Upper Echelon Gamers: The Meltdown of Gab - Hypocrisy Overload (youtu.be/0JrPLl7yhFM)

1:09AM Dec 4, 2020

Speakers:

Upper Echelon Gamers

Keywords:

gab

free speech

adult

platform

hateful

twitter

material

content

harmful

meltdown

speech

individual liberty

users

leaning

position

subjectively

id verification

advocacy

legal

brand

For anyone truly familiar with the channel, it will be fairly obvious by now that I take a somewhat hard-line position in favor of free speech or freedom of expression. This ideology often leads to a necessary and combative stance when faced with various left-wing political claims that aim to censor or stamp out specific areas of public discourse. Most notably, this usually applies to the concept of harmful speech or harmful opinions.

A great example would be the 60 minutes segment from CBS that I recently covered. The premise was that harmful speech or hateful content are allowed to exist on YouTube instead of being struck down by default in all circumstances. To further complicate such a position, it was also self-acknowledged by the CBS interviewer that hateful or harmful content is in the eye of the beholder, that is to say, it is completely subjective.

So a hard-line stance against all hateful or harmful content with the goal of deplatforming those who participate means a perpetually shifting goalpost that totally abandons the concept of free speech. Well, this is not an uncommon perspective, many people agree with the concept of protected speech even when that speech is subjectively hurtful. And to be very clear, I do not advocate in any capacity that anyone ever participate in hateful verbal conduct. But the fundamental necessity is that an unflinching line be drawn where free speech and expression are protected, because the moment it becomes free speech, except x or y or z, it is an open acknowledgment that the concept is gone. And now, anything subjectively deemed by an authoritarian state to be hateful or harmful can be reclassified, prosecuted, or suppressed.

In light of this profound ideological divide, certain platforms and brands have emerged which aim to appeal to and capitalize on a demographic that supports the concept of free speech. One such platform is Gab.

Gab, for those that don't know, is a social media platform alternative to sites like Twitter or Facebook. On the very homepage, it is explained as, "A social network that champions free speech, individual liberty and the free flow of information online. All are welcome." However, recent events have begun to call this claim into question. And today, I want to analyze what I can only describe as a total identity meltdown for Gab as a platform.

Here is where I need to clarify a few things. Number one, free speech advocacy is often equated to prejudice itself by those that argue in bad faith. The sad truth is that anyone who advocates for the equal protection of all speech, literally conforming to the amendments set forth in the United States by our Founding Fathers, is often perceived as an ally to hateful groups. This is decidedly not true. Advocacy for the protection of free speech and expression extends, assuming it is, of course, genuine advocacy based on a set of actual beliefs, even to the speech we fundamentally disagree with on a personal level.

Additionally, platforms that support this concept often garner criticism for the extension of that protection to groups that express distasteful opinions that many find to be disgusting or even abhorrent. Just because a platform upholds the pillar of free speech which leads to its usage by various individuals who may have been deep platformed elsewhere, does not mean that they necessarily agree with what those individuals say. It simply means they are adhering to a principle that has largely come under siege as of late, owing to a vocal push against the inclusion of harmful or hateful speech under First Amendment protections by left-leaning political activists.

Here's the problem: the far left and the far right have a lot more in common than they want to admit. I typically find myself discussing instances of far leftist censorship activism much more often — it just happens to be the increasingly common material that crosses my feed — but that does not mean it is the only type of authoritarian advocacy. Enter Gab. Gab is largely cited as having a predominantly right-leaning user base. The central branding and premise revolve around free speech, but not only that, and also much more important for our purposes today, individual liberty as is clearly stated in multiple separate locations throughout their entire platform. Well, it turns out the creators of Gab have an equally authoritarian ideology when compared to their left leaning counterparts. The only difference is subject matter.

It all started a few days ago with an anti-adult content stance by the official Gab Twitter account. The platform, furthermore, as far as I can tell, has banned that type of content outright. I can't actually find the first comment on the subject from them. It's a literal meltdown all across their timeline, hundreds and I'm not exaggerating here, hundreds of tweets per day on the topic that condemn adult material consumption while trying to justify that stance in the face of overwhelming criticism for its hypocrisy.

Here are a couple of the more meaningful parts. One thread tackles the desire to have government ID verification for adult services and websites. It even goes so far as to say privacy is a scapegoat for guilt and shame. Further backed up by this tweet where they express that a formal photo ID verification process should exist for all adult sites.

In another thread there is the following: "A ban is unrealistic, but it pushes the Overton Window and gets the discussion happening at a national level. Art of the deal." The strong implication of their rhetoric and phrases throughout this now multi-day meltdown is that adult content is degeneracy. It should not be allowed to exist from not only a governmental level, but also a societal level. There are assertions that adult material is the cause of half a dozen or more horrible side effects from birth rates dropping to average adult age, and to examine the validity of each and every one of those claims would take far too long. So I'll simply summarize and say that Gab, and more specifically, the owner, who is apparently the one personally operating the Twitter page, has a fundamental and ideological hatred of adult material and wants it to be governmentally regulated at the very least, but preferably eradicated outright.

Now for anyone interested you can scroll their entire timeline. It's a complete unmitigated disaster. Memes that make no sense, insulting their own users, insulting YouTubers, insulting politicians, non stop text diarrhea from someone who so frantically hates adult content, they've completely surrendered to the outrage.

