talki.ng talking discussion platform reddit
Dan Z. for TTAG
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Given Big Tech’s particular political bent and preferences, deplatforming has become the weapon of choice for these companies and social media sites to use against firearms manufacturers and 2A-supportng organizations and users. If a platform’s account holders express opinions the Silicon Valley sultans find objectionable for political or aesthetic reasons, they have no problem suspending or outright banning those users, organizations, or companies for allegedly violating their opaque policies or “community standards.”

Discussion platform Reddit is one of the sites that has taken steps in that direction. Last year, they deep-sixed a number of firearms-related subreddits that dealt with guns, including one that alerted readers to good deals on firearms, ammo and gear. Because ew.

Whenever these situations arise, the comments here and other places are filled with calls for gun-friendly alternatives to the dominant left-leaning, anti-gun social media platforms.

At this past weekend’s Gun Rights Policy Conference in Phoenix, I met Declan McCullagh, co-founder and CEO of the new discussion platform Talking, a beta version news and discussion site built along the lines of Reddit. Talking describes itself thusly:

Talking is a news aggregation and discussion site reflecting a broadly conservative and libertarian point of view. Unlike Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, we encourage discussions that differ from progressive perspectives, including on religious freedompatriotism, and our right to self-defense.

I asked McCullagh about the genesis of Talking.

The Truth About Guns: How did the idea for Talking develop?

Declan MCullagh: At last year’s Gun Rights Policy Conference, I went through a list of all of the deplatformings, removals and suspensions that were aimed at conservatives, libertarians, or even liberals who are to the right of Bernie Sanders on today’s Second Amendment issues. And it was pretty depressing.

And at the end of my six-minute talk, I listed some things that we can do about it. And it really wasn’t that great. There weren’t that many alternatives, and I went away thinking that I didn’t give very good advice.

Don Kilmer is a Second Amendment litigator and a friend of mine. He lives down the road from me. And after some meet-ups over the next few months, I thought it might be worth launching a web site — really a discussion platform — that was going to be a good home for pro-gun advocacy.

This is a variation of the old saying that unless a publication or organization is explicitly conservative, it’s going to eventually drift left. So I wanted to try the same thing with Second Amendment advocacy.

Talking isn’t just Second Amendment, you’re going to find stuff in there that’s going to disagree with progressive orthodoxy on things like campus speech and things like immigration, orthodox Christianity and so-on.

But because of the background that I have and especially that Don has, you’re going to see a lot of defense of the right to keep and bear arms for law-abiding Americans on the site.

TTAG: What’s your background?

DM: I’m a programmer. I worked as a journalist. I worked as a computer programmer and this is my second start-up. I worked on a news recommendation engine last time around.

And so over the last year, we just started talking about it and batting some ideas around and I started doing coding earlier this year. We had an alpha version up and running as a prototype in late May and early June. We’ve been tweaking it over the summer and now it’s stable enough to be in beta form.

Declan McCullagh Talking
Dan Z. for TTAG

TTAG: How would you describe Talking?

DM: It’s a link aggregation site, a discussion site and also a messaging site. You can use it for secure messaging.

I think that there should be interest in this because of how often anyone talking about gun rights, or talking about firearms, or even the right to self-defense — even outside of guns, like knives — are getting basically disciplined if they’re on mainstream social media sites. I see this as getting worse, especially as the election gets closer.

What we want to do is provide a site that actually believes in free speech and will let you talk about your constitutional rights without worrying about what someone named Zuckerberg or Dorsey believes is right or wrong.

TTAG: How is the site designed?

DM: Talking is a discussion site. We’re not a social network. The difference is that Facebook lets you create communities of people — maybe it’s your friends, maybe it’s your family — and you can mark messages that can only be seen by those people.

By default, what we’re doing is everything’s public except private messages.

We’re trying something easier. We’re not competing directly with Facebook or Twitter. We’re not a social network. We’re a place to have really good high quality discussions.

We have no ads, and we have almost no images. One of the downsides is that on too many of these discussion sites, people just post cat GIFs. They’re kind of cute and they’re kind of funny and sometimes they’re even useful. But we want to get people talking, not people posting memes. We’re trying to have higher quality discussions.

Both Don and I are more interested in policy than politics. So you’re not going to find posts — at least not from us, maybe other people will want to submit them — about the presidential horserace and where these folks are in the polls. Instead it’s going to be, “This is a law, or a proposed law, and this is how it’s going to affect you, and this is what to do.”

