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

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#461

Post by floatingatoll » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

DuskStar wrote: post #282

hacknat wrote: post #251

What does free speech have to do with this? Cloudflare and other companies have 1st amendment rights as well. 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 t…

> 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…

Protected classes are subject to rules prohibiting the expression of hate speech, even if they claim protection for their hate speech.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#462

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

favorited wrote: post #102

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #48

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…

> No restrictions on free speech of any kind I'm not aware of any country which allows for speech with "no restrictions"

I am saying. Like with NRA's second amendment, absolutist position must be taken since compromise clearly does not work.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#463

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:30 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…

> freedom of speech

duty of thinking prior

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#464

Post by thatswrong0 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:30 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…

> /r/the_donald is already quarantined

That happened because they repeatedly violated rules on Reddit, not because of their extremist views. Reddit was lenient with them for a looong time.

> We need to allow people on the edges of the spectrum to say what they want even if it is without merit

/r/jailbait was banned, but it was technically "free speech" and technically legal, so according to your standards Reddit should have allowed the community to continue to exist, right? (Even though it existing probably led to some deviant / reprehensible / illegal behavior)

But to me, it's obvious that that doesn't need to be allowed to exist on the platform. So to me, that means there is some line that we as a society draw between allowed speech and not. It's not codified in law, but it does exist. That line can move based on the whims of society.

Right now, at least in the tech world, that line seems to be moving in such a way so as to not allow right-wing extremist speech. And that's totally fine in my book - in the same way that /r/jailbait is rightfully considered unacceptable "free speech" now, so is right-wing extremist "free speech".

There are still places to congregate online for that sort of speech if you want. Or you could spin up your own server. It's not disallowed by law. But it's just not as accessible as it was before.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#465

Post by weberc2 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:30 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…

I’m not familiar with Popper’s work, but I see that quote (“tolerate everything but intolerance”) used to rationalize intolerance toward perfectly tolerant individuals. Any evidence that the target is “intolerant” suffices, no matter how tenuous or contrived (“an intolerant person once said a good thing about therefore is intolerant). This seems similar to the concern you expressed about the GP’s philosophy. Did Popper lay out more stringent criteria for what constitutes “tolerance” and “intolerance”?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#466

Post by x86_64Ubuntu » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #296

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…

So the solution then, should be to socialize people in such a way that such views do get challenged. The alternatives, where we have gatekeepers like Google and Facebook entirely deciding what is permissible speech, is too far to the other extreme.

I'm sorry, but are you really saying that Google and Facebook who have gunned no one down, is the counter-extreme to shooting folks up?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#467

Post by LinuxBender » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #388

byuu wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several of these extremist sites even forbid and censor attempts at calm, level-headed rebuttals to such hatred. They exist solely to propagate bigotry. The dog and pony show from Google and Cloudflare of only stepping in after multiple mass shootings and tons of press coverage tells you all you really need to know about these companies' ethics. They react to sufficiently bad PR, not out of any set of principles, be…

Censorship rarely, if ever, solves anything. These companies are not crime-fighting services and will have no impact on criminal activity.

In fact, people were already talking about which sites to migrate to when 8ch was about to be shut down. It's very similar to the Southpark episode about Walmart. If you shut the platform down, another one will get big. It becomes a game of whack-a-mole and harder for the authorities to monitor. End users can migrate quickly., as there are no accounts and no authentication process.

All of that said, CF can choose to not do business with anyone, especially if that entity is causing legal grief for them and/or abusing the AUP [1] See section 2.7. Rather than censorship, I would call it PITA avoidance. I would not want to be the CDN for any of the chan sites.

[1] - https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#468

Post by irrational » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:30 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…

>Popper's tolerance criteria, by contrast, seems clearcut

What is that criteria? Because I can easily see people disagreeing on what is and is not intolerant. Would you agree that saying that a baker in Colorado must make a cake for a gay wedding is intolerant of the baker's belief? Because I'm certain a sizeable proportion of the US population would agree that it is intolerant.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#469

Post by khawkins » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:31 PM UTC

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…

How many people had to die on 9/11 to protect the free speech rights of Muslims? It is undeniable that those terrorist attacks have a direct connection to the ideas being spread by those Mosques. How many Muslims have "skin in the game"?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#470

Post by notatoad » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:31 PM UTC

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…

there is no free speech side of this debate. framing the "other side" as not being free speech is false.

the free speech argument is that racist assholes should be allowed to say whatever they want, but cloudflare or voxility or any other service provider should also be allowed to tell 8chan to STFU and go away. that's part of free speech too. 8chan doesn't and shouldn't have any more rights here than cloudflare does.