6 ms·

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.
        Mezzie 4y ago
        I wonder how many people remember when the censorship online was wielded against queer people? Lots of writing sites in the 90s wouldn't host any queer lit, for example, and being gay on main (in non-queer spaces) was...not advised. I also wonder how the percentages of queer people for and against platforming KF would shake out depending on how old they are and how long they've been online?
        smoldesu 4y ago
        Maybe it's not my place to speculate, but I think the modern generation of TikTok queers and image-obsessed teens has completely forgotten that social media only gives them a platform because they profit off every like and view. If the shoe was on the other foot (say, they were trying to increase profits in queer-hostile countries) they would have no problem silencing your voice just to increase user retention. This already happens on TikTok, and I wouldn't be surprised if it also happened on Twitter and Facebook, to lesser extents. A sad allegory for the state of queer solidarity in 2022, I guess. Again though, that's just speculation. You're absolutely correct that the consensus has changed though; the mindset has shifted from 'freedom through anonymity' to 'strength in numbers'. Neither thought process was particularly healthy, but the witch-hunting mentality of contemporary online discourse is bound to end at some point.
        Mezzie 4y ago
        > Neither thought process was particularly healthy, but the witch-hunting mentality of contemporary online discourse is bound to end at some point. Give it 10 years. Twitter will be the new Facebook. Only for old, uncool people. I'm already starting to see the swing back. Although it's fascinating how much the algorithms push this stuff. TikTok keeps trying to show me stuff about trans issues. I. Don't. Care. At least not on TIKTOK.
        UncleMeat 4y ago
        Of course corporations would crush queer people if it made them money. But defending KF won't change that one bit. The error is assuming that the people who'd treat gay people so badly would be swayed one bit by "well, we didn't get cloudflare to take down that forum full of bigots."
      - jessaustin 4y ago
        So, they pick on Russians and Islamic fundamentalists? Labor organizers? Democratically elected socialist leaders in Latin America? Or maybe Julian Assange? Oh wait, they must pick on poor people! If any of that has been the case, then good riddance. Somehow one doubts that.
    - adventured 4y ago
      > Same rules as getting bullied on the playground, if you pick a fight with the people harassing you, then you're liable to get beat up. Those aren't playground rules. Playground rules are that you fight back and it ends, or you take it and it goes on forever. For a standard school bully, if you're a big enough problem for the bully they move on to an easier target. Even if you fight back and lose, the bully is far more likely to move on to another target that doesn't pose a response damage risk to them (the only way that isn't true, is if you're entirely unable to pose any physical threat to them, then they may be amused by the attempt to fight back). This has very little in common with how playground rules work.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        > Playground rules are that you fight back and it ends, or you take it and it goes on forever. I don't think any fight has ever stopped once someone else starts throwing punches, certainly not on KiwiFarms. The only thing they care about is how you react. If you start getting mad on Twitter, then they'll take the fight to Twitter. If you start a public campaign to take them down, the users will obviously take it personally. If you reached out to the police and talked with a therapist/loved one... what would they do? In the hyper-sensational age though, the only response anyone wants is to make an eye-opening TikTok for their 15 seconds of fame... so long as they aren't hated, that sort of fame is obviously verboten. My goal isn't to take a shot for KiwiFarms or blame the victims here. I'm simply expressing that, as a queer person, I prefer to live in a world where KiwiFarms is allowed to exist. It's a horrible place populated by increasingly toxic people, but without it the internet lacks balance. Without websites like KiwiFarms, it's hard to feel secure hosting anything that others are allowed to use. On the other side of that coin, the people lobbying against KiwiFarms are largely stationed on centralized platforms. They're encouraging a future where all of our communication is commodified and owned by private interests. Maybe it is too late to save the internet, but I'll be the last one to adopt the fatalist mindset that everything requires direct moderation.
