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This post repeatedly refers to 8chan as "lawless" and "unmoderated" but it is neither. As a whole, it is a public website subject to US law, complete with DMCA

This post repeatedly refers to 8chan as "lawless" and "unmoderated" but it is neither. As a whole, it is a public website subject to US law, complete with DMCA and search warrant contact forms. The sitewide rule is that all content must comply with US law. The media also keeps saying 8chan, 8chan, 8chan over and over, when it is really just the one most popular board ("pol") that is being discussed. But there are hundreds of boards on the site for different topics, which are moderated separately and according to their own rules. It seems like most of the outrageous incitement to violence people have posted on 8chan would be illegal under Brandenburg v. Ohio (speech is illegal if it will lead to imminent lawless action), given the mostly-valid assumption there will be readers of the post who are both radicalized and armed. This seems like the way to take down most of the violent content on 8chan if anyone would think about it for more than 5 seconds. This seems like a knee-jerk reaction to moral panic and bad PR, not a solution to anything. Cloudflare would have been in a better position to actually change 8chan if they had kept them on and pressured them.

fortran77 7y ago
A man, spreading a false rumor about a restaurant called "Meat", told people on Twitter to burn down that restaurant. He thought his restaurant was responsible for removing a graffiti mural on a building across the street. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/nyregion/crown-heights-riots-brooklyn-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/nyregion/crown-heights-ri... > “If that mural goes down, the restaurant gonna go down next,” read one comment on Ms. Price’s post [ on twitter ] , accompanied by flame emojis. > turns out that about 10 days before the meeting, Apolinar Severino, the owner of the building housing the mural, had told Mr. Caldwell that he claimed full responsibility for attempting to paint over the image of Mr. Price. Mr. Severino had been advised by a real estate agent to whitewash the entire wall while trying to refinance his mortgage on the property, he said. It turns out the owner of the building was responsible for painting over part of the graffiti and not the restaurant across the street. I reported the tweet that called for burning the restaurant across the street down to Twitter, and Twitter did remove that tweet, but didn't ban the user. There's a better article covering the story with links to the false rumors being spread on Twitter -- many with threats -- in the Brooklyn eagle https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2019/07/25/sean-price-mural-crown-heights/ https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2019/07/25/sean-price-mur... Maybe I'll go to Twitter's hosting providers and Cloudflare to get all of twitter removed, or at least made a lot slower.
- tenpies 7y ago
  > I reported the tweet that called for burning the restaurant across the street down to Twitter, and Twitter did remove that tweet You already got 99% more than the average Twitter report. Twitter really needs a better "this tweet is verifiably fake, here is the proof" option that is acted upon with relative speed.
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    Some of their highest profile accounts accounts would get hit, and they wouldn’t be wanting that. It would also make them some powerful enemies.
baddox 7y ago
Isn’t the concern about the gradual radicalization that occurs in these online communities, and not about specific posts that threaten violence or announce impending mass shootings?
- internet_user 7y ago
  Has it occurred to you that radicalization actually happens offline, perhaps even in childhood, due to some kind of real life events, and nothing to do with internet at all? All of this rooted in meatspace. The so called "social defeat". How often do you see successful people that have a fullfilling life go on rampages?
  - geofft 7y ago
    Certainly the radicalization may happen offline. But in the cases at hand, it did not. There is a significant uptick in violence associated with online radicalization, and no corresponding uptick in violence associated with offline radicalization. You can say that the role of the internet is overblown, but the evidence is there. Besides, it's a sort of weird position to take on an a) online forum b) of tech people that the internet does not have a significant role in facilitating communication that would not otherwise happen.
    - internet_user 7y ago
      where is the data? you have something that proves causality of online communication and radicalization? You make it sound it's almost like terrorism didn't exist before the internet.
      - geofft 7y ago
        > where is the data? All of these shooters have manifestos that describe how they came to believe what they believed. > You make it sound it's almost like terrorism didn't exist before the internet. No, I don't. I specifically said "uptick." This line of argument makes as much sense as showing up in a comment thread about the Capital One breach and saying "You make it sound it's almost like privacy violations didn't exist before the internet." Of course it did, but not at this scale, and we're talking about scale.
sytelus 7y ago
Brandenburg v. Ohio is interesting. Technically doesn't it mean that any speech that calls for action against existing law loses protection from First Amendment? I'm sure SC judges will make sane decisions for now but doesn't this door wide open for this possibility? Given most speech needing First Amendment protection is against some law, this SC decision feels very troublesome to me. Especially now that SC judges are appointed strictly to align with government, Brandenburg v. Ohio can be used for any speech against government to be deemed outside of first amendment protection. No?
- javagram 7y ago
