Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

651–660 of 1001 posts

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#651

Post by sneak »

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…

”8channers” is no more a defining term than “CNN watchers”. A website is not an identity. Many of the people who read HN also read the n-chans.

Be extremely careful about drawing conclusions about people based on the books they read or the websites they visit.

This wasn’t a blow against 8chan or 8channers, this was a blow against everyone who reads things on the internet.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#652

Post by lr4444lr »

belorn wrote: post #562
ddebernardy wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm in agreement with Popper's view that societies should tolerate everything except intolerance. It draws a fine line between what's acceptable speech and what is not. And going by it, things like 8chan should get shut down. The line of thought you put forward, by contrast, rubs me in a very wrong way. It was used to justify, depending on the period and country, not allowing people to vote on the basis th…

I have a simplistic test when it comes to hate. I take the part of the message that identity the target and I change it to the opposite side of the political spectrum. If the comment/speech still sound like hate then it is hate. Thus my definition for intolerance is intolerance when it is independent of the reader/authors opinion about the target. A lot of people disprove of this approach, arguing that by doing so we…

They're not disproving your approach: they're admitting tacitly that they have no moral compass in these matters apart from "evening up the score".

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#653

Post by saltminer »

Alex3917 wrote: post #484
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…

> Moderate people are repulsed by such forums and the quantity of hate-speech they generate, which further compounds the negative feedback loop. Lots of people are afraid of blood and spiders, but we still have doctors and exterminators. Actually changing other people's opinions doesn't always look like having your friends Like your Facebook posts.

This is a bad analogy because that's not how free speech havens tend to work out in practice. What happens is you probably have a fairly normal crowd at first, then the racists, anti-semites, etc start stumbling in. Gradually, normal/moderate people leave, especially those who are members of the minority groups the newcomers hate. The local Overton window shifts as moderate voices disappear and dissent becomes more scarce, making the site even less appealing to normal people who stumble across it.

>Lots of people are afraid of blood and spiders

These are inevitable in life. But you can choose to use a forum that is full of flat-earthers, racists, etc or you can choose to go elsewhere and not have to deal with people harassing you for what you were born as or what you believe in.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#655

Post by malvosenior »

mechamicro wrote: post #524
malvosenior wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other ways to deal with this than censorship. Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? It seems actually useful that these people are willing to make these kind of plans in the public eye. Force them underground and behind encryption and it will be harder to monitor. Does anyone know how law enforcement engages with places like 8chan? I…

Maybe there will be less monitoring. But with a lack of easily available places to congregate, the assholes will find it much more difficult to recruit, organize, and build their organization. This stagnates or reduces their membership numbers. Also, it sends a great signal to anyone who might think of joining: that this ideology is so terrible that it's being chased off of the internet. That even the hands-off compa…

The idea isn't to curtail people's freedom to assembly. It's to stop mass shootings. As much as you dislike it, people are free to organize and discuss whatever they want. They just aren't allowed to commit violence.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#656

Post by lr4444lr »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #423
ddebernardy wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm in agreement with Popper's view that societies should tolerate everything except intolerance. It draws a fine line between what's acceptable speech and what is not. And going by it, things like 8chan should get shut down. The line of thought you put forward, by contrast, rubs me in a very wrong way. It was used to justify, depending on the period and country, not allowing people to vote on the basis th…

You make some great points. Let me also ask you a devil's advocate question. "Let's go to oarabbus_'s house at and kill him" is not protected speech, correct? I am sure everyone agrees upon this. But "Let's attack folks who are as they are a scourge upon our nation" is protected? Why?

It's not: you are planning direct violence in a clear, present, and imminent context.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#657

Post by malvosenior »

saltminer wrote: post #530
malvosenior wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other ways to deal with this than censorship. Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? It seems actually useful that these people are willing to make these kind of plans in the public eye. Force them underground and behind encryption and it will be harder to monitor. Does anyone know how law enforcement engages with places like 8chan? I…

>Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? They might be, or they might not be. They tend to keep their mouths shut during active investigations, if people found out the FBI was actively subpoenaing the site they might be inclined to stop giving them more evidence. (That is, the FBI could have developed a public-private honeypot partnership for al…

> Despite these people clearly being partially responsible for encouraging one of their members to violence, none of them will get in trouble because they never gave direct threats or incitements.

That's legal for very important reasons. People have a right to freedom of speech and the right to assembly. They don't have a right to commit murder. There's a huge leap from complaining about something to committing violence in real life. The latter is rightfully illegal and the former is rightfully legal (in the United States).

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#658

Post by pritambaral »

throwaway156503 wrote: post #614
FussyZeus wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm completely fine with that until we have literally any logical or scientific reasons to oppose tolerance.

This claim to logic or scientific reasoning in the face of not tolerating intolerance seems flawed and, to me, does not serve as a meaningful replacement for the subject of morality: Imagine you have a child, who is not yours, screaming in your ear at the nearby supermarket. You do not tolerate it. You are intolerant of it. At face value, with the paradox of tolerance in the form of "society must be intolerant of int…

Your example is flawed for the following reason:

The child's right to scream ends where my right to peacefully exist in a public space begins. The child's act of screaming directly in my ear clearly violates my right and is thus intolerant of it.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#659

Post by irrational »

mushufasa wrote: post #648
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.

I think it can be simple. Intolerance is a set of beliefs or behaviors that exclude. Cake baker would be in the wrong, because he excludes. It doesn't matter how many people hold an intolerant belief for that belief to be intolerant.

So nobody can exclude anyone else from anything? That would mean any organization is not free to stipulate who can and cannot be a member of that organization. Is the American Medical Society intolerant for excluding someone who does not believe in vaccines?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#660

Post by [deleted] »

Maarten88 wrote: post #593
psbmt wrote: post #503

>Personally I'm in agreement with Popper's view that societies should tolerate everything except intolerance. That invariably forces the political landscape to move to the left. Which, I guess, is the intended result of holding that point of view.

Because the truth has a liberal bias? What is the argument you are making against the seemingly neutral argument that defends tolerance? Why is the right at odds with tolerance?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN