7 ms·

I treat these sites as cannaries. As long as they exist I can be confident that censorship isn't too bad, as they start to get shut down I start to worry. First

I treat these sites as cannaries. As long as they exist I can be confident that censorship isn't too bad, as they start to get shut down I start to worry. First the came for the X and I was not an X etc etc...

noasaservice 4y ago
[flagged]
- concordDance 4y ago
  I think you're being gullible here. Look at what was actually on that site and the many others that have been shut down rather than relying on reports from their enemies (oh wait, the whole point is to make it so you can't do this). When this hit Hacker news I actually went onto kiwifarms to find out what it was like because I suspected it would be killed soon. The descriptions given by most hackernews commentators did not match the reality. Don't get me wrong, they say awful stuff, but I saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading or indeed any attempts to get things to happen outside the site and I checked dozens of threads.
  - that_guy_iain 4y ago
    I've been on there when some harrassment stuff has came up in the past and have seen some threads. It's probably 0.00x% of it's posts but it's also what it's famous for.
  - manicdee 4y ago
    Right, because they would let someone who created an account in the last month or two and has no presence into their hunting lobby?
    - polygamous_bat 4y ago
      I am sometimes very worried about the apparent naivete of people who think this way, and then I am even more worried thinking that they might just be intentionally obtuse.
    - ohCh6zos 4y ago
      Right now there is no way to have a good faith argument due to the witch hunt. Anyone who 'confessed' to being active is a witch so their word is no good, and anyone who isn't active doesn't know the dark sorceries of the inner circle so their word is no good.
      - manicdee 4y ago
        I walked into a nightclub and asked for sex. I did not get sex, so therefore nightclubs are not places people go for sex. All those people claiming nightclubbers hook up for one night stands seems like scurrilous slander to me. It’s terrible to see people believing the journalists who attended night clubs for years and reported on their supposed sexual exploits over my story which is clearly a sign of leftist bias. Why do these people believe a journalist over my reliable reporting?
        ohCh6zos 4y ago
        No one is willing to say "I'm a witch but I didn't see any child sacrifices", because the mob goes after witches separate from the current crime.
  - Mezzie 4y ago
    I've lurked on KF with an empty account for a couple of years. (I have an interest in niche drama and as a lesbian, trans drama is pushed into any space for lesbians ANYWAY). I didn't see brigading, but I did see doxxing. And of course the whole thing is a mentally-toxic nut-picking echo chamber, but that's kind of par for the course on the modern Web.
    - flumpcakes 4y ago
      This is my experience of Kiwifarms. If you do not have a thick skin, you should not be reading there. Moreover, most of the internet is probably not suitable for people who do not want to experience offense. And if I am brutally honest, from the threads I have seen, the people they make posts about are not people I would want to associate myself with or anywhere near young members of my family. I have seen many more threats against Kiwifarms that I have seen originate from within it. The forum seems to be a melting pot for grossly offensive people to make grossly offensive comments. And considering 4chan is still around (even if it only used to have a problem with CSAM) I'm at a loss at why Kiwifarms is being "deplatformed". I can only assume it's like the "jailbait" subreddit - something reprehensible but action is only taken when it gets media attention.
      - Mezzie 4y ago
        The hilarious thing is that neither side are good or nice people. I've been queer online longer than keffels has been alive and I've been anti-censorship the entire time partially because I remember when people were trying to censor LGBT+ information. This is like my two mentally ill parents fighting. One side is going to call me a dyke, carpet-muncher, and link the fact that I like women to being a child groomer. The other is going to call me transphobic, a bitch, a cunt, and a TERF for not wanting to suck dick/not wanting all queer spaces to be about trans issues 24/7. > And if I am brutally honest, from the threads I have seen, the people they make posts about are not people I would want to associate myself with or anywhere near young members of my family. This is one thing that pisses me off about people like keffals. When I was a baby queer in the mid 90s, it was functionally impossible to talk to gay adults in person at all because the AIDS epidemic had convinced society that all gay people were dangerous degenerates. The Internet changed that. Since I had WWW access, I could talk to gay adults and realize that a.) you could find love being gay, b.) get advice on what to avoid and how to stay safe, and c.) start to plan out a gay life for myself. Nobody was ever inappropriate with me. (That was always straight men...) Keffels et al. are dragging us right back so gay adults can't support gay kids that are genuinely in danger or suicidal. Thanks, guys. At this point, parents are RIGHT to be leery of the most vocal parts of the queer community, because we refuse to eject predators.
  - tchaffee 4y ago
    > I saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading Didn't see it so it must not exist? That's the kind of "research" everyone should ignore.
  - Zamaamiro 4y ago
    “We’ll I didn’t see anything” is a terribly unscientific methodology.
    - ALittleLight 4y ago
      Better than "someone said this is true".
  - PenguinCoder 4y ago
    So you go to the source site _after_ the evil things they've done are reported on, and the site posted a rebuttal. And you think you're getting a true, unaltered representation of the things that occured BEFORE this happened? Bad take. > saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading Either because it was now removed or hidden from public view. These activities have definitely occured on KF and just because you "don't see it happening now", doesn't mean it hasn't.
    - dcow 4y ago
      It’s also possible its moderation process worked. Though I understand the skepticism.
- ohCh6zos 4y ago
  If freedom of speech doesn't protect Kiwifarms I don't see why we should put up with sex workers either. Either we should defend speech we don't like or we should make the world a better place.
  - Jweb_Guru 4y ago
    You realize that Cloudflare took down a bunch of sites with sex workers on them already, right? Including ones that weren't actually violating any laws. The internet already slipped off that particular slippery slope.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
