4 ms·

While I'm a proponent of strengthening individuals to be resilient to online bullies like this I would agree that Kiwi Farms is a problem. They were sharing vid

by xupybd 5y ago

While I'm a proponent of strengthening individuals to be resilient to online bullies like this I would agree that Kiwi Farms is a problem. They were sharing video of the Christchurch shooting shortly after the attack. I'm also a strong proponent of freedom of speech and association. I'm not sure the best way to handle groups like this. Hate speech laws, IMO, cause more harm than good. In this case however there is another angle of attack, this was targeted harassment. This should and can be cracked down on much harder than it is. I'm truly saddened that this dev committed suicide and hope that others will not suffer the same fate.

emerged 5y ago
There may not be any singular moderate approach which completely captures the complexity. The hope is that everyone viciously disagreeing about what to do captures that complexity and over time converges onto some sort of reasonable compromise. Maybe that brute algorithm can somehow be improved using ML techniques though I don’t know what that would look like exactly.
tpush 5y ago
> Hate speech laws, IMO, cause more harm than good. What's your evidence? They seem to work fine here in Germany.
- selectodude 5y ago
  hate speech is relative. allowing speech to be banned means that the group in power can ban whatever they deem to be hateful.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Sure, at their own peril. Ban speech we, collectively as a society deem hateful, no problem. Ban speech that is critical of those in power .... well, good luck with that. History is not on your side.
- daenz 5y ago
  An opinion does not require evidence. And even if it did, it should be clear that no such study on such a vague and politically sensitive topic, such as the efficacy of hate speech laws, could ever be conclusive. If you have an opposing opinion, that's fine, but maybe voice why you hold it instead of demanding evidence for others opinions. Personally I think it's silly to jail an 89-year old grandmother for denying the Holocaust[0], but things like that can happen with hate speech laws like Germany has. 0. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/08/nazi-grandma-ursula-haverbeck-who-denies-holocaust-taken-jail/589613002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/08/nazi-gr...
  - em-bee 5y ago
    look at how active she was and judge for yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Haverbeck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Haverbeck
    - daenz 5y ago
      Uncontroversial speech does not need protection. Sentencing someone to prison for 1/10th of their remaining life span for publishing hurtful words is barbaric.
      - _ph_ 5y ago
        No, it is not. If you read about her, she isn't a first offender. Quite the contrary. And you don't go directly into prison for crimes like this, you start with a penalty payment. To get sentenced to prison requires quite a bit of activity. Yes, it might sound harsh to be sentenced to prison with 90, but it is at most ages. Younger people who have to go to prison might lose their job, their relationships, contact to their family. Still, no judge will sentence a person that old to prison unless the law, and of course the crimes performed, don't leave an alternative. She was denying the holocaust for decades.
s9w 5y ago
> I'm also a strong proponent of freedom of speech no you're not
betwixthewires 5y ago
I think the solution to groups like them is to not go to their websites and ignore them. They behave this way to get a rise out of people.
- marcan_42 5y ago
  It's not about their website. They openly dox people, and those around them. Near ignored them at first, then they went to harass, dox, and suicide bait Near's friends. How do you ignore that? The forums themselves may look like it's an insulated bubble of hate, but the reality is that a subset of their users coordinate targeted attacks on more secluded platforms. The forums are just the front for much deeper abuse.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    I understand from reading other parts of this thread that you were a friend of his. Were you subject to any of these attacks? I'd guess you'd be more familiar with exactly what they did. I'd like to understand better what sorts of attacks they did and on what platforms. What's "suicide bait?"
    - marcan_42 5y ago
      Suicide baiting means maliciously encouraging suicide. They targeted one of Near's friends, who was known to have issues with being suicidal, to try to get them to do it. They also doxed several other friends, which damaged Near's friendships. They basically followed and stalked them around the internet, mocking them for anything they could find (e.g. being nonbinary, a furry, etc), documenting what communities they were part of, and identifying targets who might be vulnerable. This deeply hurt Near, as they saw their friends being targeted because of them; they lost friendships over this. There were also plenty of false accusations and attempts to hurt Near's image (e.g. saying they're a pedophile). My friendship with Near was not public, so I didn't receive any harassment directly since they didn't know about me. That said, after I reported the suicide, they tried (and failed) to take over or lock down my Twitter account and to sign me up for a gay porn mailing list. I'm lucky enough to be a straight cis white dude in a good enough psychological state, which doesn't make me a terribly appealing target; others are not so lucky. They go after minorities, those with psychological conditions, etc.
marcan_42 5y ago
Kiwi Farms deliberately attacks those who are vulnerable, in the most hurtful way. You or I might be able to brush off some internet trolls, but what if they start targeting, doxing, and suicide baiting your friends? What if some of those friends are already in a vulnerable place? Are you resilient to that? We can't fix this problem by somehow immunizing the population against abuse. Words hurt, and they hurt some people more than others. The only way to fix this is to hold those who abuse others accountable for their actions, as well as those who enable them. This is no different from harassment and stalking in real life. Those are already punished by law. The problem is the law is behind the times, and harassment on the internet is still largely something people get to do with impunity. KiwiFarms exists thanks to Cloudflare (Domain, DNS, DDoS protection) and FiberHub (colocation), who provide services to them and refuse to do anything about the abuse perpetrated by this customer. KiwiFarms isn't even some darknet site; they are openly hosted in the US.
- xupybd 5y ago
  I fully support laws that criminalize doxing and targeted harassment. I'm also a big fan of helping people deal with such toxic behavior. Through good support networks and the ability to block out groups such as this. Just as I want violent crime to be punished but also want people to be able to protect themselves. In both cases not everyone can be 100% protected but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea to help those you can. In both cases you can criminalize certain behavior but you can't prevent it. Because evil people will always be present in society.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  > KiwiFarms exists thanks to Cloudflare Should cloudflare spin up an editorial board to decide what platforms to drop based on complaints? What about cases of poisoning the well, I can get my competitors taken offline by making ugly comments and complaining to cloudflare. It’s untenable, if a customer is breaking the law, let the law seize their servers, until then the service providers should not be adjudicators.
  - throwinawaysoon 5y ago