TTAG: How my will the discussions be moderated?

DM: We’re going to figure that out as we go. Don wants no moderation, I’m in favor of moderation as long as it’s fully disclosed. If someone is going to post un-helpful, useless rants calling everyone Nazis…we’ll figure that out. If you disagree with us on policy, have at it. You can do no wrong.

TTAG: Some alternative free speech sites that have sprung up for some of the same reasons such as Gab.com, have been characterized in the media as provinces of the far right or fascists. How do you keep that from happening to Talking?

DM: You can’t control what people are going to say about you. I think you do the best job of creating a useful, stable discussion site focused on constitutional rights, and then if the media want to lie about it, they can. Hopefully they won’t and we won’t have to worry about it.

TTAG: Are you going to allow users to block people?

DM: It doesn’t seem to help on Twitter. People can block or mute people on Twitter very easily and people still go after people. There still are Twitter hate campaigns and deplatforming campaigns. But right now there’s no mute option.

On talking, you earn points by being upvoted or by submitting stories. If you get 50 points, which is not that difficult, then you can downvote submissions and downvote comments. So if someone is submitting something stupid, you can downvote it. And it gets sufficiently downvoted or fall off the page.

We don’t want people to downvote something you disagree with. If you downvote something, you have to give a reason you’re downvoting. It could be because the comment is a personal attack that’s out of place, or off topic, but you can’t downvote because you disagree. That’s not a “legal” option.

By entrusting users who reach 50 points with the ability to upvote and downvote, I’m hoping that the community will self-police to a large extent without us having to jump in and say, ‘no, you did something wrong.’

TTAG: You mentioned that Talking will be totally transparent. How will that work?

DM: Our code is published and you can download it. You can see what ranking signals we use to figure out where a story should fall on the home page. Things like how recent it is is obvious. How many upvotes, how many downvotes, how many comments…things like that. The source code is available.

We’re trying to keep ourselves honest by avoiding the secret algorithmic tweaking of say a Google or Facebook. You don’t know what signals Google is using to rank articles.

If you search for ‘why semi-automatic firearms should be legal,’ the first ten articles on the first result page, you see a lot from NPR, the LA Times, and the New York Times, saying the opposite, why they should be banned. If you’re searching for why they should be legal, you’re going to find one result on the home page, and that’s from the Cato Institute.

So why is that? We don’t know. It’s a black box. We’re trying to avoid being a black box.

Also…moderation decisions. There’s a moderation log. You can see when a moderator changes a headline, or when a moderator — this has never happened — maybe kicks a user off for spamming the site and submitting 100 links a minute or something like that.

But all that is public. It keeps us honest and should reassure users that we’re trying to do the right thing as opposed to being another black box.

TTAG: So Talki.ng will be more than just gun rights community…you see the site open to any and all topics?

DM: We’re limiting it to a set of about thirty defined topics right now just to keep it manageable. There’s First Amendment, there’s deplatforming and Big Tech, abortion, immigration, law, Supreme Court…there’s going to be a lot of stuff on here. But we’re starting small for now.

 

 

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48 COMMENTS

    • If ya gotta go hide in a corner then take the hint. Creating your own club alienates more than it helps. Not zees hide in their own corners of the internet as do pedal files. Don’t make gun owners feel like they have to hide.

      • “Don’t make gun owners feel like they have to hide.”

        Hide?

        Hide from what? Banning, de-platforming, censorship? When “you” are not visible on the major platforms, how do you get traction, interest? The major platforms are restricting content to only that which pleases its membership. Why is that OK, but not someone building a platform for their own views and opinions?

        • Spoken with the ignorance of someone that doesn’t realize the literal dozens of gun-enthusiast populated subreddits.

          Seriously. Educate yourself before commenting.

        • “…literal dozens of gun-enthusiast populated subreddits.”

          For how long, Mr. UsedNotToSuck? Did you miss the part where the people who run Reddit hate you and me and are trying to make everyone like us go away?

        • “Did you miss the part where the people who run Reddit hate you and me and are trying to make everyone like us go away?”

          I remember a time like that back when I was in grade school…

          There were (and still *are*) people who simply wanted to be accommodated the same as any other person of a different skin color than themselves.

