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Terminating Service for 8Chan

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Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#881

Post by soneil »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #869
soneil wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find the utility comparison an interesting one. If the water supply was poisoned, would you expect the utility company to cut your supply until it could be cleaned? If they could cut it off closer to the source of the poison so you weren't affected, would you prefer that? You don't expect 1000V from your electricity company. You don't expect arsenic from your water utility. You expect the fcc no-call list to…

I don't understand how any of that relates to what Cloudflare is doing here. 8Chan isn't poisoning the water supply or back-feeding 1000V into the electrical grid; they're just making normal use of Cloudflare's service just like any other customer. Are you implying that ISPs are sending arsenic down my pipes when they service my request to load a web page from 8Chan? In that case, I'd argue that the websites I choose…

I was more aiming at the dumb pipe analogy than this specific instance. Kinda "be careful what you wish for". When people say they want the internet to be a Utility, they overlook a lot of what they're asking for. They're not dumb pipes, they're heavily controlled, regulated, measured & metered infrastructure. Making the internet a utility would have far, far more effect than adding consumer protections to the last mile.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#882

Post by skrowl »

ptah wrote: post #579
Lazare wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The freedom to spread cheap hate, fake news and bigotry against minorities? I'm sorry but moderating such offenses isn't a limitation to free speech. For the same reason why, if you start shouting nig or monkey to black people in a shopping mall, the police is likely to intervene and take you away - and I don't think that any sane person would argue that they're violating your freedom of speech. Popper taught us th…

yes, i think this is a serious flaw in the US constitution. other countries are more sensible and reasonable when it comes to dealing with hate speech

If you only support free speech when it's speech that you agree with, you don't actually support free speech.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#883

Post by bena »

ForHackernews wrote: post #685
austhrow743 wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The freedom to spread cheap hate, fake news and bigotry against minorities? Yes. If the speech isn't terrible it doesn't really need advocating for or protecting does it? Arguing for free speech is inextricably linked to arguing for people to be able to say despicable things.

So by this logic, filtering spam is violating freedom of speech?

Your rights stop where mine begin.

So you are free to send spam. I'm free to refuse it. I'm not required to transport your junk if I don't want to.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#884

Post by luckylion »

abootstrapper wrote: post #259
cambalache wrote: post #71

Who is going to deplatform Facebook and Twitter? After all plenty of shooters have used them too. Before the usual: " But 8chan is a cesspool of bla bla" Probably it is, but, either the users are doing something ilegal in the site and you close it if the owners refuse to comply with a legal request, or they are not doing anything illegal so they have to be left alone. For the "Free Speech is freedom from government p…

People of color, and LGBT are demographics. White supremacy is an ideology (a reprehensible one at that). People choose their ideology, not their race, or sexuality. They are not the same thing. Third party businesses should not feel any obligation to do business with "dudes who blabber" about the murdering and hate of others.

> People choose their ideology

How do you figure that works? Do we wake up, fully equipped with a developed mind but zero preferences and experiences and then ponder which of the available ideologies we would like to subscribe to?

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#885

Post by Ajedi32 »

Traster wrote: post #864
Ajedi32 wrote: post #837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As has been explained in this thread multiple times now, Free Speech is a principle, not a law. If, for example, someone in North Korea spoke against their government and was executed for it, that'd be a violation of Free Speech. Arguing "but North Korea doesn't have a law protecting people who speak against the government" would be ridiculous. Similarly, if a person or organization in the United States is silenced b…

This is a very strange idea of what Free Speech is. The reason Free Speech is related to government is that government has a monopoly on violence. Government can turn up with guns at your house and stop you speaking in a way that no other body can. What is happening here is very different. Cloudflare isn't preventing anyone from saying anything. All that is happening is Cloudflare is using it's freedom of association…

Cloudflare may not be a monopoly, but they don't necessarily need to be a monopoly to be able to effectively police speech. A duopoly or oligopoly can be just as effective at that task, provided all competitors have similar rules about what sort of speech they disallow.

Now maybe we're not quite at that point yet (after all, the Daily Stormer did eventually find a CDN that would take them), but we may very well be getting close; there are only so many CDNs big enough to effectively shrug off large-scale DDOS attacks after all.

You also have to consider how difficult it is to match the quality of service provided by Cloudflare, and the hassle involved in switching to a new CDN. Cloudflare's refusal to service some organizations on the basis of ideology might have a chilling effect on Free Speech, even if it's not an insurmountable barrier.

I agree there is a balance between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association. The question is: where do we draw the line?

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#886

Post by collyw »

ViViDboarder wrote: post #341
tenpies wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually ended up having these on reddit I am actually quite surprised how complicit the media is in not reporting what goes on Reddit. It's the one place on the "mainstream" internet I run into where you can see calls for political assassinations in default subs, sub-reddits devoted to theft, ethno-nationalism, terrorism, and all sorts of content that makes 4chan seem tame in comparison. Then there is the huge c…

If reported, Reddit (the company) will usually moderate or shut down subs like those. Recent example being what they just did with /r/T_D.

I get the impression that Reddit only shuts down right wing leaning Reddits. I hear that there is plenty of calls for violence on left leaning ones such as late stage capitalism.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#888

Post by Pigo »

cletus wrote: post #786
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…

> Imagine if real life utilities did this. You don't have to imagine it. Literally all of these things happen. Examples: - Utilities restricting or even cutting off crypto miners (eg [1]) - Your phone service has prohibited uses that will get your service disconnected (eg see Section 8, Use of the Service in [2]). - Getting water cut off is more difficult but not impossible, I imagine. Some places will cut you off fo…

Something tells me online Antifa resources won't be affected just because one of their members committed a horrible atrocity in Dayton, OH shortly after El Paso.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#889

Post by dillonmckay »

adrianN wrote: post #674
yardie wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, they should have done exactly that. Flag their content and ban them. Then go to the capitol. And when some politician asks, "why was I banned?" Tell them honestly, your statements were determined to be extremist by the same algorithm that bans Al Qaeda and ISIS from posting. Then sit back and watch the real fireworks go off. Just because they have a political title does not mean we have to respect anything…

I don't think it is a good idea to replace political discourse with algorithms. You can't just throw up your hands and blame the algorithm when somebody complains to you.

That is already happening, unfortunately.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#890

Post by collyw »

onyva wrote: post #495

Twitter and Google (& YouTube) have systematically removed ISIS content and redirected these people to messages/sites that are designed to disrupt and deprogram their ideology. They’ve done this effectively for years. They choose not to apply this approach to white supremacy. https://twitter.com/brianbeutler/status/1158032847560675328

Do people really use Google to try to get to Isis content? I would have thought that was a quick way to get yourself investigated.
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