6 ms·

I personally dislike Josh (moreso the ugly parts of the farms, actually), but strongly agree with him on this particular issue. The open Internet is extremely i

I personally dislike Josh (moreso the ugly parts of the farms, actually), but strongly agree with him on this particular issue. The open Internet is extremely important to civil liberties.

amiga386 2y ago
Exactly. People seem so worried about governments controlling public discourse for their own nefarious ends, that they don't even seem to be aware that private individuals are controlling public discourse for their own nefarious ends. And if well-connected geeks can massage their online profiles, call in favours from unelected moderators, hide pertinent facts about themselves... what's to stop all manner of awful behaviour from being covered up? What's to stop petty business owners from destroying their rivals?
- VS1999 2y ago
  There's also the issue when private companies just do what the government expects of them, or even pressures them to do. There was a brief controversy (canonized by CBS news) when the current administration ordered social media sites like twitter, youtube, and and facebook to remove posts that they thought were false or painted them in a bad light. What is the point of placing restrictions on government if they can just have a private company do it? I'm also tired of seeing people say "It's a private company, they can do what they want." I don't know why the average person is so enthusiastic about the idea of getting taken for a ride by huge corporations.
  - busterarm 2y ago
    > I'm also tired of seeing people say "It's a private company, they can do what they want." I don't know why the average person is so enthusiastic about the idea of getting taken for a ride by huge corporations. It's especially humorous when you see those same people claiming that talking out the other side of their mouth about the danger of fascists.
  - mistermann 2y ago
    > What is the point of placing restrictions on government if they can just have a private company do it? "Perception is reality". - Lee Atwater (GOP Consultant) > I'm also tired of seeing people say "It's a private company, they can do what they want." A lot of people (many of them smart) don't realize that there is a distinction between the first amendment and the general principle of free speech, which precedes the first amendment.
    - krapp 2y ago
      They realize it, they just don't want it to exist, and have a vested interest in muddying the waters of discourse such that most people remain unaware of it, or mistrust it in principle. For a few years they've been actively campaigning to have protections like Section 230 repealed and have all social media platforms (with some arbitrary number of accounts) be taken over and regulated as utilities by the government.
      - mistermann 2y ago
        I disagree: I think people genuinely do believe their own opinions, and politicians are also human....thus delusional, and corrupt, necessarily. But they ain't stupid (or at least their PR folks aren't): a well done (mis)representation of reality is well known to be more than adequate to fool most people most of the time, and misrepresenting reality is at the core of "successful" (depending on your perspective, I'm talking electoral and financial success) politics.
        rpmisms 2y ago
        It is nearly impossible to make a man understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.
        mistermann 2y ago
        Under conventional approaches, agreed!
  - jamilton 2y ago
    When someone says "It's a private company, they can do what they want" in defense of a company doing something, it's probably because in that case they like what the company is doing, and they're probably not being "taken for a ride" by them.
- busterarm 2y ago
  Not your average private individuals either, but incredibly wealthy and well-connected private individuals. Keffals, mentioned in the article, is close associates with and supported by Deviant Ollam and his wife Tarah, who was a senior director at Splunk and Symantec and is a fellow at Council on Foreign Relations.
