Goodbye Vidme

Remember when I kept telling all the brilliant business geniuses who were waxing entrepreneurial about the pressing need for someone to compete with YouTube that they were clueless idiots who didn't understand the first thing about that particular business?

This farewell message from Vidme I received in my email this morning was exactly the result I expected from any would-be YouTube disruptor:

We’re writing to let you know that after careful consideration, we’ve arrived at the difficult decision to suspend the Vidme site and apps effective December 15th.

What this means for you:

•     New sign-ups and uploads will be disabled effective today.
•     Existing videos will be playable and exportable from your video manager until December 14th, at which point they will be permanently deleted from the Vidme servers. If you want to backup any of your videos, be sure to sign in and visit your video manager and click the export button (displayed below). After a few minutes, you’ll receive an email with a link to download your exported video.
•     All paid channel subscripitions will be suspended immediately, and subscriber-only videos will be exclusively accessible to their video owners.
•     Any outstanding earnings will be paid out upon verification within 60 days.
•     All Vidme paid subscriptions will cease as of today, and subscribers will no longer be billed. 

Thank you for giving Vidme a chance, and we’re very sorry that we won’t be able to continue to support you on the next stage of your creative journey. It has truly been a joy to watch people from all over the world connect, collaborate, and make new friends in this community, and we’re happy to know that many of those relationships will long outlast Vidme itself.

Wishing you the best of luck.

There is a reason I chose Infogalactic as the Alt-Tech priority. Notice that, thanks to the support from a relatively small Burn Unit, the site not only remains fully viable and operational, but the Techstars actually continue to make progress towards the Stage Two engine. Infogalactic is far more efficient and less expensive than Wikipedia and does not rely upon increasingly scarce online ad revenue, and Wikipedia is not a subsidized venture allowed to operate at an annual loss that is measured in the billions.

You can't just leap into these things and try to do what others are doing, only less SJW. You have to analyze the situation, figure out the strengths and weaknesses of what the prospective competitors a) are doing, and, b) have the ability to do, and then figure out if there is actually any productive territory that can be legitimately taken and held.

The social media war on the Right

Wife with a Purpose@apurposefulwife
Just checked my email. @Jack you darn well know I’ve  violated none of the TOS. I know @TRobinsonNewEra lost his too and @VoxDay was suspended. Do we have any recourse?

The only recourse is to build our own platforms. If you want to help replace Twitter and Facebook, then support Infogalactic. This war on the Right by the social media giants has made it clear that we not only need our own social media platform, but we need one with the capability of taking the center away from them. Which is why we are building the foundations for one into the DONTPANIC engine, in addition to its wiki functionalities.

Your conscience is clear

You need not worry about the fate of Alt-Tech. Your departure is not hurting them in any way, as per Maximum Alpha Torba. I don't know to whom he is referring here, but then, I suppose it doesn't really matter.

UPDATE: I have been informed that hearing for the petition we filed is scheduled in Travis County for the last week of October.

That would be why

Some people asked me why I didn't choose CounterFund for Voxiversity and Alt⭐️Hero. The truth is that I never considered using Counterfund at all. Remember what I said about Andrew Torba not being ready for prime time? Well, in my opinion, neither is Pax Dickinson. He had been directing his attacks at Charles Johnson, not me, but I was aware that anyone who behaved that way in public towards a former business partner is likely to do the same to others in the future.

I've had the occasional problem with people and companies with whom I've worked in the past. Not many over the years, but a few. And aside from GT Interactive, which was a matter of public record, you probably couldn't name any of them because I don't ever talk about them in public. Among the necessary skills for a professional is the ability to keep your mouth shut, even when you have been wronged.

Pax Dickinson · @pax
I think Vox Day's "minions" are so bad at bantz and trolling because they're only used to soft SJW resistance, they don't know how to handle seasoned veterans of the meme wars. They exist in their secure little blog bubble where Vox's moderation keeps them weak and flaccid, like shitposting veal.

Counter.Fund‏ @CounterFund
I asked Vox Day to help me move, so he sued my couch.

Counter.Fund‏ @CounterFund
You can tell which #AltRight people are sincere & not just e-book selling charlatans because the good ones quit in disgust and never return.

Counter.Fund‏ @CounterFund
the e-book merchants take their e-fame very very seriously because they work at it but I became e-famous by accident so I think it's a joke

Counter.Fund‏ @CounterFund
Everyone: "Nazi LARPers are the Right's most autistic lolcows"
Vox Day: "Hold my beer"

Counter.Fund‏ @CounterFund
"hey #AltRight look what I built for you"
*called a shill*
*accused of grubbing for shekels*
*sued by Vox Day*
"on 2nd thought never mind"

Counter.Fund‏ @CounterFund
Calling for people to take back their investments in Gab is lower than shit. Fuck you @voxday you're fucking dead to me.

Counter.Fund‏ @CounterFund
Vox called me up back when I was ripping Chuck to advise that infighting was a bad look. I wonder when he changed his mind about that.

Counter.Fund‏ @CounterFund
I had a discussion with @VoxDay. It didn't go that well.  He blocked me. 😂

I most certainly did block him. I don't discuss things with individuals who refuse to address the relevant points and instead elect to call me "a fucking moron" in lieu of argument. I see that as a reliable indicator that there is absolutely no benefit to having anything to do with them, now or in the future. One can readily observe a pattern here: both Pax and Andrew Torba are volatile individuals who are temperamentally unsuited for what they are trying to do. That is why the probabilities of success are not in their favor.

Can you imagine me attacking an author that I was trying to recruit for Castalia House this way? Can you imagine ANY successful publisher doing so?

As for Gab, the LLoE and I will be continuing to proceed as before, albeit in a rather more unsympathetic manner than we began. As one reader noted in response to the following Gab posts: "Gab is a useless, irredeemable sewer. Let it burn."

Folk · @Folk
Deus Vulters can never be real nationalists, because they MUST believe in Oneness under Christ. A Christian Syrian is worth more to them than a secular or pagan White. All Deus Vulters should be Vox fans, as Vox's platform says you must be a Christian and support all races to be Alt-Right.

