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8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

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Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#151

Post by makomk »

nilkn wrote: post #4

I've generally been on the free speech side of this debate, as some of my previous comments on HN will show. With 8chan, I legitimately don't know what my opinion is. I've read it before, and I spent a few hours reading it this weekend, and it's beyond clear to me that it absolutely had the potential to radicalize shooters and terrorists. I'm not referring to the simple use of racial or ethnic slurs -- of course this…

Perhaps, but I do wonder if it actually mattered all that much whether 8chan encouraged this. There's evidence of contagion in mass shootings, that shooters seem to see the headlines about a shooting and become inspired to imitate it. Maybe there'd always be mass shootings tied to 8chan so long as there were news headlines tying the previous mass shootings to the site and leading future shooters towards it. Those certainly have a much broader reach than anything on the site itself.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#152

Post by [deleted] »

eridius wrote: post #79
nilkn wrote: post #4

I've generally been on the free speech side of this debate, as some of my previous comments on HN will show. With 8chan, I legitimately don't know what my opinion is. I've read it before, and I spent a few hours reading it this weekend, and it's beyond clear to me that it absolutely had the potential to radicalize shooters and terrorists. I'm not referring to the simple use of racial or ethnic slurs -- of course this…

> it's beyond clear to me that it absolutely had the potential to radicalize shooters and terrorists I mean, it literally radicalized white supremacist terrorists . There's no "had the potential" anymore, it's a fact. It also sounds like it held plenty of child porn, so I don't understand why it took until now for anyone to do anything about the site.

[deleted]

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#153

Post by Meekro »

When I was much younger, I remember being filled with wonder when I learned about the Skokie case[1], where the ACLU went to court to protect the rights of Nazis to hold a rally in a mostly-Jewish town.

"Wait, they faced down criticism from every direction, and took a massive loss in donations, to stand up for the fundamental rights of people they despise? Is this what liberals do? I want to be a liberal!"

Sadly, if that happened today they'd probably say something about not tolerating intolerance and side with the government to shut them down.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-sp...

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#154

Post by ausbah »

h2odragon wrote: post #135
miguelmota wrote: post #86

Just like how we pull weeds in gardens all year round; deplatforming will remove majority of these users with undesirable qualities.

Right, all those people who were having fun on 8chan will now see the error of their ways, take up sensitivity training, and post only non-controversial things where ever they land next.

No, but if they don't have an easily accessible platform their message can't spread.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#155

Post by sagichmal »

piker wrote: post #131
LargeWu wrote: post #120

Can any free speech absolutists explain to me the legitimate public interest that is served by allowing terrorist breeding grounds like 8chan to continue to operate?

Reducing the subjective evaluation of the content of private citizens' speech. [Edit: Why would you down-vote? That's the legitimate interest on the other side of the balance. It's not an opinion on the merit of shutting down 8chan. In this case, the benefit in permitting this speech may be grossly outweighed by the benefit of stopping it, but the benefit in allowing 8chan to continue to exist is non-zero. In its mos…

It is both the right and responsibility of every member of a civil society to make ethical judgments about what kind of society they want to create. Free speech is a means to achieve those ends, and not an end in itself.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#156

Post by mrguyorama »

jonny_eh wrote: post #111
harryh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that the "fire in a crowded room" metaphor comes from Schenck v. United States in which Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr used the metaphor to defend the criminality of protesting the military draft? I'm not sure if that's the kind of history you want to align yourself with. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

The justice's analogy in that case was bad, but otherwise it would have been a good argument. If speech is meant to directly lead to harm, it should be constrained.

In that case, wouldn't it be more that it isn't allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater with the express purpose to cause injury during a stampede? Would doing so "just as a prank bro" still be protected under American precedent?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#157

Post by codesushi42 »

yters wrote: post #18

A lot of these mass shooters (and a number of serial killers) quote social Darwinism nonsense as inspiration. I wonder why that ideological portion is not being dealt with more. I hear social Darwinism ideas fairly frequently in everyday conversations with people, like casual lunch conversations.

I hear social Darwinism ideas fairly frequently in everyday conversations with people, like casual lunch conversations.

Really? I guess I can believe this. I wish I didn't, but I have overheard plenty of bullshit over the years myself.

Hell, there was a thread on HN awhile back with posters essentially advocating for eugenics and the mods here didn't blink an eye.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20542738

ITT: "Eugenics were crushed with violence, they weren't actually disproved."

A ton of thinly veiled arguments for Social Darwinism and selective breeding in that thread. Disgusting. Yet the mods let it go.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#158

Post by shdh »

ZoidbergWill wrote: post #10
gwbas1c wrote: post #5

I'm of the opinion that if we suppress it, it doesn't go away. When it comes back, it's much harder to control. I also firmly believe that everyone has biases and inclinations that are morally wrong. The sooner we learn how to deal with the "good guys" unfair biases, the sooner we can figure out how to deal with the "bad guys" too.

The already radicalised don't go away, but de-platforming does help. Sure, there are some alternatives that are harder to restrict and monitor, like if all the radicals move to private Telegram groups or the dark web or something. However all the vulnerable people at risk of being radicalised are less likely to be radicalised if they're using a similar forum to 8chan but without all the white supremacist and other ha…

> The already radicalised don't go away, but de-platforming does help.

It helps prevent the on-boarding of people who can be potentially radicalized.

There is also plenty of astroturfing also going on in this message boards by entities that want to cause chaos.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#159

Post by at-fates-hands »

sigstoat wrote: post #80
tombert wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm on the same boat as you on this one; I tend to have a pretty libertarian view on free speech, but lately the bizarre rise of hyper-radical idiots on places like 8chan (and even YouTube to a lesser extent) has really made me question these things. It's very easy to shout the mantra of "Free speech!!! OMG!!!" but we gain nothing by acting like there aren't natural consequences to it. By having a liberal fre…

> I think I'm on the same boat as you on this one; I tend to have a pretty libertarian view on free speech, but lately the bizarre rise of hyper-radical idiots on places like 8chan (and even YouTube to a lesser extent) has really made me question these things. there have always been hyper-radical idiots. with 8chan and such, you can see them. you're not getting rid of anything, you're just sticking your head into the…

Just like 8chan isn't getting rid of them either. They're just pushing them to a different platform where its going to be harder to keep tabs on these people.

I just wonder with all the technology we have at our disposal, how is it these people continue to slip through the system undeterred to escalate this type of violence?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#160

Post by merlincorey »

vorpalhex wrote: post #29
danharaj wrote: post #15

"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the deaths of others your right to say it." How many free speech absolutists have "skin in the game", or whatever? Every alternative to censorship suggested always puts the burden on the victimized. Like, "if you debate it in public you will defeat these bad ideas". Few who are free speech absolutists roll up their sleeves and volunteer to take the action they presc…

It's not that speech doesn't have consequences. If speech had no consequences, it wouldn't be worth defending. Rather, it's that no man is fit to play the censor - not the Government which would censor political criticism of itself, not a king who would censor his opponents, nor even a billionaire who would censor the media when it spurns him. At the same time, if someone points a finger at you and shouts "I'm going…

> At the same time, if someone points a finger at you and shouts "I'm going to kill you", then we're getting outside of speech and into actions, and certainly actions can be prohibited.

At least in my state, this is not actionable as described.

For it to be actionable, the person saying "I'm going to kill you" needs to reasonably be in a position to do so - i.e. brandishing a weapon, etc.

Idle threats and banter do not actions make.

Thought crime isn't what we want, is it?

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