by xupybd 5y ago

emerged 5y ago

There may not be any singular moderate approach which completely captures the complexity. The hope is that everyone viciously disagreeing about what to do captures that complexity and over time converges onto some sort of reasonable compromise. Maybe that brute algorithm can somehow be improved using ML techniques though I don’t know what that would look like exactly.

tpush 5y ago

> Hate speech laws, IMO, cause more harm than good. What's your evidence? They seem to work fine here in Germany.

selectodude 5y ago
hate speech is relative. allowing speech to be banned means that the group in power can ban whatever they deem to be hateful.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Sure, at their own peril. Ban speech we, collectively as a society deem hateful, no problem. Ban speech that is critical of those in power .... well, good luck with that. History is not on your side.
daenz 5y ago
An opinion does not require evidence. And even if it did, it should be clear that no such study on such a vague and politically sensitive topic, such as the efficacy of hate speech laws, could ever be conclusive. If you have an opposing opinion, that's fine, but maybe voice why you hold it instead of demanding evidence for others opinions. Personally I think it's silly to jail an 89-year old grandmother for denying the Holocaust[0], but things like that can happen with hate speech laws like Germany has. 0. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/08/nazi-grandma-ursula-haverbeck-who-denies-holocaust-taken-jail/589613002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/08/nazi-gr...
- em-bee 5y ago
  look at how active she was and judge for yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Haverbeck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Haverbeck
  - daenz 5y ago
    Uncontroversial speech does not need protection. Sentencing someone to prison for 1/10th of their remaining life span for publishing hurtful words is barbaric.
    - _ph_ 5y ago
      No, it is not. If you read about her, she isn't a first offender. Quite the contrary. And you don't go directly into prison for crimes like this, you start with a penalty payment. To get sentenced to prison requires quite a bit of activity. Yes, it might sound harsh to be sentenced to prison with 90, but it is at most ages. Younger people who have to go to prison might lose their job, their relationships, contact to their family. Still, no judge will sentence a person that old to prison unless the law, and of course the crimes performed, don't leave an alternative. She was denying the holocaust for decades.

