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>Free speech may be deserving of protection, but white supremacists using the internet to coordinate real-world activities (such as terrorist attacks) doesn't a

>Free speech may be deserving of protection, but white supremacists using the internet to coordinate real-world activities (such as terrorist attacks) doesn't actually qualify as "free speech" deserving protection against "authoritarians and individuals wanting to rip each other down". Then I'm sure these activists will have no trouble moving proving their arguments in a courtroom, which is the proper space for such an assertion to be adjudicated.

systemvoltage 4y ago
Agreed, we have a justice system based on what we agreed as a society. The rule of law. If you want to prohibit speech to white supremacists, fine, let’s pass a law and if it doesn’t hold constitutional muster, go ahead convince everyone to amend the constitution. But since our founding fathers made this process difficult on purpose, let’s take a different approach: that’s what social justice is. It is anti-democratic mob lunacy where corporations and governments are playing a proxy authoritarian game.
- robert_foss 4y ago
  I do believe hate speech is illegal already. Certainly online harassment leading to someone committing suicide is. KF is a platform that facilitates these activities.
  - yanderekko 4y ago
    >Certainly online harassment leading to someone committing suicide is. Documenting people's lives is not harassment.
    - robert_foss 4y ago
      It most definitely can be. To have all of your privacy taken away from you.
    - paulmd 4y ago
      Which jurisdiction are you speaking about? Do you have legal qualifications to dispense this advice? The US is rather unique in their absolutist view of free speech and other countries don't work the same way. Generally, for example, this would be a violation of UK law.
  - whalecancer 4y ago
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Neither of those things are illegal in the US.
  - Natsu 4y ago
    > I do believe hate speech is illegal already. Not in the USA, no. https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/ https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-... > Certainly online harassment leading to someone committing suicide is. Harassment can be, but here "harassment" means making threats of violence, not just criticizing someone. That falls under "true threats": https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats Note that the older "fighting words" doctrine is probably obsolete and even then only applies to face-to-face conversation. For more on that see the prior link to Popehat.
- chc 4y ago
  This appears to be describing a parallel universe. The justice system we have in America today is arcane, strongly favors monied interests, is subject to perverse incentives ("tough on crime" DAs, lack of interest in pursuing crimes against groups without institutional power), frequently produces results that go against the common understanding of what is just, and is generally inaccessible to the most vulnerable people in society. The idea that this is what "we agreed as a society" is absurd. The justice system is a thing that evolved in our society largely as a result of powerful people feeding it when it protects their interests.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    I think US has one of the best judicial systems, if not the very best in the world. I loathe about American exceptionalism, but the constitution and American legal system truly is: https://youtu.be/Ggz_gd--UO0 https://youtu.be/Ggz_gd--UO0
  - infamouscow 4y ago
    > The idea that this is what "we agreed as a society" is absurd. The justice system is a thing that evolved in our society largely as a result of powerful people feeding it when it protects their interests. The people elect representatives to pass and/or change laws. What you're saying is we should disregard voting because you know best - an argument famously supported by every genocidal maniac in the 20th century.
- joshuamorton 4y ago
  Read the 10th amendment. The powers not delegated to the government are delegated to the states, or to the people. What you describe as "social justice" is constitutional, if you want to fix that, change the constitution and make it illegal, but you're quite right, the founders made that difficult, perhaps because they believed mob justice had its place sometimes, I mean in the eyes of the British, what were the Unionists but a mob rallying behind blatantly illegal ideas?
striking 4y ago
Unfortunately, it's extremely hard to prove allegations of abuse by skilled actors that know how to use their tools (tools that are really easy to use). KF's lead admin states it plainly: use a VPN, because KF complies with subpoenas. If folks were committing high-end acts of terrorism against elected officials regularly, the baddies might not be safe. But if you're a trans streamer with a small following, if the folks coordinating attacks on you are diligent enough to make sure they're doing so off-platform, behind a VPN, calling folks while obscuring their identities, and so on? There's no chance for you. I led a team in infiltrating a small community that acted as KF does. Even with screenshots in hand, even being on Discord, the Discord T&S team couldn't do very much for us because we didn't have nearly enough evidence in hand. We had to do a public exposé with what we had in hand and basically bluff that these folks could get in trouble as a result. Only that, along with the fact that we had bits and pieces enough of their identities, got them to go away. There's absolutely no way that I can tell that anyone would be taking anyone else to court. The best we could do was make our group so hard to attack that it wasn't worth it. How is anyone supposed to defend themselves from this?
- subsistence234 4y ago
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  Have you thought about the reverse side of your argument? Someone falsely accusing you or your persons of insert-your-favorite-harm and then having your life upended by the social justice mob or corporate actions? It needs to go through a trial. That's what its for.
  - striking 4y ago
    Of course I have thought about the reverse side of this. Everyone involved in the matter on my end treated it with the seriousness it deserved. And for what it's worth, I too used to believe that words couldn't hurt people and that justice was out there for those who do get hurt. Having experienced it firsthand, I know that to not be the case. Good luck serving the subpoenas on Large Faceless Internet Giant(tm) and John Does 1-100, especially when you don't have anything near the standard of evidence necessary to do that or the law degree necessary to make such filings. Good luck doing anything less than that, because no one actually cares as long as the money keeps flowing. The only way I could prove malice was by infiltrating their community. The only way I could shut them down was to sow enough distrust that they couldn't operate and to expose their malice to the world. And you know what? Our coordinated effort won out. We only had to fight an uphill battle against complete strangers, with our real lives put at risk. And they aren't so much as banned from the platform. They just know well enough not to mess with us again. Just the one group, because any other group could swing by and make our lives hard again. And I'm not even the person who was being attacked. I'm privileged enough that I could have turned away and told them they were on their own. Just like some folks running some companies that help these folks do their dirty work. I didn't, because helping someone without any other recourse was the right thing to do.
aeturnum 4y ago
There are two elements of this position that I urge you to consider: First - if KF is guilty of crimes that would stop CloudFlare from providing them services - then it's both reasonable and normal for people to encourage CloudFlare to act before a verdict. It's extremely common for commercial actors to have policies based on their impressions of likely criminality (i.e. credit card transactions are marked fraudulent before a court of law weighs in). Also, even though it's impossible to perfectly provide services to all 'good' customers and deny services to all 'bad' customers - it seems desirable to minimize the services you provide to 'bad' customers. I.e. It's good to cut off likely fraudulent transactions before a court verdict and we should encourage companies to act ahead of verdicts. So if you think a customer is probably doing something you'd cut off service for if it was determined in court, you should generally change your posture towards that customer somewhat. This is often a difficult determination and a difficult line to draw - but it's clearly a good thing to try and do. Second, the ability to prove a case in court depends on a great number of elements aligning. There are a number of scenarios where an actor is doing things that, could they be proved in court, would get them denied service - but for reasons unrelated to the actions themselves a determination cannot be made. The moral weight of providing services to those actors is the same and it's still desirable for companies to seek to avoid providing services to bad actors. Your legal responsibility is different, but you would still like to avoid serving clients whose actions you abhor. Otherwise, you get into the position where moral action is impossible outside of the opinion of an authority. Let's say you see a stranger's bag grabbed by someone else on the street - would you say the only moral course of action is to cooperate with an official investigation (if one happens)?

