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Eh, I can't really support 8chan. The admin/owner/dev/whatever is an absolutely horrible person.

by knd775 12y ago

Karunamon 12y ago
Not that I've seen. As far as the site goes, the rule appears to be "unless it's literally illegal or breaking the site, I'm leaving it alone", and everything else is in the hands of the subredd- sorry, sub-board mods. I think this is the only legitimate stance to take when it comes to a UGC site that allows people to set up their own communities. The staff of each board should be responsible for their own moral compasses, with a minimum of interference by the folks upstairs unless it becomes absolutely necessary. The existence of a doxxing board is distressing, but it's not against any law in the USA. I don't want it there, but I want hotwheels making decisions like that even less. I feel the same way about things like /r/beatingwomen (exactly what it says in the title) or /r/picsofdeadkids on Reddit.
- BryantD 12y ago
  Er, /baphomet is not "a doxxing board." Or, rather, it's not just a doxxing board. It's also a swatting board, and swatting is illegal in the US. https://storify.com/a_man_in_black/baphomet https://storify.com/a_man_in_black/baphomet You are also 100% incorrect about "only legitimate stance." Hotwheels needs to be clear about what his guidelines are; as long as it's clear what rules the communities operate under, and as long as people are free to decide whether or not they wish to create a community, it's certainly legitimate to have more restrictive rules. "UGC site" is a red herring. I am creating UGC right now in the form of this post.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that actual calls to swat people have been deleted on that board. But, I can't say for sure because I don't hang out there, and the events of GamerGate have me applying a shakerfull of salt to any negative press surrounding 8chan. And as far as "incorrect", that is your opinion and it is your own, I have a differing one. I like the idea of a site where the admin has assured that they will not interfere with you unless they have to. Really, did you miss the qualifier "that allows people to set up their own communities"? And since I've hit the posting limit: That is your opinion @zorpner, and nothing I can say will change it. We disagree, vehemently, on the whole "silence is complicity" thing. @bryantd: Because freedom of speech is a guiding principle, a human right, not just a law, and that guiding principle is a higher priority than people talking about societally-disapproved-of-things. The price of following that principle is that people can and will talk about things that some or even most people don't like. The idea of cracking down on people discussing things because you personally find it distasteful is, to me, incredibly offensive. I don't like the idea of neo nazis or places where people post pictures of dead children, but I also don't think someone should have the ability to come in and say "No, you can't talk about that." @bryantd again: Ah, gotcha. In that case, no, I don't think there is a strictly different moral obligation in play. I get that curated spaces are a thing, and I don't have an issue with those, but the problem I see a lot is that there are N stated rules in a space, but N+X unwritten rules and breaking them gets you in trouble, and oftentimes you don't know what you did wrong. This leads to the superficial projection of freedom of speech and an open community, but in reality, that is not what's happening. I.e. deception. And in an atmosphere of deception, censorship follows. Censorship, to me, being a greater evil than whatever someone could possibly be talking about. That's the "why", because the moral obligation of free expression, IMO, is a few levels higher than most others. Heck, even here on HN, this is a problem (though not NEAR as much as some other sites, thanks to Dang and PG and the rest). But still, we have shadowbans and post timeouts and opaque algorithms that kill posts before anyone has had a chance to read them.
    - zorpner 12y ago
      I like the idea of a site where the admin has assured that they will not interfere with you unless they have to. If an admin chooses not to interfere, that does not absolve them from the responsibility of what happens on their site. If they had the power to remove it, and did not, they share in the blame for the consequences.
      - sroerick 12y ago
        That's absurd. Are phone companies liable when criminals use their products to talk on the phone? Are the developers of encryption liable for ISIS encrypting their calls? Call me when CNN and Fox News get sued for lying, and when Sony gets prosecuted for starting trivial lawsuits to stifle free speech. Then we can talk about censoring internet forums.
        zorpner 12y ago
        First off, I'm talking about culpability, not liability. Conflating morality and legality (not to mention censorship and providing a platform) makes your entire post nonsensical. And in the context of culpability, it's obvious that such a relationship only exists when the individual with the power to prevent bad action is aware of the action. So in this case, where Hotwheels is not only a participant in the relevant boards on 8chan but has expressed approval of what's happening, it's easy to hold him culpable (and probably liable as well, for what it's worth).
    - BryantD 12y ago
      There's a pretty substantial difference between "I like the idea of a site..." and "only legitimate stance to take." Can you explain why you think granting the ability to create a sub-board generates a different moral obligation, in your opinion, than granting the ability to create a new post?
      - lmm 12y ago
