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Terminating Service for 8Chan

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Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#431

Post by knowaveragejoe »

jlawson wrote: post #313
yongjik wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In every other, let's say, G20 country, someone shooting up a shopping mall and killing 20 will absolutely make national news - they will talk about it for months and it will be ranked "top ten worst news for $country in 2019", if not the absolute worst. In some countries (let's say, Korea) reporters will probably dig into the shooter's elementary school transcripts and interview second cousins. In other words, if an…

Your premise is wrong. Mass shootings and killings happen across the globe at rates comparable to America. America is exceptional only in its population, which obviously increases the number of events without increasing their prevalence, and in its proximity to you personally, which increases how much you hear about American events versus other events. Even Polifact has fact-checked this and found that America is not…

This is the typical handwaving from the right. None of these incidents are even remotely comparable to what has happened in the US over the last decade in totality. Andres Breivik swings these stats in a way that is useful for this agenda.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#432

Post by yesco »

robertcope wrote: post #401
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #398

So Cloudflare went from hosting everything that's not illegal, to kicking people out who claim that Cloudflare supports their ideology, to kicking people out with less than a day's notice on a Sunday if a forum attracts user-generated content that Cloudflare doesn't like - and the rules for content that they don't tolerate may change on similarly short notice with no warning before they decide to terminate your accou…

Definitely a bit of a shock to me. I really like Cloudflare. But I'm not sure I really like this move.

Personally, I'm both shocked and disappointed over the support people in this thread are giving to Cloudflare over this. This is both ridiculous and unprofessional.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#433

Post by anigbrowl »

gfodor wrote: post #392
rdtsc wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By turning every mass shooting into a hysterical emotional maelstrom, you signal a green light to all the other potential shooters that this is how you get attention. I can see that point. There is also something odd about what shootings get publicized and which don't. Some shooters, seem to be getting more media attention than others. Is it the manifestos or maybe the number of victims? I remember the Congressiona…

At the risk of staying the obvious, the various media outlets in the US have all by this point joined either the red or blue team and now report only on those incidents which could harm the other team in the eyes of the public.

Exaggeration isn't helpful.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#434

Post by beachy »

sk5t wrote: post #153
zzzeek wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

by not reporting on it, the public is not made aware of this very tragic problem which can in fact be improved by several orders of magnitude with the return of some simple political will. Political will requires media publicity, so in that sense, the media is doing the right thing here.

> with the return of some simple political will Gun control is a "third rail" in many political jurisdictions in the USA. Many Americans will vote against any agent who would disarm them; those voters are unlikely to see disarming to diminish the (very roughly) ~0.000001% chance of death by mass shooting as a sensible--or even Constitutional--trade.

That is very well put, far from the rabid madness that usually seems to be conjured up when gun control is discussed. I spent some time studying it to spot the weak point.

I guess it is the phrase "to disarm them", which is somewhat provocative, since no-one would seriously advocate taking away all guns. Even Japan, with just 5% of the gun violence of the US, allows some citizens to have some guns.

Another issue is with your stated statistic of death via mass shooting. This obviously ignores maimings and other non-deaths, and also deaths from guns in non-mass events, such as burglaries, accidents.

But most of all, it ignores the psychological impact from the threat of gun violence.

What happens to a young child's mind from having to participate in active shooter drills? From having adults explain to them that this is a real threat, and that they better be ready for it? No child should have to carry that burden.

And maybe that leads back to some agreement with your point. If the actual danger from guns is as low as you say, then why have these drills at all?

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#435

Post by FireBeyond »

Alex3917 wrote: post #378
snowwrestler wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech shouldn’t be criminalized. But, neither does anyone have a right to an audience. And that’s what this is really about. Cloudflare is not depriving 8chan of their freedom of speech; they are just declining to assist 8chan in finding an audience. I also disagree that speech is the highest form of thought in humans, but that is a sort of a side topic.

> But, neither does anyone have a right to an audience. Free speech includes the right to be heard. That's why the government is allowed to kick you out of political rallies/meetings if you're just there to protest or whatever; you're not allowed to try to shout over someone else to prevent them from talking, rather if you disagree with them then you need to go find your own followers to try to convince. edit: To all…

This has nothing to do with the right to be heard. In this case, it'd be about requiring CloudFlare to _assist_ 8chan in _being_ heard. And there's no such right, or ruling.

