35 votes

Gab is throwing away their existing code and switching to a modified version of Mastodon

Posting this as a text post so that nobody has to go to Gab, but the source is here if you really want to. Full post copied below:

An update on "New Gab" and what to expect:

Progress on our new codebase is going well. For those who don't know, our plan is to fork existing open source software, Mastodon, which is based on the ActivityPub social networking protocol.

What does this mean in layman's terms?

  • Gab will become an open source project, meaning developers from around the world can contribute the project and help us build.
  • Gab will get several new features and PRO benefits, such as video uploading.
  • You'll be able to log into and use dozens of existing mobile apps that exist on both App Stores with your Gab account and use Gab through these apps.
  • We will be porting over all of your Gab posts, followers, etc to this new codebase.
  • Gab will be getting a fresh paint job and be much more "user friendly." (See a mockup below, which isn't final.) Don't worry, it won't look anything like Mastodon (for those of you who know it is,) it will look like Gab.

What does the timeline look like for this going live?

At the moment we are working on building in Gab features that this open source social networking protocol does not currently have. Things like Gab Groups and editing. We are also finalizing a fresh redesign of the Gab interface. Once these two things are done, we will start porting over all existing Gab data. During this time we will invite Gabbers to beta test New Gab and give us feedback. Once Gabbers give us the go ahead we will finalize the transition and push it to Gab.com. All of these steps will occur over the next few weeks.

Why are you doing this?

  • Moving Gab to open source brings transparency and additional help from developers in our community from around the world.
  • Moving to the ActivityPub protocol as our base allows us to get into mobile App Stores without even having to submit and get approval of our own apps, whether Apple and Google like it or not.
  • Ultimately we want to make Gab more user friendly, perform better, and be a product you all love. This will accomplish all of those things.

We are excited to share this with you and will have more information soon.

Thank you

This is a pretty interesting move by Gab. They had been kicked out of app stores, and like the post mentions, this will allow them to just piggyback on existing apps that work with Mastodon instead of needing their own. I saw at least one app dev say that they'd specifically block it from being used on Gab, but they probably won't all do that, and I'm sure they'll probably end up with some options.

People in the fediverse don't seem very happy about this overall, but it's probably also not a big deal. The main dev of Mastodon posted:

So Gab has decided that their own code that they spent $5M of investor money developing is so unsalvageably bad that they're going to use Mastodon's code instead, with the added bonus of leeching off of our apps (with Gab apps being banned from app stores)

This is an early warning to fellow admins to be vigilant and domain-block them on sight, when/if they appear (unconfirmed whether they intend to federate), and to app devs to consider if blocking Gab's domains from their app is necessary.

Remember that Gab is a sinking ship and they're basically grabbing onto Mastodon like a parasite in a desperate attempt to get attention from the "drama" of doing so.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gab-is-in-full-meltdown-and-founder-andrew-torba-blames-the-deep-state

Torba has no self-awareness to see how pathetic it looks that his master race ass is incompetent at making a working website so he has to resort to using software made by a Jew instead.

App devs will block their domains, server admins will block their domains, and that'll be the end of that.

18 comments

  1. [10]
    lionirdeadman
    Link
    I think Mastodon's culture will just exile them out kind of like how they did Hiveway a few months back (a year?), it's likely that people who enable Gab to gain back platform will get shit flung...

    I think Mastodon's culture will just exile them out kind of like how they did Hiveway a few months back (a year?), it's likely that people who enable Gab to gain back platform will get shit flung at them for allowing it.

    Heck, even Purism working on Librem One got a fair amount of flack from Mastodon communities for certain decisions they made with Smilodon (their fork of Mastodon).

    14 votes
    1. [8]
      alyaza
      Link Parent
      pretty much. nearly everyone is defederating with them, and Gab users are getting banned in droves where they pop up on a lot of instances. they're never going to be totally isolated, but they're...