systemvoltage 4y ago

Agreed, we have a justice system based on what we agreed as a society. The rule of law. If you want to prohibit speech to white supremacists, fine, let’s pass a law and if it doesn’t hold constitutional muster, go ahead convince everyone to amend the constitution. But since our founding fathers made this process difficult on purpose, let’s take a different approach: that’s what social justice is. It is anti-democratic mob lunacy where corporations and governments are playing a proxy authoritarian game.

robert_foss 4y ago
I do believe hate speech is illegal already. Certainly online harassment leading to someone committing suicide is. KF is a platform that facilitates these activities.
- yanderekko 4y ago
  >Certainly online harassment leading to someone committing suicide is. Documenting people's lives is not harassment.
  - robert_foss 4y ago
    It most definitely can be. To have all of your privacy taken away from you.
  - paulmd 4y ago
    Which jurisdiction are you speaking about? Do you have legal qualifications to dispense this advice? The US is rather unique in their absolutist view of free speech and other countries don't work the same way. Generally, for example, this would be a violation of UK law.
- whalecancer 4y ago
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Neither of those things are illegal in the US.
- Natsu 4y ago
  > I do believe hate speech is illegal already. Not in the USA, no. https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/ https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-... > Certainly online harassment leading to someone committing suicide is. Harassment can be, but here "harassment" means making threats of violence, not just criticizing someone. That falls under "true threats": https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats Note that the older "fighting words" doctrine is probably obsolete and even then only applies to face-to-face conversation. For more on that see the prior link to Popehat.
chc 4y ago
This appears to be describing a parallel universe. The justice system we have in America today is arcane, strongly favors monied interests, is subject to perverse incentives ("tough on crime" DAs, lack of interest in pursuing crimes against groups without institutional power), frequently produces results that go against the common understanding of what is just, and is generally inaccessible to the most vulnerable people in society. The idea that this is what "we agreed as a society" is absurd. The justice system is a thing that evolved in our society largely as a result of powerful people feeding it when it protects their interests.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  I think US has one of the best judicial systems, if not the very best in the world. I loathe about American exceptionalism, but the constitution and American legal system truly is: https://youtu.be/Ggz_gd--UO0 https://youtu.be/Ggz_gd--UO0
- infamouscow 4y ago
  > The idea that this is what "we agreed as a society" is absurd. The justice system is a thing that evolved in our society largely as a result of powerful people feeding it when it protects their interests. The people elect representatives to pass and/or change laws. What you're saying is we should disregard voting because you know best - an argument famously supported by every genocidal maniac in the 20th century.
joshuamorton 4y ago
Read the 10th amendment. The powers not delegated to the government are delegated to the states, or to the people. What you describe as "social justice" is constitutional, if you want to fix that, change the constitution and make it illegal, but you're quite right, the founders made that difficult, perhaps because they believed mob justice had its place sometimes, I mean in the eyes of the British, what were the Unionists but a mob rallying behind blatantly illegal ideas?

