Kiwi Farms is down across all domains as DDoS-Guard terminates service(twitter.com)
twitter.com
Kiwi Farms is down across all domains as DDoS-Guard terminates service
https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1566728231893573634
1,239 comments
It's not about who is more worthy of protection. And viewing it that way is incredibly dangerous. It's about what cost you are willing to pay for that protection.
Ex: we have a pretty clear innocent until proven guilty justice system. This means there will always be people who are guilty who will not be punished. We can make that less likely by just throwing every suspect into jail. This protects the general public better then the current system. But most will agree that the cost of this is too high. So we don't do it. That doesn't mean we don't want the protect the public from criminals.
The people who are against cloudflare banning kiwifarms aren't debating for who to protect. They are debating about the cost of that protection.
Ex: we have a pretty clear innocent until proven guilty justice system. This means there will always be people who are guilty who will not be punished. We can make that less likely by just throwing every suspect into jail. This protects the general public better then the current system. But most will agree that the cost of this is too high. So we don't do it. That doesn't mean we don't want the protect the public from criminals.
The people who are against cloudflare banning kiwifarms aren't debating for who to protect. They are debating about the cost of that protection.
> Ex: we have a pretty clear innocent until proven guilty justice system.
The high bar of "innocent until proven guilty" (and "beyond a reasonable doubt") only applies to criminal cases, though, and not to civil ones. The present situation is much more analogous to a civil case where you have to weigh the interests of two parties (i.e., Kiwifarms and their victims) against each other.
The high bar of "innocent until proven guilty" (and "beyond a reasonable doubt") only applies to criminal cases, though, and not to civil ones. The present situation is much more analogous to a civil case where you have to weigh the interests of two parties (i.e., Kiwifarms and their victims) against each other.
Even civil cases require material preponderance of evidence.
Online mobs need only confirmation bias.
Online mobs need only confirmation bias.
It was an example to show it's way too simplistic to view the situation as only "kiwifarms bad". The example cannot be mapped to the situation as you are trying to do. And it wasn't intented as an analogy.
Besides the two parties are not kiwifarms and their victims. The people who are against it make arguments about free speech and whether platforms should be responsible for the content hosted on them. If it was as simple as just kiwifarms vs the victims it would be an open and shut case.
Besides the two parties are not kiwifarms and their victims. The people who are against it make arguments about free speech and whether platforms should be responsible for the content hosted on them. If it was as simple as just kiwifarms vs the victims it would be an open and shut case.
> without recognising that Kiwifarms themselves were a mob
That's seems like a false equivalence to me. They don't have nearly as much as power and influence as the Twitter mobs. Which entire major websites do you think the KF "mob" can get off the internet by political/social pressure?
Also, if there's no avoiding the existence of mobs in the current political climate, it's better to allow all sides to have their own.
> I know who I think is more worthy of protection.
People with backing from almost all social major institutions, corporations, and academia?
That's seems like a false equivalence to me. They don't have nearly as much as power and influence as the Twitter mobs. Which entire major websites do you think the KF "mob" can get off the internet by political/social pressure?
Also, if there's no avoiding the existence of mobs in the current political climate, it's better to allow all sides to have their own.
> I know who I think is more worthy of protection.
People with backing from almost all social major institutions, corporations, and academia?
Who do you think has more power? A group of anonymous internet "trolls" attacking and harassing an individual or the individual who can't do anything to stop it?
Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences.
Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences.
> Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences.
Whenever I see this line, all I can think is this is the exact same reasoning used by racists and homophobes and religious fanatics in the past. Maybe it’s legal for you to be gay now, but we don’t want to welcome you in our community. Maybe it’s legal for black people to buy houses in our neighbourhoods now that doesn’t mean we have to be welcoming. Maybe we can’t kill you know for being an atheist but we’ll banish you from the community.
The reason modern societies are functionally republics ( I am counting constitutional monarchies here as well ) and not direct democracies is to protect against this very phenomenon of changing societal whims.
If you subscribe to this line of thinking, remember one thing. Societal normal are constantly changing. Just as acceptance of homosexuality waxed and waned across time, just as acceptance of foreigners waxed and waned, so to it will in the future. There will come one day, maybe in our life time, maybe far into the future, when all your values will be turned upside down and it will be people like you who will find themselves persecuted. And when that happens, just tell to yourself “Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences”
Whenever I see this line, all I can think is this is the exact same reasoning used by racists and homophobes and religious fanatics in the past. Maybe it’s legal for you to be gay now, but we don’t want to welcome you in our community. Maybe it’s legal for black people to buy houses in our neighbourhoods now that doesn’t mean we have to be welcoming. Maybe we can’t kill you know for being an atheist but we’ll banish you from the community.
The reason modern societies are functionally republics ( I am counting constitutional monarchies here as well ) and not direct democracies is to protect against this very phenomenon of changing societal whims.
If you subscribe to this line of thinking, remember one thing. Societal normal are constantly changing. Just as acceptance of homosexuality waxed and waned across time, just as acceptance of foreigners waxed and waned, so to it will in the future. There will come one day, maybe in our life time, maybe far into the future, when all your values will be turned upside down and it will be people like you who will find themselves persecuted. And when that happens, just tell to yourself “Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences”
Kiwi farms is not being persecuted for holding an identity, it's being held accountable for actions taken against innocent people. Nobody reasonable thinks, e.g., "persons who engage in abusive behavior" should be a protected class shielded from all repercussions.
The homosexuals are not being persecuted for holding an identity, they are being held accountable for actions taken against public decency and innocent children. Nobody reasonable thinks, eg, “persons who engage in degenerate behaviour” should be a protected class shielded from all repercussions.
- A homophobe cca 1954
- A homophobe cca 1954
So, just to be clear here: the position that you're arguing is that there are literally no actions anyone can take that should have social repercussions to them?
The position I am arguing for is actually something the Cloudflare CEO appears to support as well. At least in writing since he did cave under pressure and instituted censorship.
To quote Matthew Price: “it would have been appropriate as an infrastructure provider for us to wait for legal process”
In a civilised society, we do not have mob rule, we have the rule of law.
The reason we have this stems from the observation that societal norms change throughout time. If we do not have rule of law people will find themselves at the mercy of mobs and petty tyrants. We do not let the mob or “gods anointed” dictate who gets rights and who doesn’t, we offer the same rights to everyone and have a system in place to punish those who step outside the boundaries of the law. This is how a civilised society functions.
If you believe kiwifarms did something wrong, the correct steps are to engage with the system, go through the courts and show they have stepped outside the law. The correct steps are not to censor on the whims of a mob.
Let me ask you a question as well. If a gay teenager or a pregnant teenager gets kicked out of their house for being gay or falling pregnant, would you be as callous as to tell them “you may be protected against government consequences but you’re not protected against social consequences”?
To quote Matthew Price: “it would have been appropriate as an infrastructure provider for us to wait for legal process”
In a civilised society, we do not have mob rule, we have the rule of law.
The reason we have this stems from the observation that societal norms change throughout time. If we do not have rule of law people will find themselves at the mercy of mobs and petty tyrants. We do not let the mob or “gods anointed” dictate who gets rights and who doesn’t, we offer the same rights to everyone and have a system in place to punish those who step outside the boundaries of the law. This is how a civilised society functions.
If you believe kiwifarms did something wrong, the correct steps are to engage with the system, go through the courts and show they have stepped outside the law. The correct steps are not to censor on the whims of a mob.
Let me ask you a question as well. If a gay teenager or a pregnant teenager gets kicked out of their house for being gay or falling pregnant, would you be as callous as to tell them “you may be protected against government consequences but you’re not protected against social consequences”?
You (and Price) are painting yourself into such a bizarre rhetorical corner. You honestly believe that nobody should have consequences for any actions outside of the literal legal system? If I let someone use my house to hold parties while I'm away, and I get a few dozen people telling me that this person is engaging in abusive tirades every time they do, that I can't rescind my offer to let them use my house? That they are owed a literal platform at my own expense because... principle? How does that make any sense? How do you have any friends if you can't resolve disputes with them outside of a courtroom?
>If a gay teenager or a pregnant teenager gets kicked out of their house for being gay or falling pregnant, would you be as callous as to tell them “you may be protected against government consequences but you’re not protected against social consequences”?
Of course not, but I also wouldn't go out of my way to do anything to help the people who kicked out that teenager! There is no equivalence here, and it's utterly dystopian that you and anyone else seem to insist otherwise. What, specifically, is the protected class you think Kiwi Farms is a part of?
>If a gay teenager or a pregnant teenager gets kicked out of their house for being gay or falling pregnant, would you be as callous as to tell them “you may be protected against government consequences but you’re not protected against social consequences”?
Of course not, but I also wouldn't go out of my way to do anything to help the people who kicked out that teenager! There is no equivalence here, and it's utterly dystopian that you and anyone else seem to insist otherwise. What, specifically, is the protected class you think Kiwi Farms is a part of?
The false equivalence is you comparing a business relationship to an interpersonal relationship between two people in real life.
Do you believe stores should be allowed to ban black people from shopping there? Do you believe pharmacies should be allowed to deny medication to jewish people? Perhaps you believe bakeries should not have to sell cakes to gay people?
Are these groups not “owed a literal service at their own expense because... principles”?
To me it seems you’re the one painting yourself a bizarre rhetorical corner. You can’t have it both ways. If we agreed as a society businesses should not discriminate, then they should not discriminate.
So to answer the question you should asked, yes, I honestly believe that nobody should have consequences for any actions outside of the literal legal system when dealing with a business. Business relationships are not the same as interpersonal relationships.
And to answer this one too:
> What, specifically, is the protected class you think Kiwi Farms is a part of?
People who think differently from you.
Do you believe stores should be allowed to ban black people from shopping there? Do you believe pharmacies should be allowed to deny medication to jewish people? Perhaps you believe bakeries should not have to sell cakes to gay people?
Are these groups not “owed a literal service at their own expense because... principles”?
To me it seems you’re the one painting yourself a bizarre rhetorical corner. You can’t have it both ways. If we agreed as a society businesses should not discriminate, then they should not discriminate.
So to answer the question you should asked, yes, I honestly believe that nobody should have consequences for any actions outside of the literal legal system when dealing with a business. Business relationships are not the same as interpersonal relationships.
And to answer this one too:
> What, specifically, is the protected class you think Kiwi Farms is a part of?
People who think differently from you.
I don't know if you're being intentionally obtuse or don't realize the argument you're making, but the comparison I was making was to be analagous to yours -- you made an interpersonal analogy, so I followed in kind. My analogy doesn't change significantly at all when brought into business relationships: if a customer in a cafe and starts shouting death threats at other customers, you honestly believe the proprietor has no standing to kick them out without bringing a lawsuit or law enforcement? Do you think bouncers at night clubs and "no shirt, no shoes, no service" signs are also discrimination?
> People who think differently from you.
The issue at hand is not that they "think differently" than me, it's that they did terrible things to innocent people. The mere virtue of them having a different opinion from me doesn't mean they're suddenly off limits for repercussions, again, that's assinine, and nobody reasonable thinks the only time there should be consequences for anything is when they're legal consequences.
> People who think differently from you.
The issue at hand is not that they "think differently" than me, it's that they did terrible things to innocent people. The mere virtue of them having a different opinion from me doesn't mean they're suddenly off limits for repercussions, again, that's assinine, and nobody reasonable thinks the only time there should be consequences for anything is when they're legal consequences.
I think you’re the one being obtuse. That or you are profoundly ignorant and accepted the mainstream narrative uncritically. Kiwfarms was not driven off the internet because “they did terrible things to innocent people”. The did not. The equivalence with a customer shouting death threats or a no shirt no entry sign is false.
A hate campaign was launched against a minority group wielding no societal power by a socially dominant group backed by governments and corporations alike. A group of people with institutional power used their power, influence and privilege to harass and silence a powerless minority. Because they think different to them. This is why Kiwifarms is no longer on the internet.
A better comparison with what happened is, at some point in the past before civil rights were implemented, a white man overhears a black man talking. The white man doesn’t like what the black man is saying, so he says “that black man there is a murderer!”. So the black man is arrested and executed. And you, a passerby, take the word of the white man and begin telling everyone “oh that black guy was a vicious murderer”.
In any case, I have no further wish to engage. I have expressed my thoughts on the matter. I’ll leave you with an echo of my original post. When you’ll find yourself outside the cathedral, just tell your self “nobody reasonable thinks the only time there should be consequences for anything is when they're legal consequences”
A hate campaign was launched against a minority group wielding no societal power by a socially dominant group backed by governments and corporations alike. A group of people with institutional power used their power, influence and privilege to harass and silence a powerless minority. Because they think different to them. This is why Kiwifarms is no longer on the internet.
A better comparison with what happened is, at some point in the past before civil rights were implemented, a white man overhears a black man talking. The white man doesn’t like what the black man is saying, so he says “that black man there is a murderer!”. So the black man is arrested and executed. And you, a passerby, take the word of the white man and begin telling everyone “oh that black guy was a vicious murderer”.
In any case, I have no further wish to engage. I have expressed my thoughts on the matter. I’ll leave you with an echo of my original post. When you’ll find yourself outside the cathedral, just tell your self “nobody reasonable thinks the only time there should be consequences for anything is when they're legal consequences”
Yeah, but the Cloudflare CEO seems (pretends?) to be downright delusional.
He acts like as if internet outside of Cloudflare doesn’t exist, he pretends that there are no alternatives. Either he’s actually insane or this is just a marketing strategy.
He acts like as if internet outside of Cloudflare doesn’t exist, he pretends that there are no alternatives. Either he’s actually insane or this is just a marketing strategy.
> A group of anonymous internet "trolls" attacking and harassing an individual or the individual who can't do anything to stop it?
The comparison isn't to the people who are being harassed randomly. It's between two "mobs", the Twitter one and the KF one.
> Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences.
The legal concept doesn't, but the ideal (and the social norm) does.
The comparison isn't to the people who are being harassed randomly. It's between two "mobs", the Twitter one and the KF one.
> Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences.
The legal concept doesn't, but the ideal (and the social norm) does.
But isn't that a catch-22? If the twitter mob wasn't successful in getting KF kicked off, than KF would have been more powerful than the twitter mob?
What alternative are you suggesting, that we just roll over and let these kinds of assholes ruin lives with impunity?
"Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power."
What alternative are you suggesting, that we just roll over and let these kinds of assholes ruin lives with impunity?
"Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power."
We don't need to let either mob kick anyone off from the internet.
Okay, but how do you propose the victims of Kiwifarms protect themselves from being kicked off the internet?
And remember we’re not talking about their physical ability to connect to the internet (after all, no one has deprived Kiwifarms of that), we’re talking about their ability to access their audience and use their current identity.
And remember we’re not talking about their physical ability to connect to the internet (after all, no one has deprived Kiwifarms of that), we’re talking about their ability to access their audience and use their current identity.
What would you do if Kiwifarms came after you?
Ignore them. If they did something illegal then sue them.
Can you describe the process to sue an anonymous person in another country after they have swatted you?
Does law enforcement seriously consider tips from random internet users in some other country credible when handling domestic affairs as in swatting scenarios? Sounds like law enforcement is behind the times...
fluoridation(2)
0xy(1)
you couldn't be more wrong
I don't think the goal of KF is to de-platform individuals, but merely to discredit them by publishing demeaning information and rumors about them. So they are categorically different: one side is pro-free-speech, and the other side is pro-censorship.
"Doxxing" doesn't restrict someone else's free speech. It just discourages them from conducting speech under their public identity.
If you ask me, what they ought to do is "counter-dox" the KiwiForum users and give them a taste of their own medicine.
"Doxxing" doesn't restrict someone else's free speech. It just discourages them from conducting speech under their public identity.
If you ask me, what they ought to do is "counter-dox" the KiwiForum users and give them a taste of their own medicine.
> "Doxxing" doesn't restrict someone else's free speech. It just discourages them from conducting speech under their public identity.
That is restricting their ability to speak freely - now they have to hide their identity for fear of physical violence!!!
That is restricting their ability to speak freely - now they have to hide their identity for fear of physical violence!!!
I've seen people make the argument "free speech does not mean free from consequences". This seems to be the same case here. Free speech does not mean free from the consequence of "doxxing"
This argument is patently ridiculous - according to this logic everyone has "free speech" in that they are able to express themselves even if they are attacked for it with physical violence.
So the free exchange of information is dangerous-- why stop here? There's a lot more protecting we can do
Of course exchanging information can be dangerous - e.g. when people decide to run coordinated harrassment campaigns - it can also be a wonderful, magnificent thing (e.g. distributing academic knowledge freely) but it's not all good.
> "Doxxing" doesn't restrict someone else's free speech. It just discourages them from conducting speech under their public identity.
Isn’t this the exact same thing? Discouraging someone from conducting speech under their public identity is taking away their audience and community. It’s not removing their ability to speak, but it’s hard to see how it’s not restricting their free speech.
And in the exact same way, no one has removed the ability to speak of any KiwiFarms member (or indeed of their community as a whole). It’s simply been made harder for them to conduct their speech under their current public identity.
Isn’t this the exact same thing? Discouraging someone from conducting speech under their public identity is taking away their audience and community. It’s not removing their ability to speak, but it’s hard to see how it’s not restricting their free speech.
And in the exact same way, no one has removed the ability to speak of any KiwiFarms member (or indeed of their community as a whole). It’s simply been made harder for them to conduct their speech under their current public identity.
They published the home address of the family of a trans child and their members physically showed up in person to harass and intimidate that family for years for the crime of existing.
https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/x76vck/...
https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/x76vck/...
> So they are categorically different: one side is pro-free-speech, and the other side is pro-censorship.
The "free speech" angle is an obvious smoke screen for bullying. Their "doxing" is in typical bully style, a whole forum against one person they take a dislike to.
Most normal people don't want to play that game, or even have the resources to do it.
The "free speech" angle is an obvious smoke screen for bullying. Their "doxing" is in typical bully style, a whole forum against one person they take a dislike to.
Most normal people don't want to play that game, or even have the resources to do it.
Oh no you can’t post hate on the internet, that’s clearly just as bad as causing someone to commit suicide.
KF is certainly quite hateful, racist, spiteful, etc. I just don't like when arguments devolve into unplugging each other the internet.
If you're using the internet to try and threaten and intimidate people then yes, people will try to unplug you from it.
You could conceivably regard almost any comment as "threatening and intimidating".
On a larger, more serious scale, almost every world power uses the internet to distribute propaganda with the effect of "threatening and intimidating" other nations. There is some degree of "threatening and intimidating" in almost every discussion of politics.
The US Gov might consider Wikileaks to be "threatening and intimidating". Ukraine "threatens and intimidates" Russia and vice versa. Corporations "threaten and intimidate" their workers, while unions "threaten and intimidate" corporations.
I don't think that's a justified basis to atomize the entire internet, but I do think that is a basis for partisan censorship
On a small scale, none of this matters because it is just internet gossip between a few deranged individuals. But this is creating a precedent for internet censorship at large.
On a larger, more serious scale, almost every world power uses the internet to distribute propaganda with the effect of "threatening and intimidating" other nations. There is some degree of "threatening and intimidating" in almost every discussion of politics.
The US Gov might consider Wikileaks to be "threatening and intimidating". Ukraine "threatens and intimidates" Russia and vice versa. Corporations "threaten and intimidate" their workers, while unions "threaten and intimidate" corporations.
I don't think that's a justified basis to atomize the entire internet, but I do think that is a basis for partisan censorship
On a small scale, none of this matters because it is just internet gossip between a few deranged individuals. But this is creating a precedent for internet censorship at large.
> You could conceivably regard almost any comment as "threatening and intimidating"
Of course, but I think a threat to kill someone with a bomb is unambiguously threatening and intimidating whereas "I think this person's ideology is terrible and disagree with it" is not.
> The US Gov might consider Wikileaks to be "threatening and intimidating". Ukraine "threatens and intimidates" Russia and vice versa. Corporations "threaten and intimidate" their workers, while unions "threaten and intimidate" corporations.
You're kind of lumping in a bunch of separate concerns - a war between Russia and Ukraine is not the same as a forum of neo Nazis and neither are whistleblowing or labour relations disputes. Could you explain why you think they're related (as I can't personally see how they are)?
Of course, but I think a threat to kill someone with a bomb is unambiguously threatening and intimidating whereas "I think this person's ideology is terrible and disagree with it" is not.
> The US Gov might consider Wikileaks to be "threatening and intimidating". Ukraine "threatens and intimidates" Russia and vice versa. Corporations "threaten and intimidate" their workers, while unions "threaten and intimidate" corporations.
You're kind of lumping in a bunch of separate concerns - a war between Russia and Ukraine is not the same as a forum of neo Nazis and neither are whistleblowing or labour relations disputes. Could you explain why you think they're related (as I can't personally see how they are)?