      I think Mastodon's culture will just exile them out kind of like how they did Hiveway a few months back (a year?), it's likely that people who enable Gab to gain back platform will get shit flung at them for allowing it.

      pretty much. nearly everyone is defederating with them, and Gab users are getting banned in droves where they pop up on a lot of instances. they're never going to be totally isolated, but they're going to end up the closest thing to it at the rate things are going.

      9 votes
      1. [7]
        krg
        Link Parent
        Mastodon is just a decentralized federated social network protocol, right? Isn't the idea that anyone can use the code-base and "connect" (or refuse to "connect) with anyone else using the...

        Mastodon is just a decentralized federated social network protocol, right? Isn't the idea that anyone can use the code-base and "connect" (or refuse to "connect) with anyone else using the protocol?* If they end up being isolated and relegated to their own instance, I don't see how it changes the current scenario for that group. Or...is it now that there can be many of these people who hold the same views hosting their own instances and connecting together?

        *At least that's what this helpful video would have me believe.

        4 votes
        1. [4]
          alyaza
          Link Parent
          i'm honestly not entirely sure how federation works between instances on mastodon other than that most instances are generally federated well with other instances, and you can choose to defederate...

          If they end up being isolated and relegated to their own instance, I don't see how it changes the current scenario for that group. Or...is it now that there can be many of these people who hold the same views hosting their own instances and connecting together?

          i'm honestly not entirely sure how federation works between instances on mastodon other than that most instances are generally federated well with other instances, and you can choose to defederate with certain instances completely if need be. so probably, they'll still be federated with some instances that don't bother to take that step and some which share their views, which for all intents and purposes means they'll be about as defederated as a mastodon instance can really be without taking that step themselves.

          6 votes
          1. [3]
            krg
            Link Parent
            Yea, I like to think I'm fairly technically literate, but this federation stuff still confuses me a bit. I always fall back on comparing any federated service to email.

            Yea, I like to think I'm fairly technically literate, but this federation stuff still confuses me a bit. I always fall back on comparing any federated service to email.

            3 votes
            1. zaarn
              Link Parent
              E-Mail is a fairly accurate way to represent how federation works; the major difference is that the default isn't User-to-User messages but a public message board.

              E-Mail is a fairly accurate way to represent how federation works; the major difference is that the default isn't User-to-User messages but a public message board.

              7 votes
            2. Diff
              Link Parent
              Very similar to email, but now gmail, protonmail, yahoo, hotmail, and (nearly) everyone else are blocking their users from sending or receiving emails to and from gab.

              Very similar to email, but now gmail, protonmail, yahoo, hotmail, and (nearly) everyone else are blocking their users from sending or receiving emails to and from gab.

              5 votes
        2. lionirdeadman
          Link Parent
          Yes, the idea is that anyone can use it and connect to each other but owners are free to ban certain servers from connecting to their own server for a variety of reasons. And yes, they can totally...

          Yes, the idea is that anyone can use it and connect to each other but owners are free to ban certain servers from connecting to their own server for a variety of reasons.

          And yes, they can totally connect with other servers but most people in the fediverse are not happy that Gab is coming so they'll be blocking them from interacting with their own server respectively. Gab's rules just don't align at all with what most server admin in the fediverse are okay with.

          There's even different server implementations of the protocol (ActivityPub) which Mastodon uses such as Friendica, Pleroma, Misskey, Plume, PixelFed and more.

          5 votes
        3. zaarn
          Link Parent
          Federation is still a connection you can refuse. I blocked gab's domains on my instance. I did so on my own choice and not because my instance would be banned otherwise. I'm not forced to connect...

          Federation is still a connection you can refuse. I blocked gab's domains on my instance. I did so on my own choice and not because my instance would be banned otherwise. I'm not forced to connect to them and they aren't forced to connect to me. Both sides are happy.

          There are plenty of right-wing instances that will be OK with federating with them.

          3 votes
    2. ascii
      Link Parent
      The common thread between Gab and Librem One isn't censorship, it's the free-rider problem. They knowingly attract toxic content and then externalize the inevitable consequences to the wider...

