Terminating Service for 8Chan • Hacker News Board

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#661

Post by bmurphy1976 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:33 AM UTC

cybersnowflake wrote: post #528

I love how everybody is having a cow over a website where the rhetoric isn't really all that much worse than a 'mainstream' site like twitter. For example in twitter you can find guys who call for children to be fed into wood chippers because they wear Maga hats and hundreds/thousands of people including corporate accounts like Burger King cheering assaulting people. And they almost all receive absolutely no punishme…

Well your wrong in that some of us do in fact think Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube amongst others should be held accountable for not only allowing this stuff, but also promoting it (whether intentional or not). CloudFlare made the decision to drop 8chan thus this discussion is about that. That should be no surprise.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#662

Post by Cakez0r » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:34 AM UTC

Why can't law enforcement take a more active role in policing this site rather than leaving it to corporations? It's a known catalyst of terrorism at this point, so they know exactly where to look and surely have the resources to investigate suspicious posters.

Disappointingly, the last time an incident like this happened, an FBI agent accidentally revealed himself to be actively fuelling the fire by participating in a smear campaign against Russia (https://ceinquiry.wordpress.com/2019/06/17/fbi-8chan/). Looks like law enforcement are watching, but are just making problems worse? Baffling.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#663

Post by ai_ja_nai » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:37 AM UTC

Total garbage statements: being a huge ISP doesn't mean using that power to moderate the Internet

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#664

Post by askvictor » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:40 AM UTC

kingkawn wrote: post #540

zimpenfish wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They choose not to apply this approach to white supremacy. "[...] the measures taken against ISIS were so extreme that, if applied to white supremacy, there would certainly be backlash, because algorithms would obviously flag content that has been tweeted by prominent Republicans—or, at the very least, their supporters." https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a3xgq5/why-wont-twitter-t...

White supremacist terrorism cannot be directly ideologically challenged by our present political system in America because it is the founding ideology of the country https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_Destroyer

It's seductive argument, but how does that differ from any other colonized country? Australia certainly has white supremacist elements (and undercurrents of racism in the dominant culture), but nothing (I think) of the scale of the US. Do you suggest that it is impossible for a country to change?

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#665

Post by IanCal » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:41 AM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #656

I don't like 8chan as a website, but I'm still not a fan of this move. Feels like no one online wants to just provide a 'dumb pipe', and always want to act like a pseudo publisher trying to dictate what's allowed and what isn't. Imagine if real life utilities did this. If because someone used your property for offensive purposes, the water company cut off the water supply, or the electricity company refused to provid…

> If because someone used your property for offensive purposes, the water company cut off the water supply, or the electricity company refused to provide electricity, or your phone provider cut off service or what not.

I think it's key that in this case cloudflare are actively between you and 8chan. The phone provider is the most reasonable comparison, were you able to switch provider. I wouldn't be hugely shocked if one phone company out of several options (which when you call the line occasionally puts their branding in your face) dropped you if you were running a line that read out terrorist manifestos. I'd be surprised if something similar hasn't happened.

> Because at the moment, it seems any controversy at all means losing access to anything internet related.

This is, what, the second time cloudflare have done this? That's a far cry from any controversy.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#666

Post by yardie » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:41 AM UTC

jjakque wrote: post #486

sytelus wrote: post #205

This is the same argument cake shops make against taking order from gay people. I do believe that so-called manifesto is mind-numbingly dumb, fact-free and it is dangerous in the sense it will inspire more violence against innocent people. But that precisely what makes it a good test case for asking some fundamental questions. Can commercial businesses with deep reach, pricing power and critical function deny service…

> This is the same argument cake shops make against taking order from gay people. I've always avoid getting involved in (semi-)political discussions but I'm very curious here: It is fundamentally OK for customers to boycott vendors they do not like (right?), then is it wrong/illegal for the opposite? Are vendors disallow to pick and choose their customers? We, netizen as a whole, are currently under go the sentiment…

I guess that comes down to what is a person and what is a business. Do businesses have rights? I would say no they do not. A person exists until death. Their rights are fundamental. A business exists or does not exist at the whims of the owner(s), government, or law. It's rights are fungible. It is allowed to exist at all because the government says it can. And one of the requirements can be it is not allowed to discriminate based on sexuality, or it can only do business with certain individuals and businesses.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#667

Post by toyg » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:42 AM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #656

I don't like 8chan as a website, but I'm still not a fan of this move. Feels like no one online wants to just provide a 'dumb pipe', and always want to act like a pseudo publisher trying to dictate what's allowed and what isn't. Imagine if real life utilities did this. If because someone used your property for offensive purposes, the water company cut off the water supply, or the electricity company refused to provid…

> because someone used your property for offensive purposes, the water company cut off the water supply

This actually happens in Europe, typically when authorities decide squatters should not be tolerated.

TBH, services like Cloudflare should be free to operate as they please. A publisher is simply not entitled to a CDN. If there is a demand for specific niches, a supply will eventually emerge, like it has for porn.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#668

Post by q3k » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:44 AM UTC

dangxiaopin wrote: post #657

q3k wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook implemented automation to ban any reposts of the NZ footage. Facebook routinely bans extremists groups. 8ch actively caters to white supremacists, by letting /pol/ be the second largest board there and not be actively moderated to combat hate speech. 8ch administrators did nothing to prevent hate speech from becoming a large chunk of their discourse. As such, people were looking towards 8ch's providers to do…

Oh so therefore, 8chan was deplatformed not in connection with this manifesto then, but due to their past record of not banning bad speech prior to this crime?

I don't know. I assume this can be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#669

Post by tedajax » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:45 AM UTC

I'm always prepared for but ultimately annoyed by HN's take on stuff like this.

I legitimately get angrier reading this shitty site more than just about anything else.

I wish whatever dopamine hit I got from reading this place would go away.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#670

Post by lone-commenter » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:45 AM UTC

I think this paragraph is worth the article:

We continue to feel incredibly uncomfortable about playing the role of content arbiter and do not plan to exercise it often. Some have wrongly speculated this is due to some conception of the United States' First Amendment. That is incorrect. First, we are a private company and not bound by the First Amendment. Second, the vast majority of our customers, and more than 50% of our revenue, comes from outside the United States where the First Amendment and similarly libertarian freedom of speech protections do not apply. The only relevance of the First Amendment in this case and others is that it allows us to choose who we do and do not do business with; it does not obligate us to do business with everyone.