      - that_guy_iain 4y ago
        > Those aren't playground rules. Playground rules are that you fight back and it ends, or you take it and it goes on forever. Honestly, this is a myth. One day, I decided to follow the "stand up to the bullies and they'll leave you alone" stuff my mother sprouted off. It started with two on two. Two bullies were threatening me and my mate, and I said to my mate we should stand up to them and they'll leave us alone. My mate decided to run. The bullies chased after him. I decided to stop the bullies and stood in there way. What happened over the course of 5-10 minutes was me standing up to these bullies, every time someone they knew came along they asked for help, eventually it was something silly like 10 of them versus me. I'm not too sure of the number because eventually someone jumped me from behind and I was beated until I was out cold. I was found by some girls who then told Janitor that I was dead. That Janitor then came to where they said I was and saw me not moving and thought I was dead. He had the unpleasurable experience of thinking he just found a 10-year old kid dead in a school hallway. I stood up to every bully. I beat every single one of them up at some point. One bully left the school because of a beating I gave him. You know what changed? Nothing until i started dealing with them differently. Once I started acting like I couldn't care less they stopped their taunting and name calling and all the other stuff that I would beat them up for.
    - dmatech 4y ago
      Calling it "harassment" is perhaps a bit misleading if it's people gossiping about and making fun of someone behind their back. Harassment generally involves intentional (as opposed to incidental) communication to the target. The issue is that this forum (like Twitter and other forums) is generally readable by the public, so someone can observe two people saying stuff about them, but it's not addressed to them. It might be more like stalking, but one could also argue that writing a hit piece in a mainstream publication is also stalking as it could intimidate the target.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - tsol 4y ago
        Isn't that what paparazzi do every day? I hate the behavior but it's not like we haven't allowed it as a society for a long time.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      if you pick a fight with the people harassing you Sounds like you've internalized the idea that it's OK to be a punching bag for other people and if you retaliate when attacked that makes you a bad person. This is your right of course, but why should anyone else feel obliged to subscribe to your moral/risk calculus?
      - epakai 4y ago
        It has nothing to do with being good or bad. Might is right. Being morally good doesn't prevent harm from coming to you unless an effectively mightier faction deters it.
  - that_guy_iain 4y ago
    Honestly, is it their goal? Admittedly, I'm not an expert in Kiwifarms, however, I understand they've taken a dislike to many people for various reasons, not just LGBT folk.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - Yver 4y ago
    This is an inflammatory, fact-free assertion.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    How are they trying to remove freedom of speech for LGBTQ people? Being mean to people doesn't remove their freedom of speech ability.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Harassing people (and their families and friends) off the internet is absolutely something that has chilling effects on freedom of speech.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    Maybe we should ban criticism against politicians while we are at it. If we don't do that then politicians will be harassed off the internet which of course would have a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
    - mhoad 4y ago
      I swear you have spent the last week doing nothing but making bad faith arguments and refusing to listen to or concede a single point. It’s QAnon level behaviour and for what?
      - _-david-_ 4y ago
        I don't like people going after others while trying to censor them. You are doing the same thing as me. Honestly, it's authoritarian level behavior and for what?
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      Conflating criticism and harassment is disingenuous.
      - _-david-_ 4y ago
        Politicians are harassed all the time and it is frequently organized. They are told they should die, they are bullied, etc. Their house address is frequently put on the internet. There is no difference between the harassment leveled towards people on KiwiFarms and what politicians experience on a daily basis.
        ceejayoz 4y ago
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  By this logic, there is no way you can deny someone their freedom of speech. What is the difference between someone putting you on death row for speaking out against the government versus publishing your information so that angry randos can do the same? Is the only problem with government censorship that their violence is somehow "special" and worse than other forms of violence?
  - that_guy_iain 4y ago
    You seem to have misunderstood the logic. I'm not an expert in KiwiFarms, but I think the difference between the goverment putting you to death and what KiwiFarms does is they don't put you to death. My understanding is they basically talk shit about people and talk to each other about how to let the person they dislike know how much they dislike them. It's a nasty and horrible version of protesting. Say you dislike Donald Trump and you want to talk shit about Donald Trump and you want to organise a protest againist Donald Trump, you want to hurt his interests by organising a boycott of his companies, or say random things like you wish he was blown up, etc. This would be roughly the same as what I understand KiwiFarms do. Big difference is, KiwiFarms do this to random people for no other reason that for laughs from people they call lolcows. These are trolls. Nasty horrible people. However, my understanding is they don't put people to death or even commit acts of violence. They are the internet version of the Phelps family.
amadeuspagel 4y ago
How do you feel about the washington post doxxing libsoftiktok? Did that violate her freedom of speech? Should cloudflare drop the washington post?
concordDance 4y ago
Harassment (e.g. attempting to communicate with someone with the intent to upset them) is indeed bad for discourse and should be stopped. However, talking to other likeminded people about how much X sucks and you hate them would not be harassment.

