilled techs.

It's a fair point.

But I'm not looking to mega advertising corporations aiming to be monopolies to safeguard any rights, or be anything other than utter cunts. Fuck them all.

Nor do I think we need government regulation for this one. If we can solve this using open protocols with a few solid off-the-shelf open source implementations with decent UX, let's try that first. Better yet, let's get the government to help in the process, like the way they helped build the rest of the open internet that these tech giants all rely on. The French government, for starters, is putting their weight behind Matrix and Riot.

Then again, if it all goes to shit, that'll also be kinda funny.

 

[AnOminous]

Nor do I think we need government regulation for this one. If we can solve this using open protocols with a few solid off-the-shelf open source implementations with decent UX, let's try that first.

We need decentralized technologies that have immunity to this bullshit built in at the network layer. Or as low as the physical layer if fabrication costs come down a lot. Neither governments, corporations, nor even non-government organizations can be trusted.

 

[Destro1986]

We need decentralized technologies that have immunity to this bullshit built in at the network layer. Or as low as the physical layer if fabrication costs come down a lot. Neither governments, corporations, nor even non-government organizations can be trusted.

I think the issue there is the real world cost of providing the actual internet to people. It costs a lot of money to lay cable, to run satellites, to build giant server farms.

As long as that costs money, the people spending that money will demand some degree of control, be they governments, corporations, co-ops, whatever.

Companies won't invest in an internet that forces them to provide services to everyone without any ability to control it. And most normal people WANT some level of moderation and curation of easily accessible content.

While nobody can be trusted with the internet, the same could be said of a military, or an economy. We have to deal with the real world. Nobody can be trusted, so you have to go with who you distrust the least.

 

[Lysol]

Spoilered for the sake of readability.

Spoiler

Glad I'm not the only one who finds this situation hilarious.

How the fuck is drawings a form of speech, ya fuckin' sped? If anything it'd fall under "free expression".
I guess we can add "free speech" to the list of overused, misinterpreted, redefined buzzwords like "racism" and "Nazi"

Never said that, ya fuckin tard. My argument is that words and concepts are distinct and have a purpose. If you conflate free speech and free expression as the exact same thing you're fucking autistic. They serve the same purpose, yes, but they are not the exact same thing.

For purposes of legal protection, no. For purposes of accuracy, yes. For instance, if I decided to wipe my ass with a copy of the constitution that would not entail speaking whatsoever. If I decided to say "fuck the constitution" it would be both speech and expression. Speech is a form of expression, but not all forms of expression are speech.
If the first amendment only protected "Freedom of Speech" specifically you'd quickly find the government exploiting the letter of the law and capable of banning forms of expression which aren't speech.

As if free expression is not of equal importance.

You're splitting hairs. Free speech doesn't literally mean only spoken words. Go to Saudi Arabia and draw Muhammed fucking a goat to see how fast the distinction stops mattering.

He's not wrong, and I honestly don't get why people are negrating him unless they either don't understand what he's getting at or don't like the tone in which he posted this. It's very simple:

Speech is a form of expression. Freedom of speech would normally include both the spoken and written word much like libel and slander are for defamation. The reason that it's important to keep in mind that the concepts of freedom of expression and freedom of speech are not mutually inclusive is that expression also extends to art, which in itself extends to photography.

If you need someone to explain to you why people who are for free-speech absolutism ( say what you want without consequence as long as you're not disturbing the general public or on paid time) hate the conflation of freedom of expression and freedom of speech, then I'll gladly explain it further.

Spoiler

I have absolutely no sympathy for Torba, tbh. He invited this on himself by touting his platform as a "bastion" for free speech, and in the process, courting the types of people who want to say all the racial and religious epithets they want without retaliation. And even if Torba knew that something like this would have happened, he should have been damn well prepared ahead of time to reap the consequences.

Free speech, like many concepts in regards to government and civil discourse, sounds good in theory. However, if you truly want to stand up for free speech, you have to accept -not like or support, just accept- the fact that everyone has a right to say what they want: be it crazed lunatics who want to murder Jews, blacks who want to murder white people, troons who want to bash in the heads of cis people, and people who express their desires to fuck animals and/or diddle kids. I find all of those views abhorrent, but sometimes, being able to say those things and getting them off their chest is enough for most people. Now, whether or not they act out on those opinions/beliefs/sentiments... that’s another matter altogether.

