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We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. What 8chan is doing i

We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. What 8chan is doing is exactly the same, minus the Islamist part, yet there's hypocrisy in how they're treated vs e.g. the social media wing of ISIS. These people are trying to kill as many of us as possible. In no way should society accept it. It's simple societal self-defense. Root out the terrorists wherever they may congregate, regardless of whichever flavor of terrorist they happen to be.

rory096 7y ago
Cloudflare provides services to a number of Islamist terror organizations: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cloudflare-cybersecurity-terrorist-groups_n_5c127778e4b0835fe3277f2f https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cloudflare-cybersecurity-terr...
- magicalist 7y ago
  > Cloudflare provides services to a number of Islamist terror organizations yes, and that entire article is about people trying to get them to take them down and the criminal statute they're using to force the issue, which is part of the GP's point. Not a lot of folks in the federal government hand wringing about deplatforming on that one.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    And yet, Cloudflare didn't take them down proactively like they did with The Daily Stormer and now 8chan. Under what standards are sites like 8chan worse than the Taliban?
    - mcguire 7y ago
      Proactively?
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        Without being forced by a court to do so.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - mwfunk 7y ago
      Probably it's closer to home- those sites fuel domestic terrorism, whereas the Taliban do not. Also public pressure and public attention. They're probably incredibly hesitant to take anything down, but if something becomes front page news then they have to deal with it. Also I don't know what's proactive about any of this, if anything it's way too little too late. The sites you mention provide absolutely zero value to anything resembling civilization- they're gathering places for sociopaths and psychotic morons. I'm not even close to being remotely upset that they may have been treated more harshly than actual ISIS or Taliban sites or whatever. There is a level of pathetic beneath which it all just kind of blends together and it doesn't make sense to attempt to rank them. Yeah, ISIS is shittier than the people who like Daily Stormer, but they're both so shitty that it's not really possible to rank their shittiness relative to each other. It's like the difference between jumping off a 50 story building vs. a 100 story building- there is a distinction, but it doesn't really matter.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        I don't think 8chan was exactly a good site, but I'd still put it in the category of "internet-neutral". There's some horrible stuff there (which is all you really hear about), a lot of neutral stuff and a little bit of good. IMO the reason Cloudflare took down TDS and 8chan but not the Taliban or Hamas is simply outgroup vs fargroup. [0] The operators, users and targets of 8chan or TDS are all familiarly western but different enough to hate, while islamic terror organizations are so different it's hard to relate to them - sort of like that joke about how the more similar two religious denominations are, the more likely it is that they hate the other. [1] 0: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religio...
        mwfunk 7y ago
        I agree with you. Those sites were closer to home and less alien to Americans, and thus might get more scrutiny and judgement. That's got to be a factor. But I've got to think avoiding bad publicity and negative headlines is the #1 factor behind any inconsistencies in their reaction. The news cycle can be a powerful force for companies concerned about how they're perceived by their investors.
    - dahdum 7y ago
      Looks like the standard is there hasn’t been enough bad press about their material support of those terrorist orgs yet. They clearly wait for the public outrage before acting.
      - afiori 7y ago
        According to some CEO interview they hold on as long as possible until forced otherwise. This is relevant as the censorship here (whether justified or not, right or wrong it is censorship) is not done by CF, but by a faceless internet mob that is attacking both CF and 8chan. CF has all the right to terminate its relationships with anyone. social media mobs should not force companies to exercise that right.
        DuskStar 7y ago
        > According to some CEO interview they hold on as long as possible until forced otherwise. I think an appropriate qualifier here might be that they used to hold on as long as possible. I don't think that's universally true anymore. > This is relevant as the censorship here (whether justified or not, right or wrong it is censorship) is not done by CF, but by a faceless internet mob that is attacking both CF and 8chan. In the same sense that a mob outside the courthouse ensured a guilty verdict, perhaps. But it's still the jurors who actually acted.
        afiori 7y ago
