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The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

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Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#51

Post by bleepblorp »

jmnicolas wrote: post #3

Of course everybody knows the right way to convince conspiracy theorists that they're wrong is to go after them. I don't see what's wrong with having internet trash bins. At least the trash is in a know location, it doesn't spill everywhere. I'm not from the US, the only mentions of those sites I have ever encountered was journalists making a few articles about them.

QAnon material has been retweeted by Trump and a QAnon-connected person is expected to be elected to the US congress. A QAnon believer was convicted for blocking a major dam while making terroristic threats[0]. Another believer was arrested for attempting to bomb a religious display in Illinois. [3] A believer in the QAnon predecessor, Pizzagate, shot up a pizza restaurant[1]. The recent attempt to assassinate the Canadian Prime Minister was perpetrated by an individual with Qanon leanings[3]. These incidents are not isolated and are part of a larger pattern of QAnon-connected violence[2][3].

QAnon is, politically, an auxiliary of the Republican party. This, combined with the willingness of QAnon followers to use violence, means that the movement has the potential to be a proto-brownshirt movement. This is not something to dismiss lightly.

QAnon is not a self-contained trash bin, it's a cancer that has metastasized into both violence and into the mainstream of American politics.

Hello, QAnon downvoters.

[0] https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2020/02/1...

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-man-with-assault-rifle-d...

[2] https://www.ctc.usma.edu/the-qanon-conspiracy-theory-a-secur...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/15/qanon-violen...

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#52

Post by tzs »

0xy wrote: post #17

The best antidote for bad ideas and conspiracy theories is transparency and public debate. This move will serve to push these movements underground to Tor or other uncensorable networks where they're even harder to monitor. It also sends a message to them that they're on to something (because if the QAnon conspiracy was real, the "deep state" would indeed try to snuff it out). I feel like this is such a bad precedent…

> The best antidote for bad ideas and conspiracy theories is transparency and public debate.

Have you actually tried that? I have. I spent quite a while when I was in law school on some Usenet groups where tax conspiracy theorists hung out, thoroughly refuting their arguments (it was a good way for me to practice legal research).

The problem was that the people who were coming up with the totally false but believable to people who only have a layman's understanding of law claims were easily able to do so faster than I and the other people also doing this could refute them.

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#53

Post by pwinnski »

briefcomment wrote: post #49
ianai wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not be able to fully understand the scope of the problem precisely because you’re not in the US. You’re not seeing the affect and effects it’s having in day to day life. I’m a white guy. Last week I went through a grocery store after forgetting my mask in my car. I needed to use the restroom badly and didn’t realize I had forgotten the mask until I was mid-stream. That’s when I understood why people were look…

Lol, I highly doubt people are giving you weird looks because they think you're a Q acolyte. They're much more likely to think you're inconsiderate for voluntarily increasing their risk of catching covid. I follow Q for fun, and I barely think about it day to day. The average person probably thinks about Q less than once per week, when someone brings it up in the news.

You're likely right about the mask. I would give the guy weird looks because of his lack of consideration for others, not because I fear a crazed killer.

That said, your experience with Q is not universal. There are many people who take it much, much more seriously than you do and have alienated friends and family members and lost jobs as a result. And, of course, fired a gun in a pizza shop, shot and killed protestors, etc.

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#54

Post by ianai »

pwinnski wrote: post #53
briefcomment wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, I highly doubt people are giving you weird looks because they think you're a Q acolyte. They're much more likely to think you're inconsiderate for voluntarily increasing their risk of catching covid. I follow Q for fun, and I barely think about it day to day. The average person probably thinks about Q less than once per week, when someone brings it up in the news.

You're likely right about the mask. I would give the guy weird looks because of his lack of consideration for others, not because I fear a crazed killer. That said, your experience with Q is not universal. There are many people who take it much, much more seriously than you do and have alienated friends and family members and lost jobs as a result. And, of course, fired a gun in a pizza shop, shot and killed protesto…

The “casual followers” of conspiracy theories aren’t doing anybody any good. They’re just increasing the spread of the disinformation. This stuff needs to be fought, refuted, and relegated to the dustbin of history. “casual following” is the sort of thing that lets this win a place in the core of public discourse and culture.

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#55

Post by ibejoeb »

fallingfrog wrote: post #36

I’m pretty sure that anyone who is willing to swallow massively implausible theories like qanon is not the kind of person who will be amenable to logical arguments and fact checking. You can’t just argue those people out if their positions because it’s not about truth for them, it’s about feeling like one is a member of the elect. Denying reality is not a bug, it’s a feature of every millenarian belief system. Facts…

I've been able to avoid it entirely. Can you point to a good primer on qanon? Not an opinion piece or a takedown or anything, just an explainer.