          The hate-filled, intolerant bigots had a serious problem with those people and decided they could teach them to “know their place” by placing signs that indicated where they were expected to enjoy those public accommodations.

          Signs such as “Whites (or Colored) Only”. Reddit, YouTube and many others hung their own signs saying (for all practical purposes) “Second Amendment supporters not welcome here. Go somewhere else if you want to practice your little civil rights” .

          I’m fed up with being told to “sit at the back of the bus”. They don’t have to like us, but they can be told they cannot deny us accommodation the same any other civil right enjoys, as long as what content is posted is legal.

          A whole lot of people initally didn’t like some discriminated against people eating at the lunch counter, but over time, they grew to tolerate it.

          They can learn to to tolerate us. And you know, some of those bigots might discover there was nothing to hate in the first place.

          If we don’t demand tolerance by force of law for a lawful activity, a fucking specifically-enumerated *Civil Right*, no less, we will lose that right.

          We must Demand tolerance, by force of law if necessary.

          “Stop the hate”…

        • “We must Demand tolerance, by force of law if necessary.”

          Geoff, do we have any convincing evidence from the recent past that the anti-American politicians and mob have been forced to tolerate (as in accept and move on) pro-constitution Americans?

          And when do we, as humans, get over the idea that “hate” can be overcome? I can tolerate your presence here, as in accept that the forum is open to you, but still hate you because you disagree with me. Even trying to remove the consequential result of hate (refusing association, name-calling, disrespect, trying to legally restrict your freedoms and rights, etc) is futile, and the effort wasteful.

          Hate is in our nature. We have thousands of years of human existence to prove that humans are incapable of erasing human behavior. The best that can be hoped for is that each individual finds it to their self-interest (advantage) to control their natural tendencies the great majority of the time. Time we abandon the delusion that humans are inherently perfectible (trying to be perfect is one thing; the outcome is never).

          We are promised by no one on the planet to have calm and peaceful lives. We are admonished that insofar as it is up to us, we should live in harmony and peace with others. But we are not assured that even that lifestyle will result in universal peace and harmony, because everyone else is a free agent to do as they please.

          My point is, dwelling on hate uses up valuable resources that can be better deployed against the the common enemy; the enemy of my enemy is my friend…even though I may hate that friend. Forget eradicating hate. Make the consequences of hateful action sufficient to give pause to the expression.

        • We need to be declared a protected class, the same as other categories of discriminated against people, like the LGBTQ folks…

        • “We need to be declared a protected class…”,

          Completely agree. Law Abiding Citizens should be protected from egregious acts of government.

          How do we knit together the coalition of politicians who can effect that designation? If we cannot be the majority of voters, is the fault in our politicians, or in ourselves for lacking the ability to persuade the public (and their politicians), that their politics and policies are only that of a destructive minority?

        • “And when do we, as humans, get over the idea that “hate” can be overcome?”

          Past 1950s history proves it.

          If you had taken a poll back then and had asked what White people thought it was just fine if Blacks sat down next to them at a lunch counter, I’d wager a *lot* of Whites had a serious problem with that.

          Fast-forward to today. Only a *tiny* percentage of Whites would have that problem now. They got over it, because they learned there was nothing they could do about it.

          Public display of affection by gays back then sometimes caused some right-then-and-there beat-downs on gays. Today, far less frequently. They learned to get over it.

          Leftist bigots too can learn to get used to the fact ‘guns are everywhere’ and if the carriers are lawful, there’s nothing they can do about it.

          I demand equal respect. They can not like it all they want, but they can be forced to accept it.

          Our best odds are to use the mid-century civil rights playbook and use it against them, in true Saul Alinsky ‘Rules for Radicals’ tradition –

          Force the enemy to play by their own rules concerning bigots, because that’s what they are. Force them to tolerate us the same way Whites were forced to tolerate Blacks that made them “feel unsafe”.

          Just like the line in the Rosa Parks movie –

          White cop to Rosa Parks – “Yes, mam, it is your right to sit up front. But can’t you see that White woman you are sitting next to is uncomfortable? How about not making trouble and move to the back of the bus?”

          No more ‘back of the bus’ for me, or any other POTG…

        • I agree with your analysis on the different eras, but “stop the hate” isn’t the underlying change agent. As you noted, people in the later era were powerless to do anything about a condition they just might hate. Grudging acquiescence is better than activated hatred, no need to spend more energy trying to convince the acquiescers they should renovate their attitude.