        > In the same sense that a mob outside the courthouse ensured a guilty verdict, perhaps. But it's still the jurors who actually acted. I am not sure what you mean here... but I would find in both cases very problematic that a mob could wield such power. A mob is not a democratic representation.
        DuskStar 7y ago
        I meant that the mob may have made demands, but the only power the mob has is that which it is given. Just like the verdict reached by those jurors, Cloudflare chose their own path.
- adrr 7y ago
  If 8chan or dailystormer never made the news, cloudflare would still be hosting them. It isn’t public opinion that is the big factor, enterprise client won’t use controversial services. Having a few large enterprise customers call up saying they can’t be hosted with a hate site is what made the CEO of cloudflare flip his decision. I do think cloudflare will be forced to be more palatable to enterprise customers if they go public. One biggest factors why I don’t use them is who they provide access to.
  - dahdum 7y ago
    I think you have it spot on, but public opinion is driving those enterprise customers to make that call. They still support the terror group websites, even after being informed of them, so it’s not based on policy but rather a business decision.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      If I was choosing for a company like Monsanto that has the possibility of getting majorly shat on by internet opinion, Cloudflare's seeming policy of "if the media hates you, we'll drop you" would be the exact opposite of comforting.
- x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago
  Who has a higher body count in the West, Alt-Righters or ISIS?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- rlt 7y ago
  If I were a US intelligence organization I would be incredibly happy that terror organizations were voluntarily letting a US company MITM all of their traffic...
buildzr 7y ago
> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. Speak for yourself, I would. I've downloaded and distributed ISIS propaganda videos before out of sheer intrigue. Just because someone says something you don't like doesn't mean you should ban it. Of course, this will be downvoted to hell because this is a hot topic at the moment, but we shouldn't let that too-near emotion influence out policies. We've seen that lead to stuff like the PATRIOT act in the past and we surely don't need another one of those.
- pavel_lishin 7y ago
  Why?
- bradhe 7y ago
  weird flex but ok
- chacha2 7y ago
  Out of all the internet contrarian arguments Ive seen this is one of the best.
- vowelless 7y ago
  That’s one way to get onto a list.
- DrDimension 7y ago
  Isn't it funny how every post here that argues against censorship is being down-voted to the point of invisibility? To me, it goes to show that there is no limit to the censorial impulse. That should tell you something.
  - komali2 7y ago
    This isn't censorship, it's someone being shown the door.
    - DrDimension 7y ago
matt-attack 7y ago
> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site Why? Think about what you're saying. Imagine equivalents: 1. We wouldn't allow cell phones that let terrorists communicate 2. We wouldn't allow roads that allow anyone to carry whatever contra-ban they want down them. 3. We wouldn't allow trains that allow just anyone to carry books on whatever topic they want. 4. We can't allow for air that allows two willing participants to communicate using sound waves. The hubris to imagine that we dare have a say in whether a group of adults date to communicate with each other.
- bobfromhuddle 7y ago
  The difference is that every single one of your counterexamples is something that society depends on. Nobody depends on 8chan. 8chan is not comparable to "air". This point is so incredibly banal that I'm surprised to find myself making it.
  - not_a_cop75 7y ago
    Tis true. No one NEEDS free speech. Why don't you just state the obvious opinion? The First amendment was a mistake.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
      It is funny. This exactly the argument put forth with 2nd amendment. No one needs all them weapons of wohr.
  - hokumguru 7y ago
    Indeed, but speech itself is is. I think OP's point was that free-speech is as fundamental a "air" and that everybody everywhere depends on it.
    - bobfromhuddle 7y ago
      And they're free to continue their speech elsewhere. Cloudflare and Voxility are within their rights to refuse service to a client on the basis that the client is persistently associated with terrorism and kiddy porn. Why is that a remotely controversial statement? Nobody is suggesting that chan-tards should be rounded up for unamerican activities, and I'd be the first to speak against that, but CF don't need to tarnish their brand with 8chans bullshit. They're free to withhold their support and so express an opinion.
akerro 7y ago
Facebook for a few weeks didn't want to remove video of a Mexican woman being beheaded. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/facebook-removes-beheading-video-after-david-cameron-comments-8898626.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/fa...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Pigo 7y ago