But that's not why I'm making this video. It's sad, it's pathetic, but what's much more important is extrapolating why this position is so brutally hypocritical in combination with a few more of Gab's policies, and it totally destroys their credibility as a free speech platform that prioritizes individual liberty.

Let's consider those words, "individual liberty". Does that sound like it meshes well with the concept of ID verification to serve sections of the internet? The responsibility is being shifted from quality parenting to the prohibition of certain material on both a legal and social level. Gab does not ban anti-semitic material on their platform, but they ban adult content.

At this point, I should acknowledge that a realistically compelling argument can be made that adult video material is a goods and a service, not speech. That is a fairly easy position to defend. And that would then mesh quite well with the argument that corporate platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or Gab have every legal right to moderate what is displayed on their website. That's all true, but for a company branded as a Twitter free speech alternative prioritizing individual liberty, moderating from a top down level what can and cannot be shared, posted, or viewed under the claim that it is degeneracy or obscenity, when other content claimed as degeneracy, obscenity or prejudicial by a separate set of users remains allowed, it creates the exact same slippery slope that other big tech is accused of. It's just starting in a different location.

Let's boil it down to the most fundamental premise here. On Twitter, users can be banned for saying hateful things because those hateful things are subjectively decided by a moderating power to be unacceptable. There is no legal framework for this. Un der us constitutional law as demonstrated by Mattel v Tam before the United States Supreme Court, "there is no hate speech". The court ruled in unanimous fashion to uphold the First Amendment. This means that, from a legal perspective, Twitter is not simply abiding by federal or state law in most circumstances, as they moderate and suspend accounts for content subjectively deemed to be harmful or hateful. Specifically, their hate speech policies come from an isolated corporate environment, not a judicial or legal one. Gab, on the other side of the spectrum, is taking a position against adult material. However, they are not doing so because of mandated federal or state laws. In fact, as evidenced by their Twitter meltdown, they are attempting to sway the Overton window and make adult material a further regulated topic from a legal perspective because they personally and subjectively disagree with it.

On Twitter, adult content is very much allowed, but hateful material is purged. On Gab, hateful content is allowed, but adult content is purge, and the logic behind why, the defenses formulated by their leaders, are identical. Furthermore, if we were to examine big tech right now, it would be clear that there is an ongoing initiative to sway the legal regulation of hate speech towards a more restricted position. Not only is the logic the same, the activism angle is similar as well. The only diverging factor, really, the only one, is the subject matter. One platform leans to the right and wants to dictate what users can and cannot see or post based on adult themes. The other leans to the left and wants to dictate what users can and cannot see or post based on offensive rhetoric. Neither of these options sound like free flow of information online, do they? Except one of these platforms is falsely representing themselves.

The icing on the cake, though perhaps not integral to the argument as a whole, is Gab's policy on information privacy. Keeping in mind the difference between free speech, individual liberty, and data protection, since they are not necessarily interwoven in all circumstances, take a look at Gab's user data privacy policy document. The wording, at least to me is alarming. They can change with or without notifying users at any time. They can store all data, disclose it to whoever they want, whenever they want, for whatever reason they want, and they keep this information as a business asset even through liquidation or bankruptcy. Combine that with the now vocal perspective of desired restrictions on internet viewing based on verified ID checks, and what I see is a social media platform that is not just similar to those that exist elsewhere, it is worse. The concepts of free speech and freedom of expression are immutable. To shift the keywords, the idea of individual liberty is not something that changes day in and day out. Gab is not a free speech, individual liberty platform. It's a platform that allows for some things that its competitors don't but restricts others. In my criticism of left-leaning political activism, when that activism deliberately calls for the censorship of language that they simply disagree with, I need to also acknowledge that on the opposite end of the very same spectrum, though I might not see it quite as often, there is an equally delusional group who want the exact same thing. They just point the barrel somewhere else.

Since all this happened, there has been a substantial increase in Gab's social media decline. They have been declining for weeks now regardless, that's also true, but we can see a sharp increase as their meltdown began picking up speed. There is also an interesting correlation directly between follower loss and how often they are sending tweets. So on a side note, maybe the owner should realize right now: "You are killing your own brand. Shut the hell up." But [the] main point is that people see through the hypocrisy. The argument is not that adult content should be on full display in Times Square, which is effectively what Gab is attempting to manufacture as a strawman. The argument is that a platform based on individual liberty and free speech should not be taking subjective, ideological moderation steps to purge content that its leaders deem to be obscenity when there is no actual legal framework requiring or endorsing that step. On the most fundamental level, Gab is the very same thing it was built as an alternative for, just with different goals.

I firmly believe this to be a turning point for Gab. The hole that they are digging right now, even as I script this video, is deep enough to permanently damage their reputation. And the contradictions here between what the brand is advertised to be and what it really is on full display for everyone to see. They have even begun to brag about outrage clicks and statistics, while citing metrics that have nothing to do with the actual graph such as "4k sign ups" when a metric of millions is being shown [on the accompanying graph], probably referring to impressions or views. And using that as a jumping off point to further insult anyone who rightly comments on the now out of control hypocrisy. But that's it.

If you want support, there are links down below: merch, Patreon, Twitter, etc. I know I've been off topic on some of these videos lately and they don't really have much to do with gaming, but it's a slow time in the industry right now. So it is what it is, I guess. As always, thank you all for watching and have a nice night.