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Blocking Kiwifarms

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531–540 of 1001 posts

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#531

Reading over the comments I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. It’s about what in the US you’d call “due process” and in all the rest of the world you’d call “rule of law.” Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be…

I disagree somewhat. rule of law' sounds like such a neat, objective solution to social problems, but in practice it centralizes a vast amount of decision-making in organs of state (courts and to a lesser extent, public prosecutors.

This in turn drastically shapes incentives, because of the cost of litigation and highly variable access to legal infrastructure: as we all know, police have no formal duty to protect despite having vast levels of legal immunity from consequences when they make bad decisions.

Hence the pressure campaign on your firm, because exerting leverage through market forces and PR strategies is simply more effective than begging some state authority to intervene. Of course, it hurts you somewhat insofar as it's harder for you to sell a service to anyone and everyone when people see that you're willing to revoke access in some cases. but then you were willing to do that already, eg to pre-empt perceived legal risks from FOSTA/SESTA.

I think sites like Kiwifarms have a right to exist, but on the other hand they don't have any particular right to DDOS protection. If a site is so chronically unpopular that it's constantly getting kicked out of nice infrastructure perhaps the operators need to reconsider their security stance or reflect on the basis of said unpopularity.

Of course, DDOS attacks can be engineered rather than being an expression of organic network sentiment, but then so can mitigation strategies.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#532

Reading over the comments I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. It’s about what in the US you’d call “due process” and in all the rest of the world you’d call “rule of law.” Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be…

Forgive me if my understanding is wrong, but if someone were to host a message board or similar site with UGC and have it backed by Cloudflare, and a troll makes posts and threads threatening disasters on multiple occasions even though the site's administration removes them with haste, would Cloudflare also deny service to them? Basically take the current situation but instead of Kiwi Farms, replace it with "Grandma'…

This is exactly the determination. The post being spread around as evidence of harm was by a user with four posts, all within the last week, all on this thread, despite being a member for two years.

If I were trying to get a website deplatformed at least the approach is clear and easy.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#534

I think a lot of people in the comments don't understand what Kiwifarms is. I say this as someone who occasionally browses there and gets some (admittedly sick) enjoyment from it: the main draw of the website is a place for people to get together and bully mentally ill "weirdos". It's not just about people posting offensive shit in their own little corner of the internet - what happens there spreads out, by design, i…

Quoted post unavailable.

>can't believe you would use your business email to write this AussieWog93

Why? Schadenfreude is a normal human emotion.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#536

I am a free speech absolutist, but I read the Wikipedia page on this site and it seems bad. "Crimes were committed," "People lost their lives" bad. Unjustifiably bad. That said, is anyone willing to steelman this website? Could this possibly be construed as just a big misunderstanding?

The wikipedia page is not honest and completely locked down.

Anecdotally, I've noticed an uptick in biased Wikipedia editing platforming questionable claims as facts. It's a bit concerning.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#538

The admin of kiwifarms has posted the following in response: >I am so full of hate for this situation. I try to write down my thoughts and I find myself unable to focus on one thing I hate the most. The person committing crimes to frame my community, or the sex pest who groom little boys, or the journalists who outright lie, or the corporate cowardice responsibility for the fragile state of the Internet. >It is all s…

Maybe if the admin wasn't actively calling transpeople groomers, it wouldn't be a breeding ground for violence and attacks.

No post body was provided.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#539

Good. I'm sorry, I'm generally Mr. "Raw raw free speech", but let's not kid ourselves; by all accounts KiwiFarms is (and always has been) a cesspool of horrible people. It's not like 4chan or something, where it might have started with reasonable intentions and just became horrible; KiwiFarms was started for the specific purpose of bullying Chris-Chan, hence why it was initially called Cwcki Farms. KiwiFarms has been…

Didn’t the swat call announce they were a kf user? Seems a little odd. Moreover, are home addresses of congress people public info? It seems like a lot of people were fine with posting the addresses of Supreme Court members.

> It seems like a lot of people were fine with posting the addresses of Supreme Court members.

Even if you think that kind of protest is a step too far (I do), you surely agree that there's a fundamental difference between peaceful protest at the home of a public figure (which is quite clearly what happened) and the practice of SWATing, which even in its least dangerous form is a perjurious accusation of a serious crime.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#540

Reading over the comments I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. It’s about what in the US you’d call “due process” and in all the rest of the world you’d call “rule of law.” Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be…

Kiwifarms should have been dealt with by the traditional legal system years ago. It is honestly shocking to me that the operator has never been charged. The site has been engaging in mass harassment for years and is responsible for multiple suicides. When the legal system fails, people turn to vigilante justice, and we get this mess instead. People feel so strongly that Kiwifarms should be taken offline that they eng…

Perhaps the reason that they haven't been taken down by the US legal system is because none of what they do is illegal by US law.
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