I'm not sure that I agree with the author's stance that Cloudflare is more infrastructure than content platform. Cloudflare is part CDN and part security service. While both are useful in facilitating the distribution of content, the services that Cloudflare provides are not necessary to that distribution in the same way that access to the internet via an ISP is. Whatever the controller of some botnet's likely course…
You could obtain water elsewhere, or build a distribution network for yourself.
I sort of see where you're coming from, but surely there are a plethora of other places with light moderation and far less hate speech where people could go to discuss things? You seem to be making a slippery slope argument, but I don't really see the start of the slope. I'd also be interested to know what you think of this quote from the Cloudflare CEO: 'If this were a normal circumstance we would say "Yes, it’s rea…
I find the way 8chan's being grouped together as a cohesive whole in these discussions odd. 8chan couldn't be more chaotic and disparate in the kinds of people that were there. There were many different people with a huge range of beliefs. Most people that hung out there from what i could tell were just lonely and had made it their special club outside society. I never went on /pol/, but outside /pol/ plenty of peopl…
I think the issue there is that 8chan didn't seem to do anything about the nastier elements of /pol/. As Prince said, they only took that decision because they felt 8chan were ignoring the problem, which I think is a real one. I'm conflicted about this issue, as any sane person should be, but on balance it felt like the right decision.
I sort of see where you're coming from, but surely there are a plethora of other places with light moderation and far less hate speech where people could go to discuss things? You seem to be making a slippery slope argument, but I don't really see the start of the slope. I'd also be interested to know what you think of this quote from the Cloudflare CEO: 'If this were a normal circumstance we would say "Yes, it’s rea…
> You seem to be making a slippery slope argument, but I don't really see the start of the slope. Okay, so you ban 8chan. Now they move to another chan... there's about 5 different "bunkers" running the same or similar software to what powered 8chan and with many of the same users that various boards have moved to right now. Some of the larger of those bunker chans are actually on distributed networks. So now what? Y…
The argument in the linked article, which I found compelling, is that by doing this you significantly raise the bar for participation. That cuts out the casual audience, reduces the audience size for these grandiose manifestos (which seems key to them being posted there), and sends a signal that this hateful content isn't generally acceptable. Of course there will always be truly horrible people but, on balance, I think the benefits outweigh the costs. As I said in another comment, I'm conflicted about this, as everyone should be, and will keep reading about the pros and cons. But at the moment I'm convinced that this was the right move.
I sort of see where you're coming from, but surely there are a plethora of other places with light moderation and far less hate speech where people could go to discuss things? You seem to be making a slippery slope argument, but I don't really see the start of the slope. I'd also be interested to know what you think of this quote from the Cloudflare CEO: 'If this were a normal circumstance we would say "Yes, it’s rea…
In some capacity, is it better to let something like 8chan exist given law enforcement and the government can actively monitor it and try and prevent such events from occurring? Would changing the laws around what constitutes domestic terrorism allow law enforcement to act more swiftly to premeditated descriptions of such acts on similar forums? Even in the NZ shootings, would it be better to let something like that…
I see what you're saying, and if these were small little online groups of, say, ten people, perhaps I'd agree. But one issue here is the audience size it gives people. Media guidelines (although they rarely follow them) say that you shouldn't publicise the names or images of people who commit these crimes, because that's a large part of what they want. The mainstream media are complicit in this too, and they should shoulder a good deal of the blame for that. Online forums are an easy target for the mainstream media because it means they don't have to examine their own part in the problem, but that doesn't mean the place where these events are initially publicised and encouraged shouldn't be tackled too.
> You seem to be making a slippery slope argument, but I don't really see the start of the slope. Okay, so you ban 8chan. Now they move to another chan... there's about 5 different "bunkers" running the same or similar software to what powered 8chan and with many of the same users that various boards have moved to right now. Some of the larger of those bunker chans are actually on distributed networks. So now what? Y…
The argument in the linked article, which I found compelling, is that by doing this you significantly raise the bar for participation. That cuts out the casual audience, reduces the audience size for these grandiose manifestos (which seems key to them being posted there), and sends a signal that this hateful content isn't generally acceptable. Of course there will always be truly horrible people but, on balance, I th…
> you significantly raise the bar for participation.
This simply isn't true, it's trivial to set up clearnet proxies into such services and they can be easily treated as disposable.
The message you send them seems more to be that they need to hunt and hide more for "the truth". The need for that further contributes to extremeified views. It turns out pushing people into deeper and darker recesses doesn't improve their sociability. You can see this difference from communities that used to exist for the content that spawned these on reddit, Twitter to 4chan leading to the spawning of Voat, Gab, 8chan and others. The farther down the line you go the more extreme you get.
Religious texts, advertisements, and tall tales have been "egging people on" to do things they otherwise would not for thousands of years. Judas Priest and Internet message boards are not new in this respect. There is something unique, I think, about these message boards, though. I think most people would agree, the overwhelming majority of humans are reasonably decent—they're not going to murder others, are not over…
This "egging on" has been going on throughout the centuries, and has mainly been getting more centralized. Nowadays most people seem reasonably decent, but when exposed to a repeated message of "social consensus" will still generally support going to war against a foreign country. The novelty is that violence is now being mobilized against subcultures within larger society, rather than comfortably against foreign cul…
I found this really insightful. The parallels are definitely there.
I lean towards free-speech absolutism, I was against banning Alex Jones for example. However, encouraging violence, as 8-chan does, is not included under even the most expansive definitions of free speech. Nuke it from orbit.
As a free speech absolutist you should support Youtube or Twitter's right to ban who they wish from their platform. What about their right to free speech?
I said I was a free speech absolutist, not a corporate rights absolutist. When corporations have monopolistic control over the means by which we communicate then they must either use that power responsibly or we must use regulation to force them to do so.
I lean towards free-speech absolutism, I was against banning Alex Jones for example. However, encouraging violence, as 8-chan does, is not included under even the most expansive definitions of free speech. Nuke it from orbit.
Are you a free speech absolutist at your own house party? Really? You'd allow a Nazi to spout propaganda at your family and guests? Why should anyone else have to host them on their private platforms?
> Why should anyone else have to host them on their private platforms?
Because it's hard to draw the line between acceptable speech and unacceptable speech, and once it becomes acceptable to silence people that power will be abused, especially if it is in the hands of large corporations. The logic is exactly the same as why the government shouldn't ban speech.
> Are you a free speech absolutist at your own house party?
My house is not a public platform so that's a silly analogy.