raxxorraxor 4y ago
They also provide a good counter to propaganda. You don't have to believe you get Covid chipped or in evil lizard people to see serious and concerning displays of media propaganda. And yes, it is US corporations in cooperation with government far more than the Russians on the English speaking net. There is just as much propaganda in Russia in Russian of course. It is just the usual type of propaganda and works even more effectively as it did in the past.
- pas 4y ago
  the counter to propaganda is thoughtful, deep investigation of the matter at hand, getting at least some minimal subject matter expertise and getting the opinion of experts, etc. (nowadays this has the fancy name of epistemological rationalism) KF is at best more/different propaganda against the mainstream propaganda
- kelnos 4y ago
  I think there are much better ways to counter propaganda than running a site that doxxes people you don't like and harasses them to the point they commit suicide. We should not enable folks like this. If these are the only sorts of people who can counter propaganda, then perhaps we deserve the propaganda.
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    It isn't about this site in particular. These are people that make fun of others, there is no deeper "service" the platform provides, no particular insights to be gained. It is morally questionable endeavor to stay diplomatic and I hope users can learn to moderate themselves. The real problem is that a pretext to remove a platform is very easily found. I am not convinced there was any immediate threat here and if so it could have been posted by anyone, even activists themselves. This would not be a precedent since this has happened numerous times already. Cloudflare now is part of the problem the same way companies that pay ransoms to phishers are.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    Note that "the site" doesn't do this. Some of their users may do so and may or may not (I couldn't dig very deep before it went down) organise via the site.
shadowgovt 4y ago
That X is not a variable in an infinite domain. "First they came for the Nazis" is how World War II could be described (1), and with the exception of a few misguided sympathizers the story ends well with the destruction of their power structure and hanging of their leadership. Probably worth noting that among the reasons KF just lost their newest DDoS protector is that many Russians are understandably sensitive to Nazi sympathizing, even "for the lulz". (1) One could even argue that hesitating to come for the Nazis sooner was a significant mistake in the international community that allowed the severity of the War and the atrocities that occurred in it.
- leereeves 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - DuskStar 4y ago
    The Germans came for the Nazis. The Weimar Republic was very much in favor of imprisoning them for their (detestable) ideals and proposals. The Nazis were able to parlay this persecution (and Weimar failures) into an increasing share of the electorate and eventually total control.
    - bitwize 4y ago
      This is what my critics who say things like "lol, we know you're for censorship" don't understand. The Nazi movement rose because they were free to express their vile ideology. Germany prevented renazification for 80 years through censorship. This was what Marcuse was getting at in "Repressive Tolerance". Some views deserve free expression. Others do not. If you give free expression to all perspectives, the vile ones will spread until you can't control them anymore, and then you're no longer a tolerant society but a repressive one. We have the means and now the will to identify vile speech online and shut it down at the network level.
      - leereeves 4y ago
        That's exactly how the Nazis thought. They were quick to shut down any speech they didn't like.
Zamaamiro 4y ago
What about the freedom of speech of all those they harass and dox?
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  Their freedom of speech isn't being denied is it? Their right to a peaceful life is being infridged but not their freedom of speech.
  - space_fountain 4y ago
    It literally is since the harassment is often in response to speech with either the implicit or explicit goal to intimidate the speech into stopping
  - wesleywt 4y ago
    Kiwifarms goal is to remove the freedom of speech of LGBTQ people online. Is it okay for them to this?
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      - TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
        KF's concept of “large public show” has very little connection to reality. No matter how small a target tries to make their audience, they are not guaranteed to escape harassment. Like on a school playground, the bullies pick on people who are unpopular.
        smoldesu 4y ago
        Correct, and as an unpopular person myself (just ask around), I'm saying that the status quo is fine. The alternative is simply too dangerous to consider, particularly for queer communities that rely on the good graces of internet freedom to communicate within hostile regimes. Setting this precedent could very well encourage other countries to strongarm service providers into dropping customers, or worse yet lead to astroturfing that takes down perfectly innocent messageboards. What happens when China tries to claim that GitHub is hosting content that's highly offensive to Chinese citizens? Does Microsoft bend? This is not the kind of war we want to fight. Cloudflare has a right to make whatever choices they want, but the ramifications of their choice are going to be felt for the next decade. My opinion is that they made the wrong decision, but only time will tell who's right here.
letmeinhere 4y ago
I too measure my freedom based on how easily bigots terrorize groups I am not a part of. Sad day for me, personally
- hda2 4y ago
  That's more of a measure of how inadequate your laws currently are. I view GP's measure to be far more accurate and reasonable, and one that I use myself.
phatfish 4y ago
This is just civilized society finally catching up with criminals on the internet, the internet as a tolerant forum for information exchange and discussion was lost as soon as serious money got involved. Hopefully more of them are taken offline.
- concordDance 4y ago
  I expect the vast vast majority of kiwifarms posters were not criminals, just arseholes.
seo-speedwagon 4y ago
This is a pretty weak argument and extremely susceptible to Goodhart’s Law. It feels like you’re treating the existence of vile sites like this as a metric for the health of internet free speech. Be careful you don’t make the continued existence of such bigotry your target
UncleMeat 4y ago
Hard to believe that people honestly use that poem in situations like this. The poem was about not resisting virulent bigotry enough. It isn't about platforming bigots.

