Journos seething over browser extension that lets people say what they want

247  2019-02-27 by falwin

140 comments

You didn't even read it, did you? You just disregarded it because it doesn't fit your world view. You are pathetic, scum of the earth. People present you with scientifically backed evidence showing how the world really is and you disregard it because it is brought to your attention by a group of people you find inferior to you.

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  1. This Post - archive.org, megalodon.jp, archive.is

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SENTIENT.

Also who the fuck reads comments sections?

Gab itself is pretty much dead. Finding a gab comment on other sites using the gab extension would be like trying to hit the jackpot.

ye and the type of people who'll use the extension will likely be the same people who's hot takes you don't really want to see

This extension is of no use. But the idiots reporting are doing their best to make it work by talking about it lol

Wouldn't be surprised if a few of the had a hand in creating it

all journos are actually retarded, i think you're expecting far too much from them

their knowledge goes about as far as sending a tweet

Oh I know they are retarded which is why I'd be playing both sides and making as much money as possible. Who gives a fuck about ethics in journalism?

Yikes, amiright?

man are you agenda posting or something? this feature is actually really cool, and everyone would love it had it been any other company releasing it.

so why are journos crying so much about it

Because activist journalists cry about everything, but the day of the spilled latte is approaching fast.

you'd only be finding the comments on the articles that are already being talked about anyway, where there are comments on forums regardless. Seems pretty useless

I can see this GAB hidden comment box filled with spam

if you don't like it, then make your own service

*Journalists try to get your service shut down*

How'd you get that sick flair? I want it đŸ˜Ș

Are you pregnant by a black man?

I think you had to post in MDE.

Just lay your own millions of miles of cables under the ocean bro.

Yeah, the ocean is about 2 million miles across. Galaxy brain detected

imagine thinking the lines are just one cable, 65 I detected

Reminds me of a time in school where

Reminds me of a time in school when I got all browsers other than Internet Explorer banned for sharing a plugin where people could draw/write whatever they wanted on webpages and others with the extension could see it.

Could this be the true continuation of the legacy of drawing cocks on the school website?

I've thought about making an extension that lets anyone comment on anything. I'm glad Gab did it.

We have built something like this that isn't full of MDEfugees like Gab (built by and for /r/drama radical centrists). https://www.remarkenable.com/install

That's super cool. When I was in high school all we had was a bootleg copy of Unreal Tournament that somebody hid in the CTE department shared drive.

It was hilarious when teachers didn't know shit about computers so you could just be a straight up asshole in so many ways. We put a set of speakers on full blast, unplugged the monitor while Peanut Butter Jelly Time loaded up. Old lady librarian was screeching like a banshee about it and couldn't figure out what to do.

We had a ton of methods that could set them off:

  • Ctrl + Shift + Up Arrow would flip the screen upside down, do that on their computer and they have no idea how to fix it (think this only worked on Windows XP)

  • Inspect element edit the school website, claim it's been hacked, watch them freak out

  • Put a space and then back arrow in the login window before they get to the computer, watch them fail to log on for 20 mins

  • Use free website creators to host sites bullying teachers or someone else, host games, etc. Change the domain name for free when it's blocked

Fucking with them and wasting lesson time because they couldn't use their computer was probably our main source of fun in lessons

Good times. We used to ctl+alt+↑ or &#x2192 to rotate the screens on all the library computers, then hang out and watch kids who put things off till the last minute panic when they sat down to write their essay at lunch.

"Our fucking teacher said 'Who's been drawing dicks?!?'"

Right wing nibbas in 2011: Makes ideological comment on any major news website.

Major news site admins: Ya'll can't behave

removes comments section

I hate this shit. I mean sure 99.9% of the comments in comment sections are trash, but every once in a while there would be something worthwhile. Like if a news station posted some horseshit story that was easily debunked, typically someone in the comments would be calling it out. Not anymore. Convenient.

I can't imagine how little I would have to value my time to actually go out of my way and bitch about comment section boomerposting to news outlets.

literally every single local news website is inhabited by boomers

nothing of value is lost

what happened was journalists would post easily refuted ideological trash which the top comments would always meticulously dissect and correct

can’t have that in our propaganda outlets now can we

lmfao you actually treated comments on news stories as serious analysis hahahahaha your opinions are informed by NEWS STORY COMMENTERS omfg you fucking loser

When you read an article you're just reading the output of some 25-year old B- journo grad. When you read the comments, statistically, SOMEONE will know what they're talking about. There's just some shit mixed in alongside it.