          Yes, we should try to use Alinsky against the Alinskyites. Question is how do we develop and effective means of doing so reliably? (I have no ideas there because Alinsky depends on emotion and anger)

          My Brother In Law is a good example of a leftist. Discussing DGUs, his emotion is that killing attackers is not the goal. Subduing the attackers is the best active response. Otherwise, prevent your own demise by being cooperative with demands, and not goading the attacker into inflicting injury, or more injury. I responded that he was consigning 1 to several thousands of people to death or serious injury. BIL responded that such a condition is better than having everyday people armed and dangerous. So, BIL is willing to sacrifice innocents in order to not be afraid that someone walking by might be armed, and mentally snap. Haven’t figured a way to turn Alinsky against that mindset.

        • Sam I Am,

          Discussing [defensive gun uses], [my brother-in-law’s] emotion is that killing attackers is not the goal. Subduing the attackers is the best active response. Otherwise, prevent your own demise by being cooperative with demands, and not goading the attacker into inflicting injury, or more injury.

          I see two warranted responses for your brother-in-law:

          (1) We agree that killing attackers is NOT the goal. Rather, our goal is minimizing the harm that attackers inflict on defenders (while saving the lives of the attackers if possible).
          (a) Close to 90% of attackers will immediately break-off their attack and go away when the defender merely presents a firearm for self-defense.
          (b) Almost all remaining attackers (who did not immediately break-off their attack when the victim presented a firearm for self-defense) will break-off their attack when the defender starts shooting.
          (c) About 80% of gunshot victims survive. That means most of the the teeny-tiny minority of attackers who chose not to break-off their attack when the defender presents a firearm and shoots them will survive.

          In other words armed defenders will minimize the harm that attackers inflict upon the defenders and only kill a minuscule number of attackers in the process. Your brother-in-law should approve of this.

          (2) We agree that we do not want to goad attackers into inflicting injury or greater injury. Unfortunately, concrete data and facts show that cooperating with attackers does just that.
          (a) Data clearly shows that defenders who actively resist suffer much less injury than defenders who comply.
          (b) When defenders appear to be unwilling to resist, some opportunistic attackers who only intended to steal will escalate to rape and possibly even murder to eliminate witnesses. (Reference the Petit family theft, rape, and murder in Connecticut.)
          (c) Many attackers are seriously mentally warped and interpret a cooperative defender as deserving or even worse wanting significant abuse, including rape and murder. As such, they justify to themselves their subsequent actions and give themselves a “green light” to proceed with rape or murder with a “clear” conscience.

          In other words defenders who cooperate with attackers are inviting their attackers to inflict injury or inflict greater injury than they would otherwise have done if the defenders resisted.

          This response shows a certain level of agreement with your brother-in-law while hopefully providing an emotional redirect with simple facts.

        • BIL is steeped in liberal claptrap. Once pointed out that not every DGU (agreeing with however many DGUs he accepts as reality) ends up with a death, or even a shooting. His response was that the danger a victim will accidentally shoot a bystander is too great a risk. His stance is that it is better for society that some number of people are killed or injured by criminals, than tens of millions of potential crazy persons walk around with guns, putting the larger society at deadly risk.

          Really don’t have any expectation BIL will ever change, but he is cheap entertainment when I can get him to say really stupid stuff in front of family and friends.

        • Sam I Am,

          Thus, your brother-in-law operates 1000% on emotion. He doesn’t really intend his words to mean anything. Rather, his words are a defense mechanism: he simply spews words to either make you shut up or resonate with you. He has no intention of actually listening to or evaluating anything that you say.

          And you can simply point out to any observers how utterly jacked-up his position is — quite literally throwing people to the wolves.

          In other words he is a totally lost cause and not worth your breath.

        • “In other words he is a totally lost cause and not worth your breath.”

          It’s the entertainment value. So easy to spin him up. I find it amusing; wife hates it.(at the July 4 picnic, wife promised to pour BBQ sauce all over me if I wound BIL up in front of all the relatives; BIL got a pass that day.

      • Uh, when the other club tells you to get out, which they legally can for any or no reason at all, your options are limited. You can grovel to reddit if you want, see how far that takes you.