  > Brandenburg v. Ohio is interesting. Technically doesn't it mean that any speech that calls for action against existing law loses protection from First Amendment? No. From the Wikipedia description of the case, “The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Brandenburg's conviction, holding that government cannot constitutionally punish abstract advocacy of force or law violation.“ The entire point of the ruling was that the government cannot punish someone for merely advocating against the law. And even dangerous speech is okay if it’s not likely to be acted on. “free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
- philwelch 7y ago
  “Imminent” and “lawless” are the operable terms. I can legally opine to my hearts content about how it could hypothetically be a good idea to rob every bank in New York but if I’m not inciting anyone to actually specifically do so, that’s not legally imminent. Likewise, if I propose a series of constitutional amendments, the net effect is to legalize or legally mandate some sort of atrocity, there’s a case that I’m not even technically advocating for lawless action. But the primary value of Brandenburg v. Ohio was in rejecting the early 20th century jurisprudence based on the “clear and present danger” status set by Schenck v. United States. Schenck and the rulings that followed it gave legal cover to imprison people who advocated for draft resistance as well as effectively banning Communist parties (on the theory upheld in Whitney v. California that communism entails the violent overthrow of the US Constitution). Brandenburg and its successor cases effectively overturned that entire line of legal reasoning in favor of an extremely strict standard that only allows the government to prohibit things like inciting mobs or engaging in criminal conspiracies.
tomatotomato37 7y ago
I think a point of contention over the unmoderated aspect is that compared to it's sister site 4chan which will actively coordinate with authorities and temporarily take the site down whenever evidence is being collected, 8chan appears to treat the authorities with contempt to the point of needing a search warrant. It's creator Fredrick calling for the site's shutdown was the killing strike in my opinion, though the site had /g/ establish a full Tor infrastructure years ago so it's not going to really truly die anytime soon Speaking of 4chan if I was Hiro right now I would be batting down the hatches and moving most of the moderation force to the problem boards to snipe any incoherent manifestos until this all blows over.
- the8472 7y ago
  Requiring a search warrant seems like due process to me, not contempt. In many other cases handing over data to law enforcement without a warrant is seen as surveillance and a breach of privacy.
- mLuby 7y ago
  >treat the authorities with contempt to the point of needing a search warrant Everyone must comply with lawful orders—that's the point of the law. Respect is not mandatory (so long as it doesn't interfere with lawful orders); it is earned and can be lost. If this were not true, the right to avoid self-incrimination would be meaningless.
  - tomatotomato37 7y ago
    The thing is that Moot (and probably Hiro too) actively intercepts and forwards mass-shooty type stuff it to the cops instead of waiting for a warrant to avoid this exact situation. Emphasis on intercept, you can't have a media shitstorm decrying you as the axis of evil if the only thing they can find on your site is mass speculation because a mod autosaged the shooter's manifesto 3 minutes after it was posted
    - mLuby 7y ago
      Questions: 1. What is "autosaged"? UrbanDictionary was no help… ^__^; 2. By intercept do you mean "notice quickly" or "prevent from arriving/posting"?
ajross 7y ago
> It seems like most of the outrageous incitement to violence people have posted on 8chan would be illegal under Brandenburg v. Ohio And yet, no one wants to police that. So... Cloudflare did it themselves. I mean, look, I get the principled point you're making, but it's on really shaky ground. Either the conduct on that site was garbage that should be removed or it wasn't. And if it was... well, good riddance. After the third (third!) mass murder advertised on the site, I think the time for principled and careful consideration has passed. Shut the garbage down, then we'll figure out if there's a better way to police this stuff going forward.
- judge2020 7y ago
  People use twitter all the time to announce crimes, but everyone knows Twitter is a limited medium and tries to police that content. But I agree with you. After enough incidents of users announcing mass shootings via the website, they should have set up rules and opened moderator/"janitor" applications to police the content. This is exactly what 4chan did when they grew media attention about bad things happening on their site. 8chan didn't do this because it goes against why the site was created in the first place.
- word-reader 7y ago
  Matthew Prince could have just said "per our terms of service we don't provide services for websites that violate US law and 8chan allows posts that in our opinion incite imminent lawless action, therefore we're terminating their account". Instead he posted this confused essay that clearly shows he understands neither 8chan nor the relevant law, instead making up weird terms and making it entirely vague what their policy will be for terminating accounts in the future.
  - ajross 7y ago
    OK, so 8chan (edit: sorry, should have written "Cloudflare") could have handled this better according to your personal sense of justice or aesthetics or whatever. And... 20 people are dead in El Paso. It's like we're not even talking about the same thing here. I just don't get your thought process, sorry. You agree that this incitement and radicalization shouldn't have had a forum, I think. You just... would rather talk about the mechanism by which the forum access was removed than the incitement and radicalization? That's really the hill you're taking your stand on?
anigbrowl 7y ago
Zzz, how many mass murders do you need before you decide there's a structural problem? That's 70 people dead so far this year from people using 8ch as a launching pad for terrorism, and just including the very obvious ones (Christchurch and El Paso). It's rational for Cloudflare to pull the plug and limit their owners' liability. And no, /pol/ is not the only hive of extremism on 8ch, although it's the best known and although there are many other boards.