s9w 5y ago

> I'm also a strong proponent of freedom of speech no you're not

betwixthewires 5y ago

I think the solution to groups like them is to not go to their websites and ignore them. They behave this way to get a rise out of people.

marcan_42 5y ago
It's not about their website. They openly dox people, and those around them. Near ignored them at first, then they went to harass, dox, and suicide bait Near's friends. How do you ignore that? The forums themselves may look like it's an insulated bubble of hate, but the reality is that a subset of their users coordinate targeted attacks on more secluded platforms. The forums are just the front for much deeper abuse.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  I understand from reading other parts of this thread that you were a friend of his. Were you subject to any of these attacks? I'd guess you'd be more familiar with exactly what they did. I'd like to understand better what sorts of attacks they did and on what platforms. What's "suicide bait?"
  - marcan_42 5y ago
    Suicide baiting means maliciously encouraging suicide. They targeted one of Near's friends, who was known to have issues with being suicidal, to try to get them to do it. They also doxed several other friends, which damaged Near's friendships. They basically followed and stalked them around the internet, mocking them for anything they could find (e.g. being nonbinary, a furry, etc), documenting what communities they were part of, and identifying targets who might be vulnerable. This deeply hurt Near, as they saw their friends being targeted because of them; they lost friendships over this. There were also plenty of false accusations and attempts to hurt Near's image (e.g. saying they're a pedophile). My friendship with Near was not public, so I didn't receive any harassment directly since they didn't know about me. That said, after I reported the suicide, they tried (and failed) to take over or lock down my Twitter account and to sign me up for a gay porn mailing list. I'm lucky enough to be a straight cis white dude in a good enough psychological state, which doesn't make me a terribly appealing target; others are not so lucky. They go after minorities, those with psychological conditions, etc.

marcan_42 5y ago

Kiwi Farms deliberately attacks those who are vulnerable, in the most hurtful way. You or I might be able to brush off some internet trolls, but what if they start targeting, doxing, and suicide baiting your friends? What if some of those friends are already in a vulnerable place? Are you resilient to that? We can't fix this problem by somehow immunizing the population against abuse. Words hurt, and they hurt some people more than others. The only way to fix this is to hold those who abuse others accountable for their actions, as well as those who enable them. This is no different from harassment and stalking in real life. Those are already punished by law. The problem is the law is behind the times, and harassment on the internet is still largely something people get to do with impunity. KiwiFarms exists thanks to Cloudflare (Domain, DNS, DDoS protection) and FiberHub (colocation), who provide services to them and refuse to do anything about the abuse perpetrated by this customer. KiwiFarms isn't even some darknet site; they are openly hosted in the US.

xupybd 5y ago
I fully support laws that criminalize doxing and targeted harassment. I'm also a big fan of helping people deal with such toxic behavior. Through good support networks and the ability to block out groups such as this. Just as I want violent crime to be punished but also want people to be able to protect themselves. In both cases not everyone can be 100% protected but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea to help those you can. In both cases you can criminalize certain behavior but you can't prevent it. Because evil people will always be present in society.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
> KiwiFarms exists thanks to Cloudflare Should cloudflare spin up an editorial board to decide what platforms to drop based on complaints? What about cases of poisoning the well, I can get my competitors taken offline by making ugly comments and complaining to cloudflare. It’s untenable, if a customer is breaking the law, let the law seize their servers, until then the service providers should not be adjudicators.
- throwinawaysoon 5y ago