Fahrenheit 451
mieseratte 7y ago
> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. I certainly would tolerate those sites. Free speech arguments aside, you can't kill the hydra, but you can severely degrade intelligence operations watching that hydra. Best case the bad guys all end up on sites already being surveilled, worst case they slip under the radar. We had this problem years ago, hacktivists targeting ISIS channels. They scatter to the winds, intelligence ends up doing more work for less rewards. Feel good outrage made things worse.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  And a few months later ISIS died because the lack of easily-spread propaganda destroyed its ability to recruit susceptible idiots to its cause to replace all the soldiers that were being killed. IOW, mission accomplished.
  - fyrabanks 7y ago
    ISIS is still very much an active organization, even if they don't control physical territory any longer.
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      I think that was sarcasm / a George W. reference, or least assume it is since I was referring to events circa 2015.
  - ameister14 7y ago
    Is that what you honestly think happened?
- fyrabanks 7y ago
  Exactly this. These sort of folk started congregating on 8chan when they got pushed out of 4chan. I certainly don't condone mass shootings, white supremacists, etc., but if you think denying 8chan hosting is going to solve this problem, you are sorely mistaken. All it does is force these people into more concentrated forums where there is less push back and opposing views to their radical ideas. Ultimately, it forces them into corners of the internet that are harder for outside groups to locate and monitor for potential threats. I'll be quite honest, I don't know what a "good" solution here is, but I really don't think this is it.
XaoDaoCaoCao 7y ago
Lol These aren't exactly organized bands of people funneling in millions of dollars for carrying out actual training and misson planning/execution. They're watering holes where disaffected elements of society hyperbolically play up various happenings. Just take a step back for a moment. We have an increasing population and increasing saturation of that population with streams of data. When something happens, we know with a speed that is uncommon in human history (to be euphemistic about it). More population = more happenings = more things to emotionally charge people in the same 24 hour frame. Even if population increases by a bajillion, we still only have 24 hours in a media cycle. Even if the per capita incidence of violence decreases, a rising population means more slices of highly charged emotional manipulation within the same media cycle. Edit: So instead of increasing population, resultant increasing pop density, increasing information density, and a myriad of clusterf* systems running haywire (even in an era where we're safer than even 20 years ago)...4chan and 8chan are the devil and satan for allowing people to shitpost in a hyperbolic hyperironic manner?
- mffnbs 7y ago
  The "hyperirony" excuse is complete bullshit. It's not redeeming when the defense is that they only support, encourage, and enable terrorism because it's a joke. That would make it more despicable, even. Instead we have incredibly racist and hateful people who don't see themselves that way making excuses. They're still shit humans. You don't murder people and say it was irony as your defense.
  - vernie 7y ago
    But I said "lol" what more do you want from me? A "lel" perhaps?
  - XaoDaoCaoCao 7y ago
    Shit humans have always existed. But claiming they support "terrorism" in the same sense that we think of organizational terrorism is ridiculous. 4chan and 8chan didn't create hyperirony (although they certainly cultivate massive gardens of it) or densensitization. Our media cycle has created it in tandem with a feedback loop that synergizes with the principle of "more people + same time amount = more hyperslices of emotion eliciting news that distort mental maps of larger-than-self situations" You're safer at a wal-mart than prior 4chan and 8chan. But if you combine higher population density and information density, you'll get more raw events of violence even if the chance of experiencing violence has gone down. Imo, there's a more insidious risk in allotting more powers of censorship to entities who are far less subject to reciprocal investigation. Think of 9/11. If we had done nothing, we would be safer and more prosperous today. We let the fleas provoke us into gouging untold amounts of flesh to stop itches. Edit: A more simple way to phrase it is that hyperirony and the lack of "proper affect", which is really what people seem to be most horrified about, is a defense against the 24/7 atrocity exhibition which turns emotion into banality.
fgdaniels 7y ago
