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

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#731

Post by canada_dry » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:45 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…

> societies should tolerate everything except intolerance

I disagree.

Societies are held together by common moral standards. Intolerance of anti-social/moral behaviour (compared to the accepted standard) should be accepted, even encouraged.

One of the reasons the US is falling apart at the seams is because of the 'as long as I want to do it, I should be allowed to" attitude. People don't care what others think.

An extreme (of sorts) is Japanese society... if you are out of line expect that you will hear about it immediately from many people and the negative consequences of bad behaviour can be very broad and long lasting.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#732

Post by afiori » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:45 PM UTC

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #492

hrktb wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inciting violence is not legal though. It’s reasonable to cut support to players that relentlessly fail to comply with the rules. The platforms are not turning against them, they are constantly abusing the ToS of these platforms . Now some people disagree with the ToS in the first place, but it’s another discussion to be done at another plane. There has always been a filtering of what goes to a super wide audience, m…

8chan took the shooter's manifesto down way faster than it took Facebook to take down the Christchurch shooter's streams. You're mistaken if you think that 8chan "relentlessly fails to comply with the rules", anyone paying attention knows that they're very responsive. This is nothing more than a witchhunt because people want the site to go away.

Facebook and others focus an inane amount of energy in keeping up a "healthy place" facade. Even if 8chan was super meticulous on the rules I doubt it could pull off the same feat without comparable effort.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#733

Post by reading-at-work » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

spaginal wrote: post #179

eridius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Are you of the belief that hatred and radicalization doesn’t exist in environments that lack free speech? Lot’s of places on this planet have hyper radicalized portions of their populations that commit aggregious acts of violence, and they lack free speech. Yet free speech is being used as the red herring to blame. Unequivocally, your assessment of these forums causing the radicalization is wrong. Plain wrong. These…

If you think 8chan and 4chan haven't made it uniquely easy for groups like this to spread their message, you're being deliberately naïve. It's not about eradicating the behavior entirely, because yes, that's not truly possible. It's about making it more difficult for people to be recruited and radicalized. Just because you have the right to not go to jail for being racist doesn't mean you have the right to spread those views anywhere and everywhere, and when it has a proven link to encouraging violent behavior it crosses the line IMO.

If it was an ISIS board we wouldn't even be having this conversation, it would already be offline.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#734

Post by Moru » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:50 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…

I believe free speech is important but to keep things civil, it has to be open who the message is from. Anywhere anonym messages are allowed quickly deteriorates to *chan levels. We have all seen this in most online games and forums. Human nature is only good if there are some sort of reckoning.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#735

Post by Brain_Thief » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

HBKXNCUO wrote: post #636

ddebernardy wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why should people tolerate things which they don't think it's in their interest to tolerate? If, for example, people believe it's harmful to their children to see people performing sexual acts in the street, why should they tolerate that behavior?

Are you aware of anyone in this thread, or of any major national movement, advocating for a tolerance-based right to perform sexual acts in public in front of children? Looking past the strange and extreme strawman you've propped up, the reasons for tolerance in society are multitudinous. It prevents misunderstanding, fear, and hatred from festering and potentially giving rise to violence.

As a simple thought experiment ask yourself the following question. How many individuals hailing from tolerant communities or organizations have you seen commit mass shootings? Contrast that to the number of individuals committing public violence who hold intolerance as a virtue. Public violence is a serious negative for everyone and its prevention should be reason enough to support tolerance as a basic tenet of societal health. The fact of the matter, no matter who might dislike it, is that modern societies are, for the most part, very diverse. Without tolerance for differences violence is a forgone conclusion in the modern world.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#736

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:51 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…

Murdering people permanently limits their free speech, no? If a website's content is full of discussions about why people ought to be murdered, and how to go about it, and exhortations that it take place as soon as possible, isn't that an attack on the free speech (as well as all other freedoms) of the intended target(s)?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#737

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

simlevesque wrote: post #443

SkyBelow wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder how many people like GPL and free software. One of the core tenants of free software is the ability to do anything with it (freedom 0). This includes being able to do evil. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html The original JSON license is even deemed not free because it limits the ability to use it for Evil. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#JSON There is a reason for this decis…

> This includes being able to do evil. This also includes booting someone off your platform.

[deleted]

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#738

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #594

chrisco255 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're assuming these people socialize at all.

[deleted]

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#739

Post by mirimir » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

8chan and its ilk are primarily symptoms. Of just exactly what, I'm not sure. But major factors in the US are very likely ongoing deindustrialization, increasing wealth inequity, global climate change, and changes in gender roles.

Which of those are ultimately good or bad is another conversation. Although I gotta say that gender roles certainly needed change. But the fact remains that they're happening.

But of course, 8chan and its ilk are also mechanisms that exacerbate those symptoms. However, while shutting them down may be morally satisfying, it's no substitute for actually addressing (yeah, politics speak) the underlying problems.

Not that I have much of a clue how, sadly enough.

This ain't going to end well.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#740

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #499

irrational wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

> I can easily see people disagreeing on what is and is not intolerant Not in the subject at hand. I think pretty much everyone reasonable agrees that "kill the {jews,muslims,hispanics}" (once more, folks, this was the THIRD ethnic massacre advertised on 8chan!) is intolerant, no? Can't we start there?

> Can't we start there?

I'm not sure that I'd have a problem with starting there. The problem is, we wouldn't stop there.