geofft 7y ago
> Cloudflare would have been in a better position to actually change 8chan if they had kept them on and pressured them. So, this was Cloudflare's position as of earlier today: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/04/mass-shootings-el-paso-texas-dayton-ohio-8chan-far-right-website https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/04/mass-shoo... > "It would be the easiest thing in the world and it would feel incredibly good for us to kick 8chan off our network, but I think it would step away from the obligation that we have and cause that community to still exist and be more lawless over time." > "For us the question is which is the worse evil? Is the worse evil that we kick the can down the road and don’t take responsibility? Or do we get on the phone with people like you and say we need to own up to the fact that the internet is home to many amazing things and many terrible things and we have an absolute moral obligation to deal with that." So, the question for you and for Matthew Prince-as-of-a-few-hours-ago is, if Cloudflare was in fact in such a better position to actually change 8chan, why didn't they?
- word-reader 7y ago
  I would say that Matthew Prince and associates just wanted to feel better about themselves, avoid further bad PR, and not have things be awkward around town.
cfv 7y ago
You're complaining about the unfair closing of a bar because drugs were only sold in the toilets area. That's not how it works anywhere.
tomlockwood 7y ago
> This post repeatedly refers to 8chan as "lawless" and "unmoderated" but it is neither. I'd encourage anyone who thinks it's plausible that /pol/ is "moderated" and "lawful" to go read that board for a few minutes. Perhaps then they can comment here on whether there's a problem with the moderation, or the policing, of the board.
- lasagnaphil 7y ago
  Have you read the comment fully? 8chan is not just /pol/, it's an amalgation of hundreds of boards with different content and moderation rules.
  - tomlockwood 7y ago
    > Have you read the comment fully? What response are you expecting here? As a subset of 8chan, if /pol/ isn't properly moderated or policed, 8chan isn't properly moderated or policed. If a subset of a thing does not have a particular quality that must be universal for it to be true for that thing, then that thing does not have that quality. I'm very happy to help you out with this or any other first year undergraduate philosophical logic problems you may be having.
cthulha 7y ago
> Cloudflare would have been in a better position to actually change 8chan if they had kept them on and pressured them I call bullshit. What plan do you have in mind for _Cloudflare_ to create a culture change on _8chan_? How does this fit into Cloudflare's strategy and competencies as a network provider? Are you suggesting they have some obligation to provide service and to try and shape the community, or just that they are compelled to provide a commercial service to people who encourage massacres? You haven't thought through your own suggestion.
- word-reader 7y ago
  It had already been against Cloudflare's ToS to transmit unlawful content, like child pornography or sex trafficking. These things do not exist on 8chan. I am suggesting that Cloudflare could have clarified or expanded "unlawful content" to include certain types of incitement to violence that are normally considered within 1st amendment bounds.
taurath 7y ago
> This seems like a knee-jerk reaction to moral panic and bad PR I’m not so sure. We “ban” drug markets and terrorist groups by denying them access to infrastructure all the time. Private businesses get to decide which businesses they provide services to. Freedom of assembly doesn’t mean you get to live in a trash strewn public square, nor on private property that is leeching toxic waste into the surroundings.
- word-reader 7y ago
  Drug markets and terrorist groups are against US law while racist speech and broadly advocating the necessity of violence are not. Cloudflare had previously drawn the line at providing services for any US-legal content, then they suddenly changed it after a lot of bad press in a pretty poorly written blog post.
  - taurath 7y ago
    Whats the difference between 8chan /pol/ and a terrorist telegram group? The telegram group probably has fewer people planning attacks on US citizens.
khawkins 7y ago
Actions like these unite communities under a common threat. Voices of moderation and internal division is reduced as they fight for their common space. The people who are saying "it's us v.s. society at large" are lionized and the people who want to criticize violent or hateful acts are ignored. The community will find a way around this, there's no doubt. But now they're more radical and more threatened than they used to be. The harder it is to get to the community the more insulated and radical it becomes as fewer outside voices come in. Only the most dedicated continue on, and those are the people you want to deradicalize more than anyone. These boards have been open to everyone, if others wanted to talk to these people and provide counter arguments they're free to do so. It's the only thing that's going to go a long way in dissolving toxicity in these communities.
clairity 7y ago
i generally oppose silencing (online) speech, even the ugliest of it, because not only does it not quell the violence we wish to avoid, but it can enrage the already marginalized among us who tend to carry the most insult. as such, even taking down the offending material, while possibly legal, will only escalate the situation, requiring ever more force to control. sure, you may successfully thwart this attempt, but what about the next one? rising stakes eventually lead to a police state undergirded by pervasive surveillance. this is multi-rooted social problem that's certainly bigger than one company, especially a tech company. it's not even certain that online outlets like 8chan don't lessen real violence by allowing members to find consolation among like-minded people rather than stewing in their anger.