8chan's hosting isn't even being yanked, only their access to an edge caching CDN. I'm really struggling to see a "free speech" issue here. What if Google Analytics decides not to offer 8chan analytics? Does that also interfere with the right to speech?

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#436

Post by [deleted] »

cambalache wrote: post #210
Spivak wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be legally required to do business with any customer? At some level does a person not have the right to say, "I don't like you and won't take your money?" Sure, the US and others have protected classes that limit the reasons you can refuse to do business with someone but those are more to do with people in those classes being unfairly burdened and facing difficulty living tier day-to-day lives.

> You should be legally required to do business with any customer? Ceteris Paribus? Yes, absolutely, this should be a foundational rule of society. And here, Ceteris Paribus means paying your hosting bills on time and obeying the law.

[deleted]

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#437

Post by lgleason »

I do not support 8-chan, but by doing this and what they did with the daily stormer they are no longer a neutral platform. A neutral platform is like a utility, barring illegal activity, users have a right to use the service as long as they pay for it. Once it is curated, it is not. This is why efforts are afoot to have companies that do this to not get section 230 protections for content hosted on the platform.

The last thing I want is a large, un-elected, tech company moralizing about content hosted on it. Frankly, they are not good at it. If what 8-chan is doing is illegal this can be addressed through the legal system. Also, as needed, laws to address this can go through democratic processes that have checks and balances instead of this. Yes it may be slower, but due process is important.

At some point left un-checked they can and will target other content they disagree with, IE: labeling other fairly main stream right wing stuff as "hate speech". That is ultimately bad for everybody.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#438

Post by yesco »

libria wrote: post #181
bentona wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like Cloudflare CEO can't decide whether he wants to truly be content-neutral. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares-ceo-... Obviously not supporting these sites, but I think an argument can be made for at least being _consistent_ about whether or not you're going to allow only things you find morally reasonable on your service.

> The problem was that other Cloudflare customers started calling and threatening to cancel their service if Cloudflare didn't cut the Daily Stormer off. "The pressure to take it down just kept building and building," [the CEO] told Ars. [...] "I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet," So far he has been a "free speech absolutist" aside from the Daily stormer (economic extremes)…

>So far he has been a "free speech absolutist" _aside_ _from_...

So not a "free speech absolutist"

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#439

Post by tidepod12 »

ViViDboarder wrote: post #361
crankylinuxuser wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should that mean a power company can cut off your power because they don't like what you've said? Should that mean the water company can cut your water off for criticizing them? Should that mean that a bank can refuse to give you a loan, because you said something bad, even if your credit is more than acceptable? ------------------------------- Remember this: its the extremist that the law is made around. And soon en…

> Should that mean a power company can cut off your power because they don't like what you've said? No. Because they are a public utility and that would be a violation of the first amendment. > Should that mean that a bank can refuse to give you a loan, because you said something bad, even if your credit is more than acceptable? Yes. Because they are a private institution and not obligated to do business with you. Th…

Have we all just completely forgotten the years of fighting for net neutrality? The very same net neutrality where we all have been arguing that sometimes even private companies shouldn't be allowed to arbitrarily filter whatever they want?

If all of the major ISPs launch their own email competitor and then go on to block Google, would you be singing the same tune? "It's okay because AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter are private institutions and are not obligated to do business with Google"? What if it turns out that the AT&T CEO is a Trump supporter, and he decides that anyone who has AT&T as an ISP will no longer be able to access any news site other than Fox News? "It's okay because AT&T is a private company and has no obligation to do business with the Washington Post"?

The entire argument for net neutrality is based on the premise that sometimes even private companies become so big that they become very similar to 'public utilities' and it is absolutely in the public interest to force those companies to not arbitrarily filter whatever they feel like.

You can argue that Cloudflare, or a bank, or whoever doesn't fit this definition, but you can't both be for something like net neutrality while simultaneously spouting this argument that "private companies can do whatever they want". We have literally centuries of laws that specifically say that no, companies cannot do whatever they want just because they are private.

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