When you read the comments, statistically, SOMEONE will know what they're talking about.

lol thats not true at all

I trust random fucktards in the comments more than I trust """journalists""" in 2019.

hahahahahah you absolute moron

People would take the piss out of Guardian articles in the comments and they got rid of comments for "hate speech"

in current year there’s none with thinner skin than journalists

They were fine with the trash comments for like a decade or more.

But then everyone decided they couldn't handle reading opposing political opinions, and site owners have no ability to tolerate stuff they don't like, so they just started deleting stuff or turning them off selectively.

If you want to know why

I’ll get to the long version eventually, but first I want to stress that this isn’t just my story. It’s the story of everyone who’s tried to host a space for political discussion on the Internet. Take the New York Times, in particular their article Why No Comments? It’s A Matter Of Resources. Translated from corporate-speak, it basically says that unmoderated comment sections had too many “trolls”, so they decided to switch to moderated comment sections only, but they don’t have enough resources to moderate any controversial articles, so commenting on controversial articles is banned.

And it’s not just the New York Times. In the past five years, CNN, NPR, The Atlantic, Vice, Bloomberg, Motherboard, and almost every other major news source has closed their comments – usually accompanied by weird corporate-speak about how “because we really value conversations, we are closing our comment section forever effective immediately”. People have written articles like The Comments Apocalypse, A Brief History Of The End Of The Comments, and Is The Era Of Reader Comments On News Websites Fading? This raises a lot of questions.

Like: I was able to find half a dozen great people to do a great job moderating the Culture War Thread 100% for free without even trying. How come some of the richest and most important news sources in the world can’t find or afford a moderator?

Or: can’t they just hide the comments behind a content warning saying “These comments are unmoderated, read at your own risk, click to expand”?

The fact is, it’s very easy to moderate comment sections. It’s very easy to remove spam, bots, racial slurs, low-effort trolls, and abuse... ...But once you remove all those things, you’re left with people honestly and civilly arguing for their opinions. And that’s the scariest thing of all.

Some people think society should tolerate pedophilia, are obsessed with this, and can rattle off a laundry list of studies that they say justify their opinion. Some people think police officers are enforcers of oppression and this makes them valid targets for violence. Some people think immigrants are destroying the cultural cohesion necessary for a free and prosperous country. Some people think transwomen are a tool of the patriarchy trying to appropriate female spaces. Some people think Charles Murray and The Bell Curve were right about everything. Some people think Islam represents an existential threat to the West. Some people think women are biologically less likely to be good at or interested in technology. Some people think men are biologically more violent and dangerous to children. Some people just really worry a lot about the Freemasons.

Each of these views has adherents who are, no offense, smarter than you are. Each of these views has, at times, won over entire cultures so completely that disagreeing with them then was as unthinkable as agreeing with them is today. I disagree with most of them but don’t want to be too harsh on any of them. Reasoning correctly about these things is excruciatingly hard, trusting consensus opinion would have led you horrifyingly wrong throughout most of the past, and other options, if they exist, are obscure and full of pitfalls. I tend to go with philosophers from Voltaire to Mill to Popper who say the only solution is to let everybody have their say and then try to figure it out in the marketplace of ideas.

But none of those luminaries had to deal with online comment sections.

The thing about an online comment section is that the guy who really likes pedophilia is going to start posting on every thread about sexual minorities “I’m glad those sexual minorities have their rights! Now it’s time to start arguing for pedophile rights!” followed by a ten thousand word manifesto. This person won’t use any racial slurs, won’t be a bot, and can probably reach the same standards of politeness and reasonable-soundingness as anyone else. Any fair moderation policy won’t provide the moderator with any excuse to delete him. But it will be very embarrassing for to New York Times to have anybody who visits their website see pro-pedophilia manifestos a bunch of the time.

“So they should deal with it! That’s the bargain they made when deciding to host the national conversation!”

No, you don’t understand. It’s not just the predictable and natural reputational consequences of having some embarrassing material in a branded space. It’s enemy action.