striking 4y ago

Unfortunately, it's extremely hard to prove allegations of abuse by skilled actors that know how to use their tools (tools that are really easy to use). KF's lead admin states it plainly: use a VPN, because KF complies with subpoenas. If folks were committing high-end acts of terrorism against elected officials regularly, the baddies might not be safe. But if you're a trans streamer with a small following, if the folks coordinating attacks on you are diligent enough to make sure they're doing so off-platform, behind a VPN, calling folks while obscuring their identities, and so on? There's no chance for you. I led a team in infiltrating a small community that acted as KF does. Even with screenshots in hand, even being on Discord, the Discord T&S team couldn't do very much for us because we didn't have nearly enough evidence in hand. We had to do a public exposé with what we had in hand and basically bluff that these folks could get in trouble as a result. Only that, along with the fact that we had bits and pieces enough of their identities, got them to go away. There's absolutely no way that I can tell that anyone would be taking anyone else to court. The best we could do was make our group so hard to attack that it wasn't worth it. How is anyone supposed to defend themselves from this?

subsistence234 4y ago
systemvoltage 4y ago
Have you thought about the reverse side of your argument? Someone falsely accusing you or your persons of insert-your-favorite-harm and then having your life upended by the social justice mob or corporate actions? It needs to go through a trial. That's what its for.
- striking 4y ago
  Of course I have thought about the reverse side of this. Everyone involved in the matter on my end treated it with the seriousness it deserved. And for what it's worth, I too used to believe that words couldn't hurt people and that justice was out there for those who do get hurt. Having experienced it firsthand, I know that to not be the case. Good luck serving the subpoenas on Large Faceless Internet Giant(tm) and John Does 1-100, especially when you don't have anything near the standard of evidence necessary to do that or the law degree necessary to make such filings. Good luck doing anything less than that, because no one actually cares as long as the money keeps flowing. The only way I could prove malice was by infiltrating their community. The only way I could shut them down was to sow enough distrust that they couldn't operate and to expose their malice to the world. And you know what? Our coordinated effort won out. We only had to fight an uphill battle against complete strangers, with our real lives put at risk. And they aren't so much as banned from the platform. They just know well enough not to mess with us again. Just the one group, because any other group could swing by and make our lives hard again. And I'm not even the person who was being attacked. I'm privileged enough that I could have turned away and told them they were on their own. Just like some folks running some companies that help these folks do their dirty work. I didn't, because helping someone without any other recourse was the right thing to do.

aeturnum 4y ago

There are two elements of this position that I urge you to consider: First - if KF is guilty of crimes that would stop CloudFlare from providing them services - then it's both reasonable and normal for people to encourage CloudFlare to act before a verdict. It's extremely common for commercial actors to have policies based on their impressions of likely criminality (i.e. credit card transactions are marked fraudulent before a court of law weighs in). Also, even though it's impossible to perfectly provide services to all 'good' customers and deny services to all 'bad' customers - it seems desirable to minimize the services you provide to 'bad' customers. I.e. It's good to cut off likely fraudulent transactions before a court verdict and we should encourage companies to act ahead of verdicts. So if you think a customer is probably doing something you'd cut off service for if it was determined in court, you should generally change your posture towards that customer somewhat. This is often a difficult determination and a difficult line to draw - but it's clearly a good thing to try and do. Second, the ability to prove a case in court depends on a great number of elements aligning. There are a number of scenarios where an actor is doing things that, could they be proved in court, would get them denied service - but for reasons unrelated to the actions themselves a determination cannot be made. The moral weight of providing services to those actors is the same and it's still desirable for companies to seek to avoid providing services to bad actors. Your legal responsibility is different, but you would still like to avoid serving clients whose actions you abhor. Otherwise, you get into the position where moral action is impossible outside of the opinion of an authority. Let's say you see a stranger's bag grabbed by someone else on the street - would you say the only moral course of action is to cooperate with an official investigation (if one happens)?