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From the article, the EFF explicitly calls out the government for failing to enforce existing laws which would have shut down Kiwifarms >That’s what must happe

From the article, the EFF explicitly calls out the government for failing to enforce existing laws which would have shut down Kiwifarms >That’s what must happen here. The cops and the courts should be working to protect the victims of KF and go after the perpetrators with every legal tool at their disposal. We should be giving them the resources and societal mandate to do so. Solid enforcement of existing laws is something that has been sorely lacking for harassment and abuse online, and it’s one of the reasons people turn to censorship strategies. Finally, we should enact strong data privacy laws that target, among others, the data brokers whose services help enable doxxing.

michaelt 3y ago
> the EFF explicitly calls out the government for failing to enforce existing laws which would have shut down Kiwifarms Eh, maybe, but don't most of these laws mostly fail to work across international borders anyway? I mean, I haven't seen many cryptolocker authors appearing before US courts. And wikileaks remains online despite the best efforts of US authorities. Surely anything that could shut down or block kiwifarms could do the same to wikileaks and pirate bay and sci-hub?
- foven 3y ago
  The operator of the kiwifarms is himself a US citizen with a US business. It is an advertised fact that if a police force comes after or shuts him down with a legal reason, it will cease to exist and he himself has stated he wouldn't operate it out of any other country than the US. Pirate bay and sci-hub get affected by copyright law more than anything else and, to the best of my knowledge, kiwifarms is protected by section 230 in that respect and has always complied with legitimate takedown requests.
  - chonkerz 3y ago
    >and has always complied with legitimate takedown requests. Then why do people who issue takedown requests get plastered all over the site and harassed?
    - foven 3y ago
      Transparency I assume. I understand the admin likes free speech and maintains some transparency, to explain why content has been removed, and giving away your information is always a risk in legal issues.
  - thrwaway1234567 3y ago
    I think Kiwifarms is (borderline) criminal. Null, the admin of the site, outright said he was ok with users posting stolen financial information, such as Social Security Numbers and Credit cards. Source: https://archive.is/0fOcS https://archive.is/0fOcS . There are many examples of private financial information being posted on the site. I would describe them as operating with a paper thin layer of "plausible" deniability. Officially you aren't allowed to harass or interact with the targets. But posting their home address, stolen passwords, phone numbers, and information about relatives is all allowed. Obviously, if they didn't want their targets harassed, they wouldn't post that. Kiwifarms, now banned, official twitter page said their goal was “exploitation of the mentally handicapped for amusement purposes”. ( Source: https://archive.is/jYp5p https://archive.is/jYp5p ). But even the rule against interacting with "lolcows" (called "cowtipping") is haphazardly enforced. For example, one user had sex with a "lolcow" and posted photos. The admin explicitly said they would allow the content to remain up: https://archive.is/zYnpK#35% https://archive.is/zYnpK#35% I could probably post many other examples. Null is entirely willing to host revenge porn on his website. He's also willing to host nudes that he knows were stolen by hackers. People probably aren't going to want to send takedown requests, when that requires revealing their identity to a site that is known for doxing and harassing people.
concordDance 3y ago
The issue there is that as best I can tell, kiwifarms the site doesn't break any laws. It officially discourages actual harassment of the people it insults. Individual users may harass people but as far as I could tell from my previous skim they do not organize this harassment in the open. And requiring service providers to monitor private communications for organisation of harassment seems Orwellian to me. (Intuition pump: imagine the postal service opening every letter to check to see if someone's organising a letter writing campaign sending abuse to George Washington) As does prohibiting people saying unpleasant things about semi-public figures in public.
- roenxi 3y ago
  If you read up on the Kiwifarms Wikipedia page [0] it sounds like someone needs to go to jail. Until this moment I'd never believed that sending someone a pizza would qualify as an act of violence - but now I can see it. If the site doesn't break laws then there is no reason to ban it. But there are criminals using that site and they should be caught. Banning the site is just dodging the real problem. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms
  - account42 3y ago
    Your mistake is expecting Wikipedia to be a reliable source on issues that concern the terminally online.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    >>you read up on the Kiwifarms You should read up on what actually happened, one a unbiased source. Which si not Wikipedia.
    - concordDance 3y ago
      Specifically, wikipedia is not an unbiased source on any issue that is of particular concern to the terminally online. Anything to do with US politics or culture war is going to be heavily distorted due to the nature of the beast (its something people care a lot about, there were strong founder effects and there was a purity spiral). The sources that are allowed/disallowed and their respective biases (e.g. what they publish or don't say) are a big factor.