fortran77 7y ago

A man, spreading a false rumor about a restaurant called "Meat", told people on Twitter to burn down that restaurant. He thought his restaurant was responsible for removing a graffiti mural on a building across the street. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/nyregion/crown-heights-riots-brooklyn-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/nyregion/crown-heights-ri... > “If that mural goes down, the restaurant gonna go down next,” read one comment on Ms. Price’s post [ on twitter ] , accompanied by flame emojis. > turns out that about 10 days before the meeting, Apolinar Severino, the owner of the building housing the mural, had told Mr. Caldwell that he claimed full responsibility for attempting to paint over the image of Mr. Price. Mr. Severino had been advised by a real estate agent to whitewash the entire wall while trying to refinance his mortgage on the property, he said. It turns out the owner of the building was responsible for painting over part of the graffiti and not the restaurant across the street. I reported the tweet that called for burning the restaurant across the street down to Twitter, and Twitter did remove that tweet, but didn't ban the user. There's a better article covering the story with links to the false rumors being spread on Twitter -- many with threats -- in the Brooklyn eagle https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2019/07/25/sean-price-mural-crown-heights/ https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2019/07/25/sean-price-mur... Maybe I'll go to Twitter's hosting providers and Cloudflare to get all of twitter removed, or at least made a lot slower.

