Terminating Service for 8Chan

It is disingenuous to describe white supremacy as "an unpopular opinion".

> What's really going on is similar to what we saw with radicalization in extremist Islam forums. A large group of young, usually lonely and frustrated men, disconnected socially, often with no hope of financial status advancement, find solace and community in online forums with like people, and then act to self-reinforce some of the community's worse inclinations, blaming their predicament on other types of people, dehumanizing them. The irony with these forums are, some people on those forums are not racist or pedophiles, but edge-lording on purpose, but other people can't discern the difference and are swept up and manipulated by other people who get off on manipulating people.

This is something a large number of people don't seem to realize. The parallels between Islamic extremism and this white supremacists extremism should jump out, and both should be approached the same way. It's sick people offering a sort of belonging to disaffected young men.

Hi there. Registered socialist here. the `chans all suck. Not just any specific /`/ either. They're all hot garbage. They have been for years.

I post and respond to tons of pro-union, anti-capitalist, socialist stuff on here. Sometimes I get grayed because I'm being a dick and not playing by the rules. Other times I'm rolling in that klout with stacks on stacks of upvotes. I'm sure any communication system with enough users has people who use it professionally for financial gain. That's just the nature of life? If there's money to be lost by something happening, there's in effect money to be gained by preventing it from happening. C'est la vie.

Platforms are always going to have owners. Owners mean an agenda. "The Internet" as we now know it usually consists of layers and layers of platforms, so that means lots of (sometimes conflicting) agendas. You want free speech: it only exists when you control your platform. Anything else is just a rented hall.

In the abstract, yes, virtually everyone agrees with "wouldn't it be great if bad people couldn't get guns". The problem is the moment it becomes specific a lot of the support is lost.

> The unresolved question is how should the law deal with platforms that ignore or actively thwart the Rule of Law? That's closer to the situation we have seen with the Daily Stormer and 8chan. They are lawless platforms.

This doesn't make a lot of sense. They are suggesting that it's the fact that 8chan is unmoderated that is a problem, and they'll similarly refuse service to any unmoderated discussion platform?

I actually totally approve of them refusing 8chan as a customer.

I don't think this is really the reason, or a good reason. Articulating the real/good reason is hard. I'm not sure I can do it either.

But when they say "The Rule of Law requires policies be transparent and consistent" -- that obligation is actually incumbent upon THEM, cloudflare. What is their own transparent and consistent policy that led to this? The implication is that... any unmoderated discussion forum would be banned, but they don't go out and say it, which isn't quite "transparent".

And I don't think they really mean that (so it's not "consistent" either). An unmoderated discussion forum that wasn't being used to egg on mass murder, they probably wouldn't ban. I think the possible "consistent" approach here would be simply admitting that they dont' want as customers sites whose owners seem to have no problem with them being used to egg on mass murder.

As they said in another statement quoted by media, a site that has "repeatedly proven itself to be a cesspool of hate." This is more honest, and really no less vague, than dancing around talking about "actively thwarting the Rule of Law" (I really don't know what that means; I'm not sure you can really "actively thwart the rule of law" without being in the government). And I personally agree it is a fine reason to refuse someone as a customer, that they've repeatedly proven themselves to be a cesspool of hate.

They are correct that the first ammendment in fact gives them the right to refuse as customers entities whose actions they find abhorent and whose business they don't wish to aid. The principle of "transparent and consistent" requires them to try harder than they are to explain what their standards are in an honest way. (It can be a process, I'm not totally sure what they should be either, even though I totally support refusing 8chan as a customer).

I think calling an unmoderated discussion forum "actively thwarting the Rule of Law" (in all caps nonetheless!), then calling for government discipline of such, is something you gotta back up with more reasoning than they did here, and is not in fact necessary for them to justify denying service to 8chan. They're trying to get out of actually explaining their reasoning/motivation (what is required for THEM to be "consistent and transparent") by hand-waving about all-capitals Rule of Law.