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Gab – a platform fight against deplatforming

Published on 12 janvier 2022 in Médias etc./Other Languages by Antoine Gregoire

Far Right freedom of expression Gab severely suffered from being blacklisted from all the internet service providers who suddenly cut their ties with the website. The move happened after it was revealed that the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter killing 11 in 2018 was a regular Gab user using the platform to promote its ideology. Gab is a platform preferred by many disinformation or hate speech actors. Like with other alternative platform, users like to benefit from having multiple accounts on other platforms and advertise for them. La Croix Du Sud, an account specialised in translating conspiratorial or disinformative content here promotes his Rumble and Odysee channels. Gab is openly dealing in the Free Speech marketing, branding themselves as protecting free speech and being the safe place for everything that is not unlawful in the US. They brand it in their 2020 annual report. When the internet infrastructure does not want you Gab came under real pressure after one discovered a Gab account attributed to Robert Bowers, the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, charged with killing 11 people. After the massacre, Gab was exposed as a hate platform and subsequently dropped by its partners and had to struggle to stay online and with still accepting regular antisemitic posting on its platform. Gab history since that day, is a very interesting tale on how third-party services can be pressured for regulating alternative platforms when it comes to a certain point, and what can alternative platform do to avoid being regulated. After Pittsburgh, PayPal and…

Access to platforms’ data for vetted researchers? not a smart move

It is an idea that managed to reach a consensus among lobbyists, researchers, lawmakers, platforms and made its way to the Digital Services Act, the regulation that will be one backbone of how European democracy deals with the Internet. Access to data for vetted researchers is article n31 of the Digital Services Act and it is a bad idea. At first, sight it may sound good to put together “access”; “data” and “researchers” in the same regulation, and to secure it by adding “vetted”. But when looking in-depth the picture is more troubling. Let’s ask ourselves the following three questions: what kind of access, what is “data” and what is a “vetted researcher”? What we really need is platform transparency, public access and whistleblowers (and the Facebook papers leaked by Frances Haugen to be made available for everyone). Dura Lex Sed Lex Officially called “Data Access and Scrutiny” the article 31 of the DSA considers that platforms would grant access to “data” for some “vetted researchers” “for the sole purpose of conducting research that contributes to the identification and understanding of systemic risks” What is a systemic risk one may ask? Systemic risks are defined in article 26 of the DSA and cover the following: Dissemination of illegal content. Negative effects for the exercise of the fundamental rights to respect for private and family life, freedom of expression and information, the prohibition of discrimination and the rights of the child. Intentional manipulation of their service, including by means of inauthentic…

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