5 ms·

> I'm guessing/assuming that 8chan is an anything goes censorship free community (like 4chan was/is?). And maybe it's not explicitly in support of racist ideals

> I'm guessing/assuming that 8chan is an anything goes censorship free community (like 4chan was/is?). And maybe it's not explicitly in support of racist ideals but instead refuses to condemn any ideologies or discussion More or less. More so than 4chan. 8chan is like Reddit (and unlike 4chan) in that it allows anyone to set up a subcommunity that they can moderate however they like. Only illegal content (and nude/sexual images of children, and certain spam) isn't allowed at all. Individual boards may be moderated very tightly. There are all kinds of boards there, even for communists, and for Muslims. They're scrupulous about allowing even things they don't like. /pol/ is the board where these manifestos keep getting posted. The shootings generally get celebrated there. It's actively moderated, as visible in the moderation log: https://8ch.net/log.php?board=pol https://8ch.net/log.php?board=pol But /pol/ is not just any board. I stopped paying attention after the Christchurch shooting, but at that time, it was the only large global board, a board owned by the administration. Global site volunteers, who are normally only authorized to handle illegal content (aside from roles they have on other boards) were allowed to moderate /pol/. The site owners set the rules and policies for the board and appointed its ordinary (non-global) moderators. /pol/ became a global board after its previous owner mismanaged it and the administration seized it. The community was already like that, and if the administration tried to change things locally people would just flock to a different more permissive board. But I think 8chan is a little more than just a platform in this case.

lonelappde 7y ago
Explain to me the important differences between /pol/ and Al Queda, that would make the US military choose not to order drone strikes on /pol/ operatives
- liability 7y ago
  Control of territory. Al Queda and/or their associates were effectively a government, while /pol/ can only wish for that sort of power. (Related to that is the matter of geographic distribution. One of these guys could be your next door neighbor, and the US Military is not allowed to drop bombs in American neighborhoods. That's in the Constitution.)
- irvwash 7y ago
  /pol/ is not an organization. It's a loose community of people, almost none of whom have done anything worse than expressing terrible opinions. Shootings are incentivized by /pol/ and frequently announced there, but they're not planned on /pol/. I don't think "/pol/ operatives" meaningfully exist.
  - hedora 7y ago
    Some /pol/ members have committed acts of mass murder. Al Queda is also a loose organization without explicit membership, etc. I don’t see any difference between the two organizational structures from an anti terror perspective (though Al Queda might sometimes organize humanitarian actions — Many Islamic terrorist groups have a recruiting arm that does this sort of thing, and I can’t keep them straight anymore)
    - satokema 7y ago
      Some U.S. citizens have committed acts of mass murder. Al Queda is also a loose organization without explicit membership, etc. I don’t see any difference between the two organizational structures from an anti terror perspective (though Al Queda might sometimes organize humanitarian actions — Many Islamic terrorist groups have a recruiting arm that does this sort of thing, and I can’t keep them straight anymore) ...do you see why your view is absurd? I can paint almost any group with that brush.
BoiledCabbage 7y ago
Think about that for a min. Racism is allowed, but not Spam. They will allow Racism, but actively moderate out Spam. What type of joke is this? There is no hiding behind it, they intentionally and actively allow it to become a breeding ground for violent racists. It's like what in the world did you guys imagining Al Qaeda recruiting msg boards l look like. "No Al Qaeda msg boards have people claiming for death to Americans". And 8chan boards are also doing the same thing. It's disgusting, but people are desensitized to how absurd it is.
- irvwash 7y ago
  > They will allow Racism, but actively moderate out Spam. Reddit used to be like that as far as I know, and though there's plenty to criticize I don't think Reddit was intentionally set up to become a breeding ground for violent racists. 8chan's policy about spam is very different from how a policy against racism would look. What it in practice means is that if someone posts the same suspicious link on a hundred boards they may be hit by a global ban instead of leaving the mess for individual board owners to clean up. Even very principled proponents of free speech usually don't mind that. There's no guarantee that spam will be cleaned up, it just doesn't get the protection of it being up to the board owner. For a long time 8chan didn't even have a functional anti-spam system. It's a practical matter foremost. A rule against racism would be much more thornier. It would have more edge cases, and it would have to be enforced more consistently. It would be a lot more work and it would be more arbitrary. And it would go against the sensibilities of the original founder, who's a libertarian (I don't know if he's racist). 8chan wasn't created to be a breeding ground for violent racists. It was created to be a make-your-own-forum website with minimalist rules. For the first year, before gamergate drove more people to it, it was just that. In July 2014 an innocent roleplaying board was the most popular: http://web.archive.org/web/20140701141242/https://8chan.co/boards.html http://web.archive.org/web/20140701141242/https://8chan.co/b...
  - throwaway5d097 7y ago
    A global ban for promoting genocide or murder doesn't seem too complicated