Goyim Revolution · @GoyimRevolution
Koanic you are such a loser. In fact it's obvious you're just a @VoxDay sock. What the hell is a "Nazi" anyway? Do you have a definition? And what's so vile about these Nazis? Is it because they won't shutup about jews like Soros?

Tyron T. White · @TightyWhitey
Being a "Christian" and "supporting all races" is exactly how all-white countries have been flooded with parasitic mud people. If someone shot Vox in the head on a sidewalk, do you think his followers would tilt right, or back toward center?

Charming. Now, one never knows what the future will bring, but based on what I have been hearing in various development circles, I expect that within 18 months Gab will be, at best, the third-place Alt-Tech alternative to Twitter.

Alt-Tech overview

One year on, Cheah Kai Wai reviews the current state of Alt-Tech:

Last year, the Alt-Tech promised a revolution. These platforms aimed to disrupt and replace the legacy platforms, placing the rights and freedoms of users first. One year on, how well did they fare?

Infogalactic

Infogalactic is an unqualified success story. Beginning as a dynamic hard fork of Wikipedia, it strives to be more objective and informative than its predecessor. In line with its Seven Canons, Infogalactic maintains a strict non-ideological position for all facts -- but in the future, it will introduce Context and Opinion levels to its pages, allowing greater depth of content.

Every time I compared an Infogalactic page to Wikipedia, I found the former to be more informative and accurate. The only major knock against Infogalactic is its load time, and even that is improving by the day. In the beginning, it took long minutes to load a single page. Today, it is only slightly slower than Wikipedia.

I use Infogalactic exclusively these days. Wikipedia's explicit left-wing bias means it is no longer a neutral source of information. Infogalactic has demonstrated itself to be a viable and sustainable alternative to Wikipedia, and in the long term I suspect the disruption and replacement of Wikipedia is inevitable.

Gab

Gab was supposed to be the Twitter killer. A platform dedicated to free speech, it has survived allegations and lies about it being the haven of the Alt-Right and Neo-Nazis. Apple and Google have repeatedly prevented Gab from publishing its app on the iTunes Store and Google Play Store respectively for spurious reasons. Gab brands itself as a proponent of free speech -- but that is also its undoing.

Gab's key weakness is its inability or unwillingness to moderate posts. While it is unwaveringly committed to free speech, freedom is not and cannot be unlimited. As the old adage goes, your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. Harmful speech -- speech that incites violence or compromises the privacy and safety of individuals -- is not protected speech. Gab must be able to moderate harmful content to preserve the continued health and safety of its users, and it has failed the test....

These controversies expose Gab's core weakness. As Gab refused to moderate harmful speech, Gab users have no choice but to lodge complaints with the domain registrar, who will inevitably respond by ordering Gab off its platform. Like the Daily Stormer, I foresee Gab migrating from registrar to registrar, virtually guaranteeing disruption of services. Alternatively, these users may turn to the police and the courts instead, which will invite another round of troubles.

Free speech ends where harm begins. Incitement to violence, exposure of confidential information, and lying about someone to smear his reputation counts as harm. If Gab will not handle harmful speech in-house, other parties will. To Gab's detriment. I, for one, cannot in good conscience continue to recommend anyone to use Gab until they fix this oversight, if ever.

Ironically, the fevered assaults by the Daily Stormpoopers and other Gab enthusiasts on me appear to have borne some unexpected fruit. After I reported about 20 or 30 attack tweets to Twitter, in addition to banning and suspending a few of the responsible accounts, Twitter has restored full link access to Vox Popoli using the .com extension after more than 18 months of blocking it.

Enemy of my enemy and all that, I suppose. Go figure.

I will also say that my experience of Brave has been considerably more positive than Cheah's. But regardless, I am very pleased to know that Infogalactic is working so well for its users, even in Phase One.

Various and sundries

First, if you are an investor in Gab but would like to retroactively de-invest for whatever reason, there is a good chance you can still do so. StartEngine has not charged most credit cards, but the cancel button will not work if it has been more than 48 hours. However, if you contact StartEngine support, it is still possible to manually cancel the investment.

Second, the Production Editor of Castalia House is looking for up to four volunteers to help him produce print and ebook editions more rapidly. His list of requirements are as follows:

Basic requirements:

• Command line experience in Linux or Mac OS X or a BSD, etc.
• Experience with DVCS. We use Git.
• Attention to detail. Much of the work involves correcting curly quotes facing the wrong direction, or italics that accidentally include punctuation, etc.
• Concern for the way text looks, whether in print or in ebook.

For ebooks:

• Markdown
• Basic HTML and CSS

For print:

• LaTeX (for marking up manuscripts, not writing new commands or environments).
• Familiarity with basic typesetting concepts is preferred.

To help with tool development:

• Experience writing LaTeX macros and environments
• Python
• Advanced Pandoc tricks (filters, custom writers)
• Lua
• Docker
• Adobe Acrobat Pro (we'd like to customize some preflight profiles)

Please only volunteer if you really like doing this stuff and have at least a few hours every week to devote to it. We have a lot to do, we move fast, and our smooth operation relies heavily upon everyone doing what they do without requiring a great deal of communication or cheerleading.

Third, a member of the Dread Ilk is looking to fill some job openings in Alabama. If you want to send your resume to them, email it to me with JOB-AL in the subject and I will forward it to the correct party.

• Engineer, Analyst, and Programming Positions in Huntsville, AL (JOB-AL)

In defense of Gab

Now the self-appointed Defenders of Gab are appealing to Google in order to get back at me for Gab's failure to moderate content to the satisfaction of its registrar. I'm less than entirely confident that Google is going to be particularly inclined to leap to the assistance of the self-appointed Defenders of Gab, since Gab is, as you may recall, currently suing Google.

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
@VoxDay's blog is on blogspot in case anyone's asking. I don't advocate anything. I just provide PSA. How to register a complaint with Google about inappropriate content on blogs using blogspot.com.