Your tactic is identical to that of Weimar-republic anti-Semites, but aimed at a different hub of people. You even threw in the genocide-incoming bit, "they're trying to kill as many of us as possible"! I recommend you have a look at the Kabbalah.info course on anti-Semitism - who can have more experience with it than the Jews themselves? (I'm saying this glibly because this is unpleasant work and the amount of work it requires to be able to say this is vastly underestimated.) Perhaps... communicate, then think, then understand and only then act? You've moved from "counter terrorism", to "root out terrorism", to "root out image boards" - which is "root out the congregation". Breathing pause. "Root out the radical congregations, Jews, fags, Roma's, chans, white nationalists, whatever, just root them out completely" is the WW2 analogy. The next move is: "root out the causes of terrorism" - but we didn't get to that last time. It sure isn't any particular group of people. Solve the root causes. It's either that or keep mirroring their impotent group defense mechanism on a more subtle level, which will in fact justify them to do whatever they initially wanted on a larger scale. The solution to anti-Semitism sure as hell is not "destroy the anti-Semitec communities, burn their homes, kill their sons, rape their wives"! That is throwing gasoline onto the bonfire. Edit: comment, please. I don't like throwing cold water on outrage porn either, but I don't want this to escalate further. If it escalates further, the chans will go full dark, which means a massive influx of teenagers on the darkweb, and the good parts of the darkweb becoming a lot less cool, also, incidentally.
khawkins 7y ago
And yet, we let Islam continue to be preached in this nation. When will we recognize that extremist ideologies like these can not be allowed to fester? Freedom of speech needs its limits.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
  First they came for the ragh'ds, but that was ok cuz I didn't like em and who wears a carpet anyway. Then..
Animats 7y ago
We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. We used to, until quite recently. You could read Dabiq, the well-produced magazine of ISIL/ISIS.[1] They definitely glorified their terrorist incidents. With color pictures of their operations. All with religious justification. "Islam is the religion of the sword, not pacifism". (Dabiq, issue 7.) Dabiq probably inspired enemies more than supporters. Dabiq says that there can be no compromise until the followers of Allah rule the earth. So ISIS could never have a peaceful border with anybody. On March 23, 2019, the last territory controlled by ISIS was captured. 8Chan is a minor annoyance in comparison. I'd let them blither and look foolish. [1] https://clarionproject.org/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-magazine-dabiq-50/ https://clarionproject.org/islamic-state-isis-isil-propagand...
- inscionent 7y ago
  They have gone from blithering to murdering. ICYMI
znpy 7y ago
There is a fallacy in your thinking imo. Sites like 8chan are not entirely devoted to radicalisation, just like a mosque is not devoted to radicalisation. Yet sometimes in a mosque some evil islamic imam or something preaches radicalisation. Yet we tolerate and welcome mosques. Then why shouldn’t we tolerate and welcome sites like 8chan? Also please keep in mind that now that 8chan has been basically shut down, we have no way of make an opinion of our own.
- laughinghan 7y ago
  What are you talking about? We can and do arrest, charge, and convict "evil islamic imams" that "preach radicalization", and don't let them operate mosques. We tolerate and welcome mosques because they ban radicals and report them to the FBI: "Monteilh eventually so unnerved Orange County's Muslim community that that they got a restraining order against him. [T]hey also reported Monteilh to the FBI" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/20/fbi-informant https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/20/fbi-informant You do know that Homeland is a TV show and not real life, right? A mosque that openly fostered extremism like 8chan did would of course get shut down. By contrast, 8chan has not been shut down. Its operations have been disrupted, but it hasn't shut down, anymore than Cloudflare has shut down just because they had a site outage last month.
  - znpy 7y ago
    > What are you talking about? We can and do arrest, charge, and convict "evil islamic imams" that "preach radicalization", and don't let them operate mosques. Indeed, you arrest the single imam, you don't shut down the whole mosque. That's the point.
    - laughinghan 7y ago
      If a mosque openly fostered extremism in spite of arrests and multiple massacres, you'd have a problem with their landlord refusing to continue to rent to them?
chroma 7y ago
> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. I completely disagree. I've read Dabiq[1] and similar publications because I want to know why people believe the things they believe. It is a good thing that such horrible ideas are available to the public, and for the same reason that it's good that flat earth sites are available to the public. JS Mill puts it best[2]: > But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. > If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. It is for these same reasons that I also read /pol/ and /leftypol/ on 8chan. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabiq_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabiq_(magazine) 2. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2

