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8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

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Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. Speak for yourself, I would. I've downloaded and distributed ISIS propaganda videos before out of sheer intrigue. Just because someone says something you don't like doesn't mean you should ban it. Of course, this will be downvoted to hell because this is a hot topic at the moment…

I've downloaded OK and distributed ISIS propaganda videos Do elaborate on your motives for and style of distribution.

Not him, but I would do it because I can.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#742

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…

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…

Popper didn't exactly write a massive book on this. It was just a footnote in which he coined a memorable name for it.

> Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

Popper argued here that we should try rational debate, but reserve the right to use force when debate has become impossible (due to intolerant people using force themselves, refusing to engage in reasonable debates, etc).

The issue isn't tolerance IMO, but the self selective societies that online forums can create.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#743

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…

Free speech does not apply in any of these cases. These are all privately owned platforms. The first Amendment protects the populace from the government policing speech.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#744
post #335

So the campaigns against free speech show results. The wheels are in motion, the dominoes are falling. Funny how here on HN the use of the term "free speech absolutists"/"free speech absolutism" has absolutely skyrocketed for example. So are these the last days of the internet? 4chan is still there, voat too (although barely) - but I don't know how much longer. 100% legal sites are taken offline for absolutely no rea…

It's not a campaign against free speech, it's a campaign against collective organization of murder.

What a sad time

How about the free speech rights of the 22 people who died in El Paso?

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#745

"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…

It's not that speech doesn't have consequences. If speech had no consequences, it wouldn't be worth defending. Rather, it's that no man is fit to play the censor - not the Government which would censor political criticism of itself, not a king who would censor his opponents, nor even a billionaire who would censor the media when it spurns him. At the same time, if someone points a finger at you and shouts "I'm going…

>From what I've seen, 8chan certainly seems to be in the action category.

Users on 8chan, perhaps, but no the website itself. 8chan has cooperated with law enforcement against individuals making legally-actionable threats effectively since the website's beginning.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#747

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…

> some minimum level of education What a bunch of horse crap. Being told what to think, what to buy, who to vote for, how to feel. If you claim to believe in a liberal democracy but want "education" or limited-speech then you don't have must faith in the system. Democracy has been broken since the rise of technology and mass media. If you control the narrative, you control the people, and the power. The outrage over…

> Democracy has been broken since the rise of technology and mass media.

That seems to me like it might be the whole problem right there: Is there any reason to expect human institutions to survive the digital age?

I see "fake news", the problem of message authentication (not even encryption— keeping secrets —just authentication), and "deep fakes" as aspects of the same issue. Epistemology, "How do you know?"

We may have to extract the core values and value of Democracy and create some sort of new system that sustains or improves on them.

A kind of catch-phrase just occurred to me, "Computer-aided Integrity".

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#748
post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you support free speech so much then you should respect Cloudflare’s right to exercise their free speech right to decide what content they want to serve on their privately owned servers. The idea that the government should force companies to host extremist content against their will is anti-free speech, not pro-free speech. It’s equivalent to forcing people to put up political yard signs on their lawn without thei…

I never said any of these things. I merely mourned that this community happily applauds the burning of the internet.

Your concern is noted

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#749
As a free expression absolutists I see no problem with private companies refusing service, as long as they are not breaking their contract. And ideally it should be perfectly fine to have whites-only restaurants, or do a discriminatory hiring practice and not hire any women. Because I see no logical reason why freedom of association should have any limits, as long as you are not bound by some obligations that you have agreed to.

As for people crying about how internet is getting censored - don't be an impotent and start programming decentralized alternatives. Like Fediverse and Crypto devs do. If you really care about freedom that is. At this point it should be pretty clear that the major enabler of internet censorship is the whole paradigm of centralized services, because it concentrates too much power in one hands. In order to combat it we should create high-quality decentralized alternatives, where everyone owns a small chunk of the system and can only ban somebody from that specific chunk.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#750

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…

>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.

> 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?

The whole point of that position is to prevent exactly that society. Where the hate, fear, discomfort, prejudice based intolerance grows to cause a society to degenerate into a sizeable proportion of a population deciding another proportion is morally wrong for preferring their own gender.

The goal of preventing that dysfunction supersedes word games about one type of intolerance being speciously equated to another.

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