        Localism, or some generalization of that; it also feels like there's a kind of "principle of least privilege" here. Moderation should happen at the most local level where it's practical, with a community enforcing its own rules according to its own culture. Once you're offering a platform for people to build distinct communities on, you're assuming the position of an infrastructure provider or a government, and you have some of the obligations that go along with that. Allowing posts on a single board doesn't carry that obligation, because that's not what you're offering; the individual posts aren't and aren't meant to be communities with their own culture. I would still say that moderators have a moral obligation to be open, accountable, and representative of the community they moderate (even if it's a community they didn't want or ask for), and HN does a particularly poor job in this regard (lobste.rs demonstrates that it's possible to run a site like this with an open moderator log).
- pjc50 12y ago
  The decision has been made in choosing to allow those boards with those moderators; that means complicity in the overall theme of the content.
Dirlewanger 12y ago
Why is he a horrible person? Because he was sick of participating on an imageboard where admins arbitrarily decide what does/doesn't get discussed, sometimes based on their personal beliefs?
- boomlinde 12y ago
  Yes, that is the most likely reason for someone to think that he is a horrible person. Seriously, if you are interested in an answer you should just ask the question without answering it yourself with your strawman fantasy.
  - Dirlewanger 12y ago
    Funny because although I'm paraphrasing a little, it's precisely the reason why Brennan started 4chan. And he has more or less stated this multiple times in writing and through livestream. Christ, you can ask him this and he'll say that. But I'm guessing blindly believing rampantly biased media surrounding the subject is more your style, right?
    - boomlinde 12y ago
      I don't know anything about the operator of 8chan. I was objecting to the way that you were asking your question. The form of Why? Because [some unjustifiable reason you made up that is one of many possible]? doesn't serve as a reasonable argument and it doesn't add anything to the discussion other than the slightly passive aggressive tone it has. If you actually want to call it paraphrasing, I'll go ahead and say that it's an outright misrepresentation of the post you responded to, since it contained nothing to suggest that. > But I'm guessing blindly believing rampantly biased media surrounding the subject is more your style, right? Where do I begin?
adamnemecek 12y ago
Care to provide an example or are we supposed to take your word for it?
theorique 12y ago
Check your ableist privilege.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  Don't do this here, please.
donatj 12y ago
Because he doesn't force your morals onto others he's the bad person?
- donatj 12y ago
  Do you like others forcing their morals onto you? Assume they feel the same. Treat people as you'd like to be treated. BAM - Golden ruled! You could tell me how / why I am wrong. I'd appreciate it.
stevenh 12y ago
Fredrick Brennan, the admin of 8chan.co/8ch.net, was born with osteogenesis imperfecta; he's spent his entire life in a wheelchair. He has endured broken bones over 120 times in his life. He is three feet tall. His arms are severely deformed and barely usable without enduring extreme pain. He was surviving in NYC without a personal care assistant on less than 1k per month. Despite these obstacles, he somehow managed to bootstrap his own project. He was on the verge of suicide before his site suddenly became successful last year. His site fully complies with US law. He immediately removes illegal content as soon as he is made aware of it. He is happy to work with law enforcement whenever necessary. He is beyond reprimand. As someone who is presumably an able-bodied white man with moderately wealthy parents, you're making your libelous and oppressive comment from a privileged position. You are also perpetuating a hate campaign against the differently-abled. This hate campaign has included the following attacks: - Ceaseless coordinated attempts to take his site down via false accusations to his hosting provider that he is supposedly hosting CP. - Similar attempts to socially engineer his registrar into disabling his domain. - Incredibly powerful DDOS attacks lasting weeks at a time, the most recent of which even took down his business partner 2ch.net for three days straight, which is the favorite site of approximately 20% of Japan. Imagine if reddit was brought down for 3 days because someone was angry about something that was uploaded to imgur. - Attempts to destroy his livelihood and drive him back to the precipice of suicide by bullying sites like Patreon into pulling his funding; the goal being to leave him stranded, penniless, and homeless in the Philippines without a personal care assistant. Separately, these are colossal nuisances. Together, they amount to a murder attempt by a ruthless, bigoted hate mob.
- BgSpnnrs 12y ago
  Perhaps the entrepreneurs amongst us don't like it when someone who the brutality of society would miscast as an ugly little man makes a site that isn't afraid of showing it's ugly side and garners moderate success in, if not financial but at least social acceptance and 'bootstrap' paradigms. Frederick is an inspirational bloke and all these people casting aspersions on his character whilst lamenting m00t's departure for his cultural boldness, despite disagreeing with the content is pure hypocrisy. Especially given the non-inclusive hate mob moniker attributed to GG by a genuinely terrible cabal of shoddy journalists and their transparent smears. I believe common sense will prevail in all of this and there will be no victory fanfares or v-days - quietly the press will mature, the trolls will get bored and good websites and reporters will get justified clicks.