Jason American · @jamerica
Vox admitting he played a part in Gab losing their domain registrar. @a @e @u

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
This is so easy to do! Just pick a topic & paste in the blogger's URL and submit. The satisfaction of knowing you just did something good in helping to preserve freedom of speech is incredible. I don't advocate anything of course. Just a PSA.

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
@VoxDay's blog is on blogspot in case anyone's asking. I don't advocate anything. I just provide PSA. How to register a complaint with Google about inappropriate content on blogs using blogspot.com.

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
Interesting. He seems to use his blog as his primary means of communicating with his followers. How would they communicate without it? Can high IQ folks do telepathy?

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
It would make for an interesting experience if the ppl on Gab, who are trying to destroy Gab by reporting it to the Domain Registrar, were to be outed on other social media sites for inappropriate content and then reported to Twitter's Domain Registrar or other registrars

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
Could that information be tethered to Twitter asking why he would say such inappropriate things?

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
Could posts from his blog be tethered to Twitter asking why he would have such inappropriate content?

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
Is there anyone searching through @VoxDay and @SpaceBunny Twitter accounts for inappropriate posts that should be reported to the FBI and Twitter's Domain Registrar? Asking for a nosy neighbor.

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
Is there anyone reporting this to Twitter's Domain Registrar and to the FBI? How many ppl on Gab who are still on Twitter too can be reporting it? What type of effect would that have on Twitter?

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
If anyone has a Spacebunny Day face png with a clear background (ready to use) plz post. Thank you in advance ;-)

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
It is laughable that some ppl think they can fight the Deep State or whoever to keep Gab up & running when they don't even have the balls to stand up to some has-been space cadets who are trying to destroy Gab.

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
The rats are already deserting Gab and going back to the Twitter Ghetto. You never were with us. So, good riddance.

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
Calling all 4chan /pol/ autists You know what to do.

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
Interesting that this all occurred - after - @VoxDay said he deleted all of the posts that @MicroChip found offensive.

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
There's no time for negativity my friend. It's time to go for the jugular. This time, there will be no peace brokered by one gabber.

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
All you Dear @VoxDay and @SpaceBunny supporters get off my TL. Now!

Larry L Sharp PRO · @LarryLSharp
@VoxDay's blog is on blogspot in case anyone's asking. I don't advocate anything. I just provide PSA. How to register a complaint with Google about inappropriate content on blogs using blogspot.com.

I also tend to suspect this gentleman doesn't understand how Google - or really, Blogger - handles complaints. First, they review the post. Second, they put it into draft mode. Third, they tell you to modify it to remove something specific or they tell you to delete the post. If Blogger tells me to delete something, I will do so. It is, after all, their house. And this would not be the first time that has happened, although it would be the first time in a long while, because, unlike Gab, I abide by their specified standards, and have done so for 14 years.

The amusing thing is that these are the very people who are attempting to lecture everyone on the importance of not punching right. But it is clear that they don't respect their own professed principle, so why do they expect anyone else to do so?

Gab kicked off registrar

Gab‏Verified@getongab
BREAKING: Gab's domain registrar has given us 5 days to transfer our domain or they will seize it. The free and open web is in danger.

The free and open web is not in danger. Literally NOTHING has changed except that Gab has received a legal wakeup call from reality. It's more than a little remarkable that they didn't anticipate this. Remember, I warned Andrew Torba that they ABSOLUTELY HAD to moderate their content, and I did so back in November, long before anyone had "said mean words" or "hurt my feelings" there. I did so again on September 7th, both when I emailed Utsav after our conversation and in my conversation with him.

What I believe inevitably doomed Gab with Asia Registry was not merely the complaints that were being made to the registry in lieu of Gab providing its users with any other option besides the recommended court order, but Gab's public stance on its refusal to moderate defamation as laid out in its Google filing. There are three sections that are relevant in this regard:

81. Even if it were possible for a social media platform to censor "defamatory and mean-spirited content" generated by 250,000 users, a level of content censorship that extended to "defamatory" and "mean-spirited" content would place at risk that service's status as a protected Internet Service Provider, as opposed to a publisher or speaker, under 47 U.S. Code 230, also known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("CDA")

82. Unlike an Internet Service Provider, a publisher or speaker is not granted the "safe harbor" benefits of Section 230, and may be held liable for defamation or other torts or other liability arising from content published on a platform it owns or manages.

251. Compliance with Google's demand that moderate content posted by its users on a viewpoint-discrimination basis would place at risk Gab's critical "safe harbor" protection against claims arising from such content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act by turning Gab into an unprotected editor or publisher, whereas it is presently protected as an Internet Service Provider.

This is bad lawyering for four reasons.

1. Some forms of defamation are criminal in Australia. Gab openly stated, in a public filing, that it cannot, and will not, remain in compliance with Australian law. 
2. Gab is not an Internet Service Provider. An Internet Service Provider, or ISP, is the company you pay a fee to access to the internet, not an internet site that lets you comment on it.
3. Section 230 of the CDA doesn't only protect ISPs, but also protects both the users and the providers of interactive computer service and says neither "shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
4. As a Texas entity - which Gab still is despite its establishment of a second office to be able to file its lawsuit against Google in Philadelphia County - Gab was additionally protected by the Defamation Mitigation Act, or Retraction Statute of 2013, which protects the publisher by giving him the option of correcting the mistake by publishing a retraction or deleting the defamatory content.

In other words, on the basis of an entirely groundless fear of being sued for what they like to describe as "mean words", Gab elected to state on the public record that they would not moderate for "defamatory" content, in open violation of the laws of the country in which they selected their registrar.

Not ready for prime time doesn't even begin to describe the level of strategic and legal incompetence demonstrated here.

This really isn't that difficult. As I have repeatedly said, as I have repeatedly told Andrew Torba, moderation is a must. It is implicitely required by law, and for those who want access to the Play Store and the App Store, it is explicitly required by Google and Apple. More importantly, if you refuse to offer your users a reasonable form of redress they can easily afford when they are targeted for harassment, don't pretend to be surprised or upset when they pursue alternate means to achieve their objectives just because those means happen to be more damaging to you.

I am the only one who pursued the course of action recommended by Gab. Considering the expense and the additional harassment that entailed, is it really surprising that everyone else opted for the free and anonymous course of action? In any event, Gab will find another registrar. I hope they will also find the common sense required to install some reasonable moderation policies, or they're just going to find themselves right back in the same position in a matter of weeks.

An educational juxstaposition

GAB: to two different people, neither of whom was me.

1. "If our registrar requires us to remove something again we will publish it here and let everyone know that you whined to them because someone hurt your feelings with mean words on the internet."

2. "We just don't "moderate" to the whining crybaby standards of your husband."

Gab has also permitted the posting of home addresses, in direct contradiction to its Terms of Service,.
I've now counted and screen-capped FOUR address postings on Gab, by various Gab users, in direct violation of Texas SEC. 33.07. ONLINE HARASSMENT. The offense is a Class B misdemeanor.


TWITTER: to me, in response to three different reports of tweets which varied in their degree of abusiveness.

1. Thank you for contacting us about this issue. We’ve investigated and suspended the account you reported as it was found to be participating in abusive behavior. If these problems persist for you on Twitter, please let us know.

Thanks,
Twitter


2. Thank you for contacting us about this issue. We have reviewed the account you reported and have locked it because we found it to be in violation of the Twitter Rules. If the account owner complies with our requested actions and stated policies, the account will be unlocked. Please continue to report any future violations of the Twitter Rules to us. We appreciate your help making Twitter better for everyone.

Thank you,
Twitter


3. Thank you for reporting this issue to us. Our goal is to create a safe environment for everyone on Twitter to express themselves freely.  We reviewed your report carefully and found that there was no violation of Twitter’s Rules regarding abusive behavior.

Thank you again for reporting this issue to us.
Twitter


Now, I'm not exactly what one would call a fan of Twitter. Their moderation is inconsistent and often applied unfairly. They partially block direct access to this blog on rather dubious grounds, and its Trust & Safety Council once suspended my account for a week for posting a picture of a cartoon fish, of all things. It also forced me to delete two of my 35,800 tweets about a year ago when I had responded to an SJW attacking me. Nevertheless, there is absolutely no question that their user experience, their moderation policies, and their reporting tools, are vastly better than Gab's.

I recommended Gab to many of you on the basis of it being an alternative to Twitter. With the benefit of hindsight, it is now apparent that doing so was a mistake. I had no idea that Gab would somehow manage to create a less professional, less viable, and even less useful alternative to Twitter. While Gab had a fair amount of potential, it simply doesn't have a management team in place that is capable of realizing that potential.

Which is why I have canceled my Pro account and returned to Twitter for the time being.

Gab wants war

And now Andrew Torba has publicly endorsed people attempting to doxx and report hate speech by his users despite the way in which doing so would clearly violate's Gab's Terms of Service. At this point, given the unprofessionalism and obvious lack of self-control being demonstrated by Andrew, I think it is safe to conclude that Gab is dead. It simply hasn't stopped moving yet.

Microchip · @Microchip
Link me @voxday's dox when/if you have it. Don't be shy, it's public record somewhere and it's time to ensure the safety of our allies.

Spacebunny Day · @Spacebunny
@a thinks this is okay - not against ToS or anything. Gab is doomed.

Microchip · @Microchip
Why wouldn't be okay? If it's public info, it's public info, if you allowed your info to be posted somewhere online, not Gab's problem, that's your problem.

Pepe Memes · @Pepe_Memes
Die of breast cancer, you fucking cunt

Spacebunny Day · @Spacebunny
@a @e @u - brilliant work you're doing. Truly.

Microchip · @Microchip
Don't be bad at this, Space lady, I'm not asking for anyone to do anything illegal here, I'm asking for @voxday's info so I can send the police to his home and have him arrested for hate crimes.

Spacebunny Day · @Spacebunny
I said against ToS, dear. Gab claims to moderate, they demonstrably don't. Not only do they not have a chance against Google, they won't last, period. It's disappointing. You, however, are boring.

Andrew TorbaPRO · @a
Lol. Yes, we do. We just don't "moderate" to the whining crybaby standards of your husband. He's not the boss here. Period.

Todd Kincannon @ToddKincannon
I am open to persuasion, but that has not been my experience. Also, the ToS expressly disclaim a duty to moderate, while reserving a right to moderate. Don't you agree with that? cc: @a @u @voxday

Spacebunny Day · @Spacebunny
He never claimed to be, dear. You shouldn't have bragged about not moderating and not just to Vox.

Andrew TorbaPRO · @a
Cry more sweetie. Whine more.

Spacebunny Day · @Spacebunny
Not crying, dear. Just observing.

Justin Bailey · @Botany_Bay16309
So are you going to remove the post trying to dox Vox Day, or are you just a bald faced liar?

Andrew TorbaPRO · @a
No dox occurred. If info is public it is public. Not our problem. Public info is public domain. Deal with it.

Andrew TorbaPRO · @a
Wow if I lived in a country that had "hate speech" laws I'd be pretty worried about what has been published on my "blog." Someone might "report" it or something.

The actual Terms of Service cited:

Considering that, unlike Gab, my blog doesn't even violate Google's rules concerning hate speech, I can't say I'm terribly worried about being found at fault for violating any European hate crime statutes. And if I was, I would simply do as directed and remove them to resolve the situation.

As usual, Americans have absolutely no idea how Europeans do things.

Gab belatedly files suit

It would appear the additional discussions that delayed yesterday's expected filing were not fruitful.

Free speech social media site Gab AI, Inc. filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Google for violations of the Clayton Act and Sherman Act. The lawsuit stems from Google removing Gab from its Google Play Android app store on spurious grounds of “hate speech” arising from posts by users.

