Squabbles, another recent reddit alternative, seems to be taking the doomed "free speech" path
Squabbles, another recent reddit alternative, seems to be taking the doomed "free speech" path
277 comments
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people are on the proprietary and centralized platform
the proprietary and centralized platform does a bad thing
people are moving to another proprietary and centralized platform
another proprietary and centralized platform does a bad thing
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I dont think most people care about whether something is centralized or not. I definitely dont. I am on Lemmy because it is afaik the biggest alternative to reddit with the most content. If there was a centralized version with more and better content I would go there
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Most of them seem to be moving to discuit, another centralised platform, Lol
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This seems to be the reason for the change (jayclees is the creator and admin of the site):
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It's always telling when people describe a minority as a "political movement" rather than... people
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It’s also telling when people frame any and all discussion around anything LGBT+ as “transphobic” and “trying to kill trans people”.
The current gender/trans ideology isn’t just scientific fact that has to be followed and believed. People should be allowed to disagree and question it without being censored and banned.
That seems to be the point the creator is making - they didn’t make it to be a circle jerking safe space for only the far left “progressives”. They made it for everyone to be able to talk about their beliefs without being censored and banned, but one ideological group absolutely doesn’t want that.
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"Let's have a reasonable rational debate about whether certain groups should have the right to exist! If you're a member of one of these groups, please be respectful to the people who say you should be exterminated!"
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"Alright. Compromise: We only kill half of you."
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honestly reading this, it just sounds to me like he isn't cut out for community management. It is stressful and hard sometimes, so I get it, but he's going to kill his own site doing this. I did wonder about this before - it seemed like to me he regularly made changes based on feedback on a whim, and these changes were often rushed without much thinking. Needs to know when to pass the baton elsewhere and stick to development, but alas...
The last comments also speak to someone who's probably hiding some contrarian views of his own.
Shame.
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cOnSeRvaTiVe vOiCeS aRe bEiNg sILeNcED!!
i.e. boohoohoo, I'm facing consequences for my hate speech.
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It's the engineers doing graphic design but worse: engineers speedrunning social sciences.
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Allowing bigots just means you are one. Rip squabbles.
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As a wise bartender once said, "If you allow one Nazi, you no longer have a bar. You have a Nazi bar."
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Thinking everyone you disagree with should be silenced and not allowed in is literally what fascists do. It's what the nazis did. How very "progressive" of you.
Everyone should be allowed to express their opinions and beliefs. Everyone, no matter how much you disagree with them. The onus should be on you to simply not engage with any that you don't want to, be that by simply ignoring them or by using the built in tools of the platform like blocking/ignoring. You're literally asking for censorship of speech.
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LGBT people: "We have a right to exist."
'Free speech absolutists': "Ugh, take your political bullshit someplace else."
No idea how people think this is a valid way to talk about people literally fighting for their right to simply be present in public spaces without people attacking their very being.
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Grand opening, Grand closing
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If true: Well, that's the end of that platform I guess. Shame, I liked that there were so many alternatives cropping up.
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I guess there wasn't enough Squabbling.
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They also removed the admins who disagreed with this decision. Jayclees and Daniel are the only "staff" left now. This is a really bad look for them.
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Literally why would you go to this website over Reddit. It has all the same problems and is just more boring.
"Free speech" is just a dog whistle and gas lighting now. Unless it's fully allowing illegal content, then it's not free speech, which is obviously sane to not allow. That's why its a silly term to throw around in the first place.
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“Free speech” is just a dog whistle and gas lighting now.
You're not wrong, but I remember when free speech was more of a liberal issue. Freedom for artistic expression and all that. Freedom to curse in music, freedom to create and view porn etc.
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How is this gas lighting though?
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I don't think people really know what gas lighting is :p.
Relatedly, whether you understand the term or not, go watch the movie Gaslight where it comes from. Great film.
