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Because people vulnerable to radicalization view public websites. The solution of "let it happen in the open" doesn't appear to be working in practice. Undergro

Because people vulnerable to radicalization view public websites. The solution of "let it happen in the open" doesn't appear to be working in practice. Underground sites are harder for those unaware of the topic to find (and for policing what goes on on those sites, the US has the FBI and the CIA).

kadendogthing 8y ago
>The solution of "let it happen in the open" doesn't appear to be working in practice. To be more blunt, it in fact has absolutely no evidence. At no point, not once, in this little foray into unrestricted publishing since the dawn of the internet, has "let it die" ever actually worked. It's a techno-libertarian myth that completely ignores human behavior.
0815test 8y ago
I understand your concern and I'm no fan of terrorist propaganda of any sort, but if you think that hiding some content from the public Internet will prevent these events, you're dreaming. The Columbine shooters weren't "radicalized" by public websites, to our best knowledge. Nor was the perpetrator of the 2012 movie-theater shooting in Colorado.
- fixermark 8y ago
  It's unlikely that making it hard to reach 8chan / 4chan etc. would impact those shootings, no. But it may very well have had impact on the New Zealand shooting. And the Pittsburgh shooting. In the US, the bar would be pretty high for government action based on this reasoning; a direct link would have to be proven, and either an imminent threat of harm be demonstrated or the media in question be demonstrated to have nothing but illegal activities occuring with it. I don't think 4/8chan raise to this high bar. Other nations? Bar not so high.
adamrezich 8y ago
>Because people vulnerable to radicalization view public websites. Why do you think people should be legally prevented from accessing information? Don't you believe in free will and the idea that everyone should be able to internally decide what is right and wrong for themselves? Or do we want that power to be put in the hands of the state? Where were the accusations of online radicalization and calls for censorship when that one guy shot those Republicans at a baseball practice in 2017[0]? There's definitely no shortage of hyperbolic anti-Republican sentiment, out in the open, on social media platforms even more mainstream than 4chan. Surely if we're banning access to places where the NZ shooter was (allegedly) "radicalized," then we should prevent people like that shooter from being "radicalized" too, right? What's different about the two situations that warrants completely different rhetoric? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_sh...
- fixermark 8y ago
  Free will is a fascinating hypothesis that is only partially explanatory of observed human behavior. ;) To be less glib: in the US the bar is very high, but we do, in fact, have some things that we've removed from the "free will" discussion. Child pornography is the obvious example.
  - adamrezich 8y ago
    Yes because the process of creating child pornography is harmfully exploitative of a child, and we as a society have decided this one of the worst things anyone could do, so we've made creating, distributing, and accessing child pornography illegal. If someone disagrees with this, they're most assuredly allowed to voice their opinion on it however they see fit, obviously as long as no child pornography is involved. Drawing a parallel between child pornography and untoward politically incorrect discussion out in the open doesn't seem like a very useful comparison, especially when I provided another recent example of a shooting that one could argue was caused by online "radicalization."
    - fixermark 8y ago
      True; CP is a bad analogy and I'm retracting it. The US bar is very high to curtailing speech as a government action, and it's worth noting that the story we're commenting on is about an Australian telco taking private action. I actually don't know the law in the US around what would happen if, for example, Verizon decided to IP-blackhole 4chan of its own initiative (in general, Americans would probably rake it over the coals for diminishing consumer choice at the very least). It'd be a hell of a show if they tried, and I don't see it coming. The example you brought up is also from the US and, I hate to say it, was probably treated differently because the US is just desensitized to the amount of violence in its culture these days. The baseball shooting was tragic, but none of the injuries were even as permanent as the ones Gabby Giffords suffered. But the New Zealand shooting was in a country far less tolerant of such intra-civil violence, and Australia already has speech constraints relative to the US (contrast their attitude on videogames to that of the US). (... but to turn the conversation around: do you think there should have been a conversation about online radicalization after the 2017 shooting? Maybe there should have been. What do you think should have been done differently?)

kadendogthing 8y ago

>The solution of "let it happen in the open" doesn't appear to be working in practice. To be more blunt, it in fact has absolutely no evidence. At no point, not once, in this little foray into unrestricted publishing since the dawn of the internet, has "let it die" ever actually worked. It's a techno-libertarian myth that completely ignores human behavior.

0815test 8y ago

I understand your concern and I'm no fan of terrorist propaganda of any sort, but if you think that hiding some content from the public Internet will prevent these events, you're dreaming. The Columbine shooters weren't "radicalized" by public websites, to our best knowledge. Nor was the perpetrator of the 2012 movie-theater shooting in Colorado.

fixermark 8y ago
It's unlikely that making it hard to reach 8chan / 4chan etc. would impact those shootings, no. But it may very well have had impact on the New Zealand shooting. And the Pittsburgh shooting. In the US, the bar would be pretty high for government action based on this reasoning; a direct link would have to be proven, and either an imminent threat of harm be demonstrated or the media in question be demonstrated to have nothing but illegal activities occuring with it. I don't think 4/8chan raise to this high bar. Other nations? Bar not so high.

adamrezich 8y ago

>Because people vulnerable to radicalization view public websites. Why do you think people should be legally prevented from accessing information? Don't you believe in free will and the idea that everyone should be able to internally decide what is right and wrong for themselves? Or do we want that power to be put in the hands of the state? Where were the accusations of online radicalization and calls for censorship when that one guy shot those Republicans at a baseball practice in 2017[0]? There's definitely no shortage of hyperbolic anti-Republican sentiment, out in the open, on social media platforms even more mainstream than 4chan. Surely if we're banning access to places where the NZ shooter was (allegedly) "radicalized," then we should prevent people like that shooter from being "radicalized" too, right? What's different about the two situations that warrants completely different rhetoric? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_sh...

fixermark 8y ago
Free will is a fascinating hypothesis that is only partially explanatory of observed human behavior. ;) To be less glib: in the US the bar is very high, but we do, in fact, have some things that we've removed from the "free will" discussion. Child pornography is the obvious example.
- adamrezich 8y ago
  Yes because the process of creating child pornography is harmfully exploitative of a child, and we as a society have decided this one of the worst things anyone could do, so we've made creating, distributing, and accessing child pornography illegal. If someone disagrees with this, they're most assuredly allowed to voice their opinion on it however they see fit, obviously as long as no child pornography is involved. Drawing a parallel between child pornography and untoward politically incorrect discussion out in the open doesn't seem like a very useful comparison, especially when I provided another recent example of a shooting that one could argue was caused by online "radicalization."
  - fixermark 8y ago
    True; CP is a bad analogy and I'm retracting it. The US bar is very high to curtailing speech as a government action, and it's worth noting that the story we're commenting on is about an Australian telco taking private action. I actually don't know the law in the US around what would happen if, for example, Verizon decided to IP-blackhole 4chan of its own initiative (in general, Americans would probably rake it over the coals for diminishing consumer choice at the very least). It'd be a hell of a show if they tried, and I don't see it coming. The example you brought up is also from the US and, I hate to say it, was probably treated differently because the US is just desensitized to the amount of violence in its culture these days. The baseball shooting was tragic, but none of the injuries were even as permanent as the ones Gabby Giffords suffered. But the New Zealand shooting was in a country far less tolerant of such intra-civil violence, and Australia already has speech constraints relative to the US (contrast their attitude on videogames to that of the US). (... but to turn the conversation around: do you think there should have been a conversation about online radicalization after the 2017 shooting? Maybe there should have been. What do you think should have been done differently?)