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.
      - Mezzie 4y ago
        I wonder how many people remember when the censorship online was wielded against queer people? Lots of writing sites in the 90s wouldn't host any queer lit, for example, and being gay on main (in non-queer spaces) was...not advised. I also wonder how the percentages of queer people for and against platforming KF would shake out depending on how old they are and how long they've been online?
        smoldesu 4y ago
        Maybe it's not my place to speculate, but I think the modern generation of TikTok queers and image-obsessed teens has completely forgotten that social media only gives them a platform because they profit off every like and view. If the shoe was on the other foot (say, they were trying to increase profits in queer-hostile countries) they would have no problem silencing your voice just to increase user retention. This already happens on TikTok, and I wouldn't be surprised if it also happened on Twitter and Facebook, to lesser extents. A sad allegory for the state of queer solidarity in 2022, I guess. Again though, that's just speculation. You're absolutely correct that the consensus has changed though; the mindset has shifted from 'freedom through anonymity' to 'strength in numbers'. Neither thought process was particularly healthy, but the witch-hunting mentality of contemporary online discourse is bound to end at some point.
        Mezzie 4y ago
        > Neither thought process was particularly healthy, but the witch-hunting mentality of contemporary online discourse is bound to end at some point. Give it 10 years. Twitter will be the new Facebook. Only for old, uncool people. I'm already starting to see the swing back. Although it's fascinating how much the algorithms push this stuff. TikTok keeps trying to show me stuff about trans issues. I. Don't. Care. At least not on TIKTOK.
        UncleMeat 4y ago
        Of course corporations would crush queer people if it made them money. But defending KF won't change that one bit. The error is assuming that the people who'd treat gay people so badly would be swayed one bit by "well, we didn't get cloudflare to take down that forum full of bigots."
    - jessaustin 4y ago
      So, they pick on Russians and Islamic fundamentalists? Labor organizers? Democratically elected socialist leaders in Latin America? Or maybe Julian Assange? Oh wait, they must pick on poor people! If any of that has been the case, then good riddance. Somehow one doubts that.
  - adventured 4y ago
    > Same rules as getting bullied on the playground, if you pick a fight with the people harassing you, then you're liable to get beat up. Those aren't playground rules. Playground rules are that you fight back and it ends, or you take it and it goes on forever. For a standard school bully, if you're a big enough problem for the bully they move on to an easier target. Even if you fight back and lose, the bully is far more likely to move on to another target that doesn't pose a response damage risk to them (the only way that isn't true, is if you're entirely unable to pose any physical threat to them, then they may be amused by the attempt to fight back). This has very little in common with how playground rules work.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      > Playground rules are that you fight back and it ends, or you take it and it goes on forever. I don't think any fight has ever stopped once someone else starts throwing punches, certainly not on KiwiFarms. The only thing they care about is how you react. If you start getting mad on Twitter, then they'll take the fight to Twitter. If you start a public campaign to take them down, the users will obviously take it personally. If you reached out to the police and talked with a therapist/loved one... what would they do? In the hyper-sensational age though, the only response anyone wants is to make an eye-opening TikTok for their 15 seconds of fame... so long as they aren't hated, that sort of fame is obviously verboten. My goal isn't to take a shot for KiwiFarms or blame the victims here. I'm simply expressing that, as a queer person, I prefer to live in a world where KiwiFarms is allowed to exist. It's a horrible place populated by increasingly toxic people, but without it the internet lacks balance. Without websites like KiwiFarms, it's hard to feel secure hosting anything that others are allowed to use. On the other side of that coin, the people lobbying against KiwiFarms are largely stationed on centralized platforms. They're encouraging a future where all of our communication is commodified and owned by private interests. Maybe it is too late to save the internet, but I'll be the last one to adopt the fatalist mindset that everything requires direct moderation.