        • “Uh, when the other club tells you to get out, which they legally can for any or no reason at all, your options are limited.”

          If Reddit had a policy that Blacks or gays weren’t welcome, how would that fly today?

          Reddit is, for all practical purposes, a public square. We’re easily 30-plus percent of America. I demand public accommodation for public squares…

        • “I demand public accommodation for public squares…”

          Such a demand is, itself, a form of hate speech. Any speech that offends another person is an attack on their personal freedom, and automatically hate speech.

  1. Hooray for anyone developing an alternative to the snowflake caves. Hope it works out really well.

    Went to Reddit, and Drudge to see what Talki.ng might be about. Gotta admit I don’t see the value of a wild west sort of forum, but looking at the comment counts indicates these are popular forms of interaction. However….

    TTAG is compact, topic driven, manageable (for subscribers). Looking at other forums, when a topic gets 13,000 comments, it loses its focus and usefulness. TTAG, while taking no editorial action, rarely exceeds 500 comments on a single topic. I like this smaller “choir” better than wading, slogging through thousands of comments, looking for an interesting entry. One thing U-Tube offers that narrative forums cannot match is the development of channels of interest. With channels, the bulk of the messaging is video content. The comments rarely add meaning to the video. Not seeing how narrative-only forums offer the access to wider audiences.

    Point is, developing alternatives to the existing platforms is a good thing, a necessary thing. Wouldn’t tell anyone to not try it. Cheers to Talki.ng !!

    • The reddit model is pretty good for getting useful information although it often downvotes unpopular opinions to the point of muting them.

      • “The reddit model is pretty good for getting useful information…”

        I do get bored trying to slog through the sludge to find things. DuckDuckGo seems more efficient and cutting away the undergrowth (and it’s not Gag-me-with-a-spoon.com)

        Deep diving for specific info may be useful at times, but not seeing such sights reaching the general culture with specific messages. Without censor algorithms even, not sure pro-2A destinations gather much traffic in the way of the general public curiosity.

    • The size of TTAG’s regular population makes it a prime candidate for other platforms side by side.

      Use of something like Discord, Mumble, TeamSpeak (VOIP IOW) or something similar could be used to for regular and ad-hoc meetings. Fairly private, conTROLLable (ROFL), quick. The kind of thing where people could discuss details, even stream video so… for example someone could show what’s wrong with a gun and have someone else show them how to fix the problem in real time. It could be used to organize shooting events etc etc etc. You can even break it down to sub-rooms for states and localities or interests like bolt guns and AKs.

      Considering the number of gamers here I’m sure people already run their own VOIP channels, shit I have a dozen on various platforms.

      Of course this takes some level of organization and the last time I tried that here I got exactly two responses, one from someone who writes for TTAG, and I was trying to get some people discount funz via mild organization while simultaneously doing a favor the rest of the gun world. That experience fairly is what fairly well convinced me that some POTG are just virtue signalling.

      • “That experience fairly is what fairly well convinced me that some POTG are just virtue signalling.”

        Should you be talking directly with Dan Z, about expanding/extending into these areas?

        • It’s not worth the time for numerous reasons.

          Not the least of which is that the prior owner already considered going down this sort of path and the new owners seem to have zero interest in that. Notice how the podcast disappeared? The meetings at cigar shops?

        • “Notice how the podcast disappeared? The meetings at cigar shops?”

          Only actually saw three. Wasn’t seeing the boost to the normal site offerings. Round table discussions for other than just shooting the breeze should be focused, with distinct presentations by the participants, rather banter among insiders. Admit I didn’t “miss” them not being on this forum after the ownership change.

        • Those are just examples. RF had a pretty wide and deep understanding of tech and some interesting ideas on how to play with it to our advantage.

          Much of that seems to have disappeared with him. To date I still have half a drawer in a filing cabinet full of data on the stuff he asked me to research in this vein. It’s his if he wants it. So far as I’m concerned he paid me to do that work so it belongs to him. If he waits long enough though I may use some of it myself.

          As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, tech is our friend if we care to use it. ESports often has single day tournaments with viewership that absolutely dwarfs the best ratings the Superbowl has ever had and does that with more asses in seats in an arena than the UFC (~50,000) often gets. All to watch some people play Quake or other games with… guns. Shit, Dreamhack’s Denver tournament for Quake Champions had 10K in physical attendance and that’s a VERY small tournament in a small part of Dreamhack’s corner of the world.