>Of course, but I think a threat to kill someone with a bomb is unambiguously threatening and intimidating
The "bomb threat" was posted by a recently-created and otherwise inactive account, immediately flagged by multiple users, and deleted by a moderator within minutes. The user who posted it was immediately banned. It was also clearly unserious.
https://archive.ph/damIX
The "bomb threat" was posted by a recently-created and otherwise inactive account, immediately flagged by multiple users, and deleted by a moderator within minutes. The user who posted it was immediately banned. It was also clearly unserious.
https://archive.ph/damIX
But if someone comes at you wanting to unplug you from the internet (in every meaningful sense), what possible recourse do you have? These are trolls, they don’t go away just because you ask nicely or try to ignore them.
Kiwifarm's owner statement: https://web.archive.org/web/20220905182626/https://poa.st/no...
This whole thing is kinda fascinating, if not extremely scary. After learning about the situation from the last couple threads here and going down the rabbit hole of sources, the future of the internet seems pretty sad... If cloudflare doesn't reinstate the website after dealing with said immediate danger they claimed was the reason to remove its protection it just shows how hard you can shut someone down by just twitter outrage.
If the threat really was so dire, and if there really was something of the sort sure i can see allowing the obvious DDOS in the background go thru and take the website down. But not reinstating it after the time they were claiming to buy by doing it was already bought it means if you scream loud enough on twitter, even while having an obvious army of arsonists behind you, the firefighters will just stop serving said target.
Sure, cloudflare is a private company and all that, nobody questions it, but it doesn't make it any less unsettling.
This whole thing is kinda fascinating, if not extremely scary. After learning about the situation from the last couple threads here and going down the rabbit hole of sources, the future of the internet seems pretty sad... If cloudflare doesn't reinstate the website after dealing with said immediate danger they claimed was the reason to remove its protection it just shows how hard you can shut someone down by just twitter outrage.
If the threat really was so dire, and if there really was something of the sort sure i can see allowing the obvious DDOS in the background go thru and take the website down. But not reinstating it after the time they were claiming to buy by doing it was already bought it means if you scream loud enough on twitter, even while having an obvious army of arsonists behind you, the firefighters will just stop serving said target.
Sure, cloudflare is a private company and all that, nobody questions it, but it doesn't make it any less unsettling.
Did you ever watch 12 Angry Men? There's a scene in that movie where an unabashedly racist man is making his point as loudly and angrily as he can. One by one, all the others in the room turn their backs on him. When only one man is left, that man has a short message for the racist: "Sit down, and don't open your mouth again while I'm here."
Nobody puts him in jail. Nobody takes away his right to make a living or his children or his home. They just send a clear message: Don't bring that sort of thing around here. Don't bring it around us. There's no point in engaging in a dialogue with that person. Sure, you allow them to speak, in that you don't respond to that speech with violence or prosecution. But you don't have to make room for it.
We can't and shouldn't have the government stepping in to say what speech is or is not allowed. And in the United States, we don't. Russia is another matter, but as the post says, the idea that that means every Russian person or company is OK with things this awful is not true.
What that means, though, is that if there are sentiments so odious (and in some cases, literally dangerous, but not illegal) that our free society doesn't think it's appropriate to support a venue for their discussion, it's up to that society writ large, not government, to limit that discussion. There is nothing wrong with fostering a societal sense that there is no room in our world for the kind of shit that Kiwi Farms spewed, even if it is legal. There is nothing wrong with expecting large companies to live up to that standard.
So I don't see this as scary, at all. I see it as a relief. I see it as a free society working the way it's supposed to, with some caveats. (I still don't love how much power large corporate entities have, but not for this reason, exactly.) And I think there are a lot of people out there whose lives are safer because of it.
Edit: For people who haven't seen it, here's the scene I reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXlHKTPfLVA
Nobody puts him in jail. Nobody takes away his right to make a living or his children or his home. They just send a clear message: Don't bring that sort of thing around here. Don't bring it around us. There's no point in engaging in a dialogue with that person. Sure, you allow them to speak, in that you don't respond to that speech with violence or prosecution. But you don't have to make room for it.
We can't and shouldn't have the government stepping in to say what speech is or is not allowed. And in the United States, we don't. Russia is another matter, but as the post says, the idea that that means every Russian person or company is OK with things this awful is not true.
What that means, though, is that if there are sentiments so odious (and in some cases, literally dangerous, but not illegal) that our free society doesn't think it's appropriate to support a venue for their discussion, it's up to that society writ large, not government, to limit that discussion. There is nothing wrong with fostering a societal sense that there is no room in our world for the kind of shit that Kiwi Farms spewed, even if it is legal. There is nothing wrong with expecting large companies to live up to that standard.
So I don't see this as scary, at all. I see it as a relief. I see it as a free society working the way it's supposed to, with some caveats. (I still don't love how much power large corporate entities have, but not for this reason, exactly.) And I think there are a lot of people out there whose lives are safer because of it.
Edit: For people who haven't seen it, here's the scene I reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXlHKTPfLVA
I don't know the entire history here, but my understanding is that KF was a forum where doxing and swatting was openly pervasive. Sounds like a perfect example of society holding a site accountable and producing the correct outcome.
There was no government involved, so it's not a "free speech" issue.
I always talk about the wild west of the late 90's when the Internet was brand new. My colleagues and I all talked about the myriad sketchy ways we could make money. We chose not to. It's as simple as that. If you want to develop something you think is beneficial to society, don't support bad behavior and certainly not dangerous or illegal behavior.
This idea that a "dangerous idea" should somehow be a protected normality is ridiculous. Society has limits. Get used to it.
There was no government involved, so it's not a "free speech" issue.
I always talk about the wild west of the late 90's when the Internet was brand new. My colleagues and I all talked about the myriad sketchy ways we could make money. We chose not to. It's as simple as that. If you want to develop something you think is beneficial to society, don't support bad behavior and certainly not dangerous or illegal behavior.
This idea that a "dangerous idea" should somehow be a protected normality is ridiculous. Society has limits. Get used to it.
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.)
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.)
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.
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.
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
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.
I think the late Aaron Swartz describes my stance on free speech as a doctrine and moral principle: 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.
> believe that free speech, as a doctrine, is an intrinsic good.
I don't believe so. For example, hate speech and verbal abuse against a mentally vulnerable person, privately communicated, with only the intent to harm that person is clearly morally bad. It then follows that if we can identify exactly when this occurs and limit it without further externalities, then that would be morally good.
Another example: there is a fire, and you give firefighters misinformation with the intent to prevent people from being saved. That is a moral bad, externalities notwithstanding, and it is a moral good if we could prevent exactly such acts.
If you accept these, then the discussion is no longer that free speech is always good, but that what forms of speech in what contexts are acceptable, and what limits on enforcement on free speech is acceptable. I suppose that most people accept these, as opposed to having an absolute stance as yours, and people with varied experiences have different positions on this complicated issue, hence the constant conversation and reappraisal.
I don't believe so. For example, hate speech and verbal abuse against a mentally vulnerable person, privately communicated, with only the intent to harm that person is clearly morally bad. It then follows that if we can identify exactly when this occurs and limit it without further externalities, then that would be morally good.
Another example: there is a fire, and you give firefighters misinformation with the intent to prevent people from being saved. That is a moral bad, externalities notwithstanding, and it is a moral good if we could prevent exactly such acts.
If you accept these, then the discussion is no longer that free speech is always good, but that what forms of speech in what contexts are acceptable, and what limits on enforcement on free speech is acceptable. I suppose that most people accept these, as opposed to having an absolute stance as yours, and people with varied experiences have different positions on this complicated issue, hence the constant conversation and reappraisal.
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.
Sure, but the internet's centralized nature breaks this dynamic because the "public square" is being privatized. Imagine if you couldn't print political flyers without active participation from the paper company, or if you couldn't host meetups without the wholesale endorsement of the phone company.
What we are seeing is not a shunning by society at large. What we're seeing is a fight between two radical (and generally unhinged) groups of individuals on the internet.
The real problem is that these technical problems devolve into bureaucratic social problems due to the design of the internet. If there is a silver lining here, it's that more people will be encouraged to learn about censorship-resistant networks like Tor.
I think a return to voluntary communication on a peer-to-peer basis may one day return sanity to the network, because direct-messaging retains much of the IRL social characteristics you've described.
What we are seeing is not a shunning by society at large. What we're seeing is a fight between two radical (and generally unhinged) groups of individuals on the internet.
The real problem is that these technical problems devolve into bureaucratic social problems due to the design of the internet. If there is a silver lining here, it's that more people will be encouraged to learn about censorship-resistant networks like Tor.
I think a return to voluntary communication on a peer-to-peer basis may one day return sanity to the network, because direct-messaging retains much of the IRL social characteristics you've described.
> Imagine if you couldn't print political flyers without active participation from the paper company, or if you couldn't host meetups without the wholesale endorsement of the phone company.
Except, Cloudflare isn't required to run a website. If you are printing 100s or even 1000s of flyers your home printer might be fine. If you are printing millions your probably going to need to make a significant investment or work with a professional printer. The same is true for Cloudflare in this scenario. It doesn't enable running the site, it just helps scale it for cheaper. If the professional printers/cloudflare's of the world decide to shun you, yeah you'll have a harder time getting your message out, but I see that as a feature, not a bug. If I shun someone I don't want someone else handing them a megaphone to scream in my ear.
Except, Cloudflare isn't required to run a website. If you are printing 100s or even 1000s of flyers your home printer might be fine. If you are printing millions your probably going to need to make a significant investment or work with a professional printer. The same is true for Cloudflare in this scenario. It doesn't enable running the site, it just helps scale it for cheaper. If the professional printers/cloudflare's of the world decide to shun you, yeah you'll have a harder time getting your message out, but I see that as a feature, not a bug. If I shun someone I don't want someone else handing them a megaphone to scream in my ear.
>Except, Cloudflare isn't required to run a website.
A sizable CDN, which Cloudflare is one example of, is practically required to serve a website seeing any significant traffic in this day and age.
And therein lies the problem.
The internet was founded on a philosophy of decentralization, the fucking thing was designed to withstand all the destructive forces of a nuclear war. If one part of the network is damaged or otherwise inaccessible, the rest of the network will route around the damage to reestablish connections.
But that's not the state of the internet today. The internet today is heavily centralized around a small handful of key players. Cloudflare is one such player. Without the blessings of such players, you have no ability to access or do anything on the internet.
For now the vast majority of people receive and enjoy the blessings and thus aren't compelled to do anything about this fucking gigantic elephant in the room. But those blessings aren't guaranteed, and the fact we must rely on such frivolous blessings is by itself preposterous.
>If you are printing millions your probably going to need to make a significant investment or work with a professional printer.
What we're seeing here is a professional printer refusing services because he doesn't like what's being printed, with no basis on legality which is the only grounds upon which any business may refuse to render services.
Anyone who claims to support free speech shouldn't be happy about any of this turn of events. You don't spread free speech by censoring speech, the results are quite the opposite every single time and these will all add up to come crashing down eventually.
