Freedom returns to the internet! Gab releases Dissenter.com - #CommentEverywhere

[Darren Dirt]

Gab released Dissenter.com this week, and it's a liberating gamechanger for the entire internet.

...as demonstrated by the happy positivity of normies all over the web, in contrast to the anger and fearmongering by those who like to control the behavior and words and thoughts of others, like the authors of dishonest hit pieces already being written this week...

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dissenter+tutorial https://archive.is/naSSE

[Mr. Analog]

Yeah no thanks, for those who don't know, its a news aggregator echo chamber comment platform filled to the brim with foul mouthed, far-right lunatics.

I'd rather read 4Chan or YouTube comments

[Darren Dirt]

Real freedom is scary.

Some people are afraid of letting go of what they have had under their control for a very long time. Some of those people want a certain negative image of new things that they find threatening so it doesn't grow.

Real question, why trust mainstream news sources and articles that are proven liars, why not see this as a step back towards a free internet that has become extremely centralized and controlled by a tiny but powerful minority of censors and scolds...

This ain't no "right wing" or "nationalist" echo chamber. Its a rrasonable response to the unrrasonable silencing of diversity of thought. No biased control of what is said by who or where.

Ask yourself why MSM and public figures and even yourself is so quick to paint it as dangerous or dismissed prior to investigation or trying it yourself...

And NOPE it does not aggregate anything, it is a way for anyone to #CommentEverywhere -- even when the #BigTech monopolies have silenced your voice under false pretenses... there is a reason @jack from Twitter was on Joe Rogan today...

PS: youtube comments are no guarantee of open dialog. Especially with recent changes to their approach to... everything.

[Darren Dirt]

I tell ya what... give it five minutes and an open mind (even if just by looking at a tutorial video) and if you still dismiss it as doomed to fail because of politics or whatever, then be intellectualy honest and ask me 3 questions coming from ypur POV about why I think it is literally a #GameChanger for today's internet.

https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3124-give-it-five-minutes


I will try to do the same in response.

Instead of impulsively knee jerk disagreeing or dismissing outright prior to actually thinking about what is being presented.

[Tom]

It's literally just a tool used by a certain group of people to stay in their little echo chamber without getting banned for saying truly horrible things.

[Darren Dirt]

[source]?

Seriously, if you don't have any first hand experience then you must have an opinion borrowed second hand from others -- so who are those others and what is their probable bias?

Or... give it five minutes and keep your mind open even if just for discussion after your sincere attempt to examine yourself.

Don't be an #NPC my friends.

SRSLY examine your own presumptions and biases, and ask where they come from.


PS: 3 questions, Tom:
How do you know that is how this tool is being used?
What "certain group" are only using it?
How do you know they got "banned" and only for saying "horrible" things?

[Darren Dirt]

re. "horrible things" -- today it is "in fashion" to say a person is horrible for saying words that another FEELS are potentially hurtful to a random stranger not even the target of those words.

Just was re-reading this today, ironically on-topic kinda...

Paul Graham, 2004:

"
If you believe everything you're supposed to now, how can you be sure you wouldn't also have believed everything you were supposed to if you had grown up among the plantation owners of the pre-Civil War South, or in Germany in the 1930s?or among the Mongols in 1200, for that matter?

...

To launch a taboo, a group has to be poised halfway between weakness and power. A confident group doesn't need taboos to protect it. It's not considered improper to make disparaging remarks about Americans, or the English. And yet a group has to be powerful enough to enforce a taboo. Coprophiles, as of this writing, don't seem to be numerous or energetic enough to have had their interests promoted to a lifestyle.

I suspect the biggest source of moral taboos will turn out to be power struggles in which one side only barely has the upper hand. That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce taboos, but weak enough to need them.
"

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

It is your choice not go introspective, not just now but EVER... But imo this is the most amazing crucial time in history to REALLY examine WHY you believe anything that you do, and/or why you might not want to change.

[Tom]

Saying things like "Don't be an #NPC my friends."

Really makes it unlikely I'm going to participate in future discussions with you.

[Darren Dirt]

Sorry for the harsh wording; I just mean exercise FREE AGENCY. Look into tjibgs yourself. Don't just autopilot sound bites others have programmed into your brain... others who have motives to lie.

See my 3 questions. Consider what I ask.
{
https://dcurt.is/three-questions
"I?ve started forcing myself to ask the other person at least three questions about their opinion..."
}


The answer to "bad" speech is not less speech, it is "good" speech.

Allegedly good ideas must openly battle allegedly bad ideas, in the public sphere. Because ideas don't just stop existing once you deplatform their supporters (in fact, censorship tends to give them a kind of "forbidden knowledge" credibility boost).

Any student of world history knows why the current increasing degree of #BigTech censorship is concerning, moving humanity down a very dark path:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3I1YDbSLQk
^ "Where free speech prevents violence, through dialogue...
Censorship guarantees violence -- by making it the dissident's only remaining option."

[Darren Dirt]

Thought: I may have burned this particular bridge by being my full Aspie verbose self.

BUT one positive outcome is this: I found and shared and AM CONTEMPLATING LIVING OUT those 2 articles about Taking Five Minutes** and asking 3 questions, in order to NOT be an asshole who just blindly pushes back on a POV that I don't immediately 100% agree with.

Seriously, I am an arrogant asshole if I can not take a breath and think of 3 questions to ask about a different viewpoint that is sincerely being expressed by another human being.