I agree, but something lost in translation is the old adage "society is only three meals away from revolution". Even if Torba wasn't a complete and utter fuckup, his site wouldn't have attracted anyone but outcasts. The people who are on twitter, know twitter, and follow people on twitter, are going - Shock! Horror! - to stay on twitter. People are creatures of habit, and are also prone to the trappings of both familiarity and laziness. Nobody is going to move away from twitter who already uses it unless they literally can't anymore, and that includes every single conservaboomer screeching about free speech on the internet right now.

As a matter of fact, the innate human desire to take the path of least resistance is (in my opinion) exactly why we've got an entire cavalcade of idiots who just want to stay on twitter and facebook instead of directing their attention towards the real bastards in this - the payment processors and the financiers who work with/pressure them.

Spoiler

It's troubling to see how much speech is being restricted by monopolistic corporations that want to prevent unpopular views from being disseminated via anything that could be considered connected to them (KF has faced its own problems with this). Mostly because there's almost no other way to express such views in the current information infrastructure but to rely on certain large corporations. That said, this guy praying to Trump is hilarious. Maybe the problem with free speech advocates, like many libertarians, is that they tend to be a bit off. Most people are too worried about getting paid, laid, or flayed (if you're in the wrong part of the world) to be someone who spends their time worrying about the boundries of what is acceptable. So you get your Gary Johnsons.

To be fair to all parties involved, it's currently a complete shitshow and a balancing act taking place on a knife's edge. If you have opinions that are on the "unperson" list, you have nowhere else to go. If you are on the moderate right and openly express that you want everyone to have their say you are immediately either lumped in with the nutters or you have some asshole crawl outta the woodwork with a hyperbolic example of "free speech gone wrong!". If you're a centrist taking any position publicly in this climate - no matter how detached - it's going to get you flayed alive by either one side's extremists or both. If you're on the moderate left you're left trying to square the circle of you both disagreeing with what these people think but trying not to piss off the rabid man-eating wolverine of an outlier behind your back from targeting you next. If you're on the far left, well we already know what they're up to since they haven't shut the fuck up since 2015.

You can't really advocate for free speech without some joker or jackass trying to ply their version of what should be censored or trying to run you out of house and home. Especially considering that a good number of these tech companies are not only infested by but operated by the types who will drop someone for political reasons, from C.E.O. to a lowly janitor.

Spoiler

It's worth noting that Twitter isn't even used by the majority of internet users, for all the hubbub about it being such a critical platform.

That doesn't change the fact that the perception of twitter by many (if not most) governments and companies of the public gestalt is the feedback they get on these websites.

Spoiler

The Siegefags have always perplexed me. I got a hold of it and intend to read through it for knowledge's sake. I can understand seeing the system as flawed and irredeemable but rather than attempt to destroy the system why not just operate outside of it. They could just purchase up some land in the middle of nowhere and create their own communities where they can regulate who enters and who doesn't.

The main reason that's not actually an option (at least in the U.S.) is that you're not allowed to refuse residence based on ethnicity, nationality, religion, or handicap status. And if you start an entire neighborhood with a group of people that you know well (regardless of the reasons why) and it turns out to be prosperous, you're going to get hopefuls of all different stripes who want to move in.

Guess what happens when you tell them "no" and they notice that only white people get let in?

They sue. Be it spite, or stubbornness, or desperation, it always comes down to that. I'd be happy, personally, to let the delusional types who think that any single white person is immediately greater than any single member of another race start their own towns and maintain them as such, but our government simply doesn't let them. They've tried on more than one occasion and every time it fell to exactly what I described above (though the jackasses never seem to realize it was from the sense of community and familiarity they had with one another through common interests and such and not merely their race, but whatever).

Spoiler

Social media as a concept is a cancer on our society imo. But regardless of what biases they have towards certain ideologies, they still have to enforce some standards of behavior on their platforms in order to maintain a user base. People get banned from Twitter and Facebook for reasons that are often arbitrary and stupid, but often not.