Google did not accuse Gab of hate speech, but used third party content as a pretext to justify its own business ends. Gab, a startup, aims to bring “folks together of all races, religions, and creeds who share in the common ideals of Western values, individual liberty and the free exchange and flow of information.”

According to Gab’s attorney, Marc Randazza, Google’s conduct is a straightforward violation of the antitrust laws “Google Play and Android have monopoly power in the app store market, and Google’s apps YouTube and Google+ compete directly against Gab. Google’s intimate partnership with Twitter, which also competes against Gab, makes Google’s control of all Android apps available through the Play Store a serious restraint of trade issue.”

Randazza noted, “regardless of Google’s pretextual justification for removing Gab, the effect is that they used their monopoly power in the app store to block an upstart competitor it in the social media app market, to the detriment of millions of consumers who value free speech.”

The monopoly issue may work for Gab. But I don't like their chances for two reasons. First, Google's resources. Second, the Gab team really seems to be flying blind on the moderation issue. Now, I obviously disagree with their position, which is why I have filed a petition against them. And considering that I had to do so due to their complete refusal to moderate their posts, I don't see that they have any ability to claim they are abiding by Google's terms of service. Which, of course, means they have handed Google a perfect excuse to stonewall them.

Oh, the irony.... This is mildly amusing.

Well, we've collected a whole lot of examples of defamation and defamation per se, but I don't think Andrew is going to find them very useful to his case. The point is not that the other social networks don't moderate effectively, the point is that Gab openly refuses to moderate at all. It is not up to Gab, or even the court, to define what Google considers to be "a sufficient level of moderation" when all Google has to do is demonstrate that Gab does not provide ANY moderation, even upon request.

UPDATE: Andrew Torba claims that Gab does moderate posts. That is likely true, to a very limited extent. The question is, is whatever level of moderation they presently provide sufficient when Gab's management openly brags that they do not moderate for defamation or defamation per se as defined by their registrar, or by Texas law and the Texas courts, and that they will harass users who pursue legal means of redress.

Andrew TorbaPRO · @a
If our registrar requires us to remove something again we will publish it here and let everyone know that you whined to them because someone hurt your feelings with mean words on the internet.

Andrew TorbaPRO · @a
Note that these are recorded. Keep going. Please this will be fun. I am more alpha than you will ever be. Try me.

Andrew TorbaPRO · @a
Vox I'll publish every email you ever sent us and phone calls which have been recorded, Please try me. You can destroy your personal brand all you want, but you're not going to drag down Gab with it. Mark my words.

It seems to me that he's doing an efficient job of dragging down Gab without any help from me. Here is a partial list of the posts being sent to Asia Registry for review by the LLoE. It demonstrates, rather conclusively, that Gab simply does not moderate to the standard set by Facebook and Twitter, and, more importantly, Google.

• https://gab.ai/tdawg911/posts/12090691
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12065490
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12065748
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12107799
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12125780
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12126457
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12127469
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12127738
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12128833
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12129102
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12130342
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12128833
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12129450
• https://gab.ai/FreeinTX/posts/12186103
• https://gab.ai/Fashdaddey/posts/11862161
• https://gab.ai/Fashdaddey/posts/11839913
• https://gab.ai/roonyroo/posts/12180125
• https://gab.ai/Valaranumenoriano/posts/12160268
• https://gab.ai/Deacon_Jim/posts/12156043
• https://gab.ai/GTKRWN/posts/12147100
• https://gab.ai/gaystapo/posts/12112801
• https://gab.ai/WilhelmL/posts/12090962
• https://gab.ai/Ungern/posts/12086315
• https://gab.ai/Pepe_Memes/posts/12077259
• https://gab.ai/MorbiousStone/posts/12076537
• https://gab.ai/Whiteknight007/posts/12071038
• https://gab.ai/Pepe_Memes/posts/12067941
• https://gab.ai/GTKRWN/posts/12067637
• https://gab.ai/h4rdm0us/posts/12063396
• https://gab.ai/h4rdm0us/posts/12062548
• https://gab.ai/Pepe_Memes/posts/12061817
• https://gab.ai/Pepe_Memes/posts/12060233
• https://gab.ai/Pepe_Memes/posts/12046728
• https://gab.ai/Pepe_Memes/posts/12041396

Regardless, to quote John Derbyshire's recent column, fiat justitia ruat cælum.

Good morning, said Gab

Gab@getongab
Good morning to everyone except Google.

If you're not sure what this means, perhaps today's DailyMemeWars might help you understand.

Now, obviously, I don't agree with Gab's position on moderation. I don't agree with it in theory and I don't agree with it in practice. But that doesn't mean that I think it is either right or fair for Gab to be locked out of the App Store and the Play Store. As to whether it is legal for them to be blackballed in this way, I have no idea. I simply don't know what most of the relevant laws are, or how they apply to the situation. Unlike most of the critics of my current petition, I try to avoid opining in ignorance.

It is a daunting task to take on a tech giant with the resources that Google has at its disposal. It's certainly a courageous move. As to whether it is a clever move or a completely crazy one, we shall have to wait and see what comes of it. But, as we know, giants can be slain.

Announcing VOXIVERSITY

To support Voxiversity, please visit the Voxiversity project at the new crowdfunding site, Freestartr, which combines the functionality of Kickstarter, Patreon, and Indiegogo, but without the SJW thought-policing. There are six levels of support, each of which comes with different rewards.

• Subscriber
• Supporter
• Advocate
• Champion
• Brainstorm
• Foundation

Voxiversity is a series of educational video lectures by bestselling political philosopher Vox Day.

Castalia House reaches tens of thousands of people through the medium of books. The ideas first presented in books such as SJWs Always Lie, 4th Generation Warfare Handbook, and The Irrational Atheist have penetrated even those institutions most converged by social justice, such as academia and the media.. But Castalia’s reach is limited to an audience of people who enjoy reading books.

Video offers the ability to reach millions of people in a very short period of time. But the distribution of video is entirely different than book-selling, as most people who watch videos expect to do so for free. Video production is also more expensive, and the combination of those two factors is why it is necessary to crowdfund the production of videos containing the same kind of viral information that one so often encounters in Castalia’s non-fiction books.

