The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by mistermann » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #91

mistermann wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Occasionally, though, conspiracy theorists escape the harmless fringe and become actively harmful to society To some degree, of both "frequency of escape" and "magnitude of harm", both of which are valid variables to be considered within the aggregate of all(!) variables related to conspiracy theories (of which these are but two, contrary to popular consensus). > A racist conspiracy theory that posited, contrary to…

"Destroying people with facts and logic" isn't how human psychology works (in fact: attempts to do that often harden existing beliefs), and without that axiom I think the rest of this analysis falls apart.

> "Destroying people with facts and logic" isn't how human psychology works

Completely agree that this isn't how human psychology works. However, in debate (which is what is happening here), facts and logic can indeed be used to vanquish one's counterpart. When the facts are in favour of one side of the debate, it is fairly typical that they will leverage them in the debate. If you observe a debate where one side does not use facts but instead opts for pure rhetoric, it is often (but not always) a sign that they do not have facts on their side. If you ask them about the abstract notion of facts/truth, repeatedly, and the response is, repeatedly, as if they did not see the question, this may be considered another sign.

> ...and without that axiom I think the rest of this analysis falls apart

This is interesting - are you able to articulate how you consider this to be the case?

I in no way considered "Destroying people with facts and logic" to be a key component of my overall argument, it was mostly just an off the cuff bit of snark.

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

#202

Post by megameter » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #31

It's an interesting find. The difference between these sites and spam sites is that they are mostly self-contained comment boards. You have to actually go do them to interact with them, where spammers were breaking the internet. What clicked for me in this article is asking why I ever thought the internet was about ideas, what it might have meant pre-internet for people to be free of a "mainstream" in the old music a…

I subscribe to the ideas of permeable and fractal boundaries. The former is one I attribute to Heather Marsh's writing - the idea of being able to move across a boundary fluidly and express different selves at different times and places. The latter is an original variant, using a fractal as the specific metaphor of self, and where you define your boundary is always "true until you look at the details" - then you find the exceptions, and exceptions to those exceptions.

In this light, societal boundaries like public/private tend to act as hard cuts to the fractal of self, pruning it into a perhaps uncomfortable shape.

In both mine and Marsh's framing, power structures represent a human health issue in that they channel the self into an element of the system, depriving it of a natural development pattern.

But even so, this model allows a criticism of fringe conspiracy groups in that they represent an inflammatory response: an "anti" to the body politic. In this they differ from epistemic study groups, because the study goes nowhere, employing all the facts towards question-begging conclusions. Their collision with the "mainstream" acts to throw both into greater doubt. You want some of this inflammation, but as with inflammation in the human body, not continuously or at high levels.

All of that said, I do believe that on the whole, power structures are loosening these days, because the angles of attack on them are so varied, like a horde of descending insects. Control exercised in one place causes inflammation in another. The "social media meltdown" - the typical result of an actor who has lost their place in the power structure - has grown so common as to be unremarkable. Meanwhile, people who work in between the boundaries, finding those cracks through which they can slip, seem to thrive.

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

#203

Post by Bayart » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 1:20 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #10

Are ip address blocks registered to defunct companies a relatively common thing? Clearly ARIN isn't regularly checking whether the owners of ip address blocks are still in business, so I'd imagine there are plenty of other blocks that belong to defunct companies.

I understand that being articulated around old school paper administrations rather than automated APIs that stuff can easily be ignored (especially in places like the US where legislation is highly fragmented), but you'd think that the starvation for IPv4 would be a good enough incentive for people to go after those low-hanging fruits.

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

#204

Post by troughway » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 1:34 AM UTC

megameter wrote: post #202

motohagiography wrote: post #31

It's an interesting find. The difference between these sites and spam sites is that they are mostly self-contained comment boards. You have to actually go do them to interact with them, where spammers were breaking the internet. What clicked for me in this article is asking why I ever thought the internet was about ideas, what it might have meant pre-internet for people to be free of a "mainstream" in the old music a…

I subscribe to the ideas of permeable and fractal boundaries. The former is one I attribute to Heather Marsh's writing - the idea of being able to move across a boundary fluidly and express different selves at different times and places. The latter is an original variant, using a fractal as the specific metaphor of self, and where you define your boundary is always "true until you look at the details" - then you find…

This is lucid as fuck and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Will read up more on Heather Marsh.