What Torba has done is essentially invited people who were obvious pariahs on the internet (and likely irl) onto Gab, while creating an environment that not only re-enforced their delusions, but gave them added encouragement by making people feel as though they were patriotic Americans fighting against tyranny.

I will never understand this mindset that somehow all hatred and malice would be gone if only we could just drive these damn wrongthinkers out of the village!

It's never, ever worked. When Gab shuts down they'll just go somewhere else, or worse, have nobody at all to talk to. They'll spread across whatever parts of the internet they can find a place in and seethe and rile each other up in even greater concentrations of mislead hatred and contempt. They, nor their ideas are going anywhere unless people can grow the fuck up and stomach nasty words long enough to hash it out with these people. It's not impossible to de-radicalize these kinds of folks as long as they're not left with an ultimatum of "either you talk and think the way we do or you're fucking scum".

Spoiler

This whole de-platform thing to me comes to money in my opinon. Gab wishes to use services, they must pay enough where PR nightmare is worth it for providers. Problem is, Gab can't afford this. You want controversy...you must pay.

So next idea is to mandate government get involved to force companies to provide services to Gab. I personally think this is very slippery slope. I think US used to have something like "friendly doctrine" or something where if any political material was shown on TV or radio, opposing view must get equal time.

How would this work for payment processors and web hosting? Would then everyone must get hosting and access no matter what? Would it be up to a government agency to decide if one is allow access to services? I am not smart enough to understand legal basis for this. And could you image shit storm if under president Obama, this idea was suggested? Let's say the GOP passes legislation to support Gab. What is to prevent the Dems in power to use same legislation to abuse power?

I think easiest thing is for Gab to make enough money where they can afford services or they figure something else out. Demanding protection from the government seems dead on arrival.

Edit: I am idiot. I look it up. It is "Fairness Doctrine". This used to be requirement in US.

Requiring payment processors to not be able to drop payments/services to someone based on ideological reasons is not directly comparable to the Fairness Doctrine.

In one instance, it's people not being allowed to do with what their money as they wish with literally no cost to the service, in the case of the Fairness Doctrine or it's equivalent (forcing places to host) it's a matter of not only tacitly approving of the content but also having to reserve an otherwise more lucrative slot for a client you don't want to associate with.

Basically, it's "we're going to tell you what you can do with your money" vs. "the people are telling you what you can do with your investment".

 

[AnOminous]

I think the issue there is the real world cost of providing the actual internet to people. It costs a lot of money to lay cable, to run satellites, to build giant server farms.

As long as that costs money, the people spending that money will demand some degree of control, be they governments, corporations, co-ops, whatever.

Networking can be decentralized and there's no theoretical reason you can't have something that looks more or less like Twitter or Reddit or some other platform where it isn't just stored on one server or delivered by some dedicated CDN but where distribution is decentralized. People mostly haven't adopted technologies like these en masse, even though they've existed for a long time, e.g. things like Freenet.

Those run on top of the existing Internet, but more ambitiously, something like mesh networking could bypass the Internet itself.

The technology exists or can be made to exist. The problem is individuals would have to actually support it to some degree. In theory, this is little different than now because we're already financially supporting the scumbags who are fucking us over, but people like their "free" Internet shit that isn't really free and anything that requires an up front investment is going to face adoption issues.

 

[Marvin]

I'd emphasize too that those big social media titans also have near limitless money and power. They can run their own infrastructure instead of relying on paid hosts that will break their own ToS to kick you off specifically, they can pay lawyers to handle bad situations and clean up messes, and they're backed by huge companies that are arguably "too big to fall".

It doesn't take that much money to get contracts with server hosts.

If you're using a VPS and paying $10/month, then yeah, there's no contract and they'll kick out off for basically anything. But if you're paying $5k/month, you can afford to pay a little extra to get an actual contract. A term of the contract would specify what they're allowed to terminate you for. At those price (very reasonable prices, for a company with funding, like Gab), there pretty much aren't any differences between colo and just hiring a dedicated server.

Andrew Torba's just incompetent and didn't bother to secure those types of contracts.

Networking can be decentralized and there's no theoretical reason you can't have something that looks more or less like Twitter or Reddit or some other platform where it isn't just stored on one server or delivered by some dedicated CDN but where distribution is decentralized. People mostly haven't adopted technologies like these en masse, even though they've existed for a long time, e.g. things like Freenet.