noasaservice 4y ago

[flagged]

concordDance 4y ago
I think you're being gullible here. Look at what was actually on that site and the many others that have been shut down rather than relying on reports from their enemies (oh wait, the whole point is to make it so you can't do this). When this hit Hacker news I actually went onto kiwifarms to find out what it was like because I suspected it would be killed soon. The descriptions given by most hackernews commentators did not match the reality. Don't get me wrong, they say awful stuff, but I saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading or indeed any attempts to get things to happen outside the site and I checked dozens of threads.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  I've been on there when some harrassment stuff has came up in the past and have seen some threads. It's probably 0.00x% of it's posts but it's also what it's famous for.
- manicdee 4y ago
  Right, because they would let someone who created an account in the last month or two and has no presence into their hunting lobby?
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    I am sometimes very worried about the apparent naivete of people who think this way, and then I am even more worried thinking that they might just be intentionally obtuse.
  - ohCh6zos 4y ago
    Right now there is no way to have a good faith argument due to the witch hunt. Anyone who 'confessed' to being active is a witch so their word is no good, and anyone who isn't active doesn't know the dark sorceries of the inner circle so their word is no good.
    - manicdee 4y ago
      I walked into a nightclub and asked for sex. I did not get sex, so therefore nightclubs are not places people go for sex. All those people claiming nightclubbers hook up for one night stands seems like scurrilous slander to me. It’s terrible to see people believing the journalists who attended night clubs for years and reported on their supposed sexual exploits over my story which is clearly a sign of leftist bias. Why do these people believe a journalist over my reliable reporting?
      - ohCh6zos 4y ago
        No one is willing to say "I'm a witch but I didn't see any child sacrifices", because the mob goes after witches separate from the current crime.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  I've lurked on KF with an empty account for a couple of years. (I have an interest in niche drama and as a lesbian, trans drama is pushed into any space for lesbians ANYWAY). I didn't see brigading, but I did see doxxing. And of course the whole thing is a mentally-toxic nut-picking echo chamber, but that's kind of par for the course on the modern Web.
  - flumpcakes 4y ago
    This is my experience of Kiwifarms. If you do not have a thick skin, you should not be reading there. Moreover, most of the internet is probably not suitable for people who do not want to experience offense. And if I am brutally honest, from the threads I have seen, the people they make posts about are not people I would want to associate myself with or anywhere near young members of my family. I have seen many more threats against Kiwifarms that I have seen originate from within it. The forum seems to be a melting pot for grossly offensive people to make grossly offensive comments. And considering 4chan is still around (even if it only used to have a problem with CSAM) I'm at a loss at why Kiwifarms is being "deplatformed". I can only assume it's like the "jailbait" subreddit - something reprehensible but action is only taken when it gets media attention.
    - Mezzie 4y ago
      The hilarious thing is that neither side are good or nice people. I've been queer online longer than keffels has been alive and I've been anti-censorship the entire time partially because I remember when people were trying to censor LGBT+ information. This is like my two mentally ill parents fighting. One side is going to call me a dyke, carpet-muncher, and link the fact that I like women to being a child groomer. The other is going to call me transphobic, a bitch, a cunt, and a TERF for not wanting to suck dick/not wanting all queer spaces to be about trans issues 24/7. > And if I am brutally honest, from the threads I have seen, the people they make posts about are not people I would want to associate myself with or anywhere near young