What you're saying is and isn't true. One example of a countercultural movement that's been in the news recently is the DDoSecrets leaks/hacks (they get upset if you aren't clear that they're hackers). They've got a strong Twitter presence that helps them get their message out, but they conduct no "real" business on Twitter.
So a counterculture can use the mainstream platforms, but they choose to do so only as a microphone, not as a gathering place.
Edit: That said, one of the members of a related group just (as in, after I wrote this but before editing was made unavailable) got banned from Twitter, so maybe they can't actually use the platform as a microphone for very long. It looks like the law is getting involved, specifically related to the Verkada hack.
I've thought a lot about what you're saying here, and I see no indication that's the case (corrupt/ulterior financial motivations related to their leaks/hacks). I am very curious how the members of DDoSecrets make their money, though (not that it's any of my business), mostly because the Twitter accounts I've been following seem to have a pretty strong disgust response to the idea of making money off of hacking in general.
My bad, I tought you were talking in general. I'm not familiar with DDoSecrets so I cannot say much about their case specifically.
What I can say though is that generally the threat model for attackers slightly more sophisticated than script kiddies suggests that the preparations involve a non negligible amount of time from highly specialized engineers and that somehow, someone has to pay for it.
Highly specialized engineers can be motivated by non monentary ideology just like everyone else.
Besides i think there are plenty of bored teens/uni students who fit between script kiddie and mafia/state actor on the sophistication scale - its a pretty wide step from script kiddie to professional malware writer.
DDoSecrets targeted the most vulnerable voices in society, people banished to Gab for their political beliefs. They literally work for the liberal ruling system.
Indeed. Being able to lose your source of income for posting something that contradicts the mainstream narrative counts as vulnerability in my book. I wanted to post a few examples of potential comments that would very plausibly get one removed from one's job, but that might risk becoming trollbait etc, so I won't give specific examples and just trust that we all have a decent pulse of the kinds of things that you can't say publicly without risk of losing employment or some other punishment.
Indeed, if someone can post their more-or-less unfiltered thoughts on a big social media platform like Facebook, Twitter, etc without ever getting banned, that's a great indication that that person is not part of a "vulnerable" faction, at least in the sense of being part of a counterculture.
So - I guess I'll risk giving one example - if you post a gross exagerration of the risks of SARS-CoV-2 with respect to death or serious illness, or recklessly speculate that recovery from infection does not produce immunity, you're allowed to do that as much as you want. But express the opposite opinion (even if you're literally echoing WHO recommendations such as [far too late] lockdowns being too blunt an instrument or that immunity passports shouldn't be a thing), and you'll be quickly suspended or banned with only a vague reference to "community guidelines".
And then of course you have the irony of platforms like Parler and Gab, which arise in large part due to the phenomenon of deplatforming voices of (primarily) a certain side, and then the mainstream will turn around and criticize these platforms for having a lot of "extremists" or supposed "crazy people", despite the fact that by definition such a platform is going to be populated by those who got booted explicitly or implicitly from the mainstream systems. As a further irony, it's commonly said that "nobody is preventing your ability to speak, you're just not allowed to speak on [insert platform]", and then when you go to that other platform that permits largely unrestricted speech, that platform is yanked from AWS and there's tons of news headlines about how they shouldn't be allowed to platform voice X or faction Y, etc.
So...yeah, the dismissive "how dare you declare these people vulnerable" is very naive and myopic IMO. I think we all know more or less what the current zeitgeist is and roughly what happens when you run afoul of it, and it's not pretty.
I hope I made something close to a coherent point there, I was mostly going stream of consciousness mode :)
Because you decide your political beliefs, and reactions to those decisions inform whether or not you continue to hold them.
Unlike a protected class, which you cannot choose to be a member of. Being of a political party is not a protected class, nor should it be.
The "most vulnerable people in our society" are the people who are discriminated on things they are, not things they do. Gab users are not the most vulnerable, because they choose to be who they're judged for.
It's viscerally insulting to see that point misunderstood, because it belies a fundamental misunderstanding of large portions of how society functions in practice. Because of what you said, and people who believe what you've said, people suffer. That's hard to confront on HN, because you don't expect it.
> you decide your political beliefs, and reactions to those decisions inform whether or not you continue to hold them
That's a really odd take. Throughout history, many of people have been prosecuted for what in retrospect many would agree are correct beliefs (eg: abolitionists, suffragists, believes in evolution, etc.)
Do you not feel sympathy for these people, who according to you could have just avoided all their troubles by changing their beliefs? Do you not understand how incredibly vulnerable AND critically important a minority belief could be?
First protected class is a legal construct that varies by jurisdiction and application. And a whole lot more than then handful enumerated deserve protection.
Veteran, family status and religion are protected classes you can choose to be in.
So you don't believe there's a moral backing for the concept of a protected class? And do you think "political views" fall into that category? Additionally, do you think it's "political views" themselves that are under threat here? Has anyone been banned from any social media platform entirely for speaking about cutting/raising taxes or growing/shrinking government?
So a counterculture can use the mainstream platforms, but they choose to do so only as a microphone, not as a gathering place.
Edit: That said, one of the members of a related group just (as in, after I wrote this but before editing was made unavailable) got banned from Twitter, so maybe they can't actually use the platform as a microphone for very long. It looks like the law is getting involved, specifically related to the Verkada hack.