rory096 7y ago

Cloudflare provides services to a number of Islamist terror organizations: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cloudflare-cybersecurity-terrorist-groups_n_5c127778e4b0835fe3277f2f https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cloudflare-cybersecurity-terr...

magicalist 7y ago
> Cloudflare provides services to a number of Islamist terror organizations yes, and that entire article is about people trying to get them to take them down and the criminal statute they're using to force the issue, which is part of the GP's point. Not a lot of folks in the federal government hand wringing about deplatforming on that one.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  And yet, Cloudflare didn't take them down proactively like they did with The Daily Stormer and now 8chan. Under what standards are sites like 8chan worse than the Taliban?
  - mcguire 7y ago
    Proactively?
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      Without being forced by a court to do so.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - mwfunk 7y ago
    Probably it's closer to home- those sites fuel domestic terrorism, whereas the Taliban do not. Also public pressure and public attention. They're probably incredibly hesitant to take anything down, but if something becomes front page news then they have to deal with it. Also I don't know what's proactive about any of this, if anything it's way too little too late. The sites you mention provide absolutely zero value to anything resembling civilization- they're gathering places for sociopaths and psychotic morons. I'm not even close to being remotely upset that they may have been treated more harshly than actual ISIS or Taliban sites or whatever. There is a level of pathetic beneath which it all just kind of blends together and it doesn't make sense to attempt to rank them. Yeah, ISIS is shittier than the people who like Daily Stormer, but they're both so shitty that it's not really possible to rank their shittiness relative to each other. It's like the difference between jumping off a 50 story building vs. a 100 story building- there is a distinction, but it doesn't really matter.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      I don't think 8chan was exactly a good site, but I'd still put it in the category of "internet-neutral". There's some horrible stuff there (which is all you really hear about), a lot of neutral stuff and a little bit of good. IMO the reason Cloudflare took down TDS and 8chan but not the Taliban or Hamas is simply outgroup vs fargroup. [0] The operators, users and targets of 8chan or TDS are all familiarly western but different enough to hate, while islamic terror organizations are so different it's hard to relate to them - sort of like that joke about how the more similar two religious denominations are, the more likely it is that they hate the other. [1] 0: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin... 1: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religio...
      - mwfunk 7y ago
        I agree with you. Those sites were closer to home and less alien to Americans, and thus might get more scrutiny and judgement. That's got to be a factor. But I've got to think avoiding bad publicity and negative headlines is the #1 factor behind any inconsistencies in their reaction. The news cycle can be a powerful force for companies concerned about how they're perceived by their investors.
  - dahdum 7y ago
    Looks like the standard is there hasn’t been enough bad press about their material support of those terrorist orgs yet. They clearly wait for the public outrage before acting.
    - afiori 7y ago
      According to some CEO interview they hold on as long as possible until forced otherwise. This is relevant as the censorship here (whether justified or not, right or wrong it is censorship) is not done by CF, but by a faceless internet mob that is attacking both CF and 8chan. CF has all the right to terminate its relationships with anyone. social media mobs should not force companies to exercise that right.
      - DuskStar 7y ago
        > According to some CEO interview they hold on as long as possible until forced otherwise. I think an appropriate qualifier here might be that they used to hold on as long as possible. I don't think that's universally true anymore. > This is relevant as the censorship here (whether justified or not, right or wrong it is censorship) is not done by CF, but by a faceless internet mob that is attacking both CF and 8chan. In the same sense that a mob outside the courthouse ensured a guilty verdict, perhaps. But it's still the jurors who actually acted.
        afiori 7y ago
        > In the same sense that a mob outside the courthouse ensured a guilty verdict, perhaps. But it's still the jurors who actually acted. I am not sure what you mean here... but I would find in both cases very problematic that a mob could wield such power. A mob is not a democratic representation.
        DuskStar 7y ago
        I meant that the mob may have made demands, but the only power the mob has is that which it is given. Just like the verdict reached by those jurors, Cloudflare chose their own path.
adrr 7y ago
If 8chan or dailystormer never made the news, cloudflare would still be hosting them. It isn’t public opinion that is the big factor, enterprise client won’t use controversial services. Having a few large enterprise customers call up saying they can’t be hosted with a hate site is what made the CEO of cloudflare flip his decision. I do think cloudflare will be forced to be more palatable to enterprise customers if they go public. One biggest factors why I don’t use them is who they provide access to.
- dahdum 7y ago
  I think you have it spot on, but public opinion is driving those enterprise customers to make that call. They still support the terror group websites, even after being informed of them, so it’s not based on policy but rather a business decision.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    If I was choosing for a company like Monsanto that has the possibility of getting majorly shat on by internet opinion, Cloudflare's seeming policy of "if the media hates you, we'll drop you" would be the exact opposite of comforting.
x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago
Who has a higher body count in the West, Alt-Righters or ISIS?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
rlt 7y ago
If I were a US intelligence organization I would be incredibly happy that terror organizations were voluntarily letting a US company MITM all of their traffic...