members of my family. This is one thing that pisses me off about people like keffals. When I was a baby queer in the mid 90s, it was functionally impossible to talk to gay adults in person at all because the AIDS epidemic had convinced society that all gay people were dangerous degenerates. The Internet changed that. Since I had WWW access, I could talk to gay adults and realize that a.) you could find love being gay, b.) get advice on what to avoid and how to stay safe, and c.) start to plan out a gay life for myself. Nobody was ever inappropriate with me. (That was always straight men...) Keffels et al. are dragging us right back so gay adults can't support gay kids that are genuinely in danger or suicidal. Thanks, guys. At this point, parents are RIGHT to be leery of the most vocal parts of the queer community, because we refuse to eject predators.
- tchaffee 4y ago
  > I saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading Didn't see it so it must not exist? That's the kind of "research" everyone should ignore.
- Zamaamiro 4y ago
  “We’ll I didn’t see anything” is a terribly unscientific methodology.
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    Better than "someone said this is true".
- PenguinCoder 4y ago
  So you go to the source site _after_ the evil things they've done are reported on, and the site posted a rebuttal. And you think you're getting a true, unaltered representation of the things that occured BEFORE this happened? Bad take. > saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading Either because it was now removed or hidden from public view. These activities have definitely occured on KF and just because you "don't see it happening now", doesn't mean it hasn't.
  - dcow 4y ago
    It’s also possible its moderation process worked. Though I understand the skepticism.
ohCh6zos 4y ago
If freedom of speech doesn't protect Kiwifarms I don't see why we should put up with sex workers either. Either we should defend speech we don't like or we should make the world a better place.
- Jweb_Guru 4y ago
  You realize that Cloudflare took down a bunch of sites with sex workers on them already, right? Including ones that weren't actually violating any laws. The internet already slipped off that particular slippery slope.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

raxxorraxor 4y ago

They also provide a good counter to propaganda. You don't have to believe you get Covid chipped or in evil lizard people to see serious and concerning displays of media propaganda. And yes, it is US corporations in cooperation with government far more than the Russians on the English speaking net. There is just as much propaganda in Russia in Russian of course. It is just the usual type of propaganda and works even more effectively as it did in the past.

pas 4y ago
the counter to propaganda is thoughtful, deep investigation of the matter at hand, getting at least some minimal subject matter expertise and getting the opinion of experts, etc. (nowadays this has the fancy name of epistemological rationalism) KF is at best more/different propaganda against the mainstream propaganda
kelnos 4y ago
I think there are much better ways to counter propaganda than running a site that doxxes people you don't like and harasses them to the point they commit suicide. We should not enable folks like this. If these are the only sorts of people who can counter propaganda, then perhaps we deserve the propaganda.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  It isn't about this site in particular. These are people that make fun of others, there is no deeper "service" the platform provides, no particular insights to be gained. It is morally questionable endeavor to stay diplomatic and I hope users can learn to moderate themselves. The real problem is that a pretext to remove a platform is very easily found. I am not convinced there was any immediate threat here and if so it could have been posted by anyone, even activists themselves. This would not be a precedent since this has happened numerous times already. Cloudflare now is part of the problem the same way companies that pay ransoms to phishers are.
- concordDance 4y ago
  Note that "the site" doesn't do this. Some of their users may do so and may or may not (I couldn't dig very deep before it went down) organise via the site.

