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

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#721

Post by afiori » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

inscionent wrote: post #672

dcolkitt wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine an alternate scenario. Say the major tech companies get fed up with Elizabeth Warren's calls to regulate them. Facebook removes all her groups. Cloudflare shuts down her websites. Youtube removes her videos. Google only leaves anti-Elizabeth Warren search results up, etc. Basically a major presidential candidate is completely locked out of having any presence on the Internet whatsoever. Would your reaction be…

No one is entitled to a youtube channel, that I am aware of. Would it be bad publicity? Maybe but, I'm sure plenty of people would cheer the ban. I've never needed Facebook, Google or Cloudflare to have an internet presence, but maybe I don't know what the internet is.

I assure you that a politician today in the US needs a social media presence. As much as he/she would need a news presence.

Many people on both side make a point of how memes were essential in Trump's win.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#722

Post by inscionent » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

disease wrote: post #241

I realize this may not be the best place to talk about it, but is there some good explanation for what seems to be a totally insatiable thirst for white supremacy in America these days? It seems to me like this is the real story here and, for the most part, it is not being covered in any real sense by either liberal, conservative or independent media.

The Southern Poverty Law Center tracks hate groups in the US and is a good source of information.

https://www.splcenter.org/issues/hate-and-extremism

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#723

Post by wesammikhail » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

LargeWu wrote: post #120

Can any free speech absolutists explain to me the legitimate public interest that is served by allowing terrorist breeding grounds like 8chan to continue to operate?

This is so naive. Terrorists use FB, Twitter, Youtube, Google, Cloudflare, Apache, PHP, Java, Volkswagens, US Senators, phones, pagers, etc. etc.

So here is a formula for you to use in case you want to send us back to the dark ages:

> Can any free speech absolutists explain to me the legitimate public interest that is served by allowing terrorist breeding grounds like _INSERT ANY OF THE PRODUCTS FROM THE LIST ABOVE_to continue to operate?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#724

Post by mann007 » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

DonHopkins wrote: post #261

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…

I've lost good friends to 4chan/8chan. They were obsessed. At first it was cat pictures and memes, but it went way downhill from there. I've watched those sites cause the transition from normal, interesting, reasonable, open minded, intelligent, happy human beings, to horrible inexcusable pieces of shit who I never want to have anything to do with ever again. It's not just that they inspire a few shooters and mass mu…

You could say the exact same thing about Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or any other form of social media. People get absorbed in ideas all the time, and those platforms just multiply the intensity.

Personally, Twitter has been a much bigger source of anger, shock and hate than 4chan ever was. Some of the shit I've seen on Twitter made it unbearable to go on my day and yet on 4chan, on boards like /vg/, /ck/, /g/, /wg/ it was mostly just shitposts and once in a while you would see a good post.

All I can do is shrug.. People with no clue will always just yell.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#725

Post by wtdata » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

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…

Freedom of speech already existed when society at large was vastly less educated than today.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#726

Post by antepodius » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

rexpop wrote: post #706

slg wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The concept of freedom of speech falls apart if universally reprehensible speech is allowed to be publicaly espoused without being firmly challenged. Forums like 8chan and 4chan effectively incubate hate speech by providing a safe space for anonymized, like-minded individuals to congregate, espouse their basest thoughts and feelings and receive gratification for it -all without challenge. Moderate people are repulse…

It's not a question of merely "allowing" hatred to grow, as though it were so much yeast on the wind, but of propagating the deliberate inculcation of white supremacism and misogyny , a campaign orchestrated by long-standing institutions of social control.

What are you on about? 8chan is pretty damn grassroots. The people on /pol/ definitely don't see themselves as backed by the institutions of social control; in their mythology, the insitutions of social control (eg. the mainstream media, Silicon Valley, banks) are all left-wing, "pozzed", and their enemies. They consider themselves a hated minority... because they are. What big institutions are backing 8chan?!

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#727

Post by neom » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

For those curious, here is the Canadian Governments information on the bounds around hate and freedom in speech: https://lop.parl.ca/sites/PublicWebsite/default/en_CA/Resear...

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#728

Post by afiori » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

allemagne wrote: post #362

Smithalicious wrote: post #215

This once again goes to show that you can do nothing illegal and still be virtually locked out of the internet. The viewpoint that "it's okay to kick 8chan off the internet" is not consistent with the viewpoint that "the internet should be neutral infrastructure". Take from that what you will. People are doing the "yada yada not entitled to a platform" thing, but the distinction between free speech and having a platf…

I get that you're trying to address a larger philosophical question, but what action are you actually suggesting in this particular instance? Should Cloudflare be forced to host 8chan? Even more than YouTube/Twitter, this seems like a clear case of business owners deciding that 8chan is too much of a liability to do business with.

Something relevant in my opinion is that companies could be upfront about it. If you do not want to host despicable content you can say that you reserve the right to terminate accounts for such and such reasons.

Youtube has as a policy that they will demonetize/ban you if you bring in bad PR (which has been abused by media company).

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#729

Post by inscionent » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

graphememes wrote: post #604

This is why we have mass shootings, just saying. People taking things away from other people. I have a feeling this will lead to more shootings.

20 people had their lives abruptly ended while they where attempting to complete mundane errands at a WalMart and this is what you have to add to this conversation?

Fuck you, just saying.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#730

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Aug 05, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

DrDimension wrote: post #266

boramalper wrote: post #182

What people (seemingly) fail to realise is that neither Cloudflare is the Internet nor Voxility is a public infrastructure. They are private enterprises which are free to act in however they want with regards to the service they provide as laid out in their contract. That is the danger of centralisation; when they remove their service, it feels as if your rights has been violated because (a) you have been so used to…

A private company must act as public infrastructure once it becomes a de facto monopoly.

I'll take that argument seriously when it's accompanied by proposals to buy it out and nationalize it to run at cost rather than make a profit.