And especially to those celebrating or ecstatic this happened: Be careful what you wish for, because when your turn to get cancelled comes up, nobody might be around to help you.
The whole point of free speech is to protect and guarantee the expression of disagreeable speech, because nobody's going to censor speech they like or agree with.
A sizable CDN, which Cloudflare is one example of, is practically required to serve a website seeing any significant traffic in this day and age.
And therein lies the problem.
The internet was founded on a philosophy of decentralization, the fucking thing was designed to withstand all the destructive forces of a nuclear war. If one part of the network is damaged or otherwise inaccessible, the rest of the network will route around the damage to reestablish connections.
But that's not the state of the internet today. The internet today is heavily centralized around a small handful of key players. Cloudflare is one such player. Without the blessings of such players, you have no ability to access or do anything on the internet.
For now the vast majority of people receive and enjoy the blessings and thus aren't compelled to do anything about this fucking gigantic elephant in the room. But those blessings aren't guaranteed, and the fact we must rely on such frivolous blessings is by itself preposterous.
>If you are printing millions your probably going to need to make a significant investment or work with a professional printer.
What we're seeing here is a professional printer refusing services because he doesn't like what's being printed, with no basis on legality which is the only grounds upon which any business may refuse to render services.
Anyone who claims to support free speech shouldn't be happy about any of this turn of events. You don't spread free speech by censoring speech, the results are quite the opposite every single time and these will all add up to come crashing down eventually.
And especially to those celebrating or ecstatic this happened: Be careful what you wish for, because when your turn to get cancelled comes up, nobody might be around to help you.
The whole point of free speech is to protect and guarantee the expression of disagreeable speech, because nobody's going to censor speech they like or agree with.
> What we're seeing here is a professional printer refusing services because he doesn't like what's being printed, with no basis on legality which is the only grounds upon which any business may refuse to render services.
A business can in general refuse to do business with anyone for any reason. There are certain federal restrictions, namely religion, race, gender etc, but outside that refusing to do business with someone is an inherent part of free speech. Advocating for requiring a company to do business with someone they don't want to is advocating against free speech
A business can in general refuse to do business with anyone for any reason. There are certain federal restrictions, namely religion, race, gender etc, but outside that refusing to do business with someone is an inherent part of free speech. Advocating for requiring a company to do business with someone they don't want to is advocating against free speech
>Advocating for requiring a company to do business with someone they don't want to is advocating against free speech
Yes, quite so, and in fact I agree that Cloudflare has a right to do or not do business as they please.
The real, fundamental problem is that the internet has become too centralized, such that a few entities can direct the rest with impunity.
However, I think we can agree that fixing the centralization of the internet at this point is a fool's errand.
I recall recently about a story of how a father got kicked out by Google for uploading some pictures to his Google account. Fundamentally, KF getting kicked out by Cloudflare is the same thing: Customers getting kicked out by companies because of disagreeable content; companies which are effectively gatekeepers to the internet at large.
So the next best way, in the interim, to keep the internet working in some fashion, is to have businesses like Cloudflare not kick customers out simply for saying or having disagreeable things.
With great powers come great responsibilities, as the saying goes.
Yes, quite so, and in fact I agree that Cloudflare has a right to do or not do business as they please.
The real, fundamental problem is that the internet has become too centralized, such that a few entities can direct the rest with impunity.
However, I think we can agree that fixing the centralization of the internet at this point is a fool's errand.
I recall recently about a story of how a father got kicked out by Google for uploading some pictures to his Google account. Fundamentally, KF getting kicked out by Cloudflare is the same thing: Customers getting kicked out by companies because of disagreeable content; companies which are effectively gatekeepers to the internet at large.
So the next best way, in the interim, to keep the internet working in some fashion, is to have businesses like Cloudflare not kick customers out simply for saying or having disagreeable things.
With great powers come great responsibilities, as the saying goes.
> Advocating for requiring a company to do business with someone they don't want to is advocating against free speech
Only if you accept that corporations should have the same rights as people. To me that makes no sense once the get to a certain scale.
Only if you accept that corporations should have the same rights as people. To me that makes no sense once the get to a certain scale.
It's not a problem if one print shop declines to print your flyer; it is a problem if there's only three print shops in the world.
A sizable CDN is not required to run a website with significant traffic.
Cloudflare plays a critical role here because of DDoS and not any of the legitimate load.
Cloudflare plays a critical role here because of DDoS and not any of the legitimate load.
You can't print political flyers without a press. Freedom of the press has never implied everyone is owed access to someone else's press or other services.
There are very narrowly tailored prior restraint on the freedom of association in the US, and outside of those companies have wide latitude. The New York Times is not obligated to donate column inches to the KKK, for example.
> I think a return to voluntary communication on a peer-to-peer basis
That's what we have now; the issue I believe you appear to have is you're not a peer. Most of us never were; how many actually ran their own ISP back in the day or actually entered into a traffic peering agreement?
There are very narrowly tailored prior restraint on the freedom of association in the US, and outside of those companies have wide latitude. The New York Times is not obligated to donate column inches to the KKK, for example.
> I think a return to voluntary communication on a peer-to-peer basis
That's what we have now; the issue I believe you appear to have is you're not a peer. Most of us never were; how many actually ran their own ISP back in the day or actually entered into a traffic peering agreement?
That's why society is dependent on large companies staying in their lane. If a hospital decides to refuse service to bad people because the world would be better if they died, we'd obviously condemn that. The same is true of some utilities, but general businesses can shun people.
Cloudflare tried to stay in its lane, but it was dragged out of it by the Twitter mob.
Cloudflare tried to stay in its lane, but it was dragged out of it by the Twitter mob.
> Cloudflare tried to stay in its lane, but it was dragged out of it by the Twitter mob.
That's bullshit. Cloudflare removed the sex worker-friendly social media network Switter over NO complaints or likewise.
Cloudflare seems eagerly anti-sexwork and pro nazi. Except when the whole internet comes out and says "NO".
Cloudflare can play pretend that it's some "core functionality" of the internet, but their core business is "safeguarding booters to DDoS sites" while they provide the DDoS cover as a business racket. One might even describe it as "organized"
That's bullshit. Cloudflare removed the sex worker-friendly social media network Switter over NO complaints or likewise.
Cloudflare seems eagerly anti-sexwork and pro nazi. Except when the whole internet comes out and says "NO".
Cloudflare can play pretend that it's some "core functionality" of the internet, but their core business is "safeguarding booters to DDoS sites" while they provide the DDoS cover as a business racket. One might even describe it as "organized"
I wouldn't call the passing of SESTA/FOSTA "no complaints or likewise". In that specific instance, you can very much put the blame on lawmakers being more anti-sexwork than anti-nazis, if you want to frame it that way.
FOSTA/SESTA was a poorly-conceived law that created a lot of potential liability for the ostensible goal of reducing sex trafficking. Pretty much all sex work is potentially sex trafficking, so any corporate lawyer will tell management to stay as far away from that as possible.
The USA cannot criminalize being a "Nazi" because freedom of political affiliation and political expression is a core right. The USA went through political inquisitions in past decades to root out communism among US citizens, and nobody looks back on that with approval.
As an aside, "Nazi" has devolved into a completely meaningless term, so I'd prefer something a bit more specific.
The USA cannot criminalize being a "Nazi" because freedom of political affiliation and political expression is a core right. The USA went through political inquisitions in past decades to root out communism among US citizens, and nobody looks back on that with approval.
As an aside, "Nazi" has devolved into a completely meaningless term, so I'd prefer something a bit more specific.
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...
Of course but it’s about promoting a culture of free speech. It’s important. And of course that doesn’t mean absolute. If speech is being used to create an imminent threat then it should be limited during that time. But hurt feelings, feeling “unsafe”, being insulted, being offended, blasphemy, etc. are not reasons to limit the culture of free speech. It creates more harm long term than it solves.
Of course different communities that moderate can choose what that means to them. But there is a bad precedent when global bans are implemented, especially when it’s arbitrary. This appeal to authority, like begging a lordship is not the right direction.
What happens when inevitably the authority is not someone we agree with? Precedent has been set. We encoded into law free speech for this reason. We’d be wise to promote it as cultural value too.
Of course different communities that moderate can choose what that means to them. But there is a bad precedent when global bans are implemented, especially when it’s arbitrary. This appeal to authority, like begging a lordship is not the right direction.
What happens when inevitably the authority is not someone we agree with? Precedent has been set. We encoded into law free speech for this reason. We’d be wise to promote it as cultural value too.
(US) Law has nothing to do with free speech.
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?
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?
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.
I dunno what you think you're arguing, but it's nonsense.
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.
I mean murder continues despite social stigma and criminalization. Unless you are suggesting we legalize murder I'm not seeing your point here.
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.
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.
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.
I don't think that's what you are trying to say, but I can't put together what you are.
> 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.
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.
"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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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_t...
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_t...
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.
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.
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.
I get your point, it's just a bad example given the historical baggage.
The analogy itself is dicta: part of the decision’s explanation and commentary; not a statement of law or binding precedent. Therefore not something that can be overturned in the subsequent case.
AFAIK the courts did not find this. After all, they were not considering the case of someone who shouted ‘fire!’ in a crowded theatre. If someone actually did this and people died as a result (e.g. in a stampede), it seems highly unlikely that a free speech defense could be used.
> It is relevant if the courts later overturned the decision and it is now considered free speech.
Since "it" is the draft stuff, not shouting fire, it's only mildly sometimes relevant.
Since "it" is the draft stuff, not shouting fire, it's only mildly sometimes relevant.
What is “the government” in a democracy?
The government apparatus, as only that has the power to fine you, jail you, etc.
Ok, and how is being fined by a government materially different from being intimated and canceled by a mob?
And why would the approaches to them be different if, presumably, both represent the people?
And why would the approaches to them be different if, presumably, both represent the people?
Most people are fairly aware that context matters. What's illegal in one context is perfectly legal in another. These are two very different contexts.
byyll(1)
> people shouldn't be persecuted for their beliefs
Who is being persecuted? For which beliefs? And how are they being persecuted?
Who is being persecuted? For which beliefs? And how are they being persecuted?
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.
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.
Ah ok, if nobody is being persecuted here, then I don’t understand why you insinuated it.
> 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.
"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(3)
> was no government involved, so it's not a "free speech" issue
Nitpick: it is a free speech issue. It’s just not a First Amendment concern.
Your broader point stands: rights must balance; it’s perfectly fair for the freedom of assembly to peacefully balance someone freedom of speech.
Nitpick: it is a free speech issue. It’s just not a First Amendment concern.
