First of all let me just say how saddened I am by the recent events in New Zealand .. it's truly tragic!
I actually have had a deep interest in matters of free speech and "digital ethics" going back about 20 years to when I had a large club music community myself of about 35,000 members.
As such I had quite a bit to say in the "Gab" thread ...
https://www.namepros.com/threads/so...fer-or-suspension.1107245/page-7#post-6959887
After making my posts,
@Rob Monster actually reached out to me just to say he wanted to
"acknowledge anyone that studies a matter, forms an opinion, and renders it thoughtfully". As I don't think we saw exactly eye to eye, but my views on the matter were more grey zone than most .. this was before Gab switched to Epik and actually Rob told me at that point he was glad that Gab had chosen another registrar. (Not sure what changed since as the thread drifted off my radar).
What I can say is that in the conversation, while I remained against Gab because of a few technical reasons (mainly their unwillingless to "police"/"moderate" their own site), he kept an open mind and said:
-
"If they were my client, I would have worked to keep them online, but would have felt compelled to counsel [them]."
I don't like posting private conversations, but I do feel that this excerpt from one of his messages, can, whether you agree with him or not, at least shine some light on his own personal reasoning:
- "That said I judge nobody and even folks from the darkest corners of the web can be rehabilitated for the common good. I have seen it which is another very good reason to judge nobody. The domain industry has an important role to play in safeguarding the ability of people to search things out which is why the topic matters and also why the precedent of the largest registrar initiating wholesale takedowns without a court order is also troubling."
Just to give you an idea of the conversation, here's some of what I wrote to him privately about the Gab situation
BEFORE they moved to Epik:
Ategy.com said:
Yeah .. context and specifics are EVERYTHING in cases like this. Not a single site can fairly be compared to another .. a single word (or lack of one) can change everything, in some cases I am extremely pro free speech .. extremely tolerant of what should be allowed. However I also feel strongly that sometimes there are competing freedoms .. freedom to live without being intimidated or having people incite violence against you is equally fundamental as freedom of speech ... and there are unfortunate instances like this one where the two go up against each other and you need to figure out where to draw the line.
I think in this particular case it unfortunately isn't even about ideology .. the Gab side totally lost my complete respect when I saw the quote saying they deliberately would not decide or police what is or isn't free speech. That in it's very self shows that they have a complete lack of understanding for the very concept of free speech and why it's important to fight for a line on both sides!
That fact you say you would have worked with them only if you could counsel them is what I'm happy to hear.because as they stood, they were on the wrong side of the line.
I think for the most part, if people are indeed trying to be responsible, that it's fantastic that you protect them. But at the end of the day if there are threats and/or malicious calls to action against individuals or groups, then that kind of irresponsible behaviour should not be protected (although they should very well indeed be given their day in court if they disagree). ...
The conversation then shifted a bit over a couple more messages to my old website, ngTLD's, our dogs, Epik and registrars in general.
I bring all the above up to get to this ... at one point I told him my name was "Arif"
(PS .. I pronounce it with an "if" at the end .. not an "EEF"), which is a very common name in the Muslim world
(the conversation never got around to my telling him I was a bacon eating Atheist born in Canada and my mom is of mostly Irish descent .. lol), and despite knowing of my background, the conversation continued in the friendly nature just as it had before. In fact, in his next reply he actually wrote "
Your name is an Arabic one, I believe, which means knowledgeable. I have no doubt that you are."
I hate posting parts of a private conversation, but these parts were not too personal and I hope serve the greater purpose of shinning some light on Rob Monster's character. That being said .. is it really enough for me to be able to 100% guarantee that Rob is not a white supremacist? Admittedly not .. and I'll also admit that I haven't really looked into anything he's posted on Twitter or anywhere else other than NamePros .. but given my limited personal experience, I personally don't think he is a racist.
That being said .. I'm not saying that he doesn't have far right-wing political views (which in general I'm usually against), but just because someone is right-wing in many aspects of their personal politics does not necessarily mean they are racist.
Where to draw the line in cases like this video are extremely difficult, because in some similar cases,
INFORMED public debate is extremely important, and any facts or evidence (like video) can be crucial to fairly assess a situation. But (speaking as someone who has chosen not to see the video), I have to say that I have a lot of respect for the Prime Minister of New Zealand based on how she's responded to this horrible situation .. and that in this particular specific case .. I think that there more pros than cons to having the video removed as well as not even saying his name in public for the moment. There are so many people involved and more than enough evidence that I don't see the benefit of it being posted.
However .. I also do have to say that I can see how some hardcore freedom of speech-ists would argue that there is no way to argue if a video should be removed without actually viewing it .. which would imply that it should not be removed.
In the same way, there are also people who make a valid argument that horrible things should be allowed to be posted specifically so that people can stand against it. Basically that people should be allowed to post hate in hopes that others would stand up and debate against the hate .. and that by using logical arguments, enter into a debate with the ultimate goal of convincing the haters that it is wrong to hate and/or that their arguments for hate are wrong/invalid.
I personally never rush to judge these types of situations either way
(as many of you might have noticed based on my super long posts on just about everything .. lol) .. I look at the facts and treat each case separately based on the specifics. In this case it doesn't bother me so much that Rob feels strongly that such content be allowed (in theory so that the hate could be challenged) .. but what saddens me is that apparently he actively posted/reshared it.
However .. if anyone genuinely felt an important video like that was fake, then I do agree that they should tell people to check it out so that the facts (that they believe to be true) be brought to light. Again though, I'm not sure exactly what Rob specifically did or didn't say about the video, so it's not appropriate for me to develop this point any further. But it could be that maybe those of you calling him a racist, should instead be calling him a conspiracy chaser (two very
VERY different things).
Because I think that ideally we'd live in a world where people are allowed to post such videos, but that nobody would actually choose to post them. But we don't live in such a world unfortunately .. and unfortunately then people rush to pick sides .. the irony is that most people don't stop to see the end-game of the other's point of view .. which in this case boils down to ...
Side A: "In order to best fight hate, the video should be censored"
Side B: "In order to best fight hate, the video should not be censored"
.. then sadly people are so focused on arguing with the other side's methods, that they overlook the most important part .. which is that in the end .. ultimately that both sides actually want to end the hatred.