Maybe they have not considered WHY they hold that opinion, sure, BUT it is also possible that they have information of which I am ignorant and thus I have an opportunity to expand my knowledge and learn and grow as a person.

Of course, that is true of some of the messages I try to deliver to my *friends* here and face to face -- so I request similar attempted humility despite the obvious temptation to just dismiss the messenger because potato.

**the COMMENTS for that Five Minutes article are awesome, one links to a brief Richard Feynman story that is very encouraging/inspiring. We can all do better at THINKING: http://cs.au.dk/~danvy/lafb.html

[Mr. Analog]

I should have gone with my gut instinct and not said a word.

Obviously I hit a nerve.

If you believe the site is worth using, by all means use it. For me hard pass.

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

[Darren Dirt]

Your choice to dismiss out of hand ("contempt prior to investigation" is a human right).

But I will end with this (lengthy, yes) defense of a liberating service being made available to all:

...

Cliffs:

No matter what biased hit pieces say, Dissenter is not political, it is simply a tool for free speech when dishonest or cowardly censorship tries to prevent real people from speaking to an audience or community that might still be interested.

https://dissenter.com/help/faq

Example:

Yesterday Joe Rogan had on Tim Pool (a left-wing journalist) and Jack Dorsey (Twitter CEO) -- and he disabled comments for the 3 hour chat.

Situations like this = why Dissenter is useful. And why folks of all political persuasions are appreciative of its existence.

https://dissenter.com/discussion/begin?url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZCBRHOg3PQ

MORE THAN 5000 comments**

Lincoln Ford
17 hours ago
I like how Joe disabled comments on this video, immediately making Dissenter the go to platform to comment.
370 likes
23 dislikes
18 replies

( ** this is big engagement; there were only 1500 Twitter replies here https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/1103027763768745984 )

...

(Lengthy verbiage, which I meant to post yesterday...)
As I said, https://dissenter.com is for everyone, anywhere -- not just trolls or racists, not just to comment on political Twitter accounts or CNN stories. Not just for the #WrongThink criminals or edgelords or whatever other labels can be used to dismiss real people who hold different POVs than what @jack or Zuck say are safe.

Not to mention how this opens up speaking truth to power on the countless sites that have DISABLED comments entirely.


1. #Dissenter can be used by individual fans of a franchise to speak out against an entertainment megacorp trying desperately to silence dissenting opinions, Exhibit A:
https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/02/captain-marvel-rotten-tomatoes-censorship-circumvented-thanks-to-dissenter-extension/78084


2. It can be used (as a person, or conpany) to defend yourself against the algorithm-promoted, one-sided, provably false lies, Exhibit B:
https://dissenter.com/discussion/begin?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.m.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGab_Dissenter


3. Or it can be used for just having simple fun, which is what the internet used to be... and what the vast majority of comments have been so far.

Really.

Over the past week I just keep seeing it over and over. *Positivity. Happy thoughts.* A feeling of community again, united in freedom to say something even if divided on what is being said.


Like, a bunch of strangers signing up -- despite the fear-mongering hit pieces against Gab for the past year -- to partake and share a noticeable exuberant rejoicing in the undiluted ability to express yourself again -- without the now-accepted-as-normal sudden arbitrary permaban from a monoplly platform, with no ability to appeal or, again, defend yourself against lies.


But also simple fun. That is what most normal people tend to use theit freedom for, to live and let live, with most choosing to ignore the voices of those that offend them instead of seeking to silence them if not ruin careers or worse (that is how bad things have gotten on the web, maybe you have not noticed).


The right to even offensive speech was famously defended by Noam Chomsky decades ago, while today too many have either forgotten or have have taken a 180 heel turn on the concept... as long as the arbitrary censoring doesn't target *them*

Dissenter at its heart is analogous in spirit to the US declaration of independence: a response to tyrannical control. Luckily this revolution of a repressed and maligned people is non-violent.

[Mr. Analog]

You're right!

1. I don't need to justify nothin' to nobody

2. I've read all about "StumbleUpon for Trolls" since it dropped, sometimes you don't need to experience trash firsthand to get a sense of what its all about

3. There's no way I will EVER trust my data to the likes of Gab, or any commenting platform for that matter (remember Disqus?) not now, not ever again

It ain't for me, or I suspect, most people.

[Mr. Analog]

Gab hacked, again

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/03/gab-a-haven-for-pro-trump-conspiracy-theories-has-been-hacked-again/

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[Thorin]

I wasn't sure what to expect when I saw this thread with a New tag on it.  Gab is so obviously a haven for white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, and other nutcases, but this was a Darren-started thread and I thought he might be back on the site and didn't want to start a fight.

But yeah, Gab's been hacked a couple of times, and they don't seem to understand proper security, and the guy who runs it, Andrew Torba, has been basically daring hackers to try it again.

A little while back I ran across a twitter account called ParlerTakes that was highlighting the worst of what was found on Parler.  Since then, the account rebranded to PatriotTakes and grew to show what kind of hatred, ignorance, and plain lies are found on multiple alt-right / white supremacist / bigot sites, including Parler, Gab, TheDonald, and a slew of Telegram groups.  And I gotta say, between what I've read there and in r/ParlerWatch, I'm not interested in partaking in the "open-minded" discussion found at these sites, especially given how viciously people with a different view are treated.