8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service • Hacker News Board

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#551

Post by afiori » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

newhaus1994 wrote: post #491

irrational wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Popper's tolerance criteria, by contrast, seems clearcut What is that criteria? Because I can easily see people disagreeing on what is and is not intolerant. Would you agree that saying that a baker in Colorado must make a cake for a gay wedding is intolerant of the baker's belief? Because I'm certain a sizeable proportion of the US population would agree that it is intolerant.

The criteria is pretty straightforward: you apply the "intolerance of intolerance" to the first intolerant action in the chain, i.e. the one that infringes unprompted on someone else.

what if the "unprompted on someone else" is wrong?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#552

Post by ggggtez » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

khawkins wrote: post #469

danharaj wrote: post #15

"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the deaths of others your right to say it." How many free speech absolutists have "skin in the game", or whatever? Every alternative to censorship suggested always puts the burden on the victimized. Like, "if you debate it in public you will defeat these bad ideas". Few who are free speech absolutists roll up their sleeves and volunteer to take the action they presc…

How many people had to die on 9/11 to protect the free speech rights of Muslims? It is undeniable that those terrorist attacks have a direct connection to the ideas being spread by those Mosques. How many Muslims have "skin in the game"?

I think you are trying to turn the above argument on it's head, but honestly I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

"The free speech of muslims"? It's almost as if you think 9/11 was caused by a domestic terrorist. You do realize the hijackers were mostly from Saudi Arabia right? And there is no free speech there? So... what are you trying to imply? Please use more clear language instead of just trying to meme.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#553

Post by saagarjha » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

comex wrote: post #514

danharaj wrote: post #15

"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the deaths of others your right to say it." How many free speech absolutists have "skin in the game", or whatever? Every alternative to censorship suggested always puts the burden on the victimized. Like, "if you debate it in public you will defeat these bad ideas". Few who are free speech absolutists roll up their sleeves and volunteer to take the action they presc…

Well, mass shootings tend to be indiscriminate once they get started. Those motivated by animus towards a minority group do generally target areas frequented by members of that group, like in the Texas shooting where the gunman targeted a Walmart in a largely Hispanic community. As a non-Hispanic white person (who lives in the US), that does put me at less risk of being a victim of that type of shooting. Also, to the…

> Those motivated by animus towards a minority group do generally target areas frequented by members of that group, like in the Texas shooting where the gunman targeted a Walmart in a largely Hispanic community. As a non-Hispanic white person (who lives in the US), that does put me at less risk of being a victim of that type of shooting. Also, to the extent that terrorism’s impact is emotional rather than purely rational, I’m less impacted simply because I don’t feel targeted in the same way.

Isn't this usually where hate crimes come into the picture?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#554

Post by lixtra » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #466

chrisco255 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the solution then, should be to socialize people in such a way that such views do get challenged. The alternatives, where we have gatekeepers like Google and Facebook entirely deciding what is permissible speech, is too far to the other extreme.

I'm sorry, but are you really saying that Google and Facebook who have gunned no one down, is the counter-extreme to shooting folks up?

Of course you are misunderstanding the parent.

But to go with your interpretation: If you ask the victims of the Arab spring[1], fb is no better than 8chan. Also YouTube did a bad job in containing Islamic state propaganda early on [2].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_the_Arab_Sp...

[2] https://www.hsdl.org/c/what-does-isis-post-on-youtube/

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#555

Post by harshreality » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:55 PM UTC

api wrote: post #347

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

This isn't censorship though. It's private companies refusing to host something. Nobody has been arrested for speech and there are no laws prohibiting speech that isn't overtly and specifically threatening or otherwise violates the "fire in a crowded theater" test.

The web is the new public square. Without access to hosting, there would be a de-facto 1st amendment violation, even if the courts would refuse to recognize that for what it is.

Perhaps you could argue humans aren't built for internet communications and so free speech doesn't apply to the internet. But Supreme Court precedent disagrees. You could make a similar case that free speech doesn't apply to anonymous speech, which would have meant all the anonymous pamphleteers during the American Revolution would have had more difficulty propagating their (violent, revolutionary) ideas.

