PayPal Bans Far-Right Social Network Gab After Anti-Semitic User Kills at Least 11 at Synagogue

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: parminder <parminder () itforchange net>
> Subject: [Internet Policy] PayPal Bans Far-Right Social Network Gab After Anti-Semitic User Kills at Least 11 at 
> Synagogue
> Date: October 28, 2018 at 1:47:24 PM GMT+9
> To: "internetpolicy () elists isoc org" <internetpolicy () elists isoc org>
>
> (the below is from an e-list, which i thank for it)
>
> https://gizmodo.com/paypal-bans-far-right-social-network-gab-after-anti-sem-1830050551
>
> While Gab and its founder Andrew Torba prefer to pitch the
> site as a free-speech hub for everyone, in reality Gab is
> mostly well known as a haven for neo-Nazis, white
> supremacists, and other extremists who have used it as a
> far-right echo chamber (in many cases after being removed from
> mainstream platforms). And now one of its primary fundraising
> methods has been cut off: On Saturday, PayPal confirmed in an
> email to Gizmodo that it had terminated Gab's account in the
> wake of the attack:
>
> ENDS
>
> These kinds of things are very disturbing. Of course one welcomes - and
> indeed seeks -- stringent legal action on any group that crosses the
> limits of legality, and the strongest social sanction on those who cross
> the limits of social and political propriety. But if tech companies can
> become such final arbiters of legality, morality and all, we are sinking
> fast into a post-democratic, post-political, regime of a very dangerous
> kind.
>
> While patently wrong in principle, the problem can be elucidated by how
> this then makes any kind of social change subject to the whims and
> fancies, more importantly, interests, of the big businesses owning our
> communication, information and social networking infrastructures, as
> well as others like of financial transactions, mobility, energy etc,
> which in fact should be public infrastructure, directly or through
> utilities kind of regulation.
>
>  Already, privatisation and commercialisation of higher education, and
> its debilitating dependency on student loans, is removing the
> 'university' as the key arena where real social change got
> conceptualised and led-from......   All such factors cumulatively will
> cause irreversible damage to our societies.
>
> parminder
>
> _______________________________________________
> To manage your ISOC subscriptions or unsubscribe,
> please log into the ISOC Member Portal:
> https://portal.isoc.org/
> Then choose Interests & Subscriptions from the My Account menu.




-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=18849915
Unsubscribe Now: 
https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-a538de84&post_id=20181028005355:76EB5052-DA6D-11E8-887C-C56FA0549A2E
Powered by Listbox: https://www.listbox.com