        • “Dreamhack’s Denver tournament for Quake Champions had 10K in physical attendance…”

          Fun is always attractive. Couple fun with fantasy, and it is even more attractive. Gaming may engage part of the mind, but commitment to a cause requires distancing from fun and fantasy, and doing real work to support “the cause”. Not surprising 10k gamers will travel cross country for fun and bragging rights, but only 500 gun owners in an entire state will commit a Saturday to drive to a 2A support rally.

          As to RF. Yes, the research is his. Why not just ask him for a release to use the research for your own purposes, even profit, with no benefit to him (other than maybe an acknowledgement as a partner in the research? Then use the information to launch some of your ideas.

  2. I remember this guy from his writing for Wired, which itself is a pretty good example of Conquest’s second law. He wasDeclan McCullagh accuate and made sense, then.

  3. Bookedmarked talk.ng. will scan the headlines for interesting topics.
    Glad to see another open-minded alternative to high-tech censorship. I hope they do well.
    No ads. How are they going to make money?

  4. Reddit is a shit concept. Sorting posts by upvotes and removing any opinon that’s unpopular only produces groupthink, not discussion.

    • That’s where the old NNTP Usenet kicked *ass* for the discussion newsgroups. They could be hyper-focused by topic, and the allowed *unlimited* depth on message threads.

      (I also enjoyed the multi-part erotica posts, a well. *wink* 😉 )

      It was late 90s usenet that turned me on to the concept of internet discussion. I was a net-news junkie… 😉

  5. Hope they don’t make the same mistake the other alternatives did. Creating a “conservative” platform. Really pigeonholing yourself there.
    We don’t need a “conservative” Reddit. We just need one that doesn’t censor speech. And appeals to other interests than just conservative politics.
    I get they’re starting small, but you figure topics like cars, entertainment, food, and other general topics should be standard fare for any platform like that.

    • You are wrong according to Libertarian philosophy. But of course conservatives will be called intolerante when they go their own way. But this is how the american system is suppose to work. People go their own way.

      Only a socialist, a Liberal a Leftist, believes people must be forced to use the same platform. And then be discriminated against at the will of the overseers. No conservative needs to spend time on a Liberal site. CNN will tell them the same sh*t as a Liberal website. Or pick any MSM and you get the same thing.

      You can’t debate on a site when they turn off all your responses. It’s just a waste of a conservatives valuable time. Sad but true.

    • “Hope they don’t make the same mistake the other alternatives did. Creating a “conservative” platform. Really pigeonholing yourself there.”

      Agree, and why we shouldn’t settle for ‘back of the bus’ in public squares.

      “Separate but equal” doesn’t cut it for public schools (or unpopular by some bigots) civil rights.

      Demand equality…

      • Your “back of the bus” analogy doesn’t work when you apply it to libertarian philosophy. Since Libertarians support racial discrimination in the business world. They don’t call it that. They prefer to say it’s a freedom to choose not to serve someone.

        But most white Libertarians don’t know American history. There were absolutely zero places a black person could get services. So yes, the gun community can get refused service EVERYWHERE. Just like the blacks. And that would also be an example of the freedom to not serve a group you don’t like.

        A Libertarian Utopia.

        This country was racially separated for nearly all of its history with the exception of the last 50 years. The Black Codes were in the southern states. The rest of the country just had a gentleman’s agreement to not serve people that they didn’t like.

        In other words it’s voluntary discrimination as Libertarians would suggest we live by. But this only works if it’s applied to everyone. No group is Exempted.

  6. “Given Big Tech’s particular political bent and preferences”

    Along with putting a end to big techs snooping for the government,as that is one of the listed in the BOR that governments prohibited from doing but do to their heats content,yeah I know much the same as Shall Not.

  7. Wonder if I could post the story ( news ) about neighbors of mine that moved some years ago to another rural area. The mans wife, 62 yrs. old was killed by 2 young criminals with a stolen gun, driving a stolen car. No background check would have stopped this. She wasn’t safe in her own home. Criminals will always find a way.

  8. The cynic in me wonders how long it will be until this platform get “8channed”.

    But, it’s a step. The stats on Esports indicate that the serious FPS tournaments get more views than the Superbowl has ever gotten. In some cases Esports tournaments for some games have viewership approaching dozens of Superbowls per year.