I don't think hosting is a problem for 8chan, though. They can probably find some hosting service that would in theory respect their free speech, in the absence of a court order. However, the second they go online again without cloudflare's protection, they will quickly get attacked and the hoster will have to shut it down.

Which means we now have, effectively, mob-enforced denial of free speech.

Cloudflare is the great equalizer. But when Matthew Prince wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and decides to nuke one out of many, many objectionable sites because he can't or doesn't want to take the political heat of proxying for some site where users talk trash or post manifestos about violent acts (which are hardly ever acted upon), cloudflare's protection can vanish. Then you have to shut up, because if you don't you're vulnerable to attack by the digital mob.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#556

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:55 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #431

sneak wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've read it before, and I spent a few hours reading it this weekend, and it's beyond clear to me that it absolutely had the potential to radicalize shooters and terrorists. What was it you read there that convinced you that websites are capable of turning people into murderers any more than video games are?

Do you not think that discussion has the potential to convey ideas and change minds? It hardly seems implausible to say that a group of people eagerly urging each other to murder could possibly result in someone getting murdered.

[deleted]

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#557

Post by bdcravens » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:56 PM UTC

Most days I randomly grab a t-shirt to wear. Today I ended up wearing my Cloudflare shirt.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#558

Post by not_a_cop75 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #82

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could simply say that threat actors that are allowed to post in the open are much more accessible and predictable than ones who do not.

You could say that. But you'd be wrong. There is absolutely no evidence that the 8chan circle-hate happening out in the open has had any mitigating effect. It only made it accessible to even the technically illiterate among the potential audience.

There's no evidence that law enforcement took any action till afterwards, and on multiple occasions. So is the medium to blame or is the clear lack of policing?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#559

Post by Joeri » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #4

I've generally been on the free speech side of this debate, as some of my previous comments on HN will show. With 8chan, I legitimately don't know what my opinion is. I've read it before, and I spent a few hours reading it this weekend, and it's beyond clear to me that it absolutely had the potential to radicalize shooters and terrorists. I'm not referring to the simple use of racial or ethnic slurs -- of course this…

A person can be sound and rational but people are tribal. It is deep human drive to find a tribe to belong to. What the internet has enabled is forming tribes irrespective of geographic proximity. Sites like 4chan/8chan allow people of radical persuasions to find each other and band together, growing their

That creates a powder keg waiting on a fight/flight trigger. Without a tribe to back someone, such a trigger will cause a flight response, but with that tribe they’ll feel emboldened and choose a fight strategy. Sites that encourage the formation of communities that promote violence will inevitably lead to actual violence once they’re past a certain size. It doesn’t even really matter what the ideology is, it just matters that they preach violence.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#560

Post by wpietri » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 7:58 PM UTC

RazzleBerryPop wrote: post #497

tepidandroid wrote: post #139

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

My main issue with this line of reasoning is that it feels largely emotion driven. Even if communities with zero moderation do offer more likely spaces for extremist thoughts to develop and become action, I can't claim I've seen a broad academic consensus that sacrificing current free speech rights would actually solve or otherwise impact the problem in a meaningful way. I don't think communities that turn a blind ey…

Free speech isn't currently threatened here; providers are just exercising their freedom of association.

I also think waiting for "academic consensus" to act is not the neutral position it seems. Skepticism in the face of a pressing concern is not neutral, but instead acts to support the status quo. [1]

If we don't do something, more people will die. Possibly a lot more people. Academics have documented the dramatic rise in online radicalization. [2] Violent radicals themselves have described how online fora have pushed them towards extremism. So if you're going to argue a wait-and-see approach, I think you have to justify the bodies that will stack up in the meantime.

[1] https://twitter.com/jichikawa/status/1134323822096658433

[2] E.g., https://www.amazon.com/Alt-America-Rise-Radical-Right-Trump/... and the many resources it points to.