{"id":4917,"date":"2018-10-28T13:27:52","date_gmt":"2018-10-28T17:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=4917"},"modified":"2018-10-28T13:27:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-28T17:27:52","slug":"what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/","title":{"rendered":"What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vox and the Z-Man have posts up on the shutting down of Gab.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thezman.com\/wordpress\/?p=15418\">http:\/\/thezman.com\/wordpress\/?p=15418<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/voxday.blogspot.com\/2018\/10\/they-cant-say-i-didnt-warn-them_28.html\">https:\/\/voxday.blogspot.com\/2018\/10\/they-cant-say-i-didnt-warn-them_28.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>There are a few ways of talking about this.\u00a0 First off, we can discuss what is lost by a Gab shutdown.\u00a0 Personally, I\u2019ve never really completely understood Twitter or Gab.\u00a0 It just seemed like everyone linking to everyone else but not actually reading the content.\u00a0 What the actual value of that is escapes me.\u00a0 I tried reading my linked content many times and found it a muddled mess.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s what happens when a million people are mixed in a blender together.\u00a0 But I will confess I probably just didn\u2019t know what I was doing.\u00a0 So, all in all from a personal point of view it won\u2019t actually affect me.\u00a0 Now, maybe it has actually been useful for other folks for communication and publicity.\u00a0 If anyone has found it valuable, say so in the comments.\u00a0 But from my point of view it wasn\u2019t very useful.<\/p>\n<p>The next way we can look at it is what can we learn from how it was shut down.\u00a0 Andrew Torba was vehement that he wanted freedom of speech to be the defining characteristic of Gab.\u00a0 That sounds like a laudable ideal.\u00a0 In practice, however, the content became pretty foul.\u00a0 There were some pretty crazy people on the site.\u00a0 Now, it\u2019s unclear how much was just trolling by those looking to destroy Gab and which was legitimate nutbaggery.\u00a0 But regardless, the result was unpleasant and chaotic.\u00a0 Not being a Twitter user maybe I\u2019m just unaware that this is par for the course in a social media arena.\u00a0 If that is so then it sort of reinforces my impression that Twitter and all these social media environments are toxic places that are mostly about battling your enemies for sport.\u00a0 I run a very different type of website.\u00a0 It\u2019s a microscopic place compared to Gab (never mind Twitter).\u00a0 But we have to deal with the same questions of how to regulate the written interactions between real people.\u00a0 I have the advantage that I can monitor the discussions on my own.\u00a0 The scope is possible in a small venue.\u00a0 For a place like Twitter or Gab it becomes expensive and difficult to maintain a consistent policy because of the need for multiple individuals with their individual points of view.\u00a0 With respect to freedom of speech on my site, I tell people they can speak their minds but keep it reasonable.\u00a0 Obviously, that isn\u2019t a highly precise statement.\u00a0 What I\u2019m trying to say is stay within legal and cultural norms.\u00a0 Different people have different perspectives on those and the only standard that I have to decide on what conforms and what doesn\u2019t is my own judgement.\u00a0 But that isn\u2019t too different from any other venue where people interact and debate.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing that a truly free speech site will always be a sort of giant demolition derby. \u00a0If your site is perceived as being on the right-wing it is clear that you will be punished whenever the opportunity presents itself so allowing the crazier individuals to let it all hang out will eventually lead to the situation that occurred at Gab.\u00a0 So, the lesson to learn is a fully free speech site is not going to happen in the present environment.<\/p>\n<p>And finally, we can look at what should be changed to avoid this waste of resources.\u00a0 The first thing that comes to mind is an analysis could be done to find out exactly what are the useful functions that a Twitter, Facebook or YouTube serves and how, if at all, they could be replicated in a competing right-wing entity. \u00a0I am hardly qualified to do such an analysis but I\u2019ll at least attempt to discuss some of the more obvious answers.\u00a0 The two most important functions these sites accomplish is communication and commerce.\u00a0 The sites allow people to find their audience.\u00a0 To the extent that they are right-wing sites I guess that will help pre-select for the audience intended.\u00a0 The second function is allowing content creators to monetize their product.\u00a0 This will be tied into advertising revenue.\u00a0 From what I\u2019ve heard advertising revenues, even on established giants like YouTube and Instagram, are shrinking drastically.\u00a0 What I think this all means is that a viable right-wing social media site will be a site where content providers will pay a fee to obtain visibility and the site will provide amenities like video storage space, band-width and some amount of moderation of the trolls.\u00a0 Eventually, popular content producers will be able to sell advertising on their videos and other content products.\u00a0 To me this seem to be the future of right-wing social media.\u00a0 And it seems like a reasonable model. \u00a0Eventually the site will develop other ways to monetize its value.\u00a0 Subscriptions like Netflix and Amazon eventually will be the end state.