  - DaSHacka 2y ago
    > Keffals, mentioned in the article, is close associates with and supported by Deviant Ollam and his wife Tarah, who was a senior director at Splunk and Symantec and is a fellow at Council on Foreign Relations. As someone familiar with all three, this is extremely disappointing to hear about. I have a lot of respect for Deviant, I can only hope he isn't very close to Keffals, or at the least isn't aware of the sheer number of scummy things they have done.
    - busterarm 2y ago
      Folks in the hacker community have a long history of being too forgiving of what should be hard-avoid character flaws. That's a big part of why these reputation-erasing, behind-closed-door censorship networks exist to begin with. One of infosec's biggest twitter cancel-brigade queens was also the most prolific troll in GNAA and had a long, public history of grooming underage males but everyone looks the other way and celebrates her accomplishments. She literally got a job on Biden's campaign and yet barely anyone talks about it.
      - DaSHacka 2y ago
        > Folks in the hacker community have a long history of being too forgiving of what should be hard-avoid character flaws. Maybe, and while most are definitely quite progressive, I would hope most of them (including Deviant) do what they truly believe is the right thing. He has since deleted all his posts relating him to Keffals, so it's possible he just didn't realize how deep the rabbit hole went and has since chosen to cut off ties. > She literally got a job on Biden's campaign and yet barely anyone talks about it. Do you have a source for this?
thrwaway1234567 2y ago
He's somewhat misrepresenting the content of his forums: https://old.reddit.com/r/keffals/comments/1bkp9my/proof_kf_harassed_people/ https://old.reddit.com/r/keffals/comments/1bkp9my/proof_kf_h... Keep that in mind when discussing how kiwifarms relates to the open internet that Null allows a lot of questionable things. A few examples: He's fine with stolen credit card and social security numbers being posted to the forum: https://archive.fo/rOKai https://archive.fo/rOKai He's admitted that the rules against harassment are only enforced if it embarrasses him: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/GXIFB https://ghostarchive.org/archive/GXIFB He's openly asked his users to harass people: https://archive.fo/WMrvv https://archive.fo/WMrvv He's admitted that he created secret forums where users could plan harassment campaigns, while he turned a blind eye to it: https://archive.fo/rOKai https://archive.fo/rOKai
- rpmisms 2y ago
  I read the farms (mostly CWC's thread, some absolutely phenomenal original research), I'm aware of what generally happens there. The only real rule is that porn can't be posted for its own sake. It exists and has a right to do so. The farms exists to shame degeneracy. It started as CWC farms to track the behavior of Chris-chan, of course it's going to be a crazy place. This does not mean they don't deserve access to the backbone of the Internet. You're making moral judgements about who gets to practice legal speech.
  - thrwaway1234567 2y ago
    There are things on the website aren't legal speech or are at least legally questionable. Harassment is illegal for one. The owner is fine with revenge porn being posted, and this has gotten him blocked by some hosts. He's also said he won't ban users who commit illegal acts.
    - rpmisms 2y ago
      Revenge porn isn't generally illegal to post. Posting pornography as revenge is the illegal bit, generally speaking. Also, harassment is illegal in some cases, but talking on a public forum generally doesn't qualify. If the parties talked about it publicly and then committed it, that's their problem. I'm anti-harassment and not in favor of revenge porn. Not really relevant to this discussion, where my position is simply that the law is the law, the government's job is to enforce the law, and companies should be out to make money, not make pretend laws and enforce them via silent agreements.