The videos will be 20-minutes long, and subjects that require more detailed analysis will be addressed by multi-video series. The videos will also be released as podcasts for those who prefer audio to video.

Voxiversity will change the way people think.

UPDATE: Thanks very much for the staunch support. Our objective is to exceed expectations. In the meantime, I think this was the most amusing reaction.

I suspect that your success will be proportional to your ability to restrain yourself from telling people how much more intelligent you are then them when you fail to explain something clearly. Having said that...I wish you the best of luck :) 

As promised

Utsav Sanduja@u
If only it were a phone call or two...or an e-mail or a two.

My friend, you have no idea what you're talking about.

You just don't.


Vox Day@voxday
He doesn't, but he will. I will post all of our recent emails back and forth on my blog tomorrow.

My objective was not to embarass anyone, nor is the content of the emails even remotely embarrassing to anyone, but merely to demonstrate that Utsav was lying and attempting to create a false narrative about my behavior. It really was just a phone call or two and an email or four, as you will see.

9/6/2017 21:36: Andrew emails me and asks me to talk to Utsav. He provides me with the number.
9/6/2017 21:58: Utsav emails me to request a call.
9/7/2017 08:44: I email Utsav to tell him that I rang but he did not pick up.
9/7/2017 08:54: Utsav emails me to tell me to call him in 15 minutes.
9/7/2017 10:09: I call Utsav. We talk for 16 minutes and 31 seconds. It's a good, positive call.
9/7/2017 10:47: I email Utsav to thank him for taking the time to deal with this.
9/7/2017 11:07: Utsav emails me to direct my attention to this statement by Andrew.
9/7/2017 11:49: I email Utsav to ask what the policy on prospective libel and defamation will be.
9/7/2017 13:07: Utsav emails me to tell me it's being reviewed.
9/7/2017 20:38: I email Utsav with my suggestions for how Gab could handle defamation complaints.

And that's it. That's the crazy, desperate narrative at which Utsav was darkly hinting. Most of the emails were little more than sentence or two. And if you would like to know what my suggestions were, they were not particularly ambitious or draconian.

1. Clearly state that libel and defamation are not free speech in the guidelines.
2. Establish a Legal Review Board to which libel-related complaints sent to support can be reviewed. 
3. If the Legal Review Board concludes that a post about which a complaint has been submitted is probable libel per current US legal standards, the account is given one strike, and the account holder is informed that his user details will be divulged to the target upon request by that user.
4. Three strikes and the account is deleted and the account holder permanently banned. Each libelous post is counted separately, but multiple libels in a single post would only be counted once.

I felt this process would minimize legal disruptions to Gab, protect the Gab community from libel and defamation, provide any member of the community subjected to genuine libel a means of seeking legal redress without having to pay for the privilege of finding out who their attacker is, and remove any incentive for troublemakers to engage in libelous or defamatory behavior.

I'm not concerned about myself. As Supreme Dark Lord, I have the benefit of the Legal Legion of Evil, which I can assure Andrew Torba, despite his doubts, does exist. The various defamations that are presently published on Gab will be removed, one way or another. But there are others who are already coming forward who simply do not have such easy acccess the legal process that is presently required of them.

I felt that establishing a Legal Review Board would be a reasonable way of dealing with the obvious problem. Of course, I also feel that it is right to remove libelous and defamatory posts, even without waiting for a request from the target of the defamation. I do it here almost every day, usually without a request, because failing to do so renders the comments a wasteland of trolls, spammers, and people who derive some sense of spiritual satisfaction from rolling in filth.

Obviously, the management of Gab feels differently. Which is their right, but is also why the site will increasingly become a wasteland of trolls, slanderers, and people who derive some sense of spiritual satisfaction from rolling in filth. Since Gab did not take a reasonable stance at the start, their problem is only going to metastasize. I'm not surprised by any of this, in fact, I warned him in November that if he did not come up with a reasonable moderation policy, the site would eventually spin out of his control.

If people cannot get redress from Gab, they will seek it elsewhere. Andrew and Utsav really have no right to complain about how people do so when they are giving them no other choice. And yet, they are.

JeremiahEmbs · @JeremiahEmbs
So what's the excuse for @FashDaddey calling me a child rapist?Is @a @u @support going to address this?Or are they going to pretend defamation is the same thing as free speech&make this site completely unusable for good people such as myself who will abandon this platform since it is not moderated.

 JeremiahEmbs · @JeremiahEmbs
@a @u @support What are you going to do Torba? Asia Registry is being informed you are no longer immune under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as the site appears to be designed for defamation as there is no recourse for those abused by it.

Andrew Torba@a
If our registrar requires us to remove something again we will publish it here and let everyone know that you whined to them because someone hurt your feelings with mean words on the internet.

As I said in last night's Darkstream, Andrew Torba is simply not ready for prime time. I have advised him for nearly a year, I think he is a talented young man, and I genuinely like him, but he has repeatedly demonstrated that he is still too emotionally fragile for any high-stress position that brings him into contact with the public. And furthermore, I would immediately fire any customer support representative who ever responded to one of my customers that way.

Gab's Torba to release emails, recorded phone calls

Micus Expectorus@expectorant
Who the hell posts on a public forum criticizing an ally because he thought he got a phone call or two and didn't want to pick up?

Look, we get you're trying to be the lion for @a, but you're coming across as a passive-aggressive weenie. You should grow up too.


Utsav SandujaPRO · @u
If only it were a phone call or two...or an e-mail or a two.

My friend, you have no idea what you're talking about.

You just don't.


Vox Day@voxday
He doesn't, but he will. I will post all of our recent emails back and forth on my blog tomorrow.

I never write anything I'm not willing to expose to the public.


Vox Day@voxday
[9/7/2017 10:09:13 AM] *** Call to [number redacted] ***
[9/7/2017 10:25:59 PM] *** Call ended, duration 16:31 ***
[9/7/2017 8:01:25 PM] *** Call to [number redacted], no answer. ***
[9/7/2017 8:55:19 PM] *** Call to [number redacted], no answer. ***

Note that the first call was at @u's request.