Your broader point stands: rights must balance; it’s perfectly fair for the freedom of assembly to peacefully balance someone freedom of speech.
I agree - you have the right to not go some place where you don't want to be.
You do not have the right to convince a fire department to stop protecting a house so you can burn it down in peace.
To think this situation is anything BUT that is pure hypocrisy.
You do not have the right to convince a fire department to stop protecting a house so you can burn it down in peace.
To think this situation is anything BUT that is pure hypocrisy.
> this situation is anything BUT that is pure hypocrisy
Fires kill people. As do bombs. As in bomb threats levied to intimidate someone into not speaking. Nobody is dying because Kiwi Farms is being DDOS’d. If there is a side antithetical to free speech in this discussion, it’s the group threatening to assault people whose speech they disagree with. Not those asking them to take their business elsewhere.
Fires kill people. As do bombs. As in bomb threats levied to intimidate someone into not speaking. Nobody is dying because Kiwi Farms is being DDOS’d. If there is a side antithetical to free speech in this discussion, it’s the group threatening to assault people whose speech they disagree with. Not those asking them to take their business elsewhere.
Here is an excellent writeup on the forum and the recent drama, that is not actively trying to push an agenda on the situation.
https://defaultfriend.substack.com/p/suicide-by-kiwi-farms
https://defaultfriend.substack.com/p/suicide-by-kiwi-farms
Thank you for a varied view of this. Not surprised to see Taylor Lorenz involved in all of this...
>In a profile on her in the Washington Post, written by, oh wow, Taylor Lorenz again, Taylor writes...
>In a profile on her in the Washington Post, written by, oh wow, Taylor Lorenz again, Taylor writes...
Well, doxing by public means seemed to be pretty open and shut yes, but while there are accusations galore of swatting I'm yet to see a single piece of evidence of them being to blame for it, and on paper they actively prohibit illegal things of that sort, for whatever that's worth. Hell the obvious false flag on the congresswomen straight up saying it was a specific user on the forum should be enough to cast suspicions on all these accusations as far as I'm concerned and at least expect some proof, some archive, something.
> I don't know the entire history here, but my understanding is that KF was a forum where doxing and swatting was openly pervasive. Sounds like a perfect example of society holding a site accountable and producing the correct outcome.
Because it IS just that. This is the logical and proper consequence for freedom of speech. You speak, others get to react in their own way that does not HARM you but they are not obligated to HELP you speak.
Because it IS just that. This is the logical and proper consequence for freedom of speech. You speak, others get to react in their own way that does not HARM you but they are not obligated to HELP you speak.
>There was no government involved, so it's not a "free speech" issue.
Strong disagree. Free speech is a central tenet for the entire modern society. Without it, there is no scientific revolution, no Enlightenment.
Accept controversial, unpleasant, disruptive discussion and ideas or accept stagnation. That's it, there is no way around it.
Strong disagree. Free speech is a central tenet for the entire modern society. Without it, there is no scientific revolution, no Enlightenment.
Accept controversial, unpleasant, disruptive discussion and ideas or accept stagnation. That's it, there is no way around it.
I, and others, are using our speech to convince others that this forum shouldn't have a platform on the internet. Should you accept my speech? Should you accept CF's form of speech (which is to not help amplify harmful speech)?
Free speech isn't just the ability to say things, but also the ability to not say something, and to not help share something. Action (and inaction) is a form of speech.
Free speech isn't just the ability to say things, but also the ability to not say something, and to not help share something. Action (and inaction) is a form of speech.
In terms of SWATing, harassment, and "driving people to suicide" this is a false impression, one that is intentionally spread by the site's detractors. SWATing and harassment is strictly banned on Kiwi Farms. The site owner aggressively removes such posts and cooperates with law enforcement.
The leader of the campaign to take down Kiwi Farms is Keffals, a transsexual Twitch streamer with a large underage audience. Kiwi Farms has documented Keffals’ sexualized interactions with underage members of her community, as well as her history in porn and online interactions with several open pedophiles. Some believe this is why she wants the site nuked.
See archived copy of the Kiwi Farms thread for documentation of Keffals' encouragement of doxing and SWATing, sexual grooming of minors on the “Catboy Ranch” Discord server, and her website which instructs minors on how to secretly obtain and self-dose cross-sex hormones behind parents’ backs:
https://archive.ph/HY4hK
The sketchy online pharmacy Keffals’ DIY HRT Directory promotes sells cross-sex hormones marketed to children, with holofoil anime lolita box art and labels that say “keep away from parents”:
https://archive.ph/zZMRp
The medical consequences of a confused child self-dosing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones outside parental and medical supervision can be sterilizing, irreversible, and lifelong. Keffals promotes the DIY HRT Directory on Twitter and Twitch to a huge audience of underaged viewers.
None of these details about Keffals were mentioned in WaPo or NBC accounts of this story. It is incredibly dismaying to see Keffals doing this to children, well-documented and for the most part out in the open, and realize that no one in the news media cares.
===
EDIT: In response to a comment below...
KF's owner refused the New Zealand's government command to remove Brenton Tarrant's manifesto and shooting video. This demand was not backed up by American law. He cooperates with law enforcement requests for information on criminal threats and illegal material posted to Kiwi Farms.
The leader of the campaign to take down Kiwi Farms is Keffals, a transsexual Twitch streamer with a large underage audience. Kiwi Farms has documented Keffals’ sexualized interactions with underage members of her community, as well as her history in porn and online interactions with several open pedophiles. Some believe this is why she wants the site nuked.
See archived copy of the Kiwi Farms thread for documentation of Keffals' encouragement of doxing and SWATing, sexual grooming of minors on the “Catboy Ranch” Discord server, and her website which instructs minors on how to secretly obtain and self-dose cross-sex hormones behind parents’ backs:
https://archive.ph/HY4hK
The sketchy online pharmacy Keffals’ DIY HRT Directory promotes sells cross-sex hormones marketed to children, with holofoil anime lolita box art and labels that say “keep away from parents”:
https://archive.ph/zZMRp
The medical consequences of a confused child self-dosing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones outside parental and medical supervision can be sterilizing, irreversible, and lifelong. Keffals promotes the DIY HRT Directory on Twitter and Twitch to a huge audience of underaged viewers.
None of these details about Keffals were mentioned in WaPo or NBC accounts of this story. It is incredibly dismaying to see Keffals doing this to children, well-documented and for the most part out in the open, and realize that no one in the news media cares.
===
EDIT: In response to a comment below...
KF's owner refused the New Zealand's government command to remove Brenton Tarrant's manifesto and shooting video. This demand was not backed up by American law. He cooperates with law enforcement requests for information on criminal threats and illegal material posted to Kiwi Farms.
(a) There is no independent verification of those claims against Keffals
(b) It’s irrelevant — this is about kiwifarms behavior, not Keffals
(b) It’s irrelevant — this is about kiwifarms behavior, not Keffals
> There is no independent verification of those claims against Keffals
What would independent verification look like? I browsed the archived thread and it seems like the vast majority of claims have accompanying Twitter and archive links.
What would independent verification look like? I browsed the archived thread and it seems like the vast majority of claims have accompanying Twitter and archive links.
> (a) There is no independent verification of those claims against Keffals
There absolutely is. The DIY HRT Directory website is live right now, as are Keffals' tweets and Twitch clips promoting it. The sexual tweets directed at minors are archived on archive.ph, as are Keffals' doxing of the KF owner's mom and Keffal's calls for SWAting and doxing. The "Catboy Ranch" screenshots and Kiwi Farms investigation prompted Keffals to wipe the server. It's impossible to save Discord content on third-party archival services, but tweets between Discord users from that period buttress the allegations.
There absolutely is. The DIY HRT Directory website is live right now, as are Keffals' tweets and Twitch clips promoting it. The sexual tweets directed at minors are archived on archive.ph, as are Keffals' doxing of the KF owner's mom and Keffal's calls for SWAting and doxing. The "Catboy Ranch" screenshots and Kiwi Farms investigation prompted Keffals to wipe the server. It's impossible to save Discord content on third-party archival services, but tweets between Discord users from that period buttress the allegations.
Got five kids. If any of them were trans, I'd support them connecting with whatever community they could find. Some people were born into the wrong body and most kids know it immediately. The dysphoria can happen early. I'm sure there are some kids that make mistakes and try hormone therapy because they think it will make them feel better. The list of reasons they might do this are long and many are related to abuse or depression.
How about we stop labeling people pedophiles and support people (even kids) finding their truth.
I'd also firmly believe all transgender adults would be _horrified_ by any type of abuse. You're going to find an outlier in there as with any statistic. But like 99.9999% of all transgender adults come from a position of empathy and support. To assume otherwise is you just pushing your idea of morality on other people.
Of course if you simply refuse to believe in the idea that someone could be gay or bi or trans (and be certain of it at a young age), that's an entirely different conversation. Kids know who they are. We're supposed to guide them. Not oppress them.
How about we stop labeling people pedophiles and support people (even kids) finding their truth.
I'd also firmly believe all transgender adults would be _horrified_ by any type of abuse. You're going to find an outlier in there as with any statistic. But like 99.9999% of all transgender adults come from a position of empathy and support. To assume otherwise is you just pushing your idea of morality on other people.
Of course if you simply refuse to believe in the idea that someone could be gay or bi or trans (and be certain of it at a young age), that's an entirely different conversation. Kids know who they are. We're supposed to guide them. Not oppress them.
Wait, the owner of the site explicitly doesn’t cooperate with law enforcement though?? I first heard of them because of the owner of the site insisted on hosting a video of a hate-based mass shooting against law enforcement requests.
I really doubt your claims here; you lie in your first paragraph.
I really doubt your claims here; you lie in your first paragraph.
He seems to explicitly cooperate with US law enforcement[0], what you're referring to is the new zealand government trying to get them not only to take down the chirstchurch shooting video but also give them the IP of everyone that posted it so they can prosecute them. The only jurisdiction that matters to him is the US, so i'd assume that's where the servers and the company is located.
[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20220707041302/https://kiwifarms...
[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20220707041302/https://kiwifarms...
another one, seems like there was a git with some transparency stuff, its down unfortunately :https://web.archive.org/web/20220801104812/https://kiwifarms...
update to those reading later, the links don't work for the twitter people decided to take down the archives from the wayback machine...
the same links from archive.md: https://archive.md/c8hXj https://archive.md/cgWAJ
the same links from archive.md: https://archive.md/c8hXj https://archive.md/cgWAJ
He cooperates with the law in the country he resides and the site is hosted in. He told NZ to fuck off 'cause they had no say in whether or not he was allowed to host the video.
with US law enforcement, for actual criminal activity. null told the new zealand police to get lost when they ordered him to take down the video of the mosque shooting; rightly so.