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I don't necessarily agree with the use of the term in this context, but I took it to mean that it's gaslighting in the sense that when you call it out as a dog whistle meaning "you can now be a POS on our platform", people can respond with stuff like "Wow, so you're anti-free speech? Do you hate America? Why do you want to censor people?" And shit like that, which is gaslighting IMO
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Everything is gaslighting when you don't actually know what gaslighting means but just want to use the latest term all your liberal friends use.
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I don't understand what I'm looking at here? Some reddit-ish place is declaring free-speech then they immediately backpedal and say racist stuff doesn't count, and also some admins left? So what is the material difference between a "free speech platform*" and lemmy which also doesn't allow racist stuff?
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It sounds like they’re going to be allowing anti-LGBT hate speech, which was formerly a ban-worthy offense on their platform. Reddit and most Lemmy instances have rules against this, so I imagine Squabblr is going to attract the same sort of people that like using Truth Social.
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In my experience forums that allow everything else will basically attract all the trans-, queer- and homophobes, misogynists and sexists.
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That's true.
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Squabblr*
They had a mid 2000s rebranding.
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Removng vovls s col nd trndy!
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No doubt it will be called sqbblr in a month
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Voat any% speedrun WR (glitchless)
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They're currently at level 4 (arguably maybe level 2) of the content moderation speedrun: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you-speed-run-the-content-moderation-learning-curve/
Next step is for them to start dealing with DMCA takedowns.
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Sounds like they are going to speed run what happen with Voat.
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I wonder why of all bad things they make an exception specifically for racism and not something else like pedophilia for example.
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One is illegal in every civilized country and one is not
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I left a month ago because it was clear they were going this way. Glad I'm here
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I remember trying out Voat. They weren't even hiding their love for certain words.
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I hope people know that us all having instances would always be better than anything centralized elsewhere. 1) I can delete all my posts if I want. 2) anyone can make a better app to talk to it. 3) we got so many different ways of sharing our free speech here, it's not even funny. 4) you can backup your stuff. I'm not, but you can do that if you serve your own server. 5) you can establish your own rules or land on someone else's server that you trust.
At this point you gotta be a lower form of life to conclude that going centralized is good for anyone.
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You deleting your posts from your own instance doesn't magically delete them from every other instance.
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Seems to be standard functionality according to this:
According to the same article it can fail if the server is malfunctioning. But I would assume only rogue servers would do this intentionally...like suddenly kick all users or a particular user out and lock them out of their delete option.
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I'm really confused by this direction? The admin seemed... nice, and all of the users were "let's all be friends and be postivive x!" type people. Not exactly the place for "free speech" dog wistle folks. He's just going to alienate his entire userbase, I don't understand the point.
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And this is why federation is great.
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Somewhere for the Trumpers to go when Truthsocial falls on its arse.
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they'll probably go to brighteon social
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so basically 4chan without the racial slurs
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We’re “free speech” except these first 4 categories we could name off the top of our heads. There will never be any reason to add to this list. Adding to that list wouldn’t be “free speech”!
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Well, they're being true to their namesake, I'll give them that.
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Ah, so basically your site wants to see transphobic, homophobic, misogynist and sexist content. I see.
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I joined Squabbles in June and liked it until the "free speech site" announcement.
I loved the lack of content ranking and downvoting so someone suggested Beehaw.
It seemed to me that the developer/admin jayclees was your basic tunnel visioned coder ignorant of news/current events. I got the feeling that he isn't politically invested. He just wanted to be left alone to code, so he changed his rules taking away the justification for messaging him. Posting on the site really slowed down. It looks like he lost many of his active users and kept his lurkers. I guess he figures it is worth the price of being left alone and that he will eventually get regular active posters again.
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***with the exception of racist content, the use of slurs (racial or otherwise), targetted harassment, and incitement of violence, ***
Did everyone just skip right past reading this part? That's a lot of exceptions that cover a large gamut of activity that will continue to be not allowed. That's not exactly "free speech" by definition, but it also is not allowing content that most platforms also do not allow.
I am not exactly sure what I am missing?