buildzr 7y ago

> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. Speak for yourself, I would. I've downloaded and distributed ISIS propaganda videos before out of sheer intrigue. Just because someone says something you don't like doesn't mean you should ban it. Of course, this will be downvoted to hell because this is a hot topic at the moment, but we shouldn't let that too-near emotion influence out policies. We've seen that lead to stuff like the PATRIOT act in the past and we surely don't need another one of those.

pavel_lishin 7y ago
Why?
bradhe 7y ago
weird flex but ok
chacha2 7y ago
Out of all the internet contrarian arguments Ive seen this is one of the best.
vowelless 7y ago
That’s one way to get onto a list.
DrDimension 7y ago
Isn't it funny how every post here that argues against censorship is being down-voted to the point of invisibility? To me, it goes to show that there is no limit to the censorial impulse. That should tell you something.
- komali2 7y ago
  This isn't censorship, it's someone being shown the door.
  - DrDimension 7y ago

matt-attack 7y ago

> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site Why? Think about what you're saying. Imagine equivalents: 1. We wouldn't allow cell phones that let terrorists communicate 2. We wouldn't allow roads that allow anyone to carry whatever contra-ban they want down them. 3. We wouldn't allow trains that allow just anyone to carry books on whatever topic they want. 4. We can't allow for air that allows two willing participants to communicate using sound waves. The hubris to imagine that we dare have a say in whether a group of adults date to communicate with each other.

bobfromhuddle 7y ago
The difference is that every single one of your counterexamples is something that society depends on. Nobody depends on 8chan. 8chan is not comparable to "air". This point is so incredibly banal that I'm surprised to find myself making it.
- not_a_cop75 7y ago
  Tis true. No one NEEDS free speech. Why don't you just state the obvious opinion? The First amendment was a mistake.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
    It is funny. This exactly the argument put forth with 2nd amendment. No one needs all them weapons of wohr.
- hokumguru 7y ago
  Indeed, but speech itself is is. I think OP's point was that free-speech is as fundamental a "air" and that everybody everywhere depends on it.
  - bobfromhuddle 7y ago
    And they're free to continue their speech elsewhere. Cloudflare and Voxility are within their rights to refuse service to a client on the basis that the client is persistently associated with terrorism and kiddy porn. Why is that a remotely controversial statement? Nobody is suggesting that chan-tards should be rounded up for unamerican activities, and I'd be the first to speak against that, but CF don't need to tarnish their brand with 8chans bullshit. They're free to withhold their support and so express an opinion.

akerro 7y ago

Facebook for a few weeks didn't want to remove video of a Mexican woman being beheaded. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/facebook-removes-beheading-video-after-david-cameron-comments-8898626.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/fa...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Pigo 7y ago