lonelappde 7y ago

Explain to me the important differences between /pol/ and Al Queda, that would make the US military choose not to order drone strikes on /pol/ operatives

liability 7y ago
Control of territory. Al Queda and/or their associates were effectively a government, while /pol/ can only wish for that sort of power. (Related to that is the matter of geographic distribution. One of these guys could be your next door neighbor, and the US Military is not allowed to drop bombs in American neighborhoods. That's in the Constitution.)
irvwash 7y ago
/pol/ is not an organization. It's a loose community of people, almost none of whom have done anything worse than expressing terrible opinions. Shootings are incentivized by /pol/ and frequently announced there, but they're not planned on /pol/. I don't think "/pol/ operatives" meaningfully exist.
- hedora 7y ago
  Some /pol/ members have committed acts of mass murder. Al Queda is also a loose organization without explicit membership, etc. I don’t see any difference between the two organizational structures from an anti terror perspective (though Al Queda might sometimes organize humanitarian actions — Many Islamic terrorist groups have a recruiting arm that does this sort of thing, and I can’t keep them straight anymore)
  - satokema 7y ago
    Some U.S. citizens have committed acts of mass murder. Al Queda is also a loose organization without explicit membership, etc. I don’t see any difference between the two organizational structures from an anti terror perspective (though Al Queda might sometimes organize humanitarian actions — Many Islamic terrorist groups have a recruiting arm that does this sort of thing, and I can’t keep them straight anymore) ...do you see why your view is absurd? I can paint almost any group with that brush.

BoiledCabbage 7y ago

Think about that for a min. Racism is allowed, but not Spam. They will allow Racism, but actively moderate out Spam. What type of joke is this? There is no hiding behind it, they intentionally and actively allow it to become a breeding ground for violent racists. It's like what in the world did you guys imagining Al Qaeda recruiting msg boards l look like. "No Al Qaeda msg boards have people claiming for death to Americans". And 8chan boards are also doing the same thing. It's disgusting, but people are desensitized to how absurd it is.

irvwash 7y ago
> They will allow Racism, but actively moderate out Spam. Reddit used to be like that as far as I know, and though there's plenty to criticize I don't think Reddit was intentionally set up to become a breeding ground for violent racists. 8chan's policy about spam is very different from how a policy against racism would look. What it in practice means is that if someone posts the same suspicious link on a hundred boards they may be hit by a global ban instead of leaving the mess for individual board owners to clean up. Even very principled proponents of free speech usually don't mind that. There's no guarantee that spam will be cleaned up, it just doesn't get the protection of it being up to the board owner. For a long time 8chan didn't even have a functional anti-spam system. It's a practical matter foremost. A rule against racism would be much more thornier. It would have more edge cases, and it would have to be enforced more consistently. It would be a lot more work and it would be more arbitrary. And it would go against the sensibilities of the original founder, who's a libertarian (I don't know if he's racist). 8chan wasn't created to be a breeding ground for violent racists. It was created to be a make-your-own-forum website with minimalist rules. For the first year, before gamergate drove more people to it, it was just that. In July 2014 an innocent roleplaying board was the most popular: http://web.archive.org/web/20140701141242/https://8chan.co/boards.html http://web.archive.org/web/20140701141242/https://8chan.co/b...
- throwaway5d097 7y ago
  A global ban for promoting genocide or murder doesn't seem too complicated