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There's a lot of context. Basically, there's been a few weeks of controversy over whether anti-lgbt viewpoints would be allowed. This post (along with the removal of two admins) was a statement that anti-lgbt viewpoints are explicitly allowed on the site as long as they avoid slurs and direct incitement of violence. With a site population that leans pretty far left, this didn't go over well at all.
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In other words, "you can pick on minorities as long as they aren't racial minorities." Yeah, great distinction.
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I am curious why the allowance of anti-LGBT viewpoints is so controversial. As stated above, all of the basic rules of civility are still being enforced.
Let's say he decided to clarify that anti-Christian, or anti-capitalist viewpoints are not allowed. There are millions of people around the world who would claim such censorship is bigoted and narrow-minded. And they would be correct.
As long as people are polite to one another, what exactly is the problem with allowing people to express their perspectives?
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I'll put it this way, there have been dozens of reddit alternatives over the years. Of those, pretty much every single one that advertised free speech has gone under from right-wingers, psuedo-nazi's etc.
The fact is, the biggest subset of people deplatformed off of reddit or any platform are truly just awful1 , regardless of what they claim about unfair moderation. And if you don't make it expressedly clear that you will not tolerate them, they will flock to your platform. Any claims of "free speech" even backed by "oh but nothing too awful please" is basically a dog whistle to them and they will flock to your platform.
If someone says something like this, they're either naïve about how this works or they're just saying it to maintain appearances. Either way, the platform is doomed.
[1] well maybe not recently due to api issues, but they're still a huge subset and will be the majority again eventually
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This is typically done to allow transphobia. Misgendering people is not racist, a “slur,” targeted harassment, or an incitement to violence. So that’s usually what this kind of “free speech” exists to champion.
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It's bit of a stretch to jump from misgendering to transphobia what ever that means. I have a relatively popular twitter page that's filled with pictures of me dressed as a woman so maybe that counts as evidence of me not being a transphobe but I still block everyone with pronouns in their bio because I think it's stupid. Especially coming from a culture with gender neutral pronouns.
Many people would be surprised how "intolerant" big part of the gay community is too. Nobody gets offended if your grindr says stuff like "no femmes"
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There's a lot of types of bigotry and other general nastiness that are not covered by that.
Normally I would not be so nitpicky with language but if multiple admins were removed / quit over it, that's pretty suspect.
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I would imagine a place shouldn't even need rules for that in the first place, but I understand people arent always the most kind they can be online.
I think also, a lot of what is called "bigotry" is often being subjectively identified (that is, one person thinks a thing is bigoted while another doesn't, certainly one cannot and should not always default to agreeing that every interaction is bigoted otherwise no interaction would be allowed anywhere), but I would imagine a vast majority of "bigotry" would still fall under the very vast "slurs racial or otherwise" or "targetted harassment" exceptions.
I dont know all the details, but its possible these admins may have been overly strict in removing content they considered bigoted to the point of being disruptive. I used to operate a forum back in the early 2000s (for reverse engineering video game software) and there was one moderator I had to remove because they were too strict in their deletion of content for a similar reason. Entire threads would be left graveyards and there was no way to discern the context.
I am only presenting my own speculation of course. What you're saying is also possible. The only way to know is to wait and see what happens. I think a big problem for those platforms is how quickly people bandwagon leaving when a small group decry a potential problem. It's like when people try a new game with a low player population, then call the game dead. Those people leave, and they tell everyone else the game is dead. So nobody really joins, except the bottomfeeders nobody else wants.
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I am not exactly sure what I am missing?
Before, you could write "I don't like gay people" and get banned for it. Now you won't get banned for that post, unless you use a slur.
At least, that's my interpretation of it. Maybe it's a bit overblown, maybe it's a misstep by Jayclees, I dunno. I don't think a whole lot of people are really using Squabblr for conversational content in the first place, though. 99% of the platform is just memes. They should just stick to that, honestly. Nothing wrong with being a 9gag replacement.
If he wants to let people have dissenting opinions, then he should at least add a downvote mechanic to the platform. Otherwise it will be riddled with bad-faith arguments and brigading.
