10 ms·

The deplatforming logic is practical but pretty shaky as a long term strategy. Kiwifarms absolutely may have been a despicable place causing real harm to people

• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• shadowfox 4y ago
  > A private company should not be making decisions on essentially freedom of speech On the other hand, a private company has limited obligation to uphold what is essentially a government concern ... Unless we start redefining a lot of things related to private obligation.
  • blfr 4y ago
    This particular private company wants to get out of being forced into a role of content moderator for a fifth of the Internet. This is an infinite time sink with no good outcomes for them. More importantly, this seems to have no good outcomes for us, the viewers. I also don't want Twitter mobs and DDoS-ers to have a say in what I can and can't read.
    • daptaq 4y ago
      > I also don't want Twitter mobs and DDoS-ers to have a say in what I can and can't read. This is honestly what I find the most disturbing about the entire story. This "keffals" person -- an individual! -- managed to organise enough attention to make all of this happen. From what I understand the argument is based on a threat towards this person, but considering the (public) information they were gathering on them (From what I recall it was stuff like flirting with underaged people, selling HRT drugs via Discord, old sexist tweets, etc.) I don't see why it was not in their interest to pseudo-anonymously have these threats posted themselves. Of course it could just be that some user was stupid enough to post these threats themselves, but I believe the fact remains that "keffals" had more to gain from threats against themselves, since most of what was being posted was perhaps vulgar and certainly impolite, but practically harmless -- more embarrassing for those being "investigated". Just some people with too much time on their hands. The site is probably going to be resurrected some way, soon enough. I believe hearing that they were considering an onion site. When this happens, I'd be interested to see the post histories of those issuing threats. But of course, since this is a private entity, they have no obligation to look at any evidence that would run contrary to the accusations. Of course this is their right, when considered in isolation, but CloudFlare has become a disproportionately significant player that thinking of them as just another company is rather difficult. In the end this all speaks for the fact that the internet was never intended to work on the scale it does. It is almost a miracle that it appears to do so most of the time ^^.
      • crummy 4y ago
        > most of what was being posted was perhaps vulgar and certainly impolite, but practically harmless It was this mild but cloudflare took it down?
        • capitol_ 4y ago
          Here is an overview of some of the terror that was organized from kiwifarms: https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1565797220531814406 https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/15657972205318144...
        • daptaq 4y ago
          As I said, "most" of it. Apparently there were bomb threats and people posting pictures from outside "keffalas" residence, which naturally is concerning, but at the same time was against KiwiFarms rules.
      • geraldwhen 4y ago
        It’s already back at the .ru TLD with ddos-guard
• vippy 4y ago
  Yes, the U.S. Constitution protects free expression, so the U.S. government's hands are completely tied on this issue. Even if government officials personally think a site probably facilitates behavior that violates the law, actually taking a website offline, rather than targeting individuals for criminal charges only after they've violated the law, unless that website is owned and operated, perhaps, by an individual who has been found guilty of violating the law, is most likely unconstitutional. This is one of those, "private companies are forced to step up because the state's powers are limited," situations.
  • sacrosancty 4y ago
    If it's not illegal then it probably isn't causing any serious harm, so Cloudflare doesn't need to block it. If it is, say a direct death threat or telling others to harm someone, then it's already illegal and your explanation isn't needed.
    • dcow 4y ago
      Yep. The government is limited in its powers here exactly so that people are treated fairly and loud factions don’t unduly oppress others.
• cedilla 4y ago
  You're focusing so hard on the rights of kiwifarms that you completely forget that cloudflare also has rights. Cloudflare has the liberty of association, and that includes the right to terminate contracts with others who actively harm Cloudflare and its costumers. And if Kiwifarms sending out bytes to the internet is free speech, then compelling cloudflare to send those same bytes is impernissible forced speech.
  • As_You_Wish 4y ago
    If it is indeed a quasi-utility, then a utility cannot just shut off someone's water or electricity, just because they don't agree with a person's politics or anything else. A utility has to keep serving, unless the person doesn't pay. I'm personally more on the side that these are utilities, because really, one cannot get by without an internet connection. I mean, why don't we get the electricity company to turn off electricity if a customer is a pornographer or something that they don't like. As long as a person is paying their bills, a utility has to serve them. That's how I see it.