Fahrenheit 451

mieseratte 7y ago

> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. I certainly would tolerate those sites. Free speech arguments aside, you can't kill the hydra, but you can severely degrade intelligence operations watching that hydra. Best case the bad guys all end up on sites already being surveilled, worst case they slip under the radar. We had this problem years ago, hacktivists targeting ISIS channels. They scatter to the winds, intelligence ends up doing more work for less rewards. Feel good outrage made things worse.

gamblor956 7y ago
And a few months later ISIS died because the lack of easily-spread propaganda destroyed its ability to recruit susceptible idiots to its cause to replace all the soldiers that were being killed. IOW, mission accomplished.
- fyrabanks 7y ago
  ISIS is still very much an active organization, even if they don't control physical territory any longer.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    I think that was sarcasm / a George W. reference, or least assume it is since I was referring to events circa 2015.
- ameister14 7y ago
  Is that what you honestly think happened?
fyrabanks 7y ago
Exactly this. These sort of folk started congregating on 8chan when they got pushed out of 4chan. I certainly don't condone mass shootings, white supremacists, etc., but if you think denying 8chan hosting is going to solve this problem, you are sorely mistaken. All it does is force these people into more concentrated forums where there is less push back and opposing views to their radical ideas. Ultimately, it forces them into corners of the internet that are harder for outside groups to locate and monitor for potential threats. I'll be quite honest, I don't know what a "good" solution here is, but I really don't think this is it.

XaoDaoCaoCao 7y ago

Lol These aren't exactly organized bands of people funneling in millions of dollars for carrying out actual training and misson planning/execution. They're watering holes where disaffected elements of society hyperbolically play up various happenings. Just take a step back for a moment. We have an increasing population and increasing saturation of that population with streams of data. When something happens, we know with a speed that is uncommon in human history (to be euphemistic about it). More population = more happenings = more things to emotionally charge people in the same 24 hour frame. Even if population increases by a bajillion, we still only have 24 hours in a media cycle. Even if the per capita incidence of violence decreases, a rising population means more slices of highly charged emotional manipulation within the same media cycle. Edit: So instead of increasing population, resultant increasing pop density, increasing information density, and a myriad of clusterf* systems running haywire (even in an era where we're safer than even 20 years ago)...4chan and 8chan are the devil and satan for allowing people to shitpost in a hyperbolic hyperironic manner?

mffnbs 7y ago
The "hyperirony" excuse is complete bullshit. It's not redeeming when the defense is that they only support, encourage, and enable terrorism because it's a joke. That would make it more despicable, even. Instead we have incredibly racist and hateful people who don't see themselves that way making excuses. They're still shit humans. You don't murder people and say it was irony as your defense.
- vernie 7y ago
  But I said "lol" what more do you want from me? A "lel" perhaps?
- XaoDaoCaoCao 7y ago
  Shit humans have always existed. But claiming they support "terrorism" in the same sense that we think of organizational terrorism is ridiculous. 4chan and 8chan didn't create hyperirony (although they certainly cultivate massive gardens of it) or densensitization. Our media cycle has created it in tandem with a feedback loop that synergizes with the principle of "more people + same time amount = more hyperslices of emotion eliciting news that distort mental maps of larger-than-self situations" You're safer at a wal-mart than prior 4chan and 8chan. But if you combine higher population density and information density, you'll get more raw events of violence even if the chance of experiencing violence has gone down. Imo, there's a more insidious risk in allotting more powers of censorship to entities who are far less subject to reciprocal investigation. Think of 9/11. If we had done nothing, we would be safer and more prosperous today. We let the fleas provoke us into gouging untold amounts of flesh to stop itches. Edit: A more simple way to phrase it is that hyperirony and the lack of "proper affect", which is really what people seem to be most horrified about, is a defense against the 24/7 atrocity exhibition which turns emotion into banality.