    Fertile ground if you ask me.

    • “The cynic in me wonders how long it will be until this platform get “8channed”.”

      We should be concerned.

      If what TTAG does is lawful, it should be treated the same as any other non-controversial web site, like quilting… 😉 (or tentacle po…, aw, fuckit! Nevermind! 😉 )

  9. “If a platforms’ account holders express opinions the Silicon Valley sultans find objectionable for political or aesthetic reasons, they have no problem suspending or outright banning those users, organizations, or companies for allegedly violating their opaque policies.”

    “This is a variation of the old saying that unless a publication or organization is explicitly conservative, it’s going to eventually drift left.”

    So what you are really telling me is that Libertarians Liberals and the Left are incapable of being fair honest and incapable of treating everyone equally in area of the first amendment. In the end they really don’t support the 1st amendment.

    But they will always pull out their “KKK support card” to prove they support free speech. And at the same time they will say its a private company. They can do what they want. Unless it’s homosexuals being denied their internet channel.

    The three L’s are bigoted hypocrite pigs. Liars all. video 7 minutes long.

    Leftists Not so Gung-Ho for Tech Censorship Now that Tik Tok Bans LGBT Content

  10. In Ye Olde Days of USEnet, the rec.guns group was moderated, and had a digest mode. I used to sub via the digest mode to get through things as quickly as possible and find the ponies under the horsepoop and bedding.The S/N ratio used to be pretty high on rec.guns.

    Too many boards allow people to post pictures and gifs without good reason, and this costs more money and bandwidth to host.

    As for “not running and hiding” – that’s nonsense. The only way you get to control your content and not get deplatformed is to create your own platform now. This has been the objective of Google and Facebook since five years ago. If you’ve been following the scuttlebutt and scandals in tech, you would have seen this coming. Their intent was to crowd out independent blogs and sites and bring everything into their “walled-in gardens” to capture as much ‘net traffic under their advertising schemes. This is why Facebook wants to float the idea of their own currency – this is why Apple wants you to buy your entertainment, music and pay with their bill-paying system. They want all your activity inside their little “contained” ecosphere so they can capture your eyeballs for as much time as possible.

    Want to be independent? Want to control how your data is used? Get out of their walled-in world, set up a server on the backbone, and declare yourself free.

    • “Want to be independent? Want to control how your data is used? Get out of their walled-in world, set up a server on the backbone, and declare yourself free.”

      I think you just gave a robust picture of “hiding” gun related stuff from the larger world of social media.

      Atomizing gun stuff waters down the impact that can be gained through the existing heavy hitter forums (gardens). Even if gun stuff gets hidden, squelched, censored, disappeared, banned on the big forums, what stuff does get through is really, really (did I say “really”?) really influential stuff to the wider audiences.

      We need to encourage all the gun-related online resources to sign up for Twitsville, Gobble, Faceplant, Instagranny, all them big name hosting companies. Better to be a near invisible gnat in the big important pond, that the gator in the mud puddle.

    • “…rec.guns group was moderated,…”

      Even then, late 90s, it was pushing 500+ posts a day…

  11. It’s important that alternatives exist to the big players in the realm. That said, I hope it turns out well. Gab is quite frankly a cesspit and I’m not just taking the word of some lib writer in saying that. I had high hopes for it and gave it an honest shot but there’s definitely a lot of ethno-nationalists on there. I really question if someone will gain traction at all until someone super main stream gets kicked off Twitter/FB/wherever and takes their followers with them. I’m not talking Alex Jones either.

  12. Sorry, Not going to use this. First off the “application” (not user registration) process needs an invite from an existing user. I can speculate on the reasons why they’d set this up this way, but that just rubs me wrong. Second, the tag cloud is hidden at the bottom of the page under “All Topics” which is fonted in a lovely hard to see light gray. A UI issue but still aggravating. Finally, looking over the tag cloud and over the active posts/topics I’m just not seeing anything that I’m interested in. I guess I find politics news a necessary eyesore but at lease places like TTAG sprinkles in enough hard information like product reviews or breaking-news reports that I can ignore the editorials or politics postings if I’m just not feeling like looking at those today. Talki.ng just doesn’t seem to have much in the way of hard information. I get it, it was created as a conservative friendly platform focusing on certain news topics. I just find it boring.

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