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Free speech is more than just an amendment to the constitution. It is also a doctrine that knowledge and discussion should generally be free, and that people sh

Free speech is more than just an amendment to the constitution. It is also a doctrine that knowledge and discussion should generally be free, and that people shouldn't be persecuted for their beliefs. It used to be that all forums had pervasive doxxing and swatting. People didn't use to have public internet identities like they do today- probably because there wasn't any way to profit from owning a public identity or from harvesting the data of others. Maybe people don't remember that since reddit (and others) ate up all the small forums and made them advertiser friendly. One of these "sketchy ways to make money" is to abuse the networks with DDoS attacks and racketeering- on either the protection side (CloudFlare, etc.) or the offensive side (botnets, etc.)

masklinn 4y ago
> Free speech is more than just an amendment to the constitution. It is also a doctrine that knowledge and discussion should generally be free, and that people shouldn't be persecuted for their beliefs. "Generally" is an important word here. So is "should". That speech "should generally" be free does not mean all speech is always acceptable. As the saying goes, your freedom to act ends where my nose begins. When a site is used to organize and synchronise harassment for months, to the at least tacit allowance and at most open encouragement of the site's management, it is way beyond where noses begin. > It used to be that all forums had pervasive doxxing and swatting. That is a level of nonsense and whataboutism I've rarely seen.
- cowtools 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    We all know where this line of dialog goes. Someone posts the thing and then you or someone else responds with, "it's clearly a joke," a "one off," "doesn't speak for all of KF," "not a regular user," "not affiliated with KF," "doesn't actually cause harm," or any other response. Sorry but the pro-KF well has been poisoned - ironically by KF users and supporters themselves. It's an absolute self punch in the face. Why don't you describe what your evidentiary level of acceptibility is first and then we provide the evidence? I'm asking because, honestly, I don't think it exists. I dont think any level of evidence would be satisfactory. Happy to be proven wrong though.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    > Even if CF is within their ability to censor KF, I think it's immoral for them to do so on the basis of freedom-of-speech as a doctrine, which I believe in myself. What speech does KF publish that is unacceptable? Cloudflare isn’t censoring Kiwi Farms, but I’ll answer your question anyway. Kiwi Farms is a space for people to collaborate on the intimidation of others. It is an inherently anti–free speech project. It causes people to be afraid to post publicly online, for fear of malicious people stalking them. It causes people to avoid talking about the abuse, for fear of being targeted themselves. At worst, it caused people to take their own lives to escape the harassment — the ultimate in silencing someone else. The free speech rights of Kiwi Farms’ victims are no less important than its users. Its removal from the Internet is a net win for freedom of speech.
    - cowtools 4y ago
      >Cloudflare isn’t censoring Kiwi Farms It is not really CF, so much as it's the collective action of many internet monopolies. The content they are hosting is legal to the extent of US law, and no one is allowing them to host it. >It causes people to be afraid to post publicly online, for fear of malicious people stalking them When someone is publishing their personal information online, is it really stalking to republish that information? It is almost impossible to prevent such a thing from occuring. Either an individual is a public figure or a private figure. If someone (say, a politician or celebrity) chooses to become a public figure, then they should be held under the scrutiny of the public eye and they should be held accountable for their actions. If someone is a private figure, they should be responsible for securing their own privacy on the internet. I think what we have on the current internet is a situation where a lot of internet celebrities (including KF's own operator) want all of the benefits of being a para-social public figure with none of the responsibilities of maintaining a public image that stands up to scrutiny. In the case of the NES emulator developer who allegedly committed suicide, the KF had not published this person's actual real-life identity. They could have merely started a new pseudonym, or operated more privately under the current pseudonym, or ignored the KF altogether. The so-called "harrasement" and "doxxing" of this person is completely inconsequential to their actual life outside of the internet. You would not infer any more information on this guy from his KF "dox" as you would infer from almost any pseudo-anonymous furry on any social media website. But instead, this figure tried to leverage their own suicide threat to take down the kiwifarms website and extort them by offering money in exchange for their article to be taken down. In the end, their suicide remains completely unconfirmed apart from a single, unbacked testimonial.