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If he wants to let people have dissenting opinions, then he should at least add a downvote mechanic to the platform.
No, upvoting and downvoting needs to go away because it's just used to brigade and reinforce the circle jerk popular narrative.
All places like this should have are the options to report a post and to block/ignore/mute a poster. Those 2 options give everyone the ability to self moderate.
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Good context, I didn't realize they don't have downvotes. That changes things a bit, the downvote is a fairly necessary mechanic for facilitating any type of serious discussion online.
But I'm still curious if anyone can rationally explain why saying "I don't like gay people" is worthy of a ban? Personally I would never say that, because it's an idiotic statement. But why is that unacceptable for someone to say?
There's a very simple response... "Why not?". And depending how they respond to that, they could definitely end up in banworthy territory. Or perhaps they might respond with an obvious misconception that could present an opportunity to educate someone on their ignorance.
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Because the left hates freedom of speech, and assumes that it just means racism.
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How would you define freedom of speech?
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ANY internet platform that proclaims itself as a guardian of free speech is either overun by racists, xenophobes and the like or, at the very least, holds a significant number of them. There's a reason most 2000s internet platforms (e.g, Reddit) eventually dropped 'Free Speech' as a policy over time.
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Found the conservative troll.
In case you are not though, this not about "the left". This is about ultraconservatives using "free speech" as an excuse to voice their hateful dribble while shielding themselves from any consequences. It is a dog whistle, and an obvious one at that.
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I don't exactly agree. I don't think it needs to be political whether a person considers "free speech" equivalent to "racism" or not. But I do think it has to do a little bit with the currently magnified political divide.
I think youll have a hard time finding a person who considers themselves politically left that says "free speech = racism" I think that expectation is not fully understanding the context, and is rather reductive.
I think the issue comes down to what I mentioned before. Bigotry is a term that many people use as a shield to stop things they don't want others to say, even if it is truthful or factual information. Both sides of the political divide employ this tactic, but it is approached in different ways.
If a person makes a joke about XYZ religion for example, but a person of XYZ religion says that joke is bigoted, who is right? Who gets to decide what is considered bigoted?
The person making the joke may be doing so because they hate all religion, or XYZ religion specifically, or they may be a member themselves and think its funny. The member of XYZ religion may be overly sensitive to jokes or remarks, or they may be particularly prejudiced against the person making the joke. There are many reasons a person can claim a particular statement is bigoted, but there is no way to say one way or another is definitively correct. Because of this, any person that is chosen to decide this is going to be effected by their own prejudice and bias. And sadly, such bias has become magnified so much greater in recent years compared to the past.
Believe it or not, there used to be a time where you could have two people with opposite viewpoints talking to each other about said viewpoints, and they would walk away laughing and smiling, considering the other no worse than they did prior to the conversation. These days, people wont even listen to each other. It just becomes a screaming/silencing/downvoting/reporting war.
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Wat da hel is squabbles?
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What exactly is wrong with free speech?
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The problem isn't free speech, the problem is "free speech".
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We should call them "freeze peach" to avoid the constant "what's wrong with the free speech" arguments.
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It's called thinking freedom of speech means freedom to be a fucking asshole.
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277 comments
The phrase "free speech platform" sounds like a giant, enormous dog whistle. Which is a damn shame, because I used to enjoy that place, and now I'm not sure I will anymore... Don't want to jump to conclusions, but is there ANY self-described "bastion of free speech on the internet" that is not a cesspool full of awful people? Just one?
I'm a white, heterosexual cis male in my 40s not living in the US, so this does not affect me in any way, shape or form directly, but it still feels just icky, unnecessary and tone-deaf. Guess I'll post photos of my succulents and my goofy dog just on Lemmy from now on, bummer...
I think it is a dog whistle , here in India there are people who openly talk of genocide , homophobia and what not and call it their right to speech and expression !