Eh, I can't really support 8chan. The admin/owner/dev/whatever is an absolutely horrible person.

by knd775 12y ago

Eh, I can't really support 8chan. The admin/owner/dev/whatever is an absolutely horrible person.

Not that I've seen. As far as the site goes, the rule appears to be "unless it's literally illegal or breaking the site, I'm leaving it alone", and everything else is in the hands of the subredd- sorry, sub-board mods. I think this is the only legitimate stance to take when it comes to a UGC site that allows people to set up their own communities. The staff of each board should be responsible for their own moral compasses, with a minimum of interference by the folks upstairs unless it becomes absolutely necessary. The existence of a doxxing board is distressing, but it's not against any law in the USA. I don't want it there, but I want hotwheels making decisions like that even less. I feel the same way about things like /r/beatingwomen (exactly what it says in the title) or /r/picsofdeadkids on Reddit.

BryantD 12y ago
Er, /baphomet is not "a doxxing board." Or, rather, it's not just a doxxing board. It's also a swatting board, and swatting is illegal in the US. https://storify.com/a_man_in_black/baphomet https://storify.com/a_man_in_black/baphomet You are also 100% incorrect about "only legitimate stance." Hotwheels needs to be clear about what his guidelines are; as long as it's clear what rules the communities operate under, and as long as people are free to decide whether or not they wish to create a community, it's certainly legitimate to have more restrictive rules. "UGC site" is a red herring. I am creating UGC right now in the form of this post.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that actual calls to swat people have been deleted on that board. But, I can't say for sure because I don't hang out there, and the events of GamerGate have me applying a shakerfull of salt to any negative press surrounding 8chan. And as far as "incorrect", that is your opinion and it is your own, I have a differing one. I like the idea of a site where the admin has assured that they will not interfere with you unless they have to. Really, did you miss the qualifier "that allows people to set up their own communities"? And since I've hit the posting limit: That is your opinion @zorpner, and nothing I can say will change it. We disagree, vehemently, on the whole "silence is complicity" thing. @bryantd: Because freedom of speech is a guiding principle, a human right, not just a law, and that guiding principle is a higher priority than people talking about societally-disapproved-of-things. The price of following that principle is that people can and will talk about things that some or even most people don't like. The idea of cracking down on people discussing things because you personally find it distasteful is, to me, incredibly offensive. I don't like the idea of neo nazis or places where people post pictures of dead children, but I also don't think someone should have the ability to come in and say "No, you can't talk about that." @bryantd again: Ah, gotcha. In that case, no, I don't think there is a strictly different moral obligation in play. I get that curated spaces are a thing, and I don't have an issue with those, but the problem I see a lot is that there are N stated rules in a space, but N+X unwritten rules and breaking them gets you in trouble, and oftentimes you don't know what you did wrong. This leads to the superficial projection of freedom of speech and an open community, but in reality, that is not what's happening. I.e. deception. And in an atmosphere of deception, censorship follows. Censorship, to me, being a greater evil than whatever someone could possibly be talking about. That's the "why", because the moral obligation of free expression, IMO, is a few levels higher than most others. Heck, even here on HN, this is a problem (though not NEAR as much as some other sites, thanks to Dang and PG and the rest). But still, we have shadowbans and post timeouts and opaque algorithms that kill posts before anyone has had a chance to read them.
  - zorpner 12y ago
    I like the idea of a site where the admin has assured that they will not interfere with you unless they have to. If an admin chooses not to interfere, that does not absolve them from the responsibility of what happens on their site. If they had the power to remove it, and did not, they share in the blame for the consequences.
    - sroerick 12y ago
      That's absurd. Are phone companies liable when criminals use their products to talk on the phone? Are the developers of encryption liable for ISIS encrypting their calls? Call me when CNN and Fox News get sued for lying, and when Sony gets prosecuted for starting trivial lawsuits to stifle free speech. Then we can talk about censoring internet forums.
      - zorpner 12y ago
        First off, I'm talking about culpability, not liability. Conflating morality and legality (not to mention censorship and providing a platform) makes your entire post nonsensical. And in the context of culpability, it's obvious that such a relationship only exists when the individual with the power to prevent bad action is aware of the action. So in this case, where Hotwheels is not only a participant in the relevant boards on 8chan but has expressed approval of what's happening, it's easy to hold him culpable (and probably liable as well, for what it's worth).
  - BryantD 12y ago
    There's a pretty substantial difference between "I like the idea of a site..." and "only legitimate stance to take." Can you explain why you think granting the ability to create a sub-board generates a different moral obligation, in your opinion, than granting the ability to create a new post?
    - lmm 12y ago
      Localism, or some generalization of that; it also feels like there's a kind of "principle of least privilege" here. Moderation should happen at the most local level where it's practical, with a community enforcing its own rules according to its own culture. Once you're offering a platform for people to build distinct communities on, you're assuming the position of an infrastructure provider or a government, and you have some of the obligations that go along with that. Allowing posts on a single board doesn't carry that obligation, because that's not what you're offering; the individual posts aren't and aren't meant to be communities with their own culture. I would still say that moderators have a moral obligation to be open, accountable, and representative of the community they moderate (even if it's a community they didn't want or ask for), and HN does a particularly poor job in this regard (lobste.rs demonstrates that it's possible to run a site like this with an open moderator log).
pjc50 12y ago
The decision has been made in choosing to allow those boards with those moderators; that means complicity in the overall theme of the content.