fgdaniels 7y ago

Your tactic is identical to that of Weimar-republic anti-Semites, but aimed at a different hub of people. You even threw in the genocide-incoming bit, "they're trying to kill as many of us as possible"! I recommend you have a look at the Kabbalah.info course on anti-Semitism - who can have more experience with it than the Jews themselves? (I'm saying this glibly because this is unpleasant work and the amount of work it requires to be able to say this is vastly underestimated.) Perhaps... communicate, then think, then understand and only then act? You've moved from "counter terrorism", to "root out terrorism", to "root out image boards" - which is "root out the congregation". Breathing pause. "Root out the radical congregations, Jews, fags, Roma's, chans, white nationalists, whatever, just root them out completely" is the WW2 analogy. The next move is: "root out the causes of terrorism" - but we didn't get to that last time. It sure isn't any particular group of people. Solve the root causes. It's either that or keep mirroring their impotent group defense mechanism on a more subtle level, which will in fact justify them to do whatever they initially wanted on a larger scale. The solution to anti-Semitism sure as hell is not "destroy the anti-Semitec communities, burn their homes, kill their sons, rape their wives"! That is throwing gasoline onto the bonfire. Edit: comment, please. I don't like throwing cold water on outrage porn either, but I don't want this to escalate further. If it escalates further, the chans will go full dark, which means a massive influx of teenagers on the darkweb, and the good parts of the darkweb becoming a lot less cool, also, incidentally.

khawkins 7y ago

And yet, we let Islam continue to be preached in this nation. When will we recognize that extremist ideologies like these can not be allowed to fester? Freedom of speech needs its limits.

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
First they came for the ragh'ds, but that was ok cuz I didn't like em and who wears a carpet anyway. Then..

Animats 7y ago

We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. We used to, until quite recently. You could read Dabiq, the well-produced magazine of ISIL/ISIS.[1] They definitely glorified their terrorist incidents. With color pictures of their operations. All with religious justification. "Islam is the religion of the sword, not pacifism". (Dabiq, issue 7.) Dabiq probably inspired enemies more than supporters. Dabiq says that there can be no compromise until the followers of Allah rule the earth. So ISIS could never have a peaceful border with anybody. On March 23, 2019, the last territory controlled by ISIS was captured. 8Chan is a minor annoyance in comparison. I'd let them blither and look foolish. [1] https://clarionproject.org/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-magazine-dabiq-50/ https://clarionproject.org/islamic-state-isis-isil-propagand...

inscionent 7y ago
They have gone from blithering to murdering. ICYMI

znpy 7y ago

There is a fallacy in your thinking imo. Sites like 8chan are not entirely devoted to radicalisation, just like a mosque is not devoted to radicalisation. Yet sometimes in a mosque some evil islamic imam or something preaches radicalisation. Yet we tolerate and welcome mosques. Then why shouldn’t we tolerate and welcome sites like 8chan? Also please keep in mind that now that 8chan has been basically shut down, we have no way of make an opinion of our own.

laughinghan 7y ago
What are you talking about? We can and do arrest, charge, and convict "evil islamic imams" that "preach radicalization", and don't let them operate mosques. We tolerate and welcome mosques because they ban radicals and report them to the FBI: "Monteilh eventually so unnerved Orange County's Muslim community that that they got a restraining order against him. [T]hey also reported Monteilh to the FBI" https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/20/fbi-informant https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/20/fbi-informant You do know that Homeland is a TV show and not real life, right? A mosque that openly fostered extremism like 8chan did would of course get shut down. By contrast, 8chan has not been shut down. Its operations have been disrupted, but it hasn't shut down, anymore than Cloudflare has shut down just because they had a site outage last month.
- znpy 7y ago
  > What are you talking about? We can and do arrest, charge, and convict "evil islamic imams" that "preach radicalization", and don't let them operate mosques. Indeed, you arrest the single imam, you don't shut down the whole mosque. That's the point.
  - laughinghan 7y ago
    If a mosque openly fostered extremism in spite of arrests and multiple massacres, you'd have a problem with their landlord refusing to continue to rent to them?

chroma 7y ago

> We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. I completely disagree. I've read Dabiq[1] and similar publications because I want to know why people believe the things they believe. It is a good thing that such horrible ideas are available to the public, and for the same reason that it's good that flat earth sites are available to the public. JS Mill puts it best[2]: > But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. > If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. It is for these same reasons that I also read /pol/ and /leftypol/ on 8chan. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabiq_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabiq_(magazine) 2. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2