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8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

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Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#801

Post by throwawayjava »

jimbobimbo wrote: post #592
allemagne wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If we think of CF/Voxility as of a "neutral infrastructure", CF and Voxility shouldn't be "forced to host", but also shouldn't proactively shut down sites, unless there's an obvious violation of ToS. There's a process of forcing companies to do something, and it involves a judge and a jury. I find it ironic to see cheering of these actions by The Verge, who is in the tank for "net neutrality". I don't like what site…

> If we think of CF/Voxility as of a "neutral infrastructure"

"Property rights for me but not for you"

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#802

Post by anigbrowl »

robomartin wrote: post #574

The part that I concerned with has to do with discoverability. If you push these people underground they will not disappear. That has never happened in the history of humanity. I would much rather the exist in plain view, free to voice their hatred in plain view. I would much rather the algorithms and people of sound mind monitor these individuals and groups in broad daylight than have them exist behind encrypted rad…

Precisely because this is happening in plain sight, various members of our family, myself included, have been engaging with him to try and pull him out of Plato’s proverbial cave. This task is incredibly difficult. [...]

It's enormously difficult to deal with even for a family member that you know fairly well. Now imagine trying to deal with it at scale where you're trying to reach (likely) complete strangers who are not confused, but actively engaged as conscious information and/or real world warriors and smart enough to anticipate, avoid, and deflect counter-arguments.

There are already people who monitor these social groups but actively and algorithmically, and because of that are aware of where and how to locate them when a hub goes down.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#803

Post by laughinghan »

znpy wrote: post #774
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…

There is a fallacy in your thinking imo. Sites like 8chan are not entirely devoted to radicalisation, just like a mosque is not devoted to radicalisation. Yet sometimes in a mosque some evil islamic imam or something preaches radicalisation. Yet we tolerate and welcome mosques. Then why shouldn’t we tolerate and welcome sites like 8chan? Also please keep in mind that now that 8chan has been basically shut down, we ha…

What are you talking about? We can and do arrest, charge, and convict "evil islamic imams" that "preach radicalization", and don't let them operate mosques. We tolerate and welcome mosques because they ban radicals and report them to the FBI:

"Monteilh eventually so unnerved Orange County's Muslim community that that they got a restraining order against him. [T]hey also reported Monteilh to the FBI"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/20/fbi-informant

You do know that Homeland is a TV show and not real life, right?

A mosque that openly fostered extremism like 8chan did would of course get shut down. By contrast, 8chan has not been shut down. Its operations have been disrupted, but it hasn't shut down, anymore than Cloudflare has shut down just because they had a site outage last month.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#804

Post by danem »

Thorentis wrote: post #780
zamfi wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are doing the "yada yada not entitled to a platform" thing, but the distinction between free speech and having a platform is meaningless in reality. It's like saying "you can say anything you want, but we won't let you use the atmosphere to propagate the sound waves". But the size of the platform is commensurate with the tolerability of the speech, right? No one is preventing you from standing in a public pl…

> no one is preventing you from standing in a public place Social media is now the equivalent of standing in a public place. Times have changed. The town crier that used to tell people that latest headline? That's now the Facebook news feed. Public library/coffee shop where people can go discuss whatever new subversive political idea they've had? That's now online chat rooms. Sticking our heads in the sand and thinki…

Using Twitter and speaking in a public place are not at all equivalent. You are not entitled to use Twitter's resources that they pay money for to amplify your speech. You simply aren't. Just because we have the means of broadcasting speech more widely and cheaply than ever before in no way entitles you to those resources.

Just as the Wall Street Journal is in no way obligated to publish your letter to the editor, Twitter is allowed to broadcast what they wish.

Nothing at all is stopping 8chan from hosting their content on their own infrastructure.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#805

Post by itomato »

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…

The individual has rights to speak and, sing and write freely.

If printing, a supplier has no obligation to provide paper or ink or typesetting.

The same is true for music producers. Make all the Nazi Punk garage band cassettes you want, but don't expect Jack FM to give you airplay.

Good data providers don't want Federal heat or the drag on the public perception.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#806

Post by leppr »

maccard wrote: post #304
jolmg wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really that well informed of 8chan, but bringing it down, while practical, doesn't seem like the ideal solution. Isn't it just like covering your eyes and pretending the problem isn't there? The problem doesn't sound like it's 8chan, but rather these people and their ideologies. If 8chan was brought down, they'll just find another hub to congregate, but now we don't know where to reach them to talk. I thought…

> Isn't it just like covering your eyes and pretending the problem isn't there? Not necessarily - more like taking the megaphone away. You're right that some/many will find a hub to congregate in, but if it's discoverable by the current 8chan users, there's no reason to think it won't be discoverable by media outlets/journalists either. Like most things, obfuscation/suppression isn't going to solve the issue, but by…

The "megaphone" was simply a ranking of the most popular boards on the front page. There was no promotion of a particular community, it fell on the user to see a board description and think "Oh, I might find interesting content there".

So the crime is mostly in allowing individuals to connect with other individuals interested in a particular topic.

In that case, isn't Google a far more reaching megaphone? One can find far more vicious communities through Google. I remember browsing through racist forums as a kid because a friend had found it on Google (presumably because he looked for it). The community in there certainly matched the worst 8chan boards in their belief and conviction in hateful ideals.

The only difference is 8chan is a neutral rank by popularity, while Google also filters by a user-supplied search string. The same type of communities can be found through both sites.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#807

Post by swasheck »

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…

Interesting thoughts. My impression of the situation is that “freedom of ...” is colloquially internalized as “freedom from consequence.” If society had access to justice on the same terms, then I wonder if things like freedom of speech would be understood in the richer context of personal and societal responsibility.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#808

Post by odessacubbage »

rnernento wrote: post #337
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…

What makes you say it's unchecked though? These are anonymous imageboards where ANYONE can say ANYTHING, there isn't anything stopping you from challenging them? Part of me wonders if we should be taking better advantage of this opportunity to reach out the people posting. Mental illness is clearly in play, but can't we as a society do better? We should be reaching out to these people and at least trying to wrestle t…

the current direction of these solutions really feels like the technological equivalent of 'solving' the homelessness crisis via hostile architecture. putting spikes on every bench and doorstep doesn't make anyone less homeless but it makes them less visible so you can feel less bad about it. turning the internet into an increasingly obfuscated series of walled gardens doesn't improve the wellbeing of anyone particularly at risk and if anything, gives ingroups and personality cults all the more power to thrive. but maybe the new york times wont tell you about some neckbearded loser who says nigger too much and therefor you've solved the only problem you actually care about. more and more i'm lead to believe that the compassion and empathy of the sensible majority is largely performative and on a fundamentally emotional level they just want heads to roll irrelative of any actual justice.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#809

Post by anigbrowl »

yesco wrote: post #799
anigbrowl wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not at all. Killing people silences them in addition to terminating their other rights, through no fault of their own.
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