Andrew Torba@a
Note that these are recorded.

Keep going.

Please this will be fun.

I am more alpha than you will ever be.

Try me.


Andrew Torba@a
Vox I'll publish every email you ever sent us and phone calls which have been recorded,

Please try me.

You can destroy your personal brand all you want, but you're not going to drag down Gab with it.

Mark my words.


Vox Day@voxday
I am happy to grant your plea. Go for it.

Release the text of all 81 emails from 9/22/2016 to 9/7/2017 in their entirety. I suggest you redact the names and email addresses of all third parties.

You made the threat. Now deliver on it.

Legal update

First, as I pointed out in tonight's Darkstream, I am not suing Gab. I repeat, I am not suing Gab and there is no reason to do so. That being said, Gab has already gone into lockdown mode, as evidenced by Andrew Torba's recent "bring it on" video and Utsav's recent post asking me not to call him.

In other words, they are not acceding to my request for the personal information of the three users responsible for the defamation, which means that we will have to force their compliance through the legal process. The Legal Legion of Evil is already aware of this and will begin the process next week.

I respect Gab's right to run their business as they see fit. But there is no way that any responsible parent will permit such baseless and reprehensible accusations to stand uncontested, and so the Legal Legion and I will be pursuing this matter until the defamation is removed and the @dantheman10, @GTKRWN, and @Fabian_Nazism are forced to answer for their defamatory actions.

If you don't understand why I'm doing this, these three examples might help you understand.

• https://gab.ai/Fabian_Nazism/posts/11749651
• https://gab.ai/GTKRWN/posts/11748825
• https://gab.ai/dantheman10/posts/11773072

In the meantime, if you follow me on social media, you can do so on Twitter, as I will not be using Gab until the defamation is removed and policies are instituted that can be reasonably expected to prevent similar incidents in the future.

And if you're a lawyer who is interested in joining the Legal Legion, shoot me an email. We still have 40 states that require coverage. If you think I am overreacting, I suggest you consider the recent examples set by Milo Yiannopoulos and Julian Assange.

This is compounded by my level-headed analyses of the alt-right, which has led media organization after media organization to brand me a “white nationalist”—almost always followed by a groveling apology to me and a public retraction after my lawyers get in touch.
- Milo Yiannopoulos, Dangerous

As violence broke out, Arreguin returned to Twitter to half-heartedly proclaim, “Violence and destruction is not the answer.” The following morning he put out a statement condemning the violence, while also condemning me as a white nationalist. My lawyers forced him to retract and apologize.
- Milo Yiannopoulos, Dangerous

An analyst on our air earlier today asserted that Julian Assange was a pedophile, and regrets saying it. In fact, CNN has no evidence to support that assertion... We regret the error.
- CNN

The three types of free speech

This is a concept that appears to be a particularly difficult one for the binary thinkers of the world to grasp. As I explained in the Darkstream last night, there are three types of free speech:

• Platonic
• Public
• Private

As I have repeatedly explained, I support Public free speech, which is the form protected by the Constitution, reject Private free speech on the basis of private property, and observe that Platonic free speech does not, and has never, existed.

The problem that I see is that Gab is nobly attempting to set its policy on the basis of Platonic free speech, limited only by the law. However, this is setting them up for potential legal trouble, particularly since that policy does not permit them to remove libelous and defamatory speech.

Here is how Andrew Torba expressed their Neo-Platonic policy:

@Voxday, you are fortunate enough to choose who to publish and who can comment on your blog, but Gab is a completely different environment, a platform for free speech for all viewpoints. We do not agree when it comes to censorship. Gab will not be the judge of what is or is not libelous. If a competent court requires us to take down a post because it is deemed libelous, Gab will comply. Libel as we all know is not protected by the first amendment.

This means that Gab is knowingly complicit in publishing these false, malicious, and defamatory statements which I brought to their attention and requested their immediate removal.

Silverdawn · @GTKRWN
9 hours · edited
Everyone stay away from @voxday He is a faggot Talmudic half jew half Mexican Pedophile pretending to be White.

Fabius MaximusPRO · @Fabian_Nazism
8 hours
I heard @voxday is a known pedophile who's viewed more prepubescent boys online than viewers to his own site. Sad

Silverdawn · @GTKRWN
7 hours
Why do you follow a pedophile? are you a pedophile too?

AlphaJedPRO · @AlphaJed
@voxday the libel is still up

But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that unless the identity of the individuals is already known, it is going to be necessary to sue Gab in order to force it to disclose their identity so that they can be served for the libel case that Gab requires in order to take down a post. Which is something I tend to doubt is an aspect of their policy that has been entirely thought through. Fortunately, I have other means of identifying anonymous commenters. VFM, you know what to do.

Regardless, this is something that the Legal Legion of Evil is going to have to discuss before I make any decisions, so I'll be getting in touch with all of you to set up a group meeting later this week. This isn't the only matter we have to discuss, but it is the most important one at the moment. As a Gab supporter, I certainly don't wish to harm Gab in any way; this sort of situation is precisely why I previously advised Andrew to adopt a ban-on-sight policy towards known trolls and troublemakers.

But sometimes people, particularly idealists, need to learn these things for themselves.

Andrew Torba's statement on Gab censorship

Personally, I think there is no reason to hesitate to ban anyone from any site for any reason the site owner deems desirable. But I understand that Gab has publicly professed a commitment to free speech and therefore has to deal with the expectations that they have created for themselves.

We believe the post in question was indeed obscene. It should have been marked #NSFW and it was not, therefore it is in violation of our Community Guidelines.

This is not the first time we have enforced our guidelines. Gab has banned users for spamming, making death threats to the President, posting revenge porn, and doxing among others. We’ve been transparent and incredibly fair about this on many occasions.

We believe this effort was coordinated and planned. We knew this day would come and now we have entered a crossroads with a very binary decision: remove one post or lose our domain and thus the entire website.