Dirlewanger 12y ago

Why is he a horrible person? Because he was sick of participating on an imageboard where admins arbitrarily decide what does/doesn't get discussed, sometimes based on their personal beliefs?

boomlinde 12y ago
Yes, that is the most likely reason for someone to think that he is a horrible person. Seriously, if you are interested in an answer you should just ask the question without answering it yourself with your strawman fantasy.
- Dirlewanger 12y ago
  Funny because although I'm paraphrasing a little, it's precisely the reason why Brennan started 4chan. And he has more or less stated this multiple times in writing and through livestream. Christ, you can ask him this and he'll say that. But I'm guessing blindly believing rampantly biased media surrounding the subject is more your style, right?
  - boomlinde 12y ago
    I don't know anything about the operator of 8chan. I was objecting to the way that you were asking your question. The form of Why? Because [some unjustifiable reason you made up that is one of many possible]? doesn't serve as a reasonable argument and it doesn't add anything to the discussion other than the slightly passive aggressive tone it has. If you actually want to call it paraphrasing, I'll go ahead and say that it's an outright misrepresentation of the post you responded to, since it contained nothing to suggest that. > But I'm guessing blindly believing rampantly biased media surrounding the subject is more your style, right? Where do I begin?

adamnemecek 12y ago

Care to provide an example or are we supposed to take your word for it?

theorique 12y ago

Check your ableist privilege.

Karunamon 12y ago
Don't do this here, please.

donatj 12y ago

Because he doesn't force your morals onto others he's the bad person?

donatj 12y ago
Do you like others forcing their morals onto you? Assume they feel the same. Treat people as you'd like to be treated. BAM - Golden ruled! You could tell me how / why I am wrong. I'd appreciate it.

stevenh 12y ago

Fredrick Brennan, the admin of 8chan.co/8ch.net, was born with osteogenesis imperfecta; he's spent his entire life in a wheelchair. He has endured broken bones over 120 times in his life. He is three feet tall. His arms are severely deformed and barely usable without enduring extreme pain. He was surviving in NYC without a personal care assistant on less than 1k per month. Despite these obstacles, he somehow managed to bootstrap his own project. He was on the verge of suicide before his site suddenly became successful last year. His site fully complies with US law. He immediately removes illegal content as soon as he is made aware of it. He is happy to work with law enforcement whenever necessary. He is beyond reprimand. As someone who is presumably an able-bodied white man with moderately wealthy parents, you're making your libelous and oppressive comment from a privileged position. You are also perpetuating a hate campaign against the differently-abled. This hate campaign has included the following attacks: - Ceaseless coordinated attempts to take his site down via false accusations to his hosting provider that he is supposedly hosting CP. - Similar attempts to socially engineer his registrar into disabling his domain. - Incredibly powerful DDOS attacks lasting weeks at a time, the most recent of which even took down his business partner 2ch.net for three days straight, which is the favorite site of approximately 20% of Japan. Imagine if reddit was brought down for 3 days because someone was angry about something that was uploaded to imgur. - Attempts to destroy his livelihood and drive him back to the precipice of suicide by bullying sites like Patreon into pulling his funding; the goal being to leave him stranded, penniless, and homeless in the Philippines without a personal care assistant. Separately, these are colossal nuisances. Together, they amount to a murder attempt by a ruthless, bigoted hate mob.

BgSpnnrs 12y ago
Perhaps the entrepreneurs amongst us don't like it when someone who the brutality of society would miscast as an ugly little man makes a site that isn't afraid of showing it's ugly side and garners moderate success in, if not financial but at least social acceptance and 'bootstrap' paradigms. Frederick is an inspirational bloke and all these people casting aspersions on his character whilst lamenting m00t's departure for his cultural boldness, despite disagreeing with the content is pure hypocrisy. Especially given the non-inclusive hate mob moniker attributed to GG by a genuinely terrible cabal of shoddy journalists and their transparent smears. I believe common sense will prevail in all of this and there will be no victory fanfares or v-days - quietly the press will mature, the trolls will get bored and good websites and reporters will get justified clicks.