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There are other ways to deal with this than censorship. Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening v

There are other ways to deal with this than censorship. Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? It seems actually useful that these people are willing to make these kind of plans in the public eye. Force them underground and behind encryption and it will be harder to monitor. Does anyone know how law enforcement engages with places like 8chan? Instead of curtailing free speech and pushing for censorship (which will have anti-humanitarian effects soon enough), why not enforce the laws already on the books and investigate people who threaten violence online?

_id 7y ago
> Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? There are. And not only on 8chan.
mechamicro 7y ago
Maybe there will be less monitoring. But with a lack of easily available places to congregate, the assholes will find it much more difficult to recruit, organize, and build their organization. This stagnates or reduces their membership numbers. Also, it sends a great signal to anyone who might think of joining: that this ideology is so terrible that it's being chased off of the internet. That even the hands-off companies like Reddit and Cloudflare are rejecting it. Sure, there will be a few who are attracted to it because it is so reviled, but many more will be repulsed. There's a reason why the hate groups did everything they could to be more appealing to the mainstream. Being forced back into the underground essentially means defeat. As far as monitoring goes, I don't think it will make much of an impact. These are not difficult groups to infiltrate. Generally speaking, they're not the best and the brightest. Their opsec is poor. Activist groups have infiltrated many of them and have posted the discord transcripts. I'm sure the FBI, and other organizations, have gone even further than that.
- saltminer 7y ago
  >Sure, there will be a few who are attracted to it because it is so reviled, but many more will be repulsed. There's a reason why the hate groups did everything they could to be more appealing to the mainstream. Being forced back into the underground essentially means defeat. This is correct, it's the very essence of the southern strategy. As Lee Atwater once said (censorship mine, dunno HN's policy about this type of language) [0]: >You start out in 1954 by saying, "N-----, n-----, n-----." By 1968 you can't say "n-----" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N-----, n-----." If you join a forum and start saying "N-----, n-----, n-----", you'll probably get banned right away. But if you're talking about crime statistics and totally true stories that totally happened to you which just so happen to feature minorities as the antagonists, your dogwhistling might be allowed, and that can serve as a valuable recruiting tactic as people who don't realize it's a dogwhistle read "sources" you provide and fall down a racist rabbit hole. (Even if someone doesn't buy into these ideas right away, planting that seed can bear fruit someday - maybe they've been unsuccessful getting a job for awhile and are really frustrated, then they remember the links they were sent long ago, and suddenly it doesn't seem so unreasonable...) [0]: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#It.27s_about_states.27_rights.21 https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#It.27s_about...
- malvosenior 7y ago
  The idea isn't to curtail people's freedom to assembly. It's to stop mass shootings. As much as you dislike it, people are free to organize and discuss whatever they want. They just aren't allowed to commit violence.
  - mechamicro 7y ago
    I think you misunderstood what I wrote. I was describing how de-platforming by private companies would weaken them while not making them substantially harder to monitor. Of course, they still have their constitutional rights of speech and assembly. But without the signal boost provided by private companies, they'll be in a far weaker position.
saltminer 7y ago
>Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? They might be, or they might not be. They tend to keep their mouths shut during active investigations, if people found out the FBI was actively subpoenaing the site they might be inclined to stop giving them more evidence. (That is, the FBI could have developed a public-private honeypot partnership for all we know.) And many times people aren't espousing direct, actionable threats. Talking about "international bankers" and "globalists" is protected speech, saying they control the world is protected speech, and saying something needs to be done about this is also protected speech - as long as they don't get specific (i.e. "we should fight back, let's meet up at <place> on <date/time>"), they can't do much about it. So you have people constantly agreeing about how "Zionists" are a threat to "the west" and that "something" needs to happen, egging on each others hate with various hoaxes, reactionary takes and praising Hitler, and finally someone snaps. Despite these people clearly being partially responsible for encouraging one of their members to violence, none of them will get in trouble because they never gave direct threats or incitements.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  > Despite these people clearly being partially responsible for encouraging one of their members to violence, none of them will get in trouble because they never gave direct threats or incitements. That's legal for very important reasons. People have a right to freedom of speech and the right to assembly. They don't have a right to commit murder. There's a huge leap from complaining about something to committing violence in real life. The latter is rightfully illegal and the former is rightfully legal (in the United States).
grawprog 7y ago
Because they're busy spreading Russian interference propaganda. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20201868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20201868 https://ceinquiry.wordpress.com/2019/06/17/fbi-8chan/ https://ceinquiry.wordpress.com/2019/06/17/fbi-8chan/
starlust2 7y ago
There's rumblings that FBI are hesitant to investigate Trump's base because it will affect their careers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-faces-skepticism-over-its-anti-domestic-terror-efforts/2019/08/04/c9c928bc-b6e0-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-faces-s...
odessacubbage 7y ago
>Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? >https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9OzsEqUYAACo4H.png:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9OzsEqUYAACo4H.png:large