tenpies 7y ago
> I reported the tweet that called for burning the restaurant across the street down to Twitter, and Twitter did remove that tweet You already got 99% more than the average Twitter report. Twitter really needs a better "this tweet is verifiably fake, here is the proof" option that is acted upon with relative speed.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  Some of their highest profile accounts accounts would get hit, and they wouldn’t be wanting that. It would also make them some powerful enemies.

baddox 7y ago

Isn’t the concern about the gradual radicalization that occurs in these online communities, and not about specific posts that threaten violence or announce impending mass shootings?

internet_user 7y ago
Has it occurred to you that radicalization actually happens offline, perhaps even in childhood, due to some kind of real life events, and nothing to do with internet at all? All of this rooted in meatspace. The so called "social defeat". How often do you see successful people that have a fullfilling life go on rampages?
- geofft 7y ago
  Certainly the radicalization may happen offline. But in the cases at hand, it did not. There is a significant uptick in violence associated with online radicalization, and no corresponding uptick in violence associated with offline radicalization. You can say that the role of the internet is overblown, but the evidence is there. Besides, it's a sort of weird position to take on an a) online forum b) of tech people that the internet does not have a significant role in facilitating communication that would not otherwise happen.
  - internet_user 7y ago
    where is the data? you have something that proves causality of online communication and radicalization? You make it sound it's almost like terrorism didn't exist before the internet.
    - geofft 7y ago
      > where is the data? All of these shooters have manifestos that describe how they came to believe what they believed. > You make it sound it's almost like terrorism didn't exist before the internet. No, I don't. I specifically said "uptick." This line of argument makes as much sense as showing up in a comment thread about the Capital One breach and saying "You make it sound it's almost like privacy violations didn't exist before the internet." Of course it did, but not at this scale, and we're talking about scale.

sytelus 7y ago

Brandenburg v. Ohio is interesting. Technically doesn't it mean that any speech that calls for action against existing law loses protection from First Amendment? I'm sure SC judges will make sane decisions for now but doesn't this door wide open for this possibility? Given most speech needing First Amendment protection is against some law, this SC decision feels very troublesome to me. Especially now that SC judges are appointed strictly to align with government, Brandenburg v. Ohio can be used for any speech against government to be deemed outside of first amendment protection. No?

javagram 7y ago
> Brandenburg v. Ohio is interesting. Technically doesn't it mean that any speech that calls for action against existing law loses protection from First Amendment? No. From the Wikipedia description of the case, “The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Brandenburg's conviction, holding that government cannot constitutionally punish abstract advocacy of force or law violation.“ The entire point of the ruling was that the government cannot punish someone for merely advocating against the law. And even dangerous speech is okay if it’s not likely to be acted on. “free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
philwelch 7y ago
“Imminent” and “lawless” are the operable terms. I can legally opine to my hearts content about how it could hypothetically be a good idea to rob every bank in New York but if I’m not inciting anyone to actually specifically do so, that’s not legally imminent. Likewise, if I propose a series of constitutional amendments, the net effect is to legalize or legally mandate some sort of atrocity, there’s a case that I’m not even technically advocating for lawless action. But the primary value of Brandenburg v. Ohio was in rejecting the early 20th century jurisprudence based on the “clear and present danger” status set by Schenck v. United States. Schenck and the rulings that followed it gave legal cover to imprison people who advocated for draft resistance as well as effectively banning Communist parties (on the theory upheld in Whitney v. California that communism entails the violent overthrow of the US Constitution). Brandenburg and its successor cases effectively overturned that entire line of legal reasoning in favor of an extremely strict standard that only allows the government to prohibit things like inciting mobs or engaging in criminal conspiracies.

tomatotomato37 7y ago

I think a point of contention over the unmoderated aspect is that compared to it's sister site 4chan which will actively coordinate with authorities and temporarily take the site down whenever evidence is being collected, 8chan appears to treat the authorities with contempt to the point of needing a search warrant. It's creator Fredrick calling for the site's shutdown was the killing strike in my opinion, though the site had /g/ establish a full Tor infrastructure years ago so it's not going to really truly die anytime soon Speaking of 4chan if I was Hiro right now I would be batting down the hatches and moving most of the moderation force to the problem boards to snipe any incoherent manifestos until this all blows over.

