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

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#421

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #136

the8472 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8chan is a platform allowing any kind of legal content. Pol is just one of them. You also have technology and comic book discussion for example.

So imagine you own a bunch of ponds and let groups of people use them. Some people use them for breeding goldfish. Some use them for canoe races. Some for swim meets. But one of the biggest ponds you own lies still and stagnant. A perfect place for mosquitos to lay their eggs. In fact you’ve managed to make it especially hospitable to mosquitos that carry malaria. And all your other ponds are next to it, all your oth…

> Should you be allowed to keep operating these ponds?

Are your actions illegal? I don't want pond ownership determined by the moral outage of the day.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#422

Post by liara_k » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

merlincorey wrote: post #160

vorpalhex wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 n…

The purpose of (most) speech is to create action. If the phrase "I'm going to kill you" is intended to alter someone's behavior. If property is involved, whether it's through force or threat of force, it's still robbery. If the threat of violence is delayed, it's still extortion.

For libertarian extremists who, just treat the right to be left in peace to live your life as you see fit... as a property right.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#423

Post by oarabbus_ » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

ddebernardy wrote: post #375

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

Personally I'm in agreement with Popper's view that societies should tolerate everything except intolerance. It draws a fine line between what's acceptable speech and what is not. And going by it, things like 8chan should get shut down. The line of thought you put forward, by contrast, rubs me in a very wrong way. It was used to justify, depending on the period and country, not allowing people to vote on the basis th…

You make some great points. Let me also ask you a devil's advocate question.

"Let's go to oarabbus_'s house at and kill him" is not protected speech, correct? I am sure everyone agrees upon this.

But "Let's attack folks who are as they are a scourge upon our nation" is protected? Why?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#424

Post by yyyk » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:22 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…

That case was a bad mistake, and it's telling that the ACLU changed its ways. Hopefully, one day the ACLU will apologize to the Jewish community for its role there.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#425

Post by LargeWu » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #292

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?

Moral principles don't need to be justified by the "legitimate public interest" (in the short run), otherwise we would kill all babies that we predict will become criminals, even thought they've done nothing wrong yet. I think laws should be fair and consistent. Censorship is inconsistent with freedom and justice. Additionally, the interpretation of messages is subjective. If laws are inconsistent and arbitrary (and…

"individual is the base of all laws"

Yes. The Individual.

Well, what about the rights of the 29 individuals that were randomly murdered, plus the scores of others wounded this past weekend? What about their justice?

I'm sure it's fun for you to treat all of this as some sort of abstract thought experiment, but the reality is that people are dying senselessly and violently for no reason other than we as a society won't make difficult decisions in the name of "principle".

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#426

Post by rukittenme » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

This will be an interesting experiment. Will the banning of 8chan prevent future tragedies? Or will we see the rate of these tragedies continue unabated.

Either way we should have some evidentiary support for the arguments made in this thread. "Can free speech go to far?" "Should free speech be limited only to those mentally capable of the responsibility?" "Are safe spaces key in the radicalization process?" "Should speech be limited to only those ideas which society wishes to debate?" "Are calls to violence speech?"

I'm pretty keen on tracking some of these arguments. Please suggest more arguments (and potential indicators for that argument's truth) if you feel I've neglected some aspect of the conversation.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#427

Post by crankylinuxuser » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

ddebernardy wrote: post #375

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

Personally I'm in agreement with Popper's view that societies should tolerate everything except intolerance. It draws a fine line between what's acceptable speech and what is not. And going by it, things like 8chan should get shut down. The line of thought you put forward, by contrast, rubs me in a very wrong way. It was used to justify, depending on the period and country, not allowing people to vote on the basis th…

Then it turns into a game (game theory, not Risk) of whom defines "intolerance". And once duly defined, it is now verboten and removed from discussion and vernacular.

Hot button topics: capitalism, abortion, religion, right vs left, states rights

I think the founders had it better: govt can't censor speech, so the individuals and the public could decide. Just, the framers didn't imagine companies of such scope.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#428

Post by malvosenior » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

There are other ways to deal with this than censorship. Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? It seems actually useful that these people are willing to make these kind of plans in the public eye. Force them underground and behind encryption and it will be harder to monitor.

Does anyone know how law enforcement engages with places like 8chan?

Instead of curtailing free speech and pushing for censorship (which will have anti-humanitarian effects soon enough), why not enforce the laws already on the books and investigate people who threaten violence online?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#429

Post by CM30 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

On a related note, 8chan has both a Tor/hidden service version and a ZeroNet version, and there are ads going around on how to access those.

So it's clear the folks running the site knew that something like this might happen, and set up alternatives (on 'uncensorable' services) to provide access in such a situation.

It may provide for an interesting case study in whether a community site like this moving to P2P services or Tor can maintain the same level of activity as on the clearweb, or whether that effectively hides it for a decent percentage of the userbase.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#430

Post by 49531 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

> It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it.

This is the crux of liberal (classical, libertarian, and contemporary) ideology as a whole. The idea that if only people were enlightened we could have nice things. All in all, it is kind of useless, or utopian. You can't enlighten people, and merely giving them education doesn't do the trick on its own.

Liberalism (classical, libertarian, and contemporary) ignores material conditions as a base for which all things are formed, leaving it ill-equipped to handle any real issues. We can hem and haw all day about how "if only the plebs were enlightened" but nothing will change until we make real efforts to change people's material existence. It's easy to turn to fascism and extremism if you have literally nothing going for you in life.

I'm not excusing individuals actions, but don't try to solve a systemic problem with individualism if you want anything to actually change.