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

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#791

Post by colechristensen » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 11:31 PM UTC

Many people are talking about freedom of speech, and yes it is something very important to support when you're talking about what governments cannot do.

But CloudFlare and whatever hosting company this is are not governments. Freedom of speech doesn't mean others are required to be your megaphone when you're saying objectionable things. The government should be very restricted in its ability to censor you, but your publisher? not so much.

If you really don't like it, make your own publisher (internet hardware company, CDN, etc.)

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#792

Post by graphememes » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 11:33 PM UTC

inscionent wrote: post #729

graphememes wrote: post #604

This is why we have mass shootings, just saying. People taking things away from other people. I have a feeling this will lead to more shootings.

20 people had their lives abruptly ended while they where attempting to complete mundane errands at a WalMart and this is what you have to add to this conversation? Fuck you, just saying.

This isn't a good response to the situation. Yes. People have died, how do we prevent more from dying? Poking the bee hive that everyone makes it out to be?

Sounds like a good idea captain.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#793

Post by kirrent » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 11:34 PM UTC

busymom0 wrote: post #782

wpietri wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main issue with discussions on topics like this is a sort of fundamentalism. It's very easy to take a particular right (e.g., speech, property) and defend it absolutely. But rights are inherently social, and must be balanced against other people's rights. For example, I don't think my freedom of speech should trump Cloudflare's or Voxility's right to freedom of association. They should generally be able to decide…

> But rights are inherently social No, the founding fathers specifically said that freedom of speech is a God given right and not something which the government gives to a person, instead the government simply recognizes that right. They specifically said freedom of speech is a "Natural" right. Right to clean water is not a right, right to education is not a natural right in their terms. Right to speech, right to sel…

Just because someone uses the word 'rights' doesn't mean they're referring only to the US bill of rights understood in a Thomas Paine-esque 'Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants' manner. Actually, even Thomas Paine considered a right to welfare (including education), so even founding fathers can reasonably disagree.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#794

Post by graphememes » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 11:35 PM UTC

pcbro141 wrote: post #711

graphememes wrote: post #604

This is why we have mass shootings, just saying. People taking things away from other people. I have a feeling this will lead to more shootings.

What was unfairly 'taken away' from these recent (Gilroy, El Paso, Dayton) mass shooters?

So let's poke a bee hive to have more? Let's remove a very easy to access, scrape, court order, platform that potential shooters feel comfortable posting to hours / days before hand that the FBI / Police could use to prevent such things.

Yeah great move. Clap clap.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#795

Post by hacknat » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 11:35 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #521

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…

Imagine an alternate scenario. Say the major tech companies get fed up with Elizabeth Warren's calls to regulate them. Facebook removes all her groups. Cloudflare shuts down her websites. Youtube removes her videos. Google only leaves anti-Elizabeth Warren search results up, etc. Basically a major presidential candidate is completely locked out of having any presence on the Internet whatsoever. Would your reaction be…

I think market retribution would take care of their decision pretty handily. I also think the same is true for Republicans. Twitter could never survive the market retaliation if they banned the Republican Party, but they have every legal right to do so.

Also, changing the players in my scenario has nothing to do with anything, mine isn’t an opinion it is a matter of rule of law. If you don’t share that assumption with me than I have to fall silent.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#796

Post by 50656E6973 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 11:41 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.

>So the solution then, should be to socialize people in such a way that such views do get challenged.

Which is precisely the opposite of what these major corporate speech platforms are doing by creating filter bubbles and deplatforming wrong thinkers.

It's the same as sending small time/non violent criminals to prison to incubate with hardened violent criminals.

"We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."

-MLK

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#797

Post by olleromam91 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 11:42 PM UTC

lonelappde wrote: post #433

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…

> universally That word doesn't mean what you think it means. If it did, censorship wouldn't be relevant. The content you don't like isn't a naturally or accidentally occurring substance. Someone wanted it to exist.

You talkin bout God?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#798

Post by rexpop » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 11:42 PM UTC

antepodius wrote: post #726

rexpop wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a question of merely "allowing" hatred to grow, as though it were so much yeast on the wind, but of propagating the deliberate inculcation of white supremacism and misogyny , a campaign orchestrated by long-standing institutions of social control.

What are you on about? 8chan is pretty damn grassroots. The people on /pol/ definitely don't see themselves as backed by the institutions of social control; in their mythology, the insitutions of social control (eg. the mainstream media, Silicon Valley, banks) are all left-wing, "pozzed", and their enemies. They consider themselves a hated minority... because they are. What big institutions are backing 8chan?!

> In their mythology, the insitutions of social control (eg. the mainstream media, Silicon Valley, banks) are all left-wing

This is a classic, authoritarian tactic of misdirection.

Here's a report on some of the forces at play:

1. https://datasociety.net/output/media-manipulation-and-disinf...

By the way, they're wrong—although not alone—in thinking that Silicon Valley is "left-wing". This is a convenient smoke-screen, as illuminated here:

1. http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/californian-ideol...

I am not sure why we should put much stock in the explicit mythology of a troll army.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#799

Post by yesco » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #744

s9w wrote: post #335

So the campaigns against free speech show results. The wheels are in motion, the dominoes are falling. Funny how here on HN the use of the term "free speech absolutists"/"free speech absolutism" has absolutely skyrocketed for example. So are these the last days of the internet? 4chan is still there, voat too (although barely) - but I don't know how much longer. 100% legal sites are taken offline for absolutely no rea…

It's not a campaign against free speech, it's a campaign against collective organization of murder. What a sad time How about the free speech rights of the 22 people who died in El Paso?

> How about the free speech rights of the 22 people who died in El Paso?

Excellent point, I'm sure we would have done a swell job taking away their rights as well had they survived and had opinions we disagreed with.

A very nice false dichotomy.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#800

Post by jquery » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 11:46 PM UTC

Rapzid wrote: post #344

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…

A major problem IMHO is the conflation of "free speech" the government restriction with its roots in ancient Greece and early democracy with whatever else anyone wants it to mean; typically that people should be allowed to espouse whatever ideas they want without challenge because "free speech".

:s/without challenge/without censorship