8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service • Hacker News Board

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#361

Post by DuskStar » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

Meekro wrote: post #153

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…

The ACLU had some internal memos released last year basically saying "if you want to carry weapons, we won't represent you" and "if your speech 'harms' marginalized communities, have fun". [0] They're certainly not the universal defenders of civil liberties they used to be.

0: https://reason.com/2018/06/21/aclu-leaked-memo-free-speech/

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#362

Post by allemagne » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

Smithalicious wrote: post #215

This once again goes to show that you can do nothing illegal and still be virtually locked out of the internet. The viewpoint that "it's okay to kick 8chan off the internet" is not consistent with the viewpoint that "the internet should be neutral infrastructure". Take from that what you will. People are doing the "yada yada not entitled to a platform" thing, but the distinction between free speech and having a platf…

I get that you're trying to address a larger philosophical question, but what action are you actually suggesting in this particular instance?

Should Cloudflare be forced to host 8chan?

Even more than YouTube/Twitter, this seems like a clear case of business owners deciding that 8chan is too much of a liability to do business with.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#363

Post by bufferoverflow » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

dd36 wrote: post #173

bufferoverflow wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you block 8chan, the only thing that it will result in is people will move to more censorship-resistant technologies. You will push people to TOR, distributed P2P, blockchain forums, etc. Which will make even harder to identify them. You can't stop the signal. ThePirateBay proved it many many times. We need to address the sources of the problem, not the symptoms.

Part of the problem is ease of access. Making it harder to get to is good.

Torrenting isn't exactly easy, but it's insanely popular. Slightly complicated access will only stop some old people.

If someone creates an app that connects to some sort of distributed indestructible backend, it's game over, and all you need is an app.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#364

Post by hdojdojid » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

LargeWu wrote: post #269

mrlala wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theoretical argument is simple- if you ban one kind of speech, where does it end? The line can keep getting moved closer until what's not allowed is in a gray area and that's not where we want to be. However, the practical side of this is pretty clear.. hate speech is hate speech. It's not a debate. The people who are for being racist/bigots are wrong- plain and simple. So removing their forum of speech is OK in…

Society places limits on all kinds of things. Even speech - inciting violence is not protected under the first amendment.

And yet Twitter is full of example of the 'good guys' calling bfor violence against the 'bad guys'.

You're all bigots and shallow intellectuals who lack integrity and bravery.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#365

Post by prawnsalad » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

DrDimension wrote: post #266

boramalper wrote: post #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…

A private company must act as public infrastructure once it becomes a de facto monopoly.

Your argument aside, Cloudflare is definitely not a monopoly. There are many, possibly hundreds, of different CDNs that run at scale.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#366

Post by ebspelman » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

Smithalicious wrote: post #215

This once again goes to show that you can do nothing illegal and still be virtually locked out of the internet. The viewpoint that "it's okay to kick 8chan off the internet" is not consistent with the viewpoint that "the internet should be neutral infrastructure". Take from that what you will. People are doing the "yada yada not entitled to a platform" thing, but the distinction between free speech and having a platf…

> We now live in a society where it is acceptable for private companies to essentially completely ban individuals from exercising their free speech on the internet.

This is phrased as something to be fearful of here, but I think I'm actually fine with this precedent.

There's nothing to stop people with extreme right-wing ideologies from marshaling the resources required to stand up all the pieces of web infrastructure they find themselves blocked from. If they can't amass those resources, that's ultimately a market decision, no?

And if they were able to stand up that infrastructure, it would indicate a high level of financial support for their agenda, which would be the real thing to be afraid of, in my own opinion.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#367

Post by lainon » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

corodra wrote: post #258

A bit out of the loop. The hell is 8chan? Similar to 4chan? Are the by the same people? I always knew 4chan was a cesspool, just like youtube comment sections. So, never ventured. Next question, is there any actual evidence or proof that they're "apart of it"? Literally, out of the loop and I trust a random person on HN a bit more than CNN. I saw the thing about Cloudflare here... was it yesterday? Day before? I figu…

It's an Imageboard, there are many of them. 8chan gained a lot of traffic because of the Gamergate [1] controversy in late 2014 The site has nothing to-do with 4chan in terms of administration.

I can't say anything about how 8chan is involved in the El Paso shooting, since it's been some time I've been active on 8chan, but the Christchurch mosque shootings was announced on 8chan. There are many more of such incidents where Imageboards have played a role - e.g. the killing of a kid by Marcel H. in Herne, Germany was posted and documented on 4chan.

So, it's very possible that they're part of it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#368

Post by DuskStar » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:11 PM UTC

jaf656s wrote: post #343

DuskStar wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of them is that they can serve customers as they like, as long as they are not violating the rights of a protected class. Political ideology or party affiliation is not a protected class, nor should it be. Twitter could ban every Republican on its platform tomorrow and it if the government tried to stop them the Supreme Court would likely side with Twitter. Where's the line between "political ideology" and "rel…

"kill all the jews because islam says jews are evil" is not protected speech by any stretch of the imagination

What about "jews should all be killed because Islam says jews are evil"? How is that different (I mean, besides the obvious) than "murderers should be put to death because the Bible says so"?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#369

Post by liara_k » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:11 PM UTC

mieseratte wrote: post #211

CydeWeys wrote: post #76

We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. What 8chan is doing is exactly the same, minus the Islamist part, yet there's hypocrisy in how they're treated vs e.g. the social media wing of ISIS. These people are trying to kill as many of us as possible. In no way should society accept it. It's simple societal self-defense. Ro…

> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. I certainly would tolerate those sites. Free speech arguments aside, you can't kill the hydra, but you can severely degrade intelligence operations watching that hydra. Best case the bad guys all end up on sites already being surveilled, worst case they slip under the radar. We h…

That only works if you're actually going to act on the intelligence gathered from having the discussion centralized. That's something the U.S. is clearly willing to do with, e.g., ISIS. But even what limited programs we had towards combating white nationalist terrorism were canceled by Trump.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#370

Post by dmix » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:11 PM UTC

Meekro wrote: post #83

commanderjroc wrote: post #6

I guess you could say that free speech has limits that are acceptable. You know you can't yell fire in a crowded room and not get litigation and charges brought against you. So, maybe 8chan just ran past the fine line of hate speech vs encouraging acts of hate. I.e you can be racist but you cannot encourage acts of extremism. If 8Chan was a breeding ground for Islamic Extremists would people be okay with still existi…

Little known fact about the phrase "fire in a crowded theater": it was coined in a criminal case against a man who was distributing leaflets criticizing the draft during World War 1. The Supreme Court upheld his conviction by comparing those leaflets to "shouting fire in a crowded theater" -- even though most readers here would agree that those two things are nothing alike. I think there's a lesson in that: when we t…

It's never just used for the original case either.

Now that 8chan is down why not every other site with a subset of (violent?) racist users?

By doing something about one and not doing anything about another, is Cloudflare not basically giving their ideology a greenlight to exist? This is the type of backwards anti-intellectual thinking that will seep into the decision making.

"Slippery slopes" are a cliche for a reason when talking about this stuff because it never stops with one really good example nor within a very narrow scope. Making this debate all about 8chan misses the larger point because it sets a precedent. There's already tons of people who want way more than 8chan banned from the internet.