> I don't know the entire history here, but my understanding is that KF was a forum where doxing and swatting was openly pervasive.
That's the issue. You are getting your understanding for the situation from one side as the other is being actively censored.
> There was no government involved, so it's not a "free speech" issue.
(US) government or laws have nothing to do with free speech.
> don't support bad behavior and certainly not dangerous
"bad" and "dangerous" are broad and extremely, extremely subjective terms.
That's the issue. You are getting your understanding for the situation from one side as the other is being actively censored.
> There was no government involved, so it's not a "free speech" issue.
(US) government or laws have nothing to do with free speech.
> don't support bad behavior and certainly not dangerous
"bad" and "dangerous" are broad and extremely, extremely subjective terms.
Cyberdog(3)
charcircuit(1)
_dain_(1)
DDoS’ing is quite different from just turning your back on someone. It’s more akin to following someone around with a megaphone and shouting over everything they say so no one can hear them.
Sure, you might celebrate when that’s done to someone you dislike, but a lot less appealing if you imagine it done to a cause you agree with.
Sure, you might celebrate when that’s done to someone you dislike, but a lot less appealing if you imagine it done to a cause you agree with.
You have no idea how ironic this comment is considering the history of Cloudflare. I remember going to a talk by their CEO at Defcon years ago when Scientology was being DDoSed and he was bragging about providing CDN services to the Anonymous hacker groups that were behind the DDoS. Cloudflare didn't seem to care about free speech for the Scientologists. There was even a huge discussion about whether performing a DDoS was itself a version of free speech or not (this was assuming people were volunteering their computers to join the botnet, as was the case with the scientology protests).
It's funny you mention the megaphone thing too, as that is an example of free speech. People do this regularly. The person with the megaphone has the free speech right to shout over the person next to him- at least in public.
> Sure, you might celebrate when that’s done to someone you dislike, but a lot less appealing if you imagine it done to a cause you agree with.
The slippery slop fallacy is called a fallacy for a reason. What kills me though is that people on this site aren't nearly as upset about Cloudflare taking down Switter and other sex worker websites as they are about Kiwifarms. It makes it hard to take the free speech argument seriously when the people making it only care about it when the sites they visit get taken down.
It's funny you mention the megaphone thing too, as that is an example of free speech. People do this regularly. The person with the megaphone has the free speech right to shout over the person next to him- at least in public.
> Sure, you might celebrate when that’s done to someone you dislike, but a lot less appealing if you imagine it done to a cause you agree with.
The slippery slop fallacy is called a fallacy for a reason. What kills me though is that people on this site aren't nearly as upset about Cloudflare taking down Switter and other sex worker websites as they are about Kiwifarms. It makes it hard to take the free speech argument seriously when the people making it only care about it when the sites they visit get taken down.
In public, sure, but a website is explicitly private property, so the megaphone-DDoS move would in this case be trespassing and harassment.
And the slippery slope is a real problem, no matter how much people call it a fallacy. As we’ve seen countless times in history, the distance from viewing some group as less deserving of freedom than you, and actively persecuting them is short.
And the slippery slope is a real problem, no matter how much people call it a fallacy. As we’ve seen countless times in history, the distance from viewing some group as less deserving of freedom than you, and actively persecuting them is short.
Free Speech is more complicated than that, at least in the US. The Supreme Court held in Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center that simply being private property does not by itself allow the owners to restrict speech.
> Over two decades ago, our state Supreme Court concluded that a privately owned shopping center that attracts large numbers of people to congregate in order to shop and take advantage of other amenities offered by the shopping center is the functional equivalent of the traditional town center, which historically is a public forum where persons can exercise the right to free speech. ( Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center (1979)
Further, the Supreme Court has found that putting a website on the internet grants a wide variety of privileges to the people using it. Specifically speaking, the Supreme Court held that if websites such as Linkedin make pages publicly accessible they can't use the legal system to stop access of those pages that they don't like- specifically, they can't stop bots from scraping by suing to get them to stop.
So if we're talking free speech I'm not sure we can count a website as private property in the sense you're talking about, and whether it would even matter if we could.
> Over two decades ago, our state Supreme Court concluded that a privately owned shopping center that attracts large numbers of people to congregate in order to shop and take advantage of other amenities offered by the shopping center is the functional equivalent of the traditional town center, which historically is a public forum where persons can exercise the right to free speech. ( Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center (1979)
Further, the Supreme Court has found that putting a website on the internet grants a wide variety of privileges to the people using it. Specifically speaking, the Supreme Court held that if websites such as Linkedin make pages publicly accessible they can't use the legal system to stop access of those pages that they don't like- specifically, they can't stop bots from scraping by suing to get them to stop.
So if we're talking free speech I'm not sure we can count a website as private property in the sense you're talking about, and whether it would even matter if we could.
You're conflating a number of points here. California's State Constitution provides a positive right to speech. The Pruneyard case, concerning protests in an open-air shopping center, was upheld due to the Court deciding that the State Constitution's right to positive free speech does not conflict with the negative right to free speech outlined 1st Amendment under certain conditions (i.e. only using common areas accessible to the general public, not protesting inside storefronts, etc.) While it theoretically applies to other states with positive free speech rights, so far, the Pruneyard case has, in practice, only applied to California. Even then, Pruneyard does not apply when it comes to regulating the time, place, or manner of speech and may be rendered irrelevant for supermarkets. (https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/4th/...). And, as a result of Section 230, I certainly doubt Pruneyard applies to content providers, if it ever had any.
In addition, what the Supreme Court found in HiQ Labs vs LinkedIn in regards to obtaining publicly available information says nothing about pinging a website too death until its offline. We're both quite capable in separating the two.
In addition, what the Supreme Court found in HiQ Labs vs LinkedIn in regards to obtaining publicly available information says nothing about pinging a website too death until its offline. We're both quite capable in separating the two.
IANAL, but pretty sure that DDoS attacks don’t count as “free speech” of some sort.
Something needs to replace it - the closest is the canary I think - as long as X hasn’t happened I am not threatened. As long as the student I know is doing worse than me hasn’t been put on academic probation, I am fine.
Canaries are everywhere and real.
Canaries are everywhere and real.
[deleted]
Not everyone who disagrees with you is implicitly morally corrupt or a member of some interest grooup, I have no clue what switter is and i'm sure many others don't either, kiwifarms has been on the media for the entirety of the last week.
Cloudflare and DDoS-Guard aren’t themselves DDoSing KF, though. They are just turning their backs. If KF wanted their continued protection, they could have stopped stalking and harassing people. But they didn’t, so here we are.
And of course I wouldn’t be happy if a website I support were DDoSed. It’s perfectly consistent to celebrate when a murderer gets convicted and be outraged when an innocent person does. There’s a difference between good and bad things!
And of course I wouldn’t be happy if a website I support were DDoSed. It’s perfectly consistent to celebrate when a murderer gets convicted and be outraged when an innocent person does. There’s a difference between good and bad things!
No one’s saying they are. But Cloudflare enjoys a virtual monopoly on affordable and reliable DDoS protection, and that is a very unhealthy thing for the open Internet. If you operate an online business and your comptetitors can somehow convince Cloudflare to drop you, they can have you taken offline, permanently, by paying a pittance to have you DDoS'ed.
I don’t think you can fairly call them a monopoly. It took me like three minutes to come up with seven different competitors offering DDoS protection. And that’s just top-of-mind companies, without even doing research into anyone I might not know offhand.
- https://www.fastly.com/products/ddos-mitigation
- https://aws.amazon.com/shield/
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ddos-protection/ddos-...
- https://www.akamai.com/solutions/security/ddos-protection
- https://cloud.google.com/armor
- https://www.ibm.com/cloud/cloud-internet-services
- https://www.rackspace.com/response/rackspace-ddos-mitigation...
- https://www.fastly.com/products/ddos-mitigation
- https://aws.amazon.com/shield/
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ddos-protection/ddos-...
- https://www.akamai.com/solutions/security/ddos-protection
- https://cloud.google.com/armor
- https://www.ibm.com/cloud/cloud-internet-services
- https://www.rackspace.com/response/rackspace-ddos-mitigation...
But how many of these will actually fend of a full-scale DDoS attack on your behalf without sending you a five- or six-digit bill for the trouble afterwards?
Haven’t researched all the options, but there must be some reason that DDoS targets all tend to use Cloudflare.
Haven’t researched all the options, but there must be some reason that DDoS targets all tend to use Cloudflare.
Probably their continued love of defending the worst parts of the internet that makes them feel at home there.
At some point this is just going to become their entire reputation and good luck renewing all of those enterprise accounts and attracting new staff.
People and organisations generally don’t want to be associated with this and don’t see it as some great moral cause they want to get behind.
At some point this is just going to become their entire reputation and good luck renewing all of those enterprise accounts and attracting new staff.
People and organisations generally don’t want to be associated with this and don’t see it as some great moral cause they want to get behind.
IBM, Rackspace and various other smaller players are just Cloudflare resellers.
OrangeMonkey(1)
Also, DDoS is a crime. Saying racist things isn't. We shouldn't blur the line here.
That probably depends a lot of the country. Both are illegal here in France (for racism, if it's insulting or hateful in particular)
If that counts, there are a bunch of reddit subs that are dedicated to hating Muslims, fat people, Indians, the religious(which as a Muslim is just full of casual racism and Muslim hate). No one seems to care. I don't know why we don't get these responses for minority issues. Racism has been a problem on the internet since the beginning and there is never such a push as these issues.
Under current First Amendment jurisprudence, hate speech can only be criminalized when it directly incites imminent criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group.
Kiwi Farms absolutely incited imminent criminal activity (harassment, among other things) and made lots of specific threats against specifically targeted people and groups.
This is a false equivalence.
Kiwi Farms absolutely incited imminent criminal activity (harassment, among other things) and made lots of specific threats against specifically targeted people and groups.
This is a false equivalence.
> when it directly incites imminent criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group
Aren't these already crimes? Isn't the "hate crime" charge just a way to enhance the sentencing for someone thus convicted? And isn't the original charge required for this enhancement? Thus, mere "hate speech" in and of itself cannot be a crime?
> Kiwi Farms absolutely incited imminent criminal activity
According to you and some twitter threads. I'm not comfortable accepting this prima facie, though.
> This is a false equivalence.
Does Section 230 not apply to Kiwi Farms? Is Kiwi Farms actually guilty of crimes here, or is it specific forum users? If so, why are there no efforts to go after the users but just go directly to banning the entire site?
Aren't these already crimes? Isn't the "hate crime" charge just a way to enhance the sentencing for someone thus convicted? And isn't the original charge required for this enhancement? Thus, mere "hate speech" in and of itself cannot be a crime?
