Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Terminating Service for 8Chan

new.blog.cloudflare.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

971–980 of 1001 posts

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#971

Post by turk73 »

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.

I don't see how white supremacy is any different than what the Black Panthers promote. Or any identity movement, for that matter. I'm sure there are some pretty vile Asian ones. Do you reject all of them?

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#972

Post by thephyber »

lm28469 wrote: post #808
abootstrapper wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

lgbt fanatics aren't much more sane than any other extremists yet they don't have any issues with being on twitter, facebook or reddit. (emphasis on _fanatics_). Widespread propaganda about kids sexualization/abuse and genitalia mutilation on these platform is A-ok and a cause for celebration. You literally can't express any opinions going against the current flow of ideas without being labelled as hostile (alt-right…

> Widespread propaganda about kids sexualization/abuse and genitalia mutilation on these platform is A-ok and a cause for celebration.

Citation needed.

I see Facebook/Twitter/Reddit in the unenviable role as having to police minimum local standards across the world's largest online community. They also have to do it while running a publicly traded company in the USA, which means they need to optimize for minimum moderation costs.

> You literally can't express any opinions going against the current flow of ideas without being labelled as hostile

s/going against the current flow of ideas //

I straddle the line between US liberal/conservative depending on the issue. I've been labeled lot of things by both the majority opinion holders and minority opinion holders. It doesn't matter. People need to put on their big boy/girl/whatever pants and realize it doesn't matter what you are labeled. People call you far worse behind your back... the internet just allows you to hear it and reduces peoples' social filters.

> Anyone thinking these shootings are due to 8chan is a fool, plain and simple

Citation needed.

I treat {4Chan, 8Chan, 9Gag, etc} as a proxy for "long tail opinion holders" who gather in the same place.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that being a social outlier with no outlet for discourse/self-importance/identity/hope is strongly correlated with those extremism/terrorism, but that doesn't preclude 8Chan from being part of that process of extremification.

I listened to a podcast over the weekend about a Philipino guy who worked as a Facebook moderator. He quit for many reasons, but among them PTSD, nightmares, attraction to sexual images of children, attraction to bestiality, etc. He might well have had those same tendencies before he moderated for Facebook, but the exposure to that content was what accelerated his problems.

The Chans are an exposure channel. They probably help in popularizing fringe ideas, but they also attract window shoppers looking for identity and an ideology that social misfits might be willing to try on. Shutting down the window shopping isn't nothing (although I will admit I don't know that it can be done while preserving the intent of the principle of Free Speech).

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#973

Post by pault »

notSupplied wrote: post #953
tyre wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like a misunderstanding of the word freedom. Freedom in speech means that I can say what I want. It does _not_ mean that a hosting company has to host it or that a CDN has to optimize it or that a search company has to rank it or that an ad-network has to monetize it. Each of those players is free to do what they think is best with their time, resources, etc.; which often includes thinking of what "the pub…

No one has the "right" to have their speech amplified by 3rd parties. However, I don't think Cloudflare is in the business of providing amplification, they are in the business of providing access, which I think is closer to censorship than restricting amplification. Access means people who WANT this content can get it easily. If you're making it harder for people who voluntarily choose to view 8chan content, you're r…

Cloudflare can't block access to a website. They can protect their customers from DDOS attacks, and they happen to do it more cheaply and effectively than one could do alone. If they refuse to service a website and that website gets DDOSed off the internet, that is not cloudflare's fault.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#974

Post by pault »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #266
tyre wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like a misunderstanding of the word freedom. Freedom in speech means that I can say what I want. It does _not_ mean that a hosting company has to host it or that a CDN has to optimize it or that a search company has to rank it or that an ad-network has to monetize it. Each of those players is free to do what they think is best with their time, resources, etc.; which often includes thinking of what "the pub…

Should that mean a power company can cut off your power because they don't like what you've said? Should that mean the water company can cut your water off for criticizing them? Should that mean that a bank can refuse to give you a loan, because you said something bad, even if your credit is more than acceptable? ------------------------------- Remember this: its the extremist that the law is made around. And soon en…

Cloudflare didn't and can't "cut off” 8chan. They can stop providing CDN distribution and bandwidth services to 8chan. As it happens, 8chan's web host _did_ cut off 8chan, so you should be directing your rants at them.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#975

Post by thephyber »

mcny wrote: post #101
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…

> For the "Free Speech is freedom from government prohibition and this is a private company" brigade. I dont want to live in a world where color people is being prohibited to enter a night venue, or gay people cannot order a simple cake, or YES, dude who think their race is more superior being able to blabber their nonsense online as long as it is nothing illegal. After all similar sentiments are expressed (veiled or…

> I think at some point it goes up against the "yelling 'fire' in a crowded movie theater" exemption of free speech.