  - Volundr 4y ago
    > You are ignorant then. This is simply the nature of the internet ten, maybe twenty years ago. Then I am too. I've been on the internet for longer than that, and I certainly don't recall this being the norm. It's possible it was in the corners you frequented, but not the ones I did. But unless you have some data that speaks to this being the norm across the internet and my experience being the exception all we have is anecdotes and mine cancels yours.
burnte 4y ago
> Free speech is more than just an amendment to the constitution. It is also a doctrine that knowledge and discussion should generally be free, and that people shouldn't be persecuted for their beliefs. Should be persecuted BY THE GOVERNMENT. At no point has any nation held that all people should be able to say whatever they want at any time with zero repercussions from anywhere. You can yell in a crowded theater, and they can kick you out. If you yell "fire" and cause a panic, you're arrested for the panic, not the fact you spoke, but for the fact you put people in potential danger. But if you only yell some racial slur, for example, no one will arrest you for the slur, but you can be asked to leave the theater and never return because that's private property. Freedom of speech is not and has never been freedom from consequences.
- richbell 4y ago
  > If you yell "fire" and cause a panic, you're arrested for the panic, not the fact you spoke, but for the fact you put people in potential danger. This analogy was created in an attempt to outlaw people speaking against the draft. My understanding is that it was overturned and is no longer considered a relevant example on the test of free speech. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_t...
  - foldr 4y ago
    I don’t think that’s relevant. The point is just that you really can’t shout ‘fire!’ in a crowded theatre and use a free speech defense to escape responsibility for your actions. Various other scenarios may or may not have been found to be legally analogous to this one by various courts. Nonetheless, the example still serves to illustrate the limits of free speech. To put it another way, Brandenburg v. Ohio didn’t find that it actually is ok to shout ‘fire!’ in a crowded theatre. Rather, it found that a particular instance of speech wasn’t analogous to that example.
    - richbell 4y ago
      It is relevant if the courts later overturned the decision and it is now considered free speech. I get your point, it's just a bad example given the historical baggage.
andsoitis 4y ago
> people shouldn't be persecuted for their beliefs Who is being persecuted? For which beliefs? And how are they being persecuted?
- cowtools 4y ago
  No one in this specific situation is being persecuted for their beliefs: The coordinator of the DDoS attack (Who I am apparently not allowed to say the name of or my comment will be instantly flagged after posting) is being persecuted for their shady history and actions, which includes being a prostitute and sponsoring the (paralegal?) distribution of transgender hormones to minors. The KiwiForum is being persecuted for the gossip and personal information that they have been (re-)publishing on the previously mentioned person. As well as some threats like swatting which have allegedly been attributed to them. Both sides employ a public figurehead who abuses their para-social relationship with their supporters to extract donations from them. So in this sense, the "persecution complex" is an artificial mechanism whereby they drum up support.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    Ah ok, if nobody is being persecuted here, then I don’t understand why you insinuated it.
seebs 4y ago
No, it did not used to be that "all forums had pervasive doxxing and swatting". That has never been true. It has never been widespread. Heck, swatting as we know it today wasn't even remotely common until quite recently, and doxxing has been actively frowned on and treated as potentially criminal since, like, the 80s. I dunno what you think you're arguing, but it's nonsense.
- cowtools 4y ago
  Doxxing and swatting has always been frowned upon, but it continues to happen regardless. So the idea that it can be curbed through social stigma and criminalization is clearly false. The technology for surveillance and publishing has only improved over time.
  - Volundr 4y ago
    I mean murder continues despite social stigma and criminalization. Unless you are suggesting we legalize murder I'm not seeing your point here.
    - cowtools 4y ago