Those run on top of the existing Internet, but more ambitiously, something like mesh networking could bypass the Internet itself.

The technology exists or can be made to exist. The problem is individuals would have to actually support it to some degree. In theory, this is little different than now because we're already financially supporting the scumbags who are fucking us over, but people like their "free" Internet shit that isn't really free and anything that requires an up front investment is going to face adoption issues.

Performance is dogshit for systems like those.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

We need decentralized technologies that have immunity to this bullshit built in at the network layer. Or as low as the physical layer if fabrication costs come down a lot. Neither governments, corporations, nor even non-government organizations can be trusted.

The trouble is that this decentralized technology also needs to be normie-friendly, or they'll never adopt it and all that will happen is the adopters ghettoizing themselves. That's one of the reasons Gab was doomed: basically the only thing you'll get banned from Twitter for is death threats, CP, and being right-wing, so if you're into anything else, you're probably fine, TOS be damned. This means that a small (but vocal and dedicated) minority gets ghettoized by Big Tech, with the predictable radicalization.

I have a question for an actual lawyer, though: would enforcing common law rules regarding contracts to TOSs do anything to stem this fuckery? I have a background in business, so I've only taken the requisite business law classes, but from the stuff I've read about it seems like tech companies should be constantly getting their shit wrecked by the courts for the stuff they pull, but meanwhile in reality... crickets.

 

[AnOminous]

I have a question for an actual lawyer, though: would enforcing common law rules regarding contracts to TOSs do anything to stem this fuckery?

Well, technically, ISPs and such still aren't considered common carriers, although the FCC purportedly tried to establish this in 2015 under the guise of enforcing net neutrality. If this can just be reversed on a whim, they aren't really common carriers in any real way.

If you really want ISPs to act like common carriers, though, it would be a reasonable start to give them such a status on the condition that they act like them. For instance, nobody can call up the phone company or the electric company and demand your phone and electric service be cut off because you're a "Nazi" for not liking a shitty Ghostbusters remake.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

If you really want ISPs to act like common carriers, though, it would be a reasonable start to give them such a status on the condition that they act like them. For instance, nobody can call up the phone company or the electric company and demand your phone and electric service be cut off because you're a "Nazi" for not liking a shitty Ghostbusters remake.

Thanks. So, yeah, common carrier status sounds like an actual solution to this BS.

 

[Lysol]

If you really want ISPs to act like common carriers, though, it would be a reasonable start to give them such a status on the condition that they act like them. For instance, nobody can call up the phone company or the electric company and demand your phone and electric service be cut off because you're a "Nazi" for not liking a shitty Ghostbusters remake.

Aren't banks under a similar situation, for the reason that they can't legally keep someone from giving you money or vice versa? I was under the impression that they were.

 

[Maggots on a Train v2]

It's late. Has Trump sent in the National Guard to seize GoDaddy yet?

 

[Done]

2 lolcows feeling smug enough to discuss their fellow cow without a shred of self-awareness:

 

[Jack Awful]

What I find interesting is that, on paper, both Youtube and Twitter are basically financial failures; particularly Youtube, who costs just an astronomical amount to run and didn't turn a profit for what? 12 years? And even then it was pretty small. Same with Twitter, though I THINK Twitter's costs should be lower (because can you imagine the bandwidth and storage Youtube requires?)

basically Youtube and Twitter have been treated like utilities by the tech investors; what's interesting is that it worked.

I would argue that Youtube and Twitter benefit less from "too big to fail" masters and more from their acceptance as basically the only mainstream outlet for hundreds of millions to billions of users that's protected them. Cause remember, companies GET "too big to fail" by not spending a hundred billion dollars hosting videos to make ten million dollars in profit. Any site or service without the size and market dominance of Twitter and Youtube would be cut by their corporate owners/board, no matter how big their corporate hosts are.

Facebook is kind of a rogue thing in this convo and has always had a pretty solid monetization scheme (that they basically stole from Google and made less secure and more scummy) but I assume alot of its protection comes from the fact that it's the only social media platform that the geriatrics who run the government and lots of old guard companies can understand.

YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, etc. make money off of selling your browsing habits to marketing companies to make it easier to sell products to you. Especially Amazon.
It's why they don't try to stop adblock despite easily being able to.

 

[Destro1986]

YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, etc. make money off of selling your browsing habits to marketing companies to make it easier to sell products to you. Especially Amazon.
It's why they don't try to stop adblock despite easily being able to.

It's not quite that simple. From what I can gather Alphabet companies (Google, Youtube, etc) don't directly sell your data. They sell analysis of the data, and aggregated forms of the data. They will also contract out to place your ads where they think best. But they maintain control of the raw data (because data = money = power). Like I said, it's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Anyway, I know HOW they make money, but that doesn't change the fact that Youtube and Twitter took ages to turn tiny profits. And "too big to fail" companies generally don't get into the business of backing very expensive projects that only turn a small profit over a long period of time. Also Youtube and Twitter DO still get a big chunk of their funding via advertisements. They don't care about adblock that much because their target audience is mobile anyway, and adblockers are far less prevalent and effective on mobile.

Like from Google/Alphabet's position, straight fiscally it would probably have been better to invest the 100bn or so they put into Youtube into regular stocks and they'd make more money. Which implies there are significant intangibles beyond pure money (data = power) to these platforms.

The gist of it boils down to though nobody can really compete with them because the business they are in isn't actually profitable.

Gab had 465k users per wikipedia, and I'll bet a fair # of those were idle/bots. In the realm of social media that's a pittance. C-tier youtube channels have that many subs. Ninja pulled more than that for a single stream.

Also, what % do you think got monetized?

"Gab does not use advertising. The site began offering a premium subscription service for Gab named "Gab Pro" in April 2017. The subscription allows users to have private chats for up to 25 people, which was later added for all users with two users maximum and Gab Pro with 50 maximum. Messages are deleted after 24 hours. Gab Pro subscribers can also view a topic breakdown for other users, make lists of users to sort their home feed, livestream on GabTV (Gab's video-sharing service), and more easily get their profile verified. Subscribers also get a "PRO" badge next to their posts. In July 2017 Gab also started an investment project which met its goal of $1.07 million on August 19, 2017."

So their only funding was a version of gab that seems tailor made to planning terrorist attacks? I mean basically you pay to add Snapchat and Instagram features onto Gab, plus a few things Twitter also does for free.

And this is what I mean, there's no real way for a social media platform to actually make money. You have to have tens of millions of users at least to stand a chance, and each user costs you more in hosting and bandwidth, so adding people doesn't even help that much.

 

[Richard Stabone]

YouTube is valued at over $100 billion on it's own. They paid like $2 billion for it.

The "Youtube doesn't make money" narrative is bunk. They are incredibly vague about how much it makes the company as a whole. It's not as simple as cost to run vs ads on the site. The data they collect from users is used throughout their entire advertising network and is incredibly valuable.

 

[Destro1986]

YouTube is valued at over $100 billion on it's own. They paid like $2 billion for it.

The "Youtube doesn't make money" narrative is bunk. They are incredibly vague about how much it makes the company as a whole. It's not as simple as cost to run vs ads on the site. The data they collect from users is used throughout their entire advertising network and is incredibly valuable.

Exactly my point. Their ability to use that data throughout their systems is more valuable than the meager profits Youtube generates via it's actual revenue sources.

Also "valuation" and "profit" are very different things. They paid 2bn for it, it's valued at 100bn, but that valuation includes alot more than revenue. Plus say it's gained 100bn in value, but they spent 200bn in that time? Then it's a loss. And while yes they are vague about it, if it was raking in tens of billions in pure profit they'd be crowing about it.

 

[14⚡⚡ weev ⚡⚡88]

so they can launch a hosting service

Why would I need a hosting service? I have never had any problems hosting. You seem to be absolutely confused on what the bottleneck is in this space. Hint: technical operations are an easy part to solve, until you get big enough to piss Jews off enough to get your domain names stolen. Hosting is only a problem for absolute total idiots like Torba, who put shit on Azure.

You could charge a lot but your clients could host the rest of their resources anywhere

Stuff in the "loses hosting services because of massive complaints" space is generally either extremely undercapitalized or highly criminal.