I personally dislike Josh (moreso the ugly parts of the farms, actually), but strongly agree with him on this particular issue. The open Internet is extremely important to civil liberties.

amiga386 2y ago

Exactly. People seem so worried about governments controlling public discourse for their own nefarious ends, that they don't even seem to be aware that private individuals are controlling public discourse for their own nefarious ends. And if well-connected geeks can massage their online profiles, call in favours from unelected moderators, hide pertinent facts about themselves... what's to stop all manner of awful behaviour from being covered up? What's to stop petty business owners from destroying their rivals?

VS1999 2y ago
There's also the issue when private companies just do what the government expects of them, or even pressures them to do. There was a brief controversy (canonized by CBS news) when the current administration ordered social media sites like twitter, youtube, and and facebook to remove posts that they thought were false or painted them in a bad light. What is the point of placing restrictions on government if they can just have a private company do it? I'm also tired of seeing people say "It's a private company, they can do what they want." I don't know why the average person is so enthusiastic about the idea of getting taken for a ride by huge corporations.
- busterarm 2y ago
  > I'm also tired of seeing people say "It's a private company, they can do what they want." I don't know why the average person is so enthusiastic about the idea of getting taken for a ride by huge corporations. It's especially humorous when you see those same people claiming that talking out the other side of their mouth about the danger of fascists.
- mistermann 2y ago
  > What is the point of placing restrictions on government if they can just have a private company do it? "Perception is reality". - Lee Atwater (GOP Consultant) > I'm also tired of seeing people say "It's a private company, they can do what they want." A lot of people (many of them smart) don't realize that there is a distinction between the first amendment and the general principle of free speech, which precedes the first amendment.
  - krapp 2y ago
    They realize it, they just don't want it to exist, and have a vested interest in muddying the waters of discourse such that most people remain unaware of it, or mistrust it in principle. For a few years they've been actively campaigning to have protections like Section 230 repealed and have all social media platforms (with some arbitrary number of accounts) be taken over and regulated as utilities by the government.
    - mistermann 2y ago
      I disagree: I think people genuinely do believe their own opinions, and politicians are also human....thus delusional, and corrupt, necessarily. But they ain't stupid (or at least their PR folks aren't): a well done (mis)representation of reality is well known to be more than adequate to fool most people most of the time, and misrepresenting reality is at the core of "successful" (depending on your perspective, I'm talking electoral and financial success) politics.
      - rpmisms 2y ago
        It is nearly impossible to make a man understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.
        mistermann 2y ago
        Under conventional approaches, agreed!
- jamilton 2y ago
  When someone says "It's a private company, they can do what they want" in defense of a company doing something, it's probably because in that case they like what the company is doing, and they're probably not being "taken for a ride" by them.
busterarm 2y ago
Not your average private individuals either, but incredibly wealthy and well-connected private individuals. Keffals, mentioned in the article, is close associates with and supported by Deviant Ollam and his wife Tarah, who was a senior director at Splunk and Symantec and is a fellow at Council on Foreign Relations.
- DaSHacka 2y ago
  > Keffals, mentioned in the article, is close associates with and supported by Deviant Ollam and his wife Tarah, who was a senior director at Splunk and Symantec and is a fellow at Council on Foreign Relations. As someone familiar with all three, this is extremely disappointing to hear about. I have a lot of respect for Deviant, I can only hope he isn't very close to Keffals, or at the least isn't aware of the sheer number of scummy things they have done.
  - busterarm 2y ago
    Folks in the hacker community have a long history of being too forgiving of what should be hard-avoid character flaws. That's a big part of why these reputation-erasing, behind-closed-door censorship networks exist to begin with. One of infosec's biggest twitter cancel-brigade queens was also the most prolific troll in GNAA and had a long, public history of grooming underage males but everyone looks the other way and celebrates her accomplishments. She literally got a job on Biden's campaign and yet barely anyone talks about it.
    - DaSHacka 2y ago
      > Folks in the hacker community have a long history of being too forgiving of what should be hard-avoid character flaws. Maybe, and while most are definitely quite progressive, I would hope most of them (including Deviant) do what they truly believe is the right thing. He has since deleted all his posts relating him to Keffals, so it's possible he just didn't realize how deep the rabbit hole went and has since chosen to cut off ties. > She literally got a job on Biden's campaign and yet barely anyone talks about it. Do you have a source for this?

thrwaway1234567 2y ago

He's somewhat misrepresenting the content of his forums: https://old.reddit.com/r/keffals/comments/1bkp9my/proof_kf_harassed_people/ https://old.reddit.com/r/keffals/comments/1bkp9my/proof_kf_h... Keep that in mind when discussing how kiwifarms relates to the open internet that Null allows a lot of questionable things. A few examples: He's fine with stolen credit card and social security numbers being posted to the forum: https://archive.fo/rOKai https://archive.fo/rOKai He's admitted that the rules against harassment are only enforced if it embarrasses him: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/GXIFB https://ghostarchive.org/archive/GXIFB He's openly asked his users to harass people: https://archive.fo/WMrvv https://archive.fo/WMrvv He's admitted that he created secret forums where users could plan harassment campaigns, while he turned a blind eye to it: https://archive.fo/rOKai https://archive.fo/rOKai

rpmisms 2y ago
I read the farms (mostly CWC's thread, some absolutely phenomenal original research), I'm aware of what generally happens there. The only real rule is that porn can't be posted for its own sake. It exists and has a right to do so. The farms exists to shame degeneracy. It started as CWC farms to track the behavior of Chris-chan, of course it's going to be a crazy place. This does not mean they don't deserve access to the backbone of the Internet. You're making moral judgements about who gets to practice legal speech.
- thrwaway1234567 2y ago
  There are things on the website aren't legal speech or are at least legally questionable. Harassment is illegal for one. The owner is fine with revenge porn being posted, and this has gotten him blocked by some hosts. He's also said he won't ban users who commit illegal acts.
  - rpmisms 2y ago
    Revenge porn isn't generally illegal to post. Posting pornography as revenge is the illegal bit, generally speaking. Also, harassment is illegal in some cases, but talking on a public forum generally doesn't qualify. If the parties talked about it publicly and then committed it, that's their problem. I'm anti-harassment and not in favor of revenge porn. Not really relevant to this discussion, where my position is simply that the law is the law, the government's job is to enforce the law, and companies should be out to make money, not make pretend laws and enforce them via silent agreements.