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8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

theverge.com

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Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#871

Post by bArray »

I've always disliked the Verge and this article reminds me of why.

> Internet hate forum 8chan [..]

Indifference to what is perceived as good or evil is not good or evil within itself. There's objectively a lot of hate in those forums, but there's also a lot of good. 4chan for example came up with a solution to an unsolved mathematics problem [1].

> [..] following the latest of at least three mass shootings linked to 8chan.

I think far many more terrorists have had social media platforms on services such as Twitter or Facebook. As I've also said before, the reason they are here is because they kicked them out of everywhere else - of course they will now concentrate on these platforms. Beforehand there may have been a chance to de-radicalize these people with exposure to everyday persons, but when you isolate them this is what you get. The fact of the matter is, these people exist whether you like it or not and they will find somewhere to talk.

> [..] when Voxility discovered the content, it cut ties with Epik almost immediately.

I remember also that Cloudflare gave 8chan 24 hours notice. Also look at how internet services have treated the people of Iran, blocking them from basic resources without warning. In some ways I am glad to see this, as I now know which providers to avoid - I don't want any service provider I use to take a political stance and give me 24 hours or less to rethink my platform strategy.

> Over the past year, Epik has raised its profile by working with far-right-friendly sites (like Gab) that have been banned by other web service companies.

Disingenuous, Gab is free-speech-friendly, not "far-right-friendly". But even if it was far-right friendly by definition, so what? People with a different political stance have a shared platform, just look at Bread Tube for the far-left [2]. Neither are evil by default and both have their share of shitheads.

[1] https://oeis.org/A180632/a180632.pdf

[2] https://breadtube.tv/

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#872

Post by ibejoeb »

moab wrote: post #393
DonHopkins wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lost good friends to 4chan/8chan. They were obsessed. At first it was cat pictures and memes, but it went way downhill from there. I've watched those sites cause the transition from normal, interesting, reasonable, open minded, intelligent, happy human beings, to horrible inexcusable pieces of shit who I never want to have anything to do with ever again. It's not just that they inspire a few shooters and mass mu…

I would not lump 4chan into this discussion. I'll concede that some boards on the site are more polemical than others and promote alt-right ideologies without a doubt, but there are many other interesting boards and people on 4chan that are not captured by the broad strokes you're outlining. I know people that browse /fit/, /lit/, /mu/ and /out/ just to name some boards that are perfectly reasonable individuals that…

>promote alt-right ideologies

Why are invoking alt-right? One of the two shooters was radically left, and he posted his threats on Twitter.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#873

Post by baalimago »

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…

>espouse their basest thoughts and feelings and receive gratification for it -all without challenge.

Yes, this is the problem. There is no challenge to their ideas and thoughts because the conversation/debate has been completely stigmatized that there's no other way to talk about it but anonymously on the far reaches of the internet. Soon it'll be on Tor instead and a terror network will truly form (because they've already gone "so far", why not go further?).

The El Paso mass shooting as well as the anonymous chan hatespeech is nothing but a result of a very poorly moderated debateenvironment in the western world.

Imagine if these young men had someone to talk to 4 years before they found *chan? Someone who listened and validated their thoughts and fears then, before they grew into these sorts of monsters.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#874

Post by messick »

Pigo wrote: post #242
anewguy9000 wrote: post #143

meanwhile, to us canadians, it's painfully obvious that the problem isn't websites, but guns. curbing free speech is not going to solve this problem for you.

That's an extremely narrow view of a nuanced issue. We have divisive cultural issues, a severe mental health problem, an opiate addiction problem, and problems with access to guns in some areas. We also have a huge country. We also have a huge country, taking away guns from people in Alaska will solve nothing. How's the knife banning in London going btw?

It's going great. Stabbing deaths in London in 2018 were just over 3 "El Pasos". It's less than 3X if you change the metric to "2019 mass shootings posted to 8chan ahead of time".

I'm sorry that Fox News has led you so astray, but the whole "actually everyone in London gets stabbed because they don't have guns" narrative is horseshit.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#875

Post by throwadayaway1 »

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…

The entire point behind free-speech is that all opinions are allowed to be held and voiced without preconditions. It's not free if it only encompasses things you don't find morally reprehensible.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#876

Post by erklik »

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?

> 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?

I mean, saying something like "Kill the Terrorists" would be something many people agree with or find to be tolerant. This shows that there is some group of "terrorists" that people are happy to have killed.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#877

Post by lifthrasiir »

SkyBelow wrote: post #278
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…

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…

> There is a reason for this decision [...]

You seem to misunderstand that reason. It is because qualifying the evil is best done out of the license, and not because qualifying the evil is universally bad.

It should be noted that the Debian Free Software Guidelines words that decision as "no discrimination" and this choice is not light---it is there to prevent prejudicial behaviors by licenses. And that doesn't mean that the society should not judge them either (otherwise it won't function at all). The DFSG doesn't prevent you from doing evil with a free software and face the postjudicial consequence at all.

> [...] it applies to speech as much as it does to software.

And that's where your comparison is wrong. Not because the freedom of speech is not absolute (this is a tough topic by itself) but because 8chan was blamed because it didn't even acknowledge the post-judgement.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#878

Post by a254613e »

buildzr wrote: post #105
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…

> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. Speak for yourself, I would. I've downloaded and distributed ISIS propaganda videos before out of sheer intrigue. Just because someone says something you don't like doesn't mean you should ban it. Of course, this will be downvoted to hell because this is a hot topic at the moment…

> Speak for yourself, I would. I've downloaded and distributed ISIS propaganda videos before out of sheer intrigue.

It will be downvoted because it's INSANE, not because it's a hot topic.

ISIS propaganda isn't banned for the fun of it or because "too near emotions influencing policies", it's banned for the effect that it casuses, the intention it has, and the attorcities it shows.

There's a difference between supporting free speech and you spreading around videos of murders, executions of innocent people who have families, and calls for more murders of innocent people all over the world. Just because those things don't make you want to kill someone, doesn't change the fact that they do help radicalize other people.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#879

Post by loxs »

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…

That's exactly what they did to us in communist Bulgaria. Forced education in the politically correct curriculum so that we can be "free" to follow the communist guidelines. And then it collapsed. Currently the western "liberalism" is going in the exactly same direction

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#880

Post by dominostars »

kaolti wrote: post #435

We're constantly denying our responsibility to manage our emotions and giving it away to others, so that they can protect us from ever seeing anything that might upset us. Some people seem to think that there are authorities we can trust to enforce the lines we draw in the sand on what is acceptable speech and what isn't. There is no such authority. People abuse authority because they can and guess what. When you'll…

8Chan isn't being targeted because they hurt people's feelings, they're targeted for being a breeding ground for terrorists.

Feel free to make whatever argument you want about whether platforms should be forced to provide service to websites that radicalize terrorists, but please don't make this about something it's not.

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