      The common thread between Gab and Librem One isn't censorship, it's the free-rider problem.

      They knowingly attract toxic content and then externalize the inevitable consequences to the wider community and to taxpayer-funded services.

      Librem One made this explicit -- instead of taking responsibility for their own platform, just dump the problems on the public:

      If you see something illegal, please report it to the relevant authorities, as they are best equipped to handle illegal content.

      Facebook is taking a similar approach. With the fig leaf of "privacy" they will end-to-end encrypt messages to make it impossible to moderate or control.

      What Zuckerberg is instead attempting is a form of reputation laundering: Rather than meaningfully engage with Facebook’s real issues, Zuckerberg invokes encryption to redirect the public from the difficult—and costly—reforms that would actually fix the social media platform. Call it “privacy laundering.”

      It's like advertising free toxic waste disposal, and then just dumping the carcinogenic sludge in the town square for others to clean up.

      It's reprehensible.

      5 votes
  2. [4]
    Octofox
    Link
    On the positive side this shows a change that is allowing websites to avoid censorship from apple and google. Websites that host nsfw content can now piggyback on the apps that exist for a large...

    On the positive side this shows a change that is allowing websites to avoid censorship from apple and google. Websites that host nsfw content can now piggyback on the apps that exist for a large number of communities and cant be so easily removed.

    7 votes
    1. [4]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. [3]
        Octofox
        Link Parent
        Do you have any links about this? If typing in your own server name could get you banned then all browsers would have to be banned. As far as I know your app just can't show you the way to...

        Do you have any links about this? If typing in your own server name could get you banned then all browsers would have to be banned. As far as I know your app just can't show you the way to violating content.

        2 votes
        1. [2]
          Comment deleted by author
          Link Parent
          1. Eva
            Link Parent
            No, every browser on iOS is using Webkit as a base. There's a difference there.

            No, every browser on iOS is using Webkit as a base. There's a difference there.

            2 votes
        2. Deimos
          Link Parent
          The way they judge it is really unclear, but it's definitely stricter than that. A few years ago, all third-party reddit apps with a "show NSFW content" toggle were removed from the app store...

          The way they judge it is really unclear, but it's definitely stricter than that. A few years ago, all third-party reddit apps with a "show NSFW content" toggle were removed from the app store until they updated to remove the toggle, and the official apps were told they had to do the same thing. If you're on iOS, the only way you can get NSFW content in reddit apps is by going to the website separately and enabling it in your account preferences. They're not allowed to contain any way to enable it inside the app itself.

          2 votes
  3. [2]
    Akir
    Link
    Christ, Mastodon is where I go to avoid these people! as soon as I read this I boosted Eugen's post and wrote a new one aimed at the admin to ask them to block their domains.

    Christ, Mastodon is where I go to avoid these people!

    as soon as I read this I boosted Eugen's post and wrote a new one aimed at the admin to ask them to block their domains.

    6 votes
    1. Octofox
      Link Parent
      Mastodon has pretty good features in place to make this a non issue so I don't expect your experience to change too much.

      Mastodon has pretty good features in place to make this a non issue so I don't expect your experience to change too much.

      2 votes
  4. [2]
    user2
    Link
    Can any1 ELI5 on what/who GAB is?

    Can any1 ELI5 on what/who GAB is?

    2 votes
    1. synergy-unsterile
      Link Parent
      It is to Twitter what Voat is to Reddit ("free speech" zone for extreme right-wingers). Wikipedia has an article on it. Gab has been de-platformed from paypal, stripe, and other payment...

      It is to Twitter what Voat is to Reddit ("free speech" zone for extreme right-wingers). Wikipedia has an article on it.

      Gab has been de-platformed from paypal, stripe, and other payment processors. Additionally, it has attracted right wing personalities like Alex Jones of Infowars and one of its users committed a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh Synagogue.

      9 votes