  • useragent10 4y ago
    Oh no, that poor billion dollar corporation that controls over half the internet. What about THEIR rights?
    • suction 4y ago
  • cft 4y ago
    The problem here is that DDoS mitigation requires centralization. There aren't cheap alternatives. Same goes for any utility. Would it be okay for Visa to permanently turn off all your current and future credit and ATM cards if you used Visa in objectionable way, say you paid a meth dealer and then resold at scale? Because it's "much faster" to turn off Visa than to do a police investigation and issue an arrest warrant. Would it be okay for Google to delete your Google account to suddenly cut you off from your Android phone? Would it be ok for an electric company to suddenly turn off your electric service because they suspect you cook meth? Would it be ok for a water company to stop providing water to a building, because a criminal lives in one of the apartments?
• dools 4y ago
  The trouble of course is that you have a technology enhanced libertarian movement convincing everyone that government shouldn’t be regulating anything except property rights EDIT: shout out to all the techno libertarian hacker news bros downvoting my critique of techno libertarianism
• ellen364 4y ago
  > A private company should not be making decisions on essentially freedom of speech. This comes up a lot and makes me think I’ve misunderstood US free speech dynamics. I thought the USA traditionally limited the government’s ability to regulate free speech, leaving it to private / social regulation. In other words, it was up to individuals, communities, companies and so on to decide what was acceptable. But perhaps that’s a misunderstanding. Can anyone recommend books or papers to better understand the history of free speech in the USA? I guess The Federalist Papers are often a good place to start?
  • rmbyrro 4y ago
    I'm also not very familiar, but I understood it differently: The government did not let it for private sector to regulate when it explicitly guaranteed the right in the constitution...
    • maxbond 4y ago
      The text better supports GP's understanding: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. This is explicitly about what sorts of laws Congress may not pass, and not about the conduct of private citizens or institutions.
      • krapp 4y ago
        Further, the Tenth Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Because the Constitution doesn't delegate the power to regulate speech to the US, but rather prohibits it, by definition the power to regulate speech is reserved by the States and the people.
        • ellen364 4y ago
          That’s interesting. Would the Tenth Amendment prevent the federal government regulating free speech in the opposite direction, e.g. a law saying “companies can’t do anything to limit free speech”?
• tzs 4y ago
  > Kiwifarms absolutely may have been a despicable place causing real harm to people. In that case, the police should initiate a request to take them down that Cloudflare or ISPs etc. are obligated to follow. That approach is fairly easy to work around. Just make sure your site is in a country whose police cannot issue requests that Cloudflare is obligated to follow. For added protection pick a country that your victims are not in, ideally one that does not have good relations with the US or the countries of your victims so there is little law enforcement cooperation between them. > A private company should not be making decisions on essentially freedom of speech I'd much rather see private companies doing it than see just government doing it. Consider a site that is not bad enough to be illegal under current law but bad enough that a solid majority of people think it should be stopped. If it is only government that deals with these things eventually the law will be expanded to cover that site. We'll end up with an ever expanding boundary on what is illegal. A boundary that will probably be very hard to ever shrink. The law is unlikely to handle subtleties well and will catch sites that aren't actually bad but might appear to be so. If private companies are also looking at what sites they facilitate are doing and dropping those that they think have gone too far it adds fuzziness that allows the system as a whole (private companies plus government) to deal with the bad sites in a way that isn't as blunt and permanent as making the sites illegal. Government works best as the last level in a multilayered approach to problems.
  • heavenlyblue 4y ago
    I currently for for a Fintech and our investors don’t want to do anything with asbestos companies. That includes asbestos removal companies. Which is pretty idiotic considering these companies are actually doing a good thing. This is the kind of solution that the industry will tend to if it is expected to self-police.
• rasz 4y ago
  > police should initiate a request to take them down that Cloudflare Police is executive, not legislative, they cant willy-nilly decide such things.