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(2) doesn't seem important. This problem is easy - take down kiwifarms. No one is asking for Cloudflare to take down 100% of every single site that may or may n

(2) doesn't seem important. This problem is easy - take down kiwifarms. No one is asking for Cloudflare to take down 100% of every single site that may or may not be classified as "bad" - they're asking for this one site to be taken down. Maybe even some others, too. There's a huge grey area of "bad", but there are also plenty of sites that very clearly fall to one side or the other. Solving "grey" is hard, solving kiwifarms is not.

roenxi 4y ago
> No one is asking for Cloudflare to take down 100% of every single site that may or may not be classified as "bad" - they're asking for this one site to be taken down Who are they? Why are Cloudflare listening to this "they" instead of all the alternate "they" who object to alternate sites? There is someone group organised to go after every "bad" site and a lot more besides. How do you even know that they've correctly identified Kiwikarms as a problematic site? Are you a Kiwifarms regular to be so sure about what how it works? Cloudflare have already banned the Daily Stormer and I can find people who are willing to call ~30% of any country neo-nazis with a straight face, so it isn't clear what they boundary is here. They certainly don't agree with your boundaries for what is "very clear", unless you happen to be posting on behalf of the Cloudflare CEO.
- staticassertion 4y ago
  > Who are they? People. Me. Others. I don't have a list. > Why are Cloudflare listening to this "they" instead of all the alternate "they" who object to alternate sites? They're presumably listening to both? I don't understand the question. > There is someone group organised to go after every "bad" site and a lot more besides. How do you even know that they've correctly identified Kiwikarms as a problematic site? Because there's a long history of documented problems. > Are you a Kiwifarms regular to be so sure about what how it works? I don't understand why that would be relevant. Again, long documented history. > Cloudflare have already banned the Daily Stormer Right, the Daily Stormer was a self-described site for neo-nazis. > I can find people who are willing to call ~30% of any country neo-nazis Irrelevant. > They certainly don't agree with your boundaries for what is "very clear", unless you happen to be posting on behalf of the Cloudflare CEO. The first half of this sentence doesn't go with the second half.
  - roenxi 4y ago
    >> Who are they? > People. Me. Others. I don't have a list. >> I can find people who are willing to call ~30% of any country neo-nazis > Irrelevant. I mean, the vibe I'm picking up here is they are the ones who decide, but not them? Who are these they? > I don't understand why that would be relevant. Again, long documented history. There is a long documented history of the US being the Great Satan, or technically Shaytân-e Bozorg, based on a long history of documented problems. I'm not sure how to communicate with "them", but how do we make the call on whether "they" agree or disagree with that epithet? Pretty open and shut case I suppose, the US has done some pretty evil things as a group. Do "they" have a preference for booting the US or Iran off the internet, or are they sanguine about this and only worried about micro-scale harassment rather than macro-scale problems? Things are done that are substantially worse than what Cloudflare has just acted on. And I suspect "they" will agree on a lot of it. And be wrong on a lot of it, because "they" are famously unreliable sources of information. Why aren't they going to act on all that stuff? It would be irresponsible to ignore it. I don't think your stance is fundamentally workable, and suspect it hasn't made a serious attempt at engaging with the sheer diversity of human experience and perspective out there. Particularly when it comes to in-groups redefining words to shut people in other in-groups.
    - staticassertion 4y ago
      You're focusing a lot on "they", and I don't really get why. You can instead focus on the argument being made and at that point it'll be a lot easier to engage. If you're trying to say that we shouldn't make decisions based on the feelings of vague interest groups, ok, but I wasn't making the argument that we should.
      - roenxi 4y ago
        Your argument seems to be that it is possible to characterise an extreme site in some sort of systemic manner. But your argument has a gaping hole in it - you haven't identified what that systemic manner is. You initially started with a "well its obvious to all of us" point. That is a poor foundation, because you literally can't identify who "us" is. And you don't have a counter to numerous groups - also part of this "us" of humans who make decisions - who simply don't agree with you on basic things. Which is likely to include whether Kiwifarms is an acceptable site. The little handwave where you appeal to what we all know may seem minor to you, but that is literally the failing point for the entire strategy of benign censorship. You've missed something important here to the point where your argument is basically collapsing - the world is a lot more diverse than your frame and argument are able to deal with. You also haven't articulated how you know so much about Kiwifarms and what actually happens on the site. I suspect you've read a few articles by people you feel are credible, or noted a mob forming and decided that mobs don't form without a good reason. If either of those is the case, let me assure you that we disagree about how easy it is to get to the truth - because that is not enough evidence for me to feel confident Cloudflare will get an 80% hit rate with their strategy. Mobs and journalists are both really bad at getting things right. Now I do think it is acceptable for Cloudflare to occasionally boot good actors off the internet for no reason, but the point stands - they are wading in to water where they will make regular mistakes, and those mistakes will start to take on a political tinge as the radicals amongst us notice that they can get away with a few "mistakes" and silence people they find intolerable. Plus if they're going to start booting people they're going to have to justify themselves a lot more - there are worse than Kiwifarms out there.