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

#205

Post by newacct583 » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #180

newacct583 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The horrors in Rotterham weren't exposed by conspiracy nuts, though. It was exposed by real investigative journalism and law enforcement work. That's the whole point here: it's not that bad things don't happen, it's that this fact is not sufficient evidence for other bad things happening. The suppression here is of baseless conspiracy theories about child abuse because they're baseless, not because they're about chil…

The victims in Rotterham went to the police and were turned away because the police considered what they were reporting to be potentially offensive. You're right that it wasn't exposed by conspiracy nuts, but that's because it was a real thing and the people with flimsy evidence were ignored. That it wasn't exposed by people with flimsy evidence is my point. In a different context and with different laws they would h…

> to point out that conspiracies like this aren't purely fantasy

You're doing it again!

You can't justify belief in a baseless conspiracy theory by saying that some other vaguely related thing was true! You can't. The logic doesn't work.

And it's expressly harmful, because now that "justified" belief can be weaponized to hurt your political enemies. Stop it.

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

#206

Post by holidayacct » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

novok wrote: post #179

holidayacct wrote: post #171

Pay close attention to social media companies and privately run social networks and forums. I used to work for a major social media network that was growing and eventually stalled. If you run a social network and it gets popular you're going to run into major problems that no one talks about. 1.) Multiple governments, private organization and luddites send people to your company to compromise the source code. 2.) Peo…

> automate the process of bringing women he liked everywhere he went So what is that exactly? Somehow these women would show up to meetups or something? Or were the sockpuppet accounts 'women'?

Surprisingly, they were real women that fell for sock puppet accounts.

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

#207

Post by DethNinja » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 2:31 AM UTC

holidayacct wrote: post #171

Pay close attention to social media companies and privately run social networks and forums. I used to work for a major social media network that was growing and eventually stalled. If you run a social network and it gets popular you're going to run into major problems that no one talks about. 1.) Multiple governments, private organization and luddites send people to your company to compromise the source code. 2.) Peo…

Could you please give more details on how your company was stalled?

Was it through the legal ways as in a government entity said that it must be shut-down or through some other methods from third parties?

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

#208

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

Jetrel wrote: post #139

jmnicolas wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not mistaken the NZ killer was on 8chan? It's the same argument with serial killer movies (at the risk of showing my age there was a strong controversy with "Natural Born Killers" at the time): you don't kill people because you chatted on the internet or watched a movie. You kill people because you had it in you. The things you were exposed before might color your act but that's it.

I've long been sympathetic to ideas like this - I remember as a little kid, blowing off the big stigma around the (then-novel) 3d shooters that had just come out, like Doom. Ironically I agree with exactly what you said, but simultaneously think you might miss something in the analysis. I think that maybe a better way to phrase the idea is: In the rare case that you're positive for a trait, you can be incited to it b…

[deleted]

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

#209

Post by Camas » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:13 AM UTC

bleepblorp wrote: post #83

Camas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He shot a locked door three times trying to open it. You know "shot up" is misleading, that's why you've already downgraded it to reckless discharge.

The question of what constitutes 'shot up' is too pedantic to be worth considering further. Why are you so invested in defending an extremist conspiracy theory from criticism?

If you have an argument make it. Even in your new link you've editorialised "satanic monument" to "religious display".

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

#210

Post by ALittleLight » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:46 AM UTC

newacct583 wrote: post #205

ALittleLight wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The victims in Rotterham went to the police and were turned away because the police considered what they were reporting to be potentially offensive. You're right that it wasn't exposed by conspiracy nuts, but that's because it was a real thing and the people with flimsy evidence were ignored. That it wasn't exposed by people with flimsy evidence is my point. In a different context and with different laws they would h…

> to point out that conspiracies like this aren't purely fantasy You're doing it again! You can't justify belief in a baseless conspiracy theory by saying that some other vaguely related thing was true! You can't. The logic doesn't work. And it's expressly harmful, because now that "justified" belief can be weaponized to hurt your political enemies. Stop it.

I don't think it's appropriate to say things like "Stop it". Please do me the courtesy of not treating me like a child and acting like you are instructing me.

The QAnon conspiracy is about pedophiles in government. The Rotterham scandal is about pedophiles enabled by government. The Epstein case is a mix of pedophiles and government. It's not crazy to suggest that pedophiles are mixed up with the government. We have multiple contemporary cases of this happening now.

Furthermore, it is exactly the tendency to censor speech which enabled the Rotterham scandal to endure for so long. Because people were censored for fear of causing offense hundreds of children were raped and victims were ignored. That's an extremely relevant example to a case where people are saying we must not permit people to talk about offensive things.