      The difference is that murder is not prone to sybil attacks. You could literally mass-automate doxxing and swatting if you wanted to. Like imagine that you just had a bot that just scraped PII from a website, purchased phone numbers off the DN, and then used text-to-speech to call in a bomb threat. You can conduct this attack anonymously from the other side of the globe. In order to murder someone you would physically have to visit them and try not to get killed yourself. Anyone can defend against murder, but literally no one can defend against swatting. There is literally nothing you can do to legally prevent yourself from being swatted.
      - Volundr 4y ago
        I honestly don't get what you are saying here. Because you can physically do something to prevent being murdered it's sensible to have laws against murder, but because you can't physically defend against swatting we should just accept it as part of our society? I don't think that's what you are trying to say, but I can't put together what you are.
bastardoperator 4y ago
The first amendment is designed to protect people from government. That's it. It's beyond clear in its text. Courts have ruled time and time again finding speech that harms people is most certainly not protected. We have laws that deal with slander, libel, harassment, and speech that does not pass the clear and present danger clause does meet the criteria for "free" speech. I don't understand how anyone can look at the first amendment text and believe anything else. The only people that think they should be allowed to say whatever they want and face no repercussion are people that simply do not understand the first amendment.
- cowtools 4y ago
  I believe that free speech, as a doctrine, is an intrinsic good. It is that simple. I think the late Aaron Swartz describes my stance on free speech as a doctrine and moral principle: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/becausewecan http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/becausewecan The status of the law has no influence on my stance on morality. Legality neither sufficient nor necessary for morality. The existence of slavery was once legal, was that sufficient to make it moral? It is obviously the case that the law is backed by moral principles and not the other way around, and that we should lead ourselves chiefly by moral principles and not legal ones.
  - bastardoperator 4y ago
    You believe I should be able to engage in hate speech and harass people and that CF has an obligation to help me in that endeavor? Bruh...
  - Volundr 4y ago
    People have the freedom to say awful things. That's part of free speech. But shunning then for saying these awful things is also part of my free speech. Calling on others to shun them for saying these awful things is also part of my free speech. You cannot have free speech without also allowing people to be ostracized (even in organized campaigns) for how they use it.
    - 4y ago
threatofrain 4y ago
From a policy perspective I find it extremely problematic to say that CloudFlare is an essential part of modern free speech. If we say that free speech is shouting from a publicly funded street corner, that's one thing. But it's quite another to say that free speech requires expensive engineers, infrastructure, and energy expenditure, all funded by an American business. If we want public squares, why then do we not pay for it with public money? Furthermore, is it not incredibly problematic that private companies are such an important pillar of free speech in an international context? Is CloudFlare essential for German free speech? And most importantly, what about the freedom of association as a moral principle? How does an individual's freedom to speak weigh against another's capacity to say "leave me alone?" At the extreme, we might see that in a small town, if enough people disassociate from you then freedom of speech is no longer the top issue. The top issue becomes whether you can even live. So which of these ideal rights are most weighty, and how ought they interact with other rights? What determines that freedom of association is subordinate to the freedom of speech in an X society? On a more technical question, what is stopping Kiwi Farms from gathering on the many private forums which exist around the world? There's 4chan, Reddit, TruthSocial, or Facebook. CloudFlare was not a host in this context, it was a DDOS protection service, which is indirectly a wallet protection service. Who will be DDOS'ing Facebook's wallet?
WickyNilliams 4y ago
> It used to be that all forums had pervasive doxxing and swatting. There is no way this is true. I have been a member of countless forums over the decades, and have never seen or experienced this. Anecdotal of course. But for such a substantial claim as you have made, a source is necessary. Though I suspect there is none.
MandieD 4y ago
"It used to be that all forums had pervasive doxxing and swatting..." What kind of hell-forums were you using in the late 90s?! I never saw anything like that going on in the forums I was using back in my early days of internetting, though to be fair, I was mostly on classical music, historical fiction, and parrot-keeping forums, which tend to attract people outside the bored young male demographic, but I was also a regular Slashdot reader, where things sometimes got nasty, but I don't remember a swatting incident, or much in the way of doxxing.