The "funny" thing is that the moment those people have power they don't have a problem going against free speech (see having books banned (in the US) or trying to stop people from voicing their opinion (Meloni in Italy))
It's all just exploiting the tolerance of the system in order to make it less tolerant That's why completely unchecked free speech is a bad idea as it will eventually lead in its complete demise
I mean that is literally what a right to free speech means, so they're not wrong.
No, because awful people congregate wherever they are tolerated.
When you have a "free speech" policy, you attract principled free-speech advocates who want to discuss issues rather than shouting down unpopular opinions, a few people who are well-behaved and intelligent but write about ideas that the majority may find offensive or horrifying, and a whole bunch of people who got banned everywhere else for being rude and disruptive.
The best-moderated such place that I've seen had a policy requiring politeness and high-effort posts, which kept out the third group.
The second group can be tough to tolerate. Sometimes they're interesting, sometimes they're a Holocaust denier who cites references, and you look up those references and they appear to be real papers written by real academics, and you know this is all wrong but you're not a historian and even if you were you don't have time to address every issue in this guy's entire life's work and you just wish the topic never came up. But you can't keep out the second group unless you compromise your principles as a member of the first group.
This is a great overview of the benefits and problems of free speech platforms without the immediate nosedive into the dogwhistle argument that seems to just be used as a thought/discussion stopper more than anything else lately.
I feel that it's vitally important that free speech spaces exist. Places to discuss "ideas that the majority may find offensive or horrifying" are important, but they aren't for everyone and they do by their nature offer spaces for "undesirable" people like holocaust deniers.
The thing is that you don't need to and shouldn't "keep them out". What you should do is just let people ignore/block/mute them.
I misread that as you describing your dog as succulent.
That was some awkward English, fixed it now :)
Why bummer? It's a great place so far in my opinion. The people are so much friendlier here.
More good options is always a good thing.
True, Squabbles just felt better suited than Lemmy to short, no context random posts and photos. Might be all in my head though :)
Like someone else said in another comment, I'm sure everybody on the left agree with the concept of free speech. So IMHO the real question is, why is it the case that platforms advocating free speech attract right wingers and extremists?
Because the left does not approve of hate speech, which is what right wingers immediately rush to spew whenever they see freeze peach.
People confuse free speech with freedom to harass and driving people out. When 90 % of a site (as an example) are antisemitic rants and antisemitic memes Jews are actively driven out of the place. You actually make a place less free by allowing discrimatory content. People have to potentially hide their identity or have to endure constant hostility. In consequence you are removing their voices from the platform.
I guess most "people on the left" would agree that you can create such a platform for yourself and your buddies but do not call it "free speech" when in reality it just creates a venting platform for a certain type of people.
Not sure if serious......?
Yo dog, I gotta know. Where are you posting those succulent pics?! I've been missing r/Succulents since the blackout.
Mostly !succulents@midwest.social and sometimes !cactus@sh.itjust.works for cacti (hope I'm linking it correctly).
The thing is that you're just calling people that you disagree with "awful people" because they have different opinions. They also think you're awful for the same reason.
People need to get away from this idea that people shouldn't be allowed to express their opinions and ideas. I'm all for completely unrestricted free speech. Let racist people spew their racist hateful garbage - but let people call them out on it. Let people try to change their mind. Let people show them exactly how they're being a piece of shit.
All you have to do is give people options to block/mute people and you can take care of it yourself. What I hate is when people call for censoring and banning of differing opinions on a platform level.
That is not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that every single online platform that I know that describes itself as a "free speech platform/bastion/zone/whatever" gets sooner or later filled to the brim with people spouting vile, deplorable and often violent rhetoric.
I can discuss a lot of things and accept, understand or at least tolerate a lot of opinions differing from mine, but things like "black people are sub-human", "gays should be killed" or "preschoolers can be sexy"* are NOT in that group. And these types of comments are inevitably what naming your site a "free speech platform" attracts in my experience. I think there is no way to discuss (or even just utter) them in good faith, and yes, I do consider people holding such beliefs to be awful - it's not like I’m trying to use the term lightly or to denote folks who like different pizza toppings or TV shows than I do...