michaelt 3y ago

> the EFF explicitly calls out the government for failing to enforce existing laws which would have shut down Kiwifarms Eh, maybe, but don't most of these laws mostly fail to work across international borders anyway? I mean, I haven't seen many cryptolocker authors appearing before US courts. And wikileaks remains online despite the best efforts of US authorities. Surely anything that could shut down or block kiwifarms could do the same to wikileaks and pirate bay and sci-hub?

foven 3y ago
The operator of the kiwifarms is himself a US citizen with a US business. It is an advertised fact that if a police force comes after or shuts him down with a legal reason, it will cease to exist and he himself has stated he wouldn't operate it out of any other country than the US. Pirate bay and sci-hub get affected by copyright law more than anything else and, to the best of my knowledge, kiwifarms is protected by section 230 in that respect and has always complied with legitimate takedown requests.
- chonkerz 3y ago
  >and has always complied with legitimate takedown requests. Then why do people who issue takedown requests get plastered all over the site and harassed?
  - foven 3y ago
    Transparency I assume. I understand the admin likes free speech and maintains some transparency, to explain why content has been removed, and giving away your information is always a risk in legal issues.
- thrwaway1234567 3y ago
  I think Kiwifarms is (borderline) criminal. Null, the admin of the site, outright said he was ok with users posting stolen financial information, such as Social Security Numbers and Credit cards. Source: https://archive.is/0fOcS https://archive.is/0fOcS . There are many examples of private financial information being posted on the site. I would describe them as operating with a paper thin layer of "plausible" deniability. Officially you aren't allowed to harass or interact with the targets. But posting their home address, stolen passwords, phone numbers, and information about relatives is all allowed. Obviously, if they didn't want their targets harassed, they wouldn't post that. Kiwifarms, now banned, official twitter page said their goal was “exploitation of the mentally handicapped for amusement purposes”. ( Source: https://archive.is/jYp5p https://archive.is/jYp5p ). But even the rule against interacting with "lolcows" (called "cowtipping") is haphazardly enforced. For example, one user had sex with a "lolcow" and posted photos. The admin explicitly said they would allow the content to remain up: https://archive.is/zYnpK#35% https://archive.is/zYnpK#35% I could probably post many other examples. Null is entirely willing to host revenge porn on his website. He's also willing to host nudes that he knows were stolen by hackers. People probably aren't going to want to send takedown requests, when that requires revealing their identity to a site that is known for doxing and harassing people.

concordDance 3y ago

The issue there is that as best I can tell, kiwifarms the site doesn't break any laws. It officially discourages actual harassment of the people it insults. Individual users may harass people but as far as I could tell from my previous skim they do not organize this harassment in the open. And requiring service providers to monitor private communications for organisation of harassment seems Orwellian to me. (Intuition pump: imagine the postal service opening every letter to check to see if someone's organising a letter writing campaign sending abuse to George Washington) As does prohibiting people saying unpleasant things about semi-public figures in public.

roenxi 3y ago
If you read up on the Kiwifarms Wikipedia page [0] it sounds like someone needs to go to jail. Until this moment I'd never believed that sending someone a pizza would qualify as an act of violence - but now I can see it. If the site doesn't break laws then there is no reason to ban it. But there are criminals using that site and they should be caught. Banning the site is just dodging the real problem. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms
- account42 3y ago
  Your mistake is expecting Wikipedia to be a reliable source on issues that concern the terminally online.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  >>you read up on the Kiwifarms You should read up on what actually happened, one a unbiased source. Which si not Wikipedia.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    Specifically, wikipedia is not an unbiased source on any issue that is of particular concern to the terminally online. Anything to do with US politics or culture war is going to be heavily distorted due to the nature of the beast (its something people care a lot about, there were strong founder effects and there was a purity spiral). The sources that are allowed/disallowed and their respective biases (e.g. what they publish or don't say) are a big factor.