the8472 7y ago
Requiring a search warrant seems like due process to me, not contempt. In many other cases handing over data to law enforcement without a warrant is seen as surveillance and a breach of privacy.
mLuby 7y ago
>treat the authorities with contempt to the point of needing a search warrant Everyone must comply with lawful orders—that's the point of the law. Respect is not mandatory (so long as it doesn't interfere with lawful orders); it is earned and can be lost. If this were not true, the right to avoid self-incrimination would be meaningless.
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  The thing is that Moot (and probably Hiro too) actively intercepts and forwards mass-shooty type stuff it to the cops instead of waiting for a warrant to avoid this exact situation. Emphasis on intercept, you can't have a media shitstorm decrying you as the axis of evil if the only thing they can find on your site is mass speculation because a mod autosaged the shooter's manifesto 3 minutes after it was posted
  - mLuby 7y ago
    Questions: 1. What is "autosaged"? UrbanDictionary was no help… ^__^; 2. By intercept do you mean "notice quickly" or "prevent from arriving/posting"?

ajross 7y ago

> It seems like most of the outrageous incitement to violence people have posted on 8chan would be illegal under Brandenburg v. Ohio And yet, no one wants to police that. So... Cloudflare did it themselves. I mean, look, I get the principled point you're making, but it's on really shaky ground. Either the conduct on that site was garbage that should be removed or it wasn't. And if it was... well, good riddance. After the third (third!) mass murder advertised on the site, I think the time for principled and careful consideration has passed. Shut the garbage down, then we'll figure out if there's a better way to police this stuff going forward.

judge2020 7y ago
People use twitter all the time to announce crimes, but everyone knows Twitter is a limited medium and tries to police that content. But I agree with you. After enough incidents of users announcing mass shootings via the website, they should have set up rules and opened moderator/"janitor" applications to police the content. This is exactly what 4chan did when they grew media attention about bad things happening on their site. 8chan didn't do this because it goes against why the site was created in the first place.
word-reader 7y ago
Matthew Prince could have just said "per our terms of service we don't provide services for websites that violate US law and 8chan allows posts that in our opinion incite imminent lawless action, therefore we're terminating their account". Instead he posted this confused essay that clearly shows he understands neither 8chan nor the relevant law, instead making up weird terms and making it entirely vague what their policy will be for terminating accounts in the future.
- ajross 7y ago
  OK, so 8chan (edit: sorry, should have written "Cloudflare") could have handled this better according to your personal sense of justice or aesthetics or whatever. And... 20 people are dead in El Paso. It's like we're not even talking about the same thing here. I just don't get your thought process, sorry. You agree that this incitement and radicalization shouldn't have had a forum, I think. You just... would rather talk about the mechanism by which the forum access was removed than the incitement and radicalization? That's really the hill you're taking your stand on?

anigbrowl 7y ago

Zzz, how many mass murders do you need before you decide there's a structural problem? That's 70 people dead so far this year from people using 8ch as a launching pad for terrorism, and just including the very obvious ones (Christchurch and El Paso). It's rational for Cloudflare to pull the plug and limit their owners' liability. And no, /pol/ is not the only hive of extremism on 8ch, although it's the best known and although there are many other boards.

geofft 7y ago

> Cloudflare would have been in a better position to actually change 8chan if they had kept them on and pressured them. So, this was Cloudflare's position as of earlier today: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/04/mass-shootings-el-paso-texas-dayton-ohio-8chan-far-right-website https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/04/mass-shoo... > "It would be the easiest thing in the world and it would feel incredibly good for us to kick 8chan off our network, but I think it would step away from the obligation that we have and cause that community to still exist and be more lawless over time." > "For us the question is which is the worse evil? Is the worse evil that we kick the can down the road and don’t take responsibility? Or do we get on the phone with people like you and say we need to own up to the fact that the internet is home to many amazing things and many terrible things and we have an absolute moral obligation to deal with that." So, the question for you and for Matthew Prince-as-of-a-few-hours-ago is, if Cloudflare was in fact in such a better position to actually change 8chan, why didn't they?