Our choice was very clear to me. The post needs to come down. If it does not, we lose our domain. To my knowledge there are no pro-free speech domain registrars and that is a massive problem. Our only other option now would be to play a cat and mouse game by transferring our domain to another registrar. Others who have attempted to play this game have failed and even had their domain seized completely from under them. We will not play these games. We have little choice, for now.

The free and open internet as we know it is under attack. It is centralized and controlled by no more than a handful of companies who provide these services:

• Hosting
• DDoS protection
• Payment Processing
• Domain Registrars
• Mobile device hardware and software distribution

Without any of these things an individual website can not possibly compete and operate at scale. If left unchecked, these centralized platforms will continue their dominance and control the means of all information, personal data, and communication on the internet.

Perhaps it would help if you understand that I don't believe that free speech exists anymore than equality does.

Alt-Internet

Slate planned a hit piece on the Alt-Tech movement, then realized that perhaps the Alt-Right may have a point with regards to Internet censorship being an all-too-slippery slope.

However distasteful its views, the alt-right has smartly framed its battle in terms of “free speech.” This argument has currency elsewhere on the right, too. President Trump is fond of calling out Amazon, perhaps chiefly because of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ ownership of the Washington Post. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said on his show earlier this month that “Google should be regulated like the public utility it is, to make sure it doesn’t further distort the free flow of information to the rest of us.” Former Trump aide and Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon has also argued that tech platforms should be regulated like utilities. Combined with Democrats making antitrust regulation a central tenet of their new policy platform, the internet’s gatekeepers could soon be put on notice as never before.

It would be hard not to spot the irony if one of the most significant threats to big tech’s monopolistic power ends up being caused by hate groups. Gab’s Sanduja believes that Apple and Google shutting out his company from their app marketplaces prevents it from accessing 70 to 75 percent of its potential U.S. market. Even if you agree with banning Gab, the power of a handful of companies to banish anyone from the internet should give you pause. And it is one reason why the arguments of alt-tech advocates may find more and more friendly ears in Silicon Valley, where many entrepreneurs increasingly worry they can’t compete.

It’s also hard not to see this conundrum as big tech’s fault from the start. In a way, the alt-right is calling out the essential tension of the major internet companies, which espouse “don’t be evil” philosophies and want to “bring the world closer together,” yet also owe their popularity (and profits) to an internet where seemingly anything goes, until they say it doesn’t. Banning Nazis may be a perfectly defensible stance, but given the inconsistent transparency and enforcement of community guidelines from tech companies, it also has the whiff of the arbitrary.

In a more plural market, Facebook and Google and GoDaddy would be just as free to boot odious ideologies—but they wouldn’t face the same accusations of speech suppression, because places like Daily Stormer would have more places to go for their social-networking and domain-hosting needs. The early ideal of the internet was that of a great commons where all kinds of diverse opinions could be shared, where people could come to understand each other and to be convinced of new, challenging ideas. That particular utopian wish list may have always been naïve, but the notion that an open internet should not be controlled by a small group of corporations beholden only to shareholders continues to hold sway for a reason. Facebook was only ever supposed to be part of the public commons; the walled garden was never meant to subsume it.

Which may be why Gab and its Free Speech Tech Alliance has gained the trust of Nazis but can also invoke the rhetoric of left-wing antitrusters—well, to a point. “If Google and Apple are straight-up corporations for their political sides, they should openly declare their discriminatory behavior. They should be proud of it,” said Gab’s Sanduja. “They should not be mendacious and talk about change and be different. Stop engaging in sophistry. Come out to us as the major SJW platforms you are.”

The funny thing was that they really wanted to talk to Gab's Torba, not Sanduja. Because, of course, Sanduja didn't fit the original intended Narrative of Alt-Tech being nothing but white supremacist Nazis.

The tech crackdown is weakness

As well as an opportunity to foxnews the f------- at Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, and the other social media giants.

This year, the world’s largest social network will see a decline among teen users in the U.S., according to a forecast by EMarketer. It’s the first time the research company has predicted a fall in Facebook usage for any age group.

EMarketer predicts 14.5 million people from the ages of 12 to 17 will use Facebook in 2017, a drop of 3.4 percent from the prior year. Teens are migrating instead to Snap Inc.’s Snapchat and Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Facebook owns, the research company said Monday in a statement.

Facebook has continued to grow around the world, with more than 2 billion users this year, but younger people are finding it less compelling, said Oscar Orozco, a forecasting analyst at EMarketer.

The Facebook/Twitter business model is an intrinsically fraudulent one, propped up by debt and ideology. Which means, of course, that their decline will be unexpectedly fast once it begins. And it is coming soon. Twitter has already ceased to grow. Facebook will follow suit soon. All they will succeed in doing is fracturing and further decentralizing the Internet, which will serve us, not them.

The reason they are cracking down hard now is that they realize their window of opportunity to do so is closing. This is why there is no reason to panic when another deplatforming happens. All that a deplatforming accomplishes is to ensure that a new platform will come into being to replace it.

Remember, there was a time not all that long ago when SJW fans of John Scalzi bragged that his blog traffic was vastly bigger than mine. Now that mine is more than 5x his, he switched to bragging about his 111,329 followers and 178 million annual Twitter impressions... and I am now on pace to equal or exceed his 2016 monthly average of 14.8 million Twitter impressions this month.

The world is a dynamic place. It will knock you down, but when you get up again, hardened by the experience, the experience only makes you that much more formidable.

That being said, the next anti-Right tech strike will be more systematic and multiplatform. I expect that if I am targeted, my accounts will be vanished from Twitter, Blogger, and Gmail simultaneously,  (I don't really use Facebook or Paypal) which is why I am already set up with more reliable alternatives for literally every social media and payment platform, and have arranged for direct email access to every VFM, Book Club, and Daily Meme Wars member. If you want to make sure that you're immediately alerted and provided with the alternatives, I recommend signing up for either the Book Club or if you don't mind daily emails, the Daily Meme Wars.