<\/p>\n<p>So that\u2019s my take on what can be learned from the Gab debacle.\u00a0 Experience is the cruelest teacher but the most effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vox and the Z-Man have posts up on the shutting down of Gab. http:\/\/thezman.com\/wordpress\/?p=15418 https:\/\/voxday.blogspot.com\/2018\/10\/they-cant-say-i-didnt-warn-them_28.html There are a few ways of talking about this.\u00a0 First<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,818,245,237],"tags":[800,1426,141,1368,466,801],"class_list":["post-4917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-ocf","category-review-of-article","category-reviews","tag-facebook","tag-free-speech","tag-gab","tag-social-media","tag-twitter","tag-youtube"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab? - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab? - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Vox and the Z-Man have posts up on the shutting down of Gab. http:\/\/thezman.com\/wordpress\/?p=15418 https:\/\/voxday.blogspot.com\/2018\/10\/they-cant-say-i-didnt-warn-them_28.html There are a few ways of talking about this.\u00a0 First\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Orion&#039;s Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-10-28T17:27:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"photog\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@orionscoldfire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@orionscoldfire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"photog\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"photog\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3\"},\"headline\":\"What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab?\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-10-28T17:27:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-10-28T17:27:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/\"},\"wordCount\":862,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Facebook\",\"free speech\",\"Gab\",\"social media\",\"Twitter\",\"Youtube\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Current Events\",\"OCF\",\"On-Line Article Reviews\",\"Reviews\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/\",\"name\":\"What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab? - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-10-28T17:27:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-10-28T17:27:52+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/\",\"name\":\"Orion&#039;s Cold Fire\",\"description\":\"All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Orion's Cold Fire\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg\",\"width\":4022,\"height\":1419,\"caption\":\"Orion's Cold Fire\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/orionscoldfire\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3\",\"name\":\"photog\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg\",\"caption\":\"photog\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/author\/photog\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab? - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab? - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire","og_description":"Vox and the Z-Man have posts up on the shutting down of Gab. http:\/\/thezman.com\/wordpress\/?p=15418 https:\/\/voxday.blogspot.com\/2018\/10\/they-cant-say-i-didnt-warn-them_28.html There are a few ways of talking about this.\u00a0 First","og_url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/","og_site_name":"Orion&#039;s Cold Fire","article_published_time":"2018-10-28T17:27:52+00:00","author":"photog","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@orionscoldfire","twitter_site":"@orionscoldfire","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"photog","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/"},"author":{"name":"photog","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3"},"headline":"What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab?","datePublished":"2018-10-28T17:27:52+00:00","dateModified":"2018-10-28T17:27:52+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/"},"wordCount":862,"commentCount":2,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization"},"keywords":["Facebook","free speech","Gab","social media","Twitter","Youtube"],"articleSection":["Current Events","OCF","On-Line Article Reviews","Reviews"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/","name":"What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab? - Orion&#039;s Cold Fire","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-10-28T17:27:52+00:00","dateModified":"2018-10-28T17:27:52+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/28\/what-can-we-learn-from-the-death-of-gab\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What Can We Learn from the Death of Gab?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/","name":"Orion&#039;s Cold Fire","description":"All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#organization","name":"Orion's Cold Fire","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DSC06141.jpg","width":4022,"height":1419,"caption":"Orion's Cold Fire"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/orionscoldfire"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/d11e80f83f3825ce9fe38a5303eb64d3","name":"photog","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/photog-image.jpg","caption":"photog"},"url":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/author\/photog\/"}]}},"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4918,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4917\/revisions\/4918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}