> Kiwi Farms absolutely incited imminent criminal activity
According to you and some twitter threads. I'm not comfortable accepting this prima facie, though.
> This is a false equivalence.
Does Section 230 not apply to Kiwi Farms? Is Kiwi Farms actually guilty of crimes here, or is it specific forum users? If so, why are there no efforts to go after the users but just go directly to banning the entire site?
1. Yes, those are already crimes. You were making the claim that hate speech is never illegal. I was clarifying that there are caveats that take what would otherwise be free speech and turn them into actual crimes.
2. You don’t have to accept it prima facie. Go read the forums, they’re still up on Tor. Fair warning, I have, and they’re horrid.
3. Not when the mods and owners of KF are engaging in the very same. I do not know if law enforcement is looking into individual users or KF itself, but that’s not what we’re discussing. We are discussing the rights of a private company to not give a platform to a group of people they believe are committing or engaging in potentially criminal activity. CF doesn’t have to prove it. If CF is wrong, KF is welcome to find support elsewhere. Good luck.
2. You don’t have to accept it prima facie. Go read the forums, they’re still up on Tor. Fair warning, I have, and they’re horrid.
3. Not when the mods and owners of KF are engaging in the very same. I do not know if law enforcement is looking into individual users or KF itself, but that’s not what we’re discussing. We are discussing the rights of a private company to not give a platform to a group of people they believe are committing or engaging in potentially criminal activity. CF doesn’t have to prove it. If CF is wrong, KF is welcome to find support elsewhere. Good luck.
pessimizer(1)
Inciting harassment might be someone telling everyone to order pizzas and send them to an address. It wouldn't be posting a picture of someone's house with no context. While that might facilitate harassment, it doesn't actually incite it.
Agreed. And? KF actively encouraged and supported the former.
Can you provide any proof for your claims about advocating for imminent criminal activity? Ie something that would pass the Brandenburg test?
I’m not interested in going to KF again because I don’t want to read all their horrid shit (too much of that the past few days), but you are welcome to, while it is still up on Tor. Moon was a frequent participant, and KF’s stated goal was to abuse and dox and threaten people and their families and their friends until they drive someone to commit suicide.
not_a_shill(1)
Companies are not prosecutors of crimes. They're entities acting in a society. The whole point of my comment is that there is already a clear line and by removing Kiwi Farms from circulation this way, rather than by government edict, we are observing it.
I am not saying people should be allowed to DDoS anyone, including Kiwi Farms, from a legality perspective. Illegal things are still illegal.
I am saying that companies which provide protection services shouldn't extend them to Kiwi Farms because they are societally not worth protecting.
I am saying that companies which provide protection services shouldn't extend them to Kiwi Farms because they are societally not worth protecting.
Thats right - the fire departments should just stop protecting the houses of people you dislike so folks can burn them down in peace.
Fire departments are government agencies. I don't know how to be clearer about this: Government doesn't get to discriminate based on speech. Private entities do.
OrangeMonkey(2)
>Nobody puts him in jail. Nobody takes away his right to make a living or his children or his home. They just send a clear message: Don't bring that sort of thing around here. Don't bring it around us. There's no point in engaging in a dialogue with that person.
the problem with this allegory is that in the movie the 12 jurors are also trying to associate and cooperate due to their need to re-acquire their own freedom. They must work together in order to create a verdict and avoid being held sequestered indefinitely. They turn their back primarily due to a self-interest in escape, alongside the moral implications.
The other problem with that allegory within this comparison is that the '12 angry men' in this scenario are mega-conglomerates that label themselves as public infrastructure yet have no transparency or public accountability like a government entity might in that position.
The burden of transparency and government oversight is supposed to be bundled atop the premise of being or becoming a public infrastructural entity; if not then whatever conglomerate is making private decisions on behalf of the public's interests will continue to make self-important decisions until they reach a point of total corruption and public disservice.
the problem with this allegory is that in the movie the 12 jurors are also trying to associate and cooperate due to their need to re-acquire their own freedom. They must work together in order to create a verdict and avoid being held sequestered indefinitely. They turn their back primarily due to a self-interest in escape, alongside the moral implications.
The other problem with that allegory within this comparison is that the '12 angry men' in this scenario are mega-conglomerates that label themselves as public infrastructure yet have no transparency or public accountability like a government entity might in that position.
The burden of transparency and government oversight is supposed to be bundled atop the premise of being or becoming a public infrastructural entity; if not then whatever conglomerate is making private decisions on behalf of the public's interests will continue to make self-important decisions until they reach a point of total corruption and public disservice.
As if human beings have transparency? Why does that matter? People don't have to explain themselves any more than corporations do. Government entities don't have transparency either. When the FCC or SEC or whoever takes some action, we don't know how may of their employees agree with that action. One administration spend years fashioning the TPP or Paris accords or Iranian agreements and the next administration can pull out a year later.
I think that would be more analogous to a situation where KF's traffic dwindles to nothing because no one wants to visit.
DDoS is more of a heckler's veto.
DDoS is more of a heckler's veto.
What happens when enough people realize coexistence won't be permitted? He made his own forum, and a relentless campaign has conspired to bring it down. We can't have freedom of speech if only one side gets to communicate and also has access to all of the help it could ever need. Without freedom of speech, we eventually won't have peace.
I've seen 12 Angry Men it was impressive when I was in highschool, but now it seems like there were a lot of aspects of it which had holes. Protagonists were on the right, but they needed to do more, it isn't super convincing to me.
You are projecting a scene from a movie to an unrelated business issue.
[deleted]
>Sure, you allow them to speak, in that you don't respond to that speech with violence or prosecution. But you don't have to make room for it.
>"Sit down, and don't open your mouth again while I'm here."
so they don't allow him to speak? I don't think you're proving the point you're trying to prove.
>What that means, though, is that if there are sentiments so odious (and in some cases, literally dangerous, but not illegal) that our free society doesn't think it's appropriate to support a venue for their discussion, it's up to that society writ large, not government, to limit that discussion. There is nothing wrong with fostering a societal sense that there is no room in our world for the kind of shit that Kiwi Farms spewed, even if it is legal. There is nothing wrong with expecting large companies to live up to that standard.
300 years ago, the "odious shit that society should limit" would be anything blasphemous. 200 years ago, it would be calls to allow black people in public office. 100 years ago, it would be communism. 80 years ago, it would be gay rights. Can you explain to me exactly who determines which free speech is odious and which isn't, and when did we perfect morality, so that no controversial discussion should be allowed?
>"Sit down, and don't open your mouth again while I'm here."
so they don't allow him to speak? I don't think you're proving the point you're trying to prove.
>What that means, though, is that if there are sentiments so odious (and in some cases, literally dangerous, but not illegal) that our free society doesn't think it's appropriate to support a venue for their discussion, it's up to that society writ large, not government, to limit that discussion. There is nothing wrong with fostering a societal sense that there is no room in our world for the kind of shit that Kiwi Farms spewed, even if it is legal. There is nothing wrong with expecting large companies to live up to that standard.
300 years ago, the "odious shit that society should limit" would be anything blasphemous. 200 years ago, it would be calls to allow black people in public office. 100 years ago, it would be communism. 80 years ago, it would be gay rights. Can you explain to me exactly who determines which free speech is odious and which isn't, and when did we perfect morality, so that no controversial discussion should be allowed?
Yeah, kicking a website off the internet is just like not listening to racist rants.
People aren't just ignoring Kiwi Farms and letting them know that no one likes them, people are shooting them down (with DDoS attacks). And if they make use of services that are intended to prevent that, people shout these services down until they comply. How is that fundamentally different from what Kiwi Farms was doing itself? If null kills themselves, are you even? Is the anti Kiwi Farms crowd just as bad as Kiwi Farms? Or will it be fine if he was a bad person? What if the people on Kiwi Farms thought the people they were harassing are bad people?
I think this is yet again another example of a group of people thinking that something bad is not bad if it happens to the right people and another group thinking that something bad is bad no matter who does it. I am firmly in the latter group and to me Kiwi Farms and the people that kept harassing Cloudflare all look like bloodthirsty psychopaths with the difference being that the Kiwi Farmers knew they were disgusting and horrible and the others thinking they are brave saviors.
I think this is yet again another example of a group of people thinking that something bad is not bad if it happens to the right people and another group thinking that something bad is bad no matter who does it. I am firmly in the latter group and to me Kiwi Farms and the people that kept harassing Cloudflare all look like bloodthirsty psychopaths with the difference being that the Kiwi Farmers knew they were disgusting and horrible and the others thinking they are brave saviors.
> Nobody puts him in jail. Nobody takes away his right to make a living or his children or his home
We're way, way past that standard. We're way past when ACLU was defending Nazi's right to speak and were proud of it. Nobody would even think about doing this now. In fact, if you defend a "wrong" client as a lawyer, you may lose your whole career now and become unperson among your peers. If you say a wrong thing publicly, your right to make a living will very likely be taken away, and your physical security would be in serious danger. Your home - if you can keep it while being denied income - surely. But in some countries they government also may lock your bank accounts. Hope you don't have a mortgage and have enough cash stashed to pay your utility bills, because otherwise your house is going bye-bye.
As for jail, no, the US is not there yet. Other countries on the West already very much so, so I wonder for how long that one would hold. After all, the government is already talking about a "clear and present danger" from their political opponents - and this is not a random set of words. This is the legal standard that until 1969 was being used to jail people for saying wrong things. So we may be just one SCOTUS ruling away from going back there. Current SCOTUS may not be willing to do it, but judges are retiring, they are mortal, and then there's talk about court packing... The ice is very thin.
We're way, way past that standard. We're way past when ACLU was defending Nazi's right to speak and were proud of it. Nobody would even think about doing this now. In fact, if you defend a "wrong" client as a lawyer, you may lose your whole career now and become unperson among your peers. If you say a wrong thing publicly, your right to make a living will very likely be taken away, and your physical security would be in serious danger. Your home - if you can keep it while being denied income - surely. But in some countries they government also may lock your bank accounts. Hope you don't have a mortgage and have enough cash stashed to pay your utility bills, because otherwise your house is going bye-bye.
As for jail, no, the US is not there yet. Other countries on the West already very much so, so I wonder for how long that one would hold. After all, the government is already talking about a "clear and present danger" from their political opponents - and this is not a random set of words. This is the legal standard that until 1969 was being used to jail people for saying wrong things. So we may be just one SCOTUS ruling away from going back there. Current SCOTUS may not be willing to do it, but judges are retiring, they are mortal, and then there's talk about court packing... The ice is very thin.
The ACLU would fight for the Nazi marches against the government. These are private companies adjusting their priorities as a result of other people using their free speech rights.