    - that_guy_iain 4y ago
      > Those aren't playground rules. Playground rules are that you fight back and it ends, or you take it and it goes on forever. Honestly, this is a myth. One day, I decided to follow the "stand up to the bullies and they'll leave you alone" stuff my mother sprouted off. It started with two on two. Two bullies were threatening me and my mate, and I said to my mate we should stand up to them and they'll leave us alone. My mate decided to run. The bullies chased after him. I decided to stop the bullies and stood in there way. What happened over the course of 5-10 minutes was me standing up to these bullies, every time someone they knew came along they asked for help, eventually it was something silly like 10 of them versus me. I'm not too sure of the number because eventually someone jumped me from behind and I was beated until I was out cold. I was found by some girls who then told Janitor that I was dead. That Janitor then came to where they said I was and saw me not moving and thought I was dead. He had the unpleasurable experience of thinking he just found a 10-year old kid dead in a school hallway. I stood up to every bully. I beat every single one of them up at some point. One bully left the school because of a beating I gave him. You know what changed? Nothing until i started dealing with them differently. Once I started acting like I couldn't care less they stopped their taunting and name calling and all the other stuff that I would beat them up for.
  - dmatech 4y ago
    Calling it "harassment" is perhaps a bit misleading if it's people gossiping about and making fun of someone behind their back. Harassment generally involves intentional (as opposed to incidental) communication to the target. The issue is that this forum (like Twitter and other forums) is generally readable by the public, so someone can observe two people saying stuff about them, but it's not addressed to them. It might be more like stalking, but one could also argue that writing a hit piece in a mainstream publication is also stalking as it could intimidate the target.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - tsol 4y ago
      Isn't that what paparazzi do every day? I hate the behavior but it's not like we haven't allowed it as a society for a long time.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    if you pick a fight with the people harassing you Sounds like you've internalized the idea that it's OK to be a punching bag for other people and if you retaliate when attacked that makes you a bad person. This is your right of course, but why should anyone else feel obliged to subscribe to your moral/risk calculus?
    - epakai 4y ago
      It has nothing to do with being good or bad. Might is right. Being morally good doesn't prevent harm from coming to you unless an effectively mightier faction deters it.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  Honestly, is it their goal? Admittedly, I'm not an expert in Kiwifarms, however, I understand they've taken a dislike to many people for various reasons, not just LGBT folk.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Yver 4y ago
  This is an inflammatory, fact-free assertion.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  How are they trying to remove freedom of speech for LGBTQ people? Being mean to people doesn't remove their freedom of speech ability.
ceejayoz 4y ago
Harassing people (and their families and friends) off the internet is absolutely something that has chilling effects on freedom of speech.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  Maybe we should ban criticism against politicians while we are at it. If we don't do that then politicians will be harassed off the internet which of course would have a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
  - mhoad 4y ago
    I swear you have spent the last week doing nothing but making bad faith arguments and refusing to listen to or concede a single point. It’s QAnon level behaviour and for what?
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      I don't like people going after others while trying to censor them. You are doing the same thing as me. Honestly, it's authoritarian level behavior and for what?
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Conflating criticism and harassment is disingenuous.
    - _-david-_ 4y ago
      Politicians are harassed all the time and it is frequently organized. They are told they should die, they are bullied, etc. Their house address is frequently put on the internet. There is no difference between the harassment leveled towards people on KiwiFarms and what politicians experience on a daily basis.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
kmeisthax 4y ago
By this logic, there is no way you can deny someone their freedom of speech. What is the difference between someone putting you on death row for speaking out against the government versus publishing your information so that angry randos can do the same? Is the only problem with government censorship that their violence is somehow "special" and worse than other forms of violence?
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  You seem to have misunderstood the logic. I'm not an expert in KiwiFarms, but I think the difference between the goverment putting you to death and what KiwiFarms does is they don't put you to death. My understanding is they basically talk shit about people and talk to each other about how to let the person they dislike know how much they dislike them. It's a nasty and horrible version of protesting. Say you dislike Donald Trump and you want to talk shit about Donald Trump and you want to organise a protest againist Donald Trump, you want to hurt his interests by organising a boycott of his companies, or say random things like you wish he was blown up, etc. This would be roughly the same as what I understand KiwiFarms do. Big difference is, KiwiFarms do this to random people for no other reason that for laughs from people they call lolcows. These are trolls. Nasty horrible people. However, my understanding is they don't put people to death or even commit acts of violence. They are the internet version of the Phelps family.

amadeuspagel 4y ago

How do you feel about the washington post doxxing libsoftiktok? Did that violate her freedom of speech? Should cloudflare drop the washington post?

concordDance 4y ago

Harassment (e.g. attempting to communicate with someone with the intent to upset them) is indeed bad for discourse and should be stopped. However, talking to other likeminded people about how much X sucks and you hate them would not be harassment.