masklinn 4y ago

> Free speech is more than just an amendment to the constitution. It is also a doctrine that knowledge and discussion should generally be free, and that people shouldn't be persecuted for their beliefs. "Generally" is an important word here. So is "should". That speech "should generally" be free does not mean all speech is always acceptable. As the saying goes, your freedom to act ends where my nose begins. When a site is used to organize and synchronise harassment for months, to the at least tacit allowance and at most open encouragement of the site's management, it is way beyond where noses begin. > It used to be that all forums had pervasive doxxing and swatting. That is a level of nonsense and whataboutism I've rarely seen.

cowtools 4y ago
[flagged]
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  We all know where this line of dialog goes. Someone posts the thing and then you or someone else responds with, "it's clearly a joke," a "one off," "doesn't speak for all of KF," "not a regular user," "not affiliated with KF," "doesn't actually cause harm," or any other response. Sorry but the pro-KF well has been poisoned - ironically by KF users and supporters themselves. It's an absolute self punch in the face. Why don't you describe what your evidentiary level of acceptibility is first and then we provide the evidence? I'm asking because, honestly, I don't think it exists. I dont think any level of evidence would be satisfactory. Happy to be proven wrong though.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  > Even if CF is within their ability to censor KF, I think it's immoral for them to do so on the basis of freedom-of-speech as a doctrine, which I believe in myself. What speech does KF publish that is unacceptable? Cloudflare isn’t censoring Kiwi Farms, but I’ll answer your question anyway. Kiwi Farms is a space for people to collaborate on the intimidation of others. It is an inherently anti–free speech project. It causes people to be afraid to post publicly online, for fear of malicious people stalking them. It causes people to avoid talking about the abuse, for fear of being targeted themselves. At worst, it caused people to take their own lives to escape the harassment — the ultimate in silencing someone else. The free speech rights of Kiwi Farms’ victims are no less important than its users. Its removal from the Internet is a net win for freedom of speech.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    >Cloudflare isn’t censoring Kiwi Farms It is not really CF, so much as it's the collective action of many internet monopolies. The content they are hosting is legal to the extent of US law, and no one is allowing them to host it. >It causes people to be afraid to post publicly online, for fear of malicious people stalking them When someone is publishing their personal information online, is it really stalking to republish that information? It is almost impossible to prevent such a thing from occuring. Either an individual is a public figure or a private figure. If someone (say, a politician or celebrity) chooses to become a public figure, then they should be held under the scrutiny of the public eye and they should be held accountable for their actions. If someone is a private figure, they should be responsible for securing their own privacy on the internet. I think what we have on the current internet is a situation where a lot of internet celebrities (including KF's own operator) want all of the benefits of being a para-social public figure with none of the responsibilities of maintaining a public image that stands up to scrutiny. In the case of the NES emulator developer who allegedly committed suicide, the KF had not published this person's actual real-life identity. They could have merely started a new pseudonym, or operated more privately under the current pseudonym, or ignored the KF altogether. The so-called "harrasement" and "doxxing" of this person is completely inconsequential to their actual life outside of the internet. You would not infer any more information on this guy from his KF "dox" as you would infer from almost any pseudo-anonymous furry on any social media website. But instead, this figure tried to leverage their own suicide threat to take down the kiwifarms website and extort them by offering money in exchange for their article to be taken down. In the end, their suicide remains completely unconfirmed apart from a single, unbacked testimonial.
- Volundr 4y ago
  > You are ignorant then. This is simply the nature of the internet ten, maybe twenty years ago. Then I am too. I've been on the internet for longer than that, and I certainly don't recall this being the norm. It's possible it was in the corners you frequented, but not the ones I did. But unless you have some data that speaks to this being the norm across the internet and my experience being the exception all we have is anecdotes and mine cancels yours.

burnte 4y ago

> Free speech is more than just an amendment to the constitution. It is also a doctrine that knowledge and discussion should generally be free, and that people shouldn't be persecuted for their beliefs. Should be persecuted BY THE GOVERNMENT. At no point has any nation held that all people should be able to say whatever they want at any time with zero repercussions from anywhere. You can yell in a crowded theater, and they can kick you out. If you yell "fire" and cause a panic, you're arrested for the panic, not the fact you spoke, but for the fact you put people in potential danger. But if you only yell some racial slur, for example, no one will arrest you for the slur, but you can be asked to leave the theater and never return because that's private property. Freedom of speech is not and has never been freedom from consequences.

richbell 4y ago
> If you yell "fire" and cause a panic, you're arrested for the panic, not the fact you spoke, but for the fact you put people in potential danger. This analogy was created in an attempt to outlaw people speaking against the draft. My understanding is that it was overturned and is no longer considered a relevant example on the test of free speech. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_t...
- foldr 4y ago
  I don’t think that’s relevant. The point is just that you really can’t shout ‘fire!’ in a crowded theatre and use a free speech defense to escape responsibility for your actions. Various other scenarios may or may not have been found to be legally analogous to this one by various courts. Nonetheless, the example still serves to illustrate the limits of free speech. To put it another way, Brandenburg v. Ohio didn’t find that it actually is ok to shout ‘fire!’ in a crowded theatre. Rather, it found that a particular instance of speech wasn’t analogous to that example.
  - richbell 4y ago
    It is relevant if the courts later overturned the decision and it is now considered free speech. I get your point, it's just a bad example given the historical baggage.

andsoitis 4y ago

> people shouldn't be persecuted for their beliefs Who is being persecuted? For which beliefs? And how are they being persecuted?

cowtools 4y ago
No one in this specific situation is being persecuted for their beliefs: The coordinator of the DDoS attack (Who I am apparently not allowed to say the name of or my comment will be instantly flagged after posting) is being persecuted for their shady history and actions, which includes being a prostitute and sponsoring the (paralegal?) distribution of transgender hormones to minors. The KiwiForum is being persecuted for the gossip and personal information that they have been (re-)publishing on the previously mentioned person. As well as some threats like swatting which have allegedly been attributed to them. Both sides employ a public figurehead who abuses their para-social relationship with their supporters to extract donations from them. So in this sense, the "persecution complex" is an artificial mechanism whereby they drum up support.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Ah ok, if nobody is being persecuted here, then I don’t understand why you insinuated it.

seebs 4y ago

No, it did not used to be that "all forums had pervasive doxxing and swatting". That has never been true. It has never been widespread. Heck, swatting as we know it today wasn't even remotely common until quite recently, and doxxing has been actively frowned on and treated as potentially criminal since, like, the 80s. I dunno what you think you're arguing, but it's nonsense.