roenxi 4y ago

> No one is asking for Cloudflare to take down 100% of every single site that may or may not be classified as "bad" - they're asking for this one site to be taken down Who are they? Why are Cloudflare listening to this "they" instead of all the alternate "they" who object to alternate sites? There is someone group organised to go after every "bad" site and a lot more besides. How do you even know that they've correctly identified Kiwikarms as a problematic site? Are you a Kiwifarms regular to be so sure about what how it works? Cloudflare have already banned the Daily Stormer and I can find people who are willing to call ~30% of any country neo-nazis with a straight face, so it isn't clear what they boundary is here. They certainly don't agree with your boundaries for what is "very clear", unless you happen to be posting on behalf of the Cloudflare CEO.

staticassertion 4y ago
> Who are they? People. Me. Others. I don't have a list. > Why are Cloudflare listening to this "they" instead of all the alternate "they" who object to alternate sites? They're presumably listening to both? I don't understand the question. > There is someone group organised to go after every "bad" site and a lot more besides. How do you even know that they've correctly identified Kiwikarms as a problematic site? Because there's a long history of documented problems. > Are you a Kiwifarms regular to be so sure about what how it works? I don't understand why that would be relevant. Again, long documented history. > Cloudflare have already banned the Daily Stormer Right, the Daily Stormer was a self-described site for neo-nazis. > I can find people who are willing to call ~30% of any country neo-nazis Irrelevant. > They certainly don't agree with your boundaries for what is "very clear", unless you happen to be posting on behalf of the Cloudflare CEO. The first half of this sentence doesn't go with the second half.
- roenxi 4y ago
  >> Who are they? > People. Me. Others. I don't have a list. >> I can find people who are willing to call ~30% of any country neo-nazis > Irrelevant. I mean, the vibe I'm picking up here is they are the ones who decide, but not them? Who are these they? > I don't understand why that would be relevant. Again, long documented history. There is a long documented history of the US being the Great Satan, or technically Shaytân-e Bozorg, based on a long history of documented problems. I'm not sure how to communicate with "them", but how do we make the call on whether "they" agree or disagree with that epithet? Pretty open and shut case I suppose, the US has done some pretty evil things as a group. Do "they" have a preference for booting the US or Iran off the internet, or are they sanguine about this and only worried about micro-scale harassment rather than macro-scale problems? Things are done that are substantially worse than what Cloudflare has just acted on. And I suspect "they" will agree on a lot of it. And be wrong on a lot of it, because "they" are famously unreliable sources of information. Why aren't they going to act on all that stuff? It would be irresponsible to ignore it. I don't think your stance is fundamentally workable, and suspect it hasn't made a serious attempt at engaging with the sheer diversity of human experience and perspective out there. Particularly when it comes to in-groups redefining words to shut people in other in-groups.
  - staticassertion 4y ago
    You're focusing a lot on "they", and I don't really get why. You can instead focus on the argument being made and at that point it'll be a lot easier to engage. If you're trying to say that we shouldn't make decisions based on the feelings of vague interest groups, ok, but I wasn't making the argument that we should.
    - roenxi 4y ago
      Your argument seems to be that it is possible to characterise an extreme site in some sort of systemic manner. But your argument has a gaping hole in it - you haven't identified what that systemic manner is. You initially started with a "well its obvious to all of us" point. That is a poor foundation, because you literally can't identify who "us" is. And you don't have a counter to numerous groups - also part of this "us" of humans who make decisions - who simply don't agree with you on basic things. Which is likely to include whether Kiwifarms is an acceptable site. The little handwave where you appeal to what we all know may seem minor to you, but that is literally the failing point for the entire strategy of benign censorship. You've missed something important here to the point where your argument is basically collapsing - the world is a lot more diverse than your frame and argument are able to deal with. You also haven't articulated how you know so much about Kiwifarms and what actually happens on the site. I suspect you've read a few articles by people you feel are credible, or noted a mob forming and decided that mobs don't form without a good reason. If either of those is the case, let me assure you that we disagree about how easy it is to get to the truth - because that is not enough evidence for me to feel confident Cloudflare will get an 80% hit rate with their strategy. Mobs and journalists are both really bad at getting things right. Now I do think it is acceptable for Cloudflare to occasionally boot good actors off the internet for no reason, but the point stands - they are wading in to water where they will make regular mistakes, and those mistakes will start to take on a political tinge as the radicals amongst us notice that they can get away with a few "mistakes" and silence people they find intolerable. Plus if they're going to start booting people they're going to have to justify themselves a lot more - there are worse than Kiwifarms out there.