word-reader 7y ago
I would say that Matthew Prince and associates just wanted to feel better about themselves, avoid further bad PR, and not have things be awkward around town.

cfv 7y ago

You're complaining about the unfair closing of a bar because drugs were only sold in the toilets area. That's not how it works anywhere.

tomlockwood 7y ago

> This post repeatedly refers to 8chan as "lawless" and "unmoderated" but it is neither. I'd encourage anyone who thinks it's plausible that /pol/ is "moderated" and "lawful" to go read that board for a few minutes. Perhaps then they can comment here on whether there's a problem with the moderation, or the policing, of the board.

lasagnaphil 7y ago
Have you read the comment fully? 8chan is not just /pol/, it's an amalgation of hundreds of boards with different content and moderation rules.
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  > Have you read the comment fully? What response are you expecting here? As a subset of 8chan, if /pol/ isn't properly moderated or policed, 8chan isn't properly moderated or policed. If a subset of a thing does not have a particular quality that must be universal for it to be true for that thing, then that thing does not have that quality. I'm very happy to help you out with this or any other first year undergraduate philosophical logic problems you may be having.

cthulha 7y ago

> Cloudflare would have been in a better position to actually change 8chan if they had kept them on and pressured them I call bullshit. What plan do you have in mind for _Cloudflare_ to create a culture change on _8chan_? How does this fit into Cloudflare's strategy and competencies as a network provider? Are you suggesting they have some obligation to provide service and to try and shape the community, or just that they are compelled to provide a commercial service to people who encourage massacres? You haven't thought through your own suggestion.

word-reader 7y ago
It had already been against Cloudflare's ToS to transmit unlawful content, like child pornography or sex trafficking. These things do not exist on 8chan. I am suggesting that Cloudflare could have clarified or expanded "unlawful content" to include certain types of incitement to violence that are normally considered within 1st amendment bounds.

taurath 7y ago

> This seems like a knee-jerk reaction to moral panic and bad PR I’m not so sure. We “ban” drug markets and terrorist groups by denying them access to infrastructure all the time. Private businesses get to decide which businesses they provide services to. Freedom of assembly doesn’t mean you get to live in a trash strewn public square, nor on private property that is leeching toxic waste into the surroundings.

word-reader 7y ago
Drug markets and terrorist groups are against US law while racist speech and broadly advocating the necessity of violence are not. Cloudflare had previously drawn the line at providing services for any US-legal content, then they suddenly changed it after a lot of bad press in a pretty poorly written blog post.
- taurath 7y ago
  Whats the difference between 8chan /pol/ and a terrorist telegram group? The telegram group probably has fewer people planning attacks on US citizens.

khawkins 7y ago

Actions like these unite communities under a common threat. Voices of moderation and internal division is reduced as they fight for their common space. The people who are saying "it's us v.s. society at large" are lionized and the people who want to criticize violent or hateful acts are ignored. The community will find a way around this, there's no doubt. But now they're more radical and more threatened than they used to be. The harder it is to get to the community the more insulated and radical it becomes as fewer outside voices come in. Only the most dedicated continue on, and those are the people you want to deradicalize more than anyone. These boards have been open to everyone, if others wanted to talk to these people and provide counter arguments they're free to do so. It's the only thing that's going to go a long way in dissolving toxicity in these communities.

clairity 7y ago

i generally oppose silencing (online) speech, even the ugliest of it, because not only does it not quell the violence we wish to avoid, but it can enrage the already marginalized among us who tend to carry the most insult. as such, even taking down the offending material, while possibly legal, will only escalate the situation, requiring ever more force to control. sure, you may successfully thwart this attempt, but what about the next one? rising stakes eventually lead to a police state undergirded by pervasive surveillance. this is multi-rooted social problem that's certainly bigger than one company, especially a tech company. it's not even certain that online outlets like 8chan don't lessen real violence by allowing members to find consolation among like-minded people rather than stewing in their anger.