shadowgovt 4y ago

That X is not a variable in an infinite domain. "First they came for the Nazis" is how World War II could be described (1), and with the exception of a few misguided sympathizers the story ends well with the destruction of their power structure and hanging of their leadership. Probably worth noting that among the reasons KF just lost their newest DDoS protector is that many Russians are understandably sensitive to Nazi sympathizing, even "for the lulz". (1) One could even argue that hesitating to come for the Nazis sooner was a significant mistake in the international community that allowed the severity of the War and the atrocities that occurred in it.

leereeves 4y ago
[flagged]
- DuskStar 4y ago
  The Germans came for the Nazis. The Weimar Republic was very much in favor of imprisoning them for their (detestable) ideals and proposals. The Nazis were able to parlay this persecution (and Weimar failures) into an increasing share of the electorate and eventually total control.
  - bitwize 4y ago
    This is what my critics who say things like "lol, we know you're for censorship" don't understand. The Nazi movement rose because they were free to express their vile ideology. Germany prevented renazification for 80 years through censorship. This was what Marcuse was getting at in "Repressive Tolerance". Some views deserve free expression. Others do not. If you give free expression to all perspectives, the vile ones will spread until you can't control them anymore, and then you're no longer a tolerant society but a repressive one. We have the means and now the will to identify vile speech online and shut it down at the network level.
    - leereeves 4y ago
      That's exactly how the Nazis thought. They were quick to shut down any speech they didn't like.

Zamaamiro 4y ago

What about the freedom of speech of all those they harass and dox?

that_guy_iain 4y ago
Their freedom of speech isn't being denied is it? Their right to a peaceful life is being infridged but not their freedom of speech.
- space_fountain 4y ago
  It literally is since the harassment is often in response to speech with either the implicit or explicit goal to intimidate the speech into stopping
- wesleywt 4y ago
  Kiwifarms goal is to remove the freedom of speech of LGBTQ people online. Is it okay for them to this?
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    - TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
      KF's concept of “large public show” has very little connection to reality. No matter how small a target tries to make their audience, they are not guaranteed to escape harassment. Like on a school playground, the bullies pick on people who are unpopular.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        Correct, and as an unpopular person myself (just ask around), I'm saying that the status quo is fine. The alternative is simply too dangerous to consider, particularly for queer communities that rely on the good graces of internet freedom to communicate within hostile regimes. Setting this precedent could very well encourage other countries to strongarm service providers into dropping customers, or worse yet lead to astroturfing that takes down perfectly innocent messageboards. What happens when China tries to claim that GitHub is hosting content that's highly offensive to Chinese citizens? Does Microsoft bend? This is not the kind of war we want to fight. Cloudflare has a right to make whatever choices they want, but the ramifications of their choice are going to be felt for the next decade. My opinion is that they made the wrong decision, but only time will tell who's right here.

letmeinhere 4y ago

I too measure my freedom based on how easily bigots terrorize groups I am not a part of. Sad day for me, personally

hda2 4y ago
That's more of a measure of how inadequate your laws currently are. I view GP's measure to be far more accurate and reasonable, and one that I use myself.

phatfish 4y ago

This is just civilized society finally catching up with criminals on the internet, the internet as a tolerant forum for information exchange and discussion was lost as soon as serious money got involved. Hopefully more of them are taken offline.

concordDance 4y ago
I expect the vast vast majority of kiwifarms posters were not criminals, just arseholes.

seo-speedwagon 4y ago

This is a pretty weak argument and extremely susceptible to Goodhart’s Law. It feels like you’re treating the existence of vile sites like this as a metric for the health of internet free speech. Be careful you don’t make the continued existence of such bigotry your target

UncleMeat 4y ago

Hard to believe that people honestly use that poem in situations like this. The poem was about not resisting virulent bigotry enough. It isn't about platforming bigots.