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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

#181
post #167

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?

One man's terrorist rhetoric is another's glorious revolutionary thought. If you don't think that the precedents being set today won't affect leftist spaces which seek to alter America's failed state version of capitalism you are truly naive. Was the Patriot act and subsequent rights degrading laws about combating Islamic terrorism? Or was it about legalizing oppressive control and mass surveillance?

In the United States, post 9/11 mass surveillance came almost entirely from the private sector and had zero to do with the Patriot Act.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#182
What people (seemingly) fail to realise is that neither Cloudflare is the Internet nor Voxility is a public infrastructure. They are private enterprises which are free to act in however they want with regards to the service they provide as laid out in their contract.

That is the danger of centralisation; when they remove their service, it feels as if your rights has been violated because (a) you have been so used to them (b) you cannot exist without them practically.

Now imagine it resurrecting on IPFS/Dat/..., where every visitor could "pin" the website.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#183
This might be an unpopular opinion for those who view more rules as the answer.

Banning (or discontinuing or deplatforming or whatever you want to call it) may do little but harden the resolve of key ideologues of whatever stripe. For them, it leads credence to the idea that there is conspiracy against the group afoot. Besides, when has banning actually been effective? Sure, it may reduce manifestation and reduce recruitment, but drugs and spam pretty much show wack-a-mole is not really an effective policy. That's to say nothing of the moral hazards of thought police determining who can say what.

However it is obvious that leaving these kind of groups to echo chamber louder and more extreme, egging each other on also leads to bad outcomes.

Perhaps a solution may be proactive counter speech. Some sort of volunteer regiment or something that finds where these sorts congregate and offers counterpoints to violent idiocy. Obviously flat out threats or calls to action are crimes in and of themselves and should be treated as such.

This would be a pretty thankless task because who wants to deal with this type of idiocy and darkness all day? But I think it could be more effective if properly done than banning as far as changing minds and hearts, especially before people get sucked too far down echo chambers and start seeing the world in a way it really isn't. Other people, smart people, articulate people, right there calling out wrongness, calling out stupidity, calling out misunderstanding, giving counterpoints, arguing for right action, this might be a more effective way to damp down the extremism.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#184

meanwhile, to us canadians, it's painfully obvious that the problem isn't websites, but guns. curbing free speech is not going to solve this problem for you.

It is always something else.

If it wasn't 8chan it would be 4chan.

If it wasn't 4chan it would be video games.

If it wasn't video games it would be video nasties.

If it wasn't video nasties it would be drugs.

Anything except the guns.

Interesting how the U.S. President can say how he wants the perpetrators executed. There is a whole culture of killing just south of that border of yours.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#185
post #167

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?

One man's terrorist rhetoric is another's glorious revolutionary thought. If you don't think that the precedents being set today won't affect leftist spaces which seek to alter America's failed state version of capitalism you are truly naive. Was the Patriot act and subsequent rights degrading laws about combating Islamic terrorism? Or was it about legalizing oppressive control and mass surveillance?

If they’re shooting people in Walmart, the leftist spaces should be disrupted.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#186

"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…

The truth is that information does not radicalize people - censorship does. That's why the channers are as radicalized as they are - they've been censored everywhere else. Censor their last remaining outlets and you will increase violence by orders of magnitude. If ethno-nationalists are not allowed to make their political case with speech, what alternative would they have but violence? You obviously can't change the…

A lot of people say "censorship radicalizes" but I've never seen any studies or evidence for this claim. Your comment is purely speculative. There is some evidence that banning extremist content reduces its potential to radicalize [1]. Do you have any evidence to suggest it increases radicalization?

[1] http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#187

I am genuinely upset over this. And that is after CEO pinky swears he will not do it in the future. It will be that much easier to do it now that there is a precedent. I doubt he does not know it. I think.. I think I will be starting free speech focused entity. Like NRA. Laser focus. No restrictions on free speech of any kind. Ever. This may be the only thing to prevent US from losing its list of temporary priviledge…

Free speech does not require that we give people a platform. Free speech also means that everyone can decide to turn their backs on people saying these sorts of things, and not let them use the things we have built to spread their message.

>Free speech does not require that we give people a platform.

That's true!

Unfortunately it gets a little more complicated than that.

As providers enjoy PLATFORM protections that align with the ideas of free speech. Meaning they will enjoy legal immunity from content they host so long as they won't decide who gets a voice or why so long as the content is legally allowed. They aren't liable because they didn't have a say in what it was. They are required to remove illegal things of course.

The issue here is the PLATFORMS are now deciding they're going to keep these legal protections they basically require in order to exist - while also acting a PUBLISHERS that curate otherwise legal content to be aligned with their views.

Admit that many of the same people celebrating "they're a private company they can do what they want!" were also yelling "make the cake you bigots!"

This may be a cake-centric issue now that I think about it. Because CF, SV, FAANG are Having Cake + Eating Cake.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is that information does not radicalize people - censorship does. That's why the channers are as radicalized as they are - they've been censored everywhere else. Censor their last remaining outlets and you will increase violence by orders of magnitude. If ethno-nationalists are not allowed to make their political case with speech, what alternative would they have but violence? You obviously can't change the…

One alternative is that many of them give up the idea of taking action.

What will you do when your plan to censor the alt-right backfires and makes the violence worse? Attempt to start rounding them up? And when that makes it even worse?

You don't have a plan, just a knee jerk impulse to censor.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#189
ATTENTION: This is a discussion thread about CENSORSHIP. Please stop using the DOWN VOTE feature against everyone makes a case against censorship - it's simply too ironic, and only goes to show that there is no limit to the censorial impulse.

THANK YOU!

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