_id 7y ago

> Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? There are. And not only on 8chan.

mechamicro 7y ago

Maybe there will be less monitoring. But with a lack of easily available places to congregate, the assholes will find it much more difficult to recruit, organize, and build their organization. This stagnates or reduces their membership numbers. Also, it sends a great signal to anyone who might think of joining: that this ideology is so terrible that it's being chased off of the internet. That even the hands-off companies like Reddit and Cloudflare are rejecting it. Sure, there will be a few who are attracted to it because it is so reviled, but many more will be repulsed. There's a reason why the hate groups did everything they could to be more appealing to the mainstream. Being forced back into the underground essentially means defeat. As far as monitoring goes, I don't think it will make much of an impact. These are not difficult groups to infiltrate. Generally speaking, they're not the best and the brightest. Their opsec is poor. Activist groups have infiltrated many of them and have posted the discord transcripts. I'm sure the FBI, and other organizations, have gone even further than that.

saltminer 7y ago
>Sure, there will be a few who are attracted to it because it is so reviled, but many more will be repulsed. There's a reason why the hate groups did everything they could to be more appealing to the mainstream. Being forced back into the underground essentially means defeat. This is correct, it's the very essence of the southern strategy. As Lee Atwater once said (censorship mine, dunno HN's policy about this type of language) [0]: >You start out in 1954 by saying, "N-----, n-----, n-----." By 1968 you can't say "n-----" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N-----, n-----." If you join a forum and start saying "N-----, n-----, n-----", you'll probably get banned right away. But if you're talking about crime statistics and totally true stories that totally happened to you which just so happen to feature minorities as the antagonists, your dogwhistling might be allowed, and that can serve as a valuable recruiting tactic as people who don't realize it's a dogwhistle read "sources" you provide and fall down a racist rabbit hole. (Even if someone doesn't buy into these ideas right away, planting that seed can bear fruit someday - maybe they've been unsuccessful getting a job for awhile and are really frustrated, then they remember the links they were sent long ago, and suddenly it doesn't seem so unreasonable...) [0]: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#It.27s_about_states.27_rights.21 https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#It.27s_about...
malvosenior 7y ago
The idea isn't to curtail people's freedom to assembly. It's to stop mass shootings. As much as you dislike it, people are free to organize and discuss whatever they want. They just aren't allowed to commit violence.
- mechamicro 7y ago
  I think you misunderstood what I wrote. I was describing how de-platforming by private companies would weaken them while not making them substantially harder to monitor. Of course, they still have their constitutional rights of speech and assembly. But without the signal boost provided by private companies, they'll be in a far weaker position.

saltminer 7y ago

>Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? They might be, or they might not be. They tend to keep their mouths shut during active investigations, if people found out the FBI was actively subpoenaing the site they might be inclined to stop giving them more evidence. (That is, the FBI could have developed a public-private honeypot partnership for all we know.) And many times people aren't espousing direct, actionable threats. Talking about "international bankers" and "globalists" is protected speech, saying they control the world is protected speech, and saying something needs to be done about this is also protected speech - as long as they don't get specific (i.e. "we should fight back, let's meet up at <place> on <date/time>"), they can't do much about it. So you have people constantly agreeing about how "Zionists" are a threat to "the west" and that "something" needs to happen, egging on each others hate with various hoaxes, reactionary takes and praising Hitler, and finally someone snaps. Despite these people clearly being partially responsible for encouraging one of their members to violence, none of them will get in trouble because they never gave direct threats or incitements.

malvosenior 7y ago
> Despite these people clearly being partially responsible for encouraging one of their members to violence, none of them will get in trouble because they never gave direct threats or incitements. That's legal for very important reasons. People have a right to freedom of speech and the right to assembly. They don't have a right to commit murder. There's a huge leap from complaining about something to committing violence in real life. The latter is rightfully illegal and the former is rightfully legal (in the United States).

grawprog 7y ago

Because they're busy spreading Russian interference propaganda. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20201868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20201868 https://ceinquiry.wordpress.com/2019/06/17/fbi-8chan/ https://ceinquiry.wordpress.com/2019/06/17/fbi-8chan/

starlust2 7y ago

There's rumblings that FBI are hesitant to investigate Trump's base because it will affect their careers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-faces-skepticism-over-its-anti-domestic-terror-efforts/2019/08/04/c9c928bc-b6e0-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-faces-s...

odessacubbage 7y ago

>Why are there not FBI agents in /pol/ on 8chan actively chasing up leads on people who are threatening violence? >https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9OzsEqUYAACo4H.png:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9OzsEqUYAACo4H.png:large