The only thing I know is what I've heard from MSM, and that has been that there is a secret cabal of pedophiles, and many members occupy powerful positions.

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#56

Post by commandlinefan »

bogwog wrote: post #30
jameskilton wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least the trash is in a know location, it doesn't spill everywhere. Please do a little more research and thought before posting such things. There is no "trash can", it IS SPILLING EVERYWHERE. We even have a QAnon supporter most likely headed to Congress. People are dead because of these hate-filled groups. Shutting them down saves lives , not only in the US but throughout the world. You can't just "leave these…

I wonder how many Qanon believers are hate-filed extremists, people going through mental health issues, or just edgy kids/teenagers. I doubt that the people who would actually commit a public shooting are in the majority, and I strongly doubt that taking down their website is going to kill the group. If anything, it will just strengthen the beliefs of the paranoid people who frequent it. What we should be doing is go…

> going after Youtube

So... actual government-mandated suppression of free speech?

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#57

Post by ibejoeb »

logicchains wrote: post #39
ufmace wrote: post #19

Man, I never cared much for QAnon, but the way so many mainstream institutions are joining together, using the exact same misleading talking points, to censor something off the internet makes me wonder if they're onto something after all.

It's amazing how skeptical people are of the idea of a paedophile ring among the elites when only recently Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for running one (and mysteriously died in custody).

This is what I don't understand about qanon, which I assume is because what I know of qanon is only this surface-level premise.

Where does it go off the rails?

Because--if we're being real with ourselves--we have to contend with the fact there is a pedophile island, and heads of state, royals, and other elite are credibly implicated the sex trafficking that sustains it.

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#58

Post by dragontamer »

3np wrote: post #46
dragontamer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best antidote for bad ideas and conspiracy theories is transparency and public debate. I've been on the internet for decades. I fully disagree with this. EDIT: Mass bannings, aka an "Exodus Event", was the solution to almost all major conspiracies I've witnessed. 1. When GameFAQs LUEsers gained conspiracy theories against the website and other reckless behavior, to the point of harming the website, the solution…

There's a very significant difference between website operators moderating content and banning users, versus coercing ISPs to block access to those sites or revoking ownership of IP numbers or DNS names.

The issue being raised is that the 8chan IPs here are owned by nobody.

> Both the Nevada-based web hosting company owned by 8chan’s current figurehead and the California firm that provides its sole connection to the Internet are defunct businesses in the eyes of their respective state regulators.

> In practical terms, what this means is that the legal contracts which granted these companies temporary control over large swaths of Internet address space are now null and void, and American Internet regulators would be well within their rights to cancel those contracts and reclaim the space.

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#59

Post by fallingfrog »

ibejoeb wrote: post #55
fallingfrog wrote: post #36

I’m pretty sure that anyone who is willing to swallow massively implausible theories like qanon is not the kind of person who will be amenable to logical arguments and fact checking. You can’t just argue those people out if their positions because it’s not about truth for them, it’s about feeling like one is a member of the elect. Denying reality is not a bug, it’s a feature of every millenarian belief system. Facts…

I've been able to avoid it entirely. Can you point to a good primer on qanon? Not an opinion piece or a takedown or anything, just an explainer. The only thing I know is what I've heard from MSM, and that has been that there is a secret cabal of pedophiles, and many members occupy powerful positions.

Yeah it has this millenarian aspect too from what I can gather where Donald trump is a savior figure who will purge the cabal and issue in a new golden age of some kind. The basic structure is that everything about the world that q followers don’t like us the fault of this cabal of Bad People and once they are removed then everything will be great. Very fascistic. Q made predictions of certain people being arrested, such as Hillary Clinton; when this didn’t happen the explanation became that they had been replaced with clones.

Google can probably find you better summaries of you dig more but heres one:

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a22646546/q-anon-trump...

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#60

Post by nitrohorse »

ibejoeb wrote: post #55
fallingfrog wrote: post #36

I’m pretty sure that anyone who is willing to swallow massively implausible theories like qanon is not the kind of person who will be amenable to logical arguments and fact checking. You can’t just argue those people out if their positions because it’s not about truth for them, it’s about feeling like one is a member of the elect. Denying reality is not a bug, it’s a feature of every millenarian belief system. Facts…

I've been able to avoid it entirely. Can you point to a good primer on qanon? Not an opinion piece or a takedown or anything, just an explainer. The only thing I know is what I've heard from MSM, and that has been that there is a secret cabal of pedophiles, and many members occupy powerful positions.

I’d recommend this podcast episode on the origins of QAnon from Media Roots Radio.

https://mediaroots.org/media-roots-radio-the-origins-of-qano...

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