cowtools 4y ago
Doxxing and swatting has always been frowned upon, but it continues to happen regardless. So the idea that it can be curbed through social stigma and criminalization is clearly false. The technology for surveillance and publishing has only improved over time.
- Volundr 4y ago
  I mean murder continues despite social stigma and criminalization. Unless you are suggesting we legalize murder I'm not seeing your point here.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    The difference is that murder is not prone to sybil attacks. You could literally mass-automate doxxing and swatting if you wanted to. Like imagine that you just had a bot that just scraped PII from a website, purchased phone numbers off the DN, and then used text-to-speech to call in a bomb threat. You can conduct this attack anonymously from the other side of the globe. In order to murder someone you would physically have to visit them and try not to get killed yourself. Anyone can defend against murder, but literally no one can defend against swatting. There is literally nothing you can do to legally prevent yourself from being swatted.
    - Volundr 4y ago
      I honestly don't get what you are saying here. Because you can physically do something to prevent being murdered it's sensible to have laws against murder, but because you can't physically defend against swatting we should just accept it as part of our society? I don't think that's what you are trying to say, but I can't put together what you are.

bastardoperator 4y ago

The first amendment is designed to protect people from government. That's it. It's beyond clear in its text. Courts have ruled time and time again finding speech that harms people is most certainly not protected. We have laws that deal with slander, libel, harassment, and speech that does not pass the clear and present danger clause does meet the criteria for "free" speech. I don't understand how anyone can look at the first amendment text and believe anything else. The only people that think they should be allowed to say whatever they want and face no repercussion are people that simply do not understand the first amendment.

cowtools 4y ago
I believe that free speech, as a doctrine, is an intrinsic good. It is that simple. I think the late Aaron Swartz describes my stance on free speech as a doctrine and moral principle: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/becausewecan http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/becausewecan The status of the law has no influence on my stance on morality. Legality neither sufficient nor necessary for morality. The existence of slavery was once legal, was that sufficient to make it moral? It is obviously the case that the law is backed by moral principles and not the other way around, and that we should lead ourselves chiefly by moral principles and not legal ones.
- bastardoperator 4y ago
  You believe I should be able to engage in hate speech and harass people and that CF has an obligation to help me in that endeavor? Bruh...
- Volundr 4y ago
  People have the freedom to say awful things. That's part of free speech. But shunning then for saying these awful things is also part of my free speech. Calling on others to shun them for saying these awful things is also part of my free speech. You cannot have free speech without also allowing people to be ostracized (even in organized campaigns) for how they use it.
  - 4y ago

threatofrain 4y ago

From a policy perspective I find it extremely problematic to say that CloudFlare is an essential part of modern free speech. If we say that free speech is shouting from a publicly funded street corner, that's one thing. But it's quite another to say that free speech requires expensive engineers, infrastructure, and energy expenditure, all funded by an American business. If we want public squares, why then do we not pay for it with public money? Furthermore, is it not incredibly problematic that private companies are such an important pillar of free speech in an international context? Is CloudFlare essential for German free speech? And most importantly, what about the freedom of association as a moral principle? How does an individual's freedom to speak weigh against another's capacity to say "leave me alone?" At the extreme, we might see that in a small town, if enough people disassociate from you then freedom of speech is no longer the top issue. The top issue becomes whether you can even live. So which of these ideal rights are most weighty, and how ought they interact with other rights? What determines that freedom of association is subordinate to the freedom of speech in an X society? On a more technical question, what is stopping Kiwi Farms from gathering on the many private forums which exist around the world? There's 4chan, Reddit, TruthSocial, or Facebook. CloudFlare was not a host in this context, it was a DDOS protection service, which is indirectly a wallet protection service. Who will be DDOS'ing Facebook's wallet?

WickyNilliams 4y ago

> It used to be that all forums had pervasive doxxing and swatting. There is no way this is true. I have been a member of countless forums over the decades, and have never seen or experienced this. Anecdotal of course. But for such a substantial claim as you have made, a source is necessary. Though I suspect there is none.

MandieD 4y ago

"It used to be that all forums had pervasive doxxing and swatting..." What kind of hell-forums were you using in the late 90s?! I never saw anything like that going on in the forums I was using back in my early days of internetting, though to be fair, I was mostly on classical music, historical fiction, and parrot-keeping forums, which tend to attract people outside the bored young male demographic, but I was also a regular Slashdot reader, where things sometimes got nasty, but I don't remember a swatting incident, or much in the way of doxxing.