I would like to point out (not necessarily to parent) that this was an example of speech that was not protected by 1A in a case where a man was prosecuted by the government for trying to tell young Americans that they don't need to join the draft for WW1.

Also important: yelling fire in a crowded theater is entirely protected speech if you don't believe it to be false.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#976

Post by thephyber »

raxxorrax wrote: post #630
Lazare wrote: post #15

On the one hand, I like the idea of a free, open, and distributed internet, where no one company or government has the power to control what is distributed or discussed. As the great John Gilmore said, more aspirationally than accurately even then: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." On the other hand, we don't live in that world, and I don't know how well it would work in practice if we d…

We lived in that world until media pushed mentally ill people to the front. Look at the graphs reporting on racism and the surge of terror. They basically revived nationalistic movements for clicks. Not wanting to reverse cause and effect but there is ample evide ce that the call for censorship massivle accelerated occurrences like shootings.

> Look at the graphs

http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#977

Post by thephyber »

notSupplied wrote: post #953
tyre wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like a misunderstanding of the word freedom. Freedom in speech means that I can say what I want. It does _not_ mean that a hosting company has to host it or that a CDN has to optimize it or that a search company has to rank it or that an ad-network has to monetize it. Each of those players is free to do what they think is best with their time, resources, etc.; which often includes thinking of what "the pub…

No one has the "right" to have their speech amplified by 3rd parties. However, I don't think Cloudflare is in the business of providing amplification, they are in the business of providing access, which I think is closer to censorship than restricting amplification. Access means people who WANT this content can get it easily. If you're making it harder for people who voluntarily choose to view 8chan content, you're r…

> Amplification means getting content in front of new eyeballs that wouldn't have otherwise seen it.

Which a CDN does as well. If a user visits the site during peak demand and the site without a CDN can't handle it, the user doesn't get the site in front of their eyeballs. With a CDN, they might. Analogy also works during DDoS attacks. Both assume that the user doesn't have infinite memory and patience to keep trying (because that's a realistic assumption).

"Amplification" has be overloaded. You are talking about a viral marketing definition, whereas CDNs are a hardware+software force multiplier for performance.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#978

Post by thephyber »

ignoramous wrote: post #442
Lazare wrote: post #15

On the one hand, I like the idea of a free, open, and distributed internet, where no one company or government has the power to control what is distributed or discussed. As the great John Gilmore said, more aspirationally than accurately even then: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." On the other hand, we don't live in that world, and I don't know how well it would work in practice if we d…

Cloudflare is committing itself to do as they are told by the governments, in the spirit of upholding the law [0] on govts' behalf (despite under no obligation to do so), if they deem fit. Whether this makes them reasonable, time will tell. Full marks to Cloudflare for so eloquently addressing this and covering themselves with as much grace as they could muster. If one reads between the lines, censorship is coming. T…

> Signals a new era for Cloudflare, going from protector to arbitrator

They kicked off The Daily Stormer 2 years ago. I'm not sure anything changed today.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#979

Post by thephyber »

the8472 wrote: post #463
panarky wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sub-communities that people want to censor, do they have any redeeming value? Or are you just making a slippery-slope argument that this might be a precedent for some hypothetical future censorship of something worthwhile?

> These sub-communities that people want to censor, do they have any redeeming value? The usual example would be cartoon child pornography. Some want to see it wiped off the face of earth, others argue it provides an outlet for pedophiles. > Or are you just making a slippery-slope argument that this might be a precedent for some hypothetical future censorship of something worthwhile? Maybe that too, but it's more abo…

> the judicial system has not found that they shouldn't exist and no attempt has been made to bring about such a decision.

I would argue this isn't necessarily true. "I know it when I see it" -- the famous quote in a SCOTUS decision on pornography/indecency is interpreted to give local communities the ability to determine what is decent/legal. In other words, there is no one court/legal standard; it varies based on regional local standards.

Post reply on HN