Every Twitter influencer who wants to profit off of outrage culture is going to be posting 24-7 about how the New York Times endorses pedophilia. Breitbart or some other group that doesn’t like the Times for some reason will publish article after article on New York Times‘ secret pro-pedophile agenda. Allowing any aspect of your brand to come anywhere near something unpopular and taboo is like a giant Christmas present for people who hate you, people who hate everybody and will take whatever targets of opportunity present themselves, and a thousand self-appointed moral crusaders and protectors of the public virtue. It doesn’t matter if taboo material makes up 1% of your comment section; it will inevitably make up 100% of what people hear about your comment section and then of what people think is in your comment section. Finally, it will make up 100% of what people associate with you and your brand. The Chinese Robber Fallacy is a harsh master; all you need is a tiny number of cringeworthy comments, and your political enemies, power-hungry opportunists, and 4channers just in it for the lulz can convince everyone that your entire brand is about being pro-pedophile, catering to the pedophilia demographic, and providing a platform for pedophile supporters. And if you ban the pedophiles, they’ll do the same thing for the next-most-offensive opinion in your comments, and then the next-most-offensive, until you’ve censored everything except “Our benevolent leadership really is doing a great job today, aren’t they?” and the comment section becomes a mockery of its original goal.

from slatestarcodex

did you just post an entire news article

who do you expect to read this shit

I bolded part if you want to just read that.

And that is like 1/4 of the article lol

Scott is many things; a paragon of brevity he is not.

I used to be in a post-modern metal band called Paragon of Brevity. Then I decided that anyone who uses that phrase is a queerosexual.

Some people read. Some people breath with closed mouths most of the time.

Some don't.

Mmm yes, some of us just enjoy the intellectual rigors of r/drama seriousposts.

Some people read more than five hundred words a week.

we call these people "nerds"

Are you smugposting about reading on a text-based internet forum?

Nibba you expect me to read all that shit?

Yes, get to reading boy

Papi no

You can apparently still comment even if they remove the comment section from what the article said. BBC never allows comments but people were able to comment on it.

That's actually a pretty neat feature and something that it would be good to have exist tbh.

Too bad they want me to register to read that shit. Somebody should create an app that let's me read Dissenter comments without signing up.

I feel like there should be at least a minor barrier. Maybe at least force account registration to post, but yeah, maybe you're right, read should probably be open to all.

Drama extension?

We have built something like this that isn't full of MDEfugees like Gab (built by and for /r/drama radical centrists). https://www.remarkenable.com/install

I think so, too.

We have built something like this that isn't full of MDEfugees like Gab (built by and for /r/drama radical centrists). https://www.remarkenable.com/install

what

It is another "comment anywhere" app that is not run by Gab, link has details.

The only down side is that gab is full of white lives matter activists

Is it really though? It feels like ever since zoomers discovered the internet there's fashy types everywhere.

Like, I once met a NatSoc girl on fucking Deviantart. It's crazy how prevalent they are now.

It's about 5% of the userbase. Still less overall than Twitter's 2.5%

Gab has less "hate speech" per-capita than Twitter.

We have built something like this that isn't full of MDEfugees like Gab (built by and for /r/drama radical centrists). https://www.remarkenable.com/install

I got an iPhone. Sorry homeboi

Its kinda like that one extention that makes reddit comment section appear on YT videos rather than the yt comment section. Reddit comments are trash, too, but nowhere near thr degree of YouTube's. If I can have the slightly better comment section to look over, I'll take it.

Its a similar situation here. If people want comments that are more relevant to them, there's nothing wrong with that

We have built something like this that isn't full of MDEfugees like Gab (built by and for /r/drama radical centrists). https://www.remarkenable.com/install

There are so many of these internet commenting extensions now, it's completely fragmented and that especially sucks. My favourite is hypothes.is, but there's also the genius web annotator, and some are buggy some are not, some are popular some are not. Some support other filetypes, ex: local pdfs. Some don't.

I currently use 2 web annotators: Kami for local files and Hypothesis for web, but there isn't much of a hypothesis community.

That's actually a pretty neat feature and something that it would be good to have exist tbh.

We have built something like this that isn't full of MDEfugees like Gab (built by and for /r/drama radical centrists). https://www.remarkenable.com/install

zoz

zle

zozzle

I will need to write a zozbot for remarkenable at some point

This sounds a lot like a r/drama but with no way to find the popular posts and an even more retarded user base.

an even more retarded user base

Oh ye of little faith!

You shouldn't call these faggots "journalists". It's an insult to actual faggots.

Gab users are all losers but I support this for the boost in dramacoin. Invest now boys!

Let’s face it, opinions are inherently racist, sexist and transphobic. That’s just a fact.

This, but unironically.

And you gotta point it all out.

Anita?

Disagreement is a form of violence.

I love the image they picked for the article lol

Uhh yeah, having an opinion that's not from Vice is for nazis sweetie

I'm so sick of the far right and their free speech.

It's so bizarre, when I was growing up freedom of speech was still seen as a left-wing thing. My opinions on it didn't change, but the support for it sure did.

Honestly, ceding freedom of speech and expression to the right-wing because some people have icky gross problematic opinions has got to be the biggest political blunder of the last few decades.

"REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WE'RE ATTENTION WHORES YOU CANNOT SILENCE US!"

I remember extensions like this from over 10 years ago. Neat idea, but in practice, it was a complete wasteland.

This has to happen one way or another.

There's a W3C standard for web annotation now

Gab aren't the first to try this, e.g. genius and hypothes.is

I was actually hoping for a fully decentralized, open solution. But if gab has the userbase to make it big, they may end up becoming a serious competitor after all. wouldn't that be sweet

some right wing retards made a platform literally only viewable by other right wing retards, and journo faggots are still seething
day of the broken pen when

Journos are literally raped by even the possibility of wrongspeak.

I think there's clearly a market for this kind of thing, so it's only a matter of time before this or something along these lines proliferates. Must be absolutely terrifying for the journos, because currently they can get away with spewing absolute nonsense if they just turn the comments off. A good comment section is like peer review.

Give this a shot: https://www.remarkenable.com/https://old.reddit.com/r/Drama/comments/ave6nz/journos_seething_over_browser_extension_that_lets/?st=jybyb7yk&sh=ae16fc43

pros: not full of alt right tards (aim is for glorious radical centrism) cons: need to get more users

the new service lets users comment on news articles, YouTube videos and even individual social media posts — even if those sites don’t have comment sections or have comments switched off.

I don't understand. How does that work?

It's just a chrome extension that opens a little comments box on the page

Only the people with the extension can see the comments made in it. So essentially they made their own little retarded echo chamber comment app to feel special. Bless their hearts

Wait, so who gives a shit then?

Vice, apparently. All they're doing is giving it publicity so it's kind of counter-productive of them to do an article about it

Losers

To be fair though, if more people used it then it wouldn't be an echo chamber, it's a natural echo chamber because everyone is repulsed by gab users, not a manufactured one like you see on reddit

so even though this has comments only visible to other people with the browser EXT it's somehow still the wrongest of think. The only recourse is to bitch about this thing you can't see anyways as much as possible. Why am I not surprised.

I don't understand. How does that work?

TL:DR the extension adds it's own special comment section

I actually love this idea but it's ruined by ensuring the only comments I'd ever see would be from the kind of people who post on gab.

a 4chan thread that won't die

if it was actually 4chan I'd be about it but gab-type nikkas take themselves WAY too serious

Yea, this seems like the kind of thing that could take off if it was backed by a site that wasn't shit

Yea, this seems like the kind of thing that could take off if it was backed by a site that wasn't shit We have built something like this that isn't full of MDEfugees like Gab (built by and for /r/drama radical centrists). https://www.remarkenable.com/install

But alas I use firefox. Also lol closed-sourcecel

But we're on Reddit, which is also not open sourced.... thanks for the feedback, we have Firefox version in the works.

I actually love this idea but it's ruined by ensuring the only comments I'd ever see would be from the kind of people who post on gab.

We have built something like this that isn't full of MDEfugees like Gab (built by and for /r/drama radical centrists). https://www.remarkenable.com/install

I don't think I trust any program written by people on /r/drama enough to install it on my computer tbqhwufamiglia

:,(

This should just be tied into Reddit.

We already have this for YouTube with the alientube extension. It's a well done concept, any YouTube video you go to, it searches for that link on Reddit and puts the Reddit comments below the video.

Alternate headline: New app lets neo-nazis talk to other neo-nazis while continuing to pretend that anybody else cares

Don’t know anything about Gab, but what makes it far right?

Is it just an alternative to something that’s accepting people banned from other sites?

I guess it's far right in the same way voat is far right. All the people who get banned from the mainstream platforms, mostly far right, move to these alternatives that make no censorship a selling point.

Ok that makes more sense than having owners just being actual Nazis.

sweet sweet free advertising for gab

That's a pretty neat idea actually.

Awesome, I’m getting it

Another popular use is to comment on YouTube videos where comments have been disabled.

YouTube last week purged the site of tens of millions of comments after it was revealed that they were being used to direct users to potentially sexual videos of children, allowing them to participate in a “soft-core pedophile ring.”

Holy non-sequiter, Batman.

Gab is still a thing?

this extension is actually god tier

The dissent on drama is about what you would expect.

Lol... Vice is journalism now?

Gab is somehow shitier than Twitter.

The internet is a failed experiment.

this is pretty cool

This is basically an advertisement for Gab. No way it isn't a paid article or that Gab is owned by someone that is a part owner in vice

When it finally came back online, the site was flooded with anti-Semitic comments.

https://i.imgur.com/sohWhy9.png