Would they? I don't think they would any more. Any recent examples?
> as a result of other people using their free speech rights.
Running a DDoS is really stretching the definition of "using their free speech rights", I think. But firing you from a job or closing your bank account for saying wrong things is "private companies adjusting their priorities" too. I wonder how long you could make a living if you can't use banking services, or phone services, or internet services - all of which are run by private companies? How long it would be before CPS shows at you door to take your children - because private utility companies refused to serve you and it's not safe for them to be there anymore? You can take that "private companies adjusting their priorities" pretty far. If you think in this situation you still have free speech because you can still stand on a public square and yell into the sky - you definition of freedom of speech is flawed, and honestly, pretty useless in practice.
> as a result of other people using their free speech rights.
Running a DDoS is really stretching the definition of "using their free speech rights", I think. But firing you from a job or closing your bank account for saying wrong things is "private companies adjusting their priorities" too. I wonder how long you could make a living if you can't use banking services, or phone services, or internet services - all of which are run by private companies? How long it would be before CPS shows at you door to take your children - because private utility companies refused to serve you and it's not safe for them to be there anymore? You can take that "private companies adjusting their priorities" pretty far. If you think in this situation you still have free speech because you can still stand on a public square and yell into the sky - you definition of freedom of speech is flawed, and honestly, pretty useless in practice.
Nobody is saying the DDoS is free speech. That is a criminal act. The free speech is the people sharing their displeasure with CloudFlare that are using it.
They are not just sharing displeasure. They are also operating the DDoS attacks. Pretending like one exists without the other - nobody can be that naive genuinely.
"They" is doing a lot of work in your argument.
I won't use CloudFlare if they are internet bodyguards for Nazis. I've registered my displeasure. I did not participate in the DDoS attack.
I won't use CloudFlare if they are internet bodyguards for Nazis. I've registered my displeasure. I did not participate in the DDoS attack.
Maybe you didn't (though I have absolutely no evidence of that) - but people that pushed CloudFlare to drop KF certainly did. And there is evidence that the same people actually planted at least some of the content they used to trigger that decision, too.
It's your choice to shun the providers that support free speech (yes, that means letting people you do not like speak, there was a time once that even ACLU understood that) - but it's not what happened here.
It's your choice to shun the providers that support free speech (yes, that means letting people you do not like speak, there was a time once that even ACLU understood that) - but it's not what happened here.
I suggest you submit your evidence to your local FBI office. Since the pressure was partially on Twitter, they should be able to begin arrests for the DDoS attack.
Real people were swatted by real posts on KiwiFarms. No tears will be spilt if these internet tough guys/gals can't afford their hosting bill and thus close down shop. Another group of keyboard heroes face minor consequences for their disgusting actions.
Your view of free speech isn't workable. You tell others to preemptively hamper their own liberty and free speech so these habitual line steppers can preach intolerance.
What you want is the freedom to speak without consequence. That will never exist, nor should it.
Real people were swatted by real posts on KiwiFarms. No tears will be spilt if these internet tough guys/gals can't afford their hosting bill and thus close down shop. Another group of keyboard heroes face minor consequences for their disgusting actions.
Your view of free speech isn't workable. You tell others to preemptively hamper their own liberty and free speech so these habitual line steppers can preach intolerance.
What you want is the freedom to speak without consequence. That will never exist, nor should it.
This isn't an uncommon view; others have observed that it's becoming unpopular to espouse free speech for all. There's an active pushback against, say, protecting the rights of racists. As an Indian Muslim I don't like what they say, but I realize it's only because of such free speech that people like me can live our lives freely in this country today. There are still a lot of people that hate me and I see it daily on reddit and Twitter.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnn...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnn...
If you own a billboard, should you respond to letters complaining about the content of the advert?
Free speech isn't anywhere in this equation. If these people wanted to go to a park and march, have at it. They can scream their hate as loud as they'd like.
I won't do business with a company that supports those ideas.
Free speech isn't anywhere in this equation. If these people wanted to go to a park and march, have at it. They can scream their hate as loud as they'd like.
I won't do business with a company that supports those ideas.
> And in the United States, we don't
We don't? Didn't Zuckerberg just admit on Joe Rogan that during the last election all the major media companies were briefed by feds that were was a big "misinformation" news piece incoming, so that when the Hunter Biden laptop story finally dropped, they all censored it, sight unseen? Therefore it seems all the big social media tech companies have no problem with rubberstamping gov't requests for censorship.
They almost made it glaringly obvious when they tried to roll out their Disinformation Governance Board, which fell flat.
We don't? Didn't Zuckerberg just admit on Joe Rogan that during the last election all the major media companies were briefed by feds that were was a big "misinformation" news piece incoming, so that when the Hunter Biden laptop story finally dropped, they all censored it, sight unseen? Therefore it seems all the big social media tech companies have no problem with rubberstamping gov't requests for censorship.
They almost made it glaringly obvious when they tried to roll out their Disinformation Governance Board, which fell flat.
And, as it turned out, the Hunter Biden laptop story was 100% right wing bullshit, so it was the right thing to do. Fancy that!
It's far more real than the so-called "Steele dossier" that the media made hay with for years, unsuppressed by the professional-managerial class.
If you're in favor of suppressing your political opponents' speech rights that's fine I guess, just don't lecture me about "our democracy."
If you're in favor of suppressing your political opponents' speech rights that's fine I guess, just don't lecture me about "our democracy."
The content was 100% real, though the "I found this laptop and it happened to belong to Hunter Biden" story was obviously a pretense to release content that had been obtained illegaly — likely from a hostile foreign state.
I guess it wouldn't have looked good if Rudy Guliani came out and said "the Kremelin gave me compromising videos of Joe Biden's son".
I guess it wouldn't have looked good if Rudy Guliani came out and said "the Kremelin gave me compromising videos of Joe Biden's son".
Which is what makes it a "misinformation" campaign.
Folks on this site have a childishly simple view on information and propaganda. I've heard many people say if it's true it can't have an agenda. But what you say is just as important as what you DON'T say.
When the Russians hacked both the DNC and the RNC and leaked only the DNC emails to WikiLeaks who gladly posted them (because to be fair Clinton and Obama wanted Assange's head), and used the RNC info to blackmail Republicans, that's a misinformation campaign.
Doesn't matter if all the emails were true.
Folks on this site have a childishly simple view on information and propaganda. I've heard many people say if it's true it can't have an agenda. But what you say is just as important as what you DON'T say.
When the Russians hacked both the DNC and the RNC and leaked only the DNC emails to WikiLeaks who gladly posted them (because to be fair Clinton and Obama wanted Assange's head), and used the RNC info to blackmail Republicans, that's a misinformation campaign.
Doesn't matter if all the emails were true.
What it boils down to is that the US intelligence agencies are determining the outcome of our elections. Doesn’t that seem eerily similar to when the Praetorian Guard was determining who would rule Rome? I think we can all see where it leads to.
bergenty(3)
I regret that I have but one upvote to give. Well said.
The site is still up as an onion service. This is more than just cloudflare's DDoS protection at this point, they have no one to support their DNS registration or IP space, as their operator goes into detail here[0]:
>[...]
>Domain Registrar
>Cloudflare was both our application-level DDoS mitigation and our domain registrar. They have given me a way to transfer my domains to another registrar. I do not know what registrar to send it to because I do not have faith in any company.
>DDoS Mitigation
>DDoS-Guard will drop us dropped us while I was writing this post. This meme about Russia being a free country is a joke. The US is a free country, but with no stewards to protect it. Without the US, there is no second best. I did not expect Cloudflare to crumple so quickly and I don't have a Plan C for DDoS mitigation.
>Resource Allocation
>I own IP addresses. Our IP allocation is from APNIC. APNIC is one of the 5 private companies which allocate Internet resources around the world. APNIC happens to be based out of Australia, which recently passed draconian censorship laws. There is an effort to get our RIR to revoke our allocation. This would be unprecedented in the history of the Internet, and considering China is in APNIC's region, an absolutely horrific standard which will echo throughout the upcoming decades. There is a non-zero chance of this happening.
>Hosting
>We have one host and I am looking at two more. It is likely that the host will give up too. The two hosts confident they can handle the Kiwi Farms are probably wrong. DDoS-Guard was confident they could handle the Kiwi Farms and said "bring it on" for less than 24 hours
>[...]
It seems like this guy is getting completely unplugged from the internet infrastructure because every company sees him as a liability. Well, there's always onionbalance for these types I guess.
[0] http://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificedz...
>[...]
>Domain Registrar
>Cloudflare was both our application-level DDoS mitigation and our domain registrar. They have given me a way to transfer my domains to another registrar. I do not know what registrar to send it to because I do not have faith in any company.
>DDoS Mitigation
>DDoS-Guard will drop us dropped us while I was writing this post. This meme about Russia being a free country is a joke. The US is a free country, but with no stewards to protect it. Without the US, there is no second best. I did not expect Cloudflare to crumple so quickly and I don't have a Plan C for DDoS mitigation.
>Resource Allocation
>I own IP addresses. Our IP allocation is from APNIC. APNIC is one of the 5 private companies which allocate Internet resources around the world. APNIC happens to be based out of Australia, which recently passed draconian censorship laws. There is an effort to get our RIR to revoke our allocation. This would be unprecedented in the history of the Internet, and considering China is in APNIC's region, an absolutely horrific standard which will echo throughout the upcoming decades. There is a non-zero chance of this happening.
>Hosting
>We have one host and I am looking at two more. It is likely that the host will give up too. The two hosts confident they can handle the Kiwi Farms are probably wrong. DDoS-Guard was confident they could handle the Kiwi Farms and said "bring it on" for less than 24 hours
>[...]
It seems like this guy is getting completely unplugged from the internet infrastructure because every company sees him as a liability. Well, there's always onionbalance for these types I guess.
[0] http://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificedz...
> the future of the internet seems pretty sad...
That’s frankly terrible. Sites infamous for promoting harassment can’t be hosted anymore. Clearly a tremendous loss for the internet. /s
That’s frankly terrible. Sites infamous for promoting harassment can’t be hosted anymore. Clearly a tremendous loss for the internet. /s
This is not reddit, calm down on the snark and try to actually have a discussion if you're gonna go for it.
Its easy to say those things for someone you dislike, but zoom out and look at the implications, you have a campaign pretty much asking cloudflare to stand aside and allow them to do DDOS attacks on a website which apparently won several lawsuits against them already(ill dig up the sources a bit later on when I get home, sorry).
And that's before getting into what this "harassment" that is being reported by every journalist seems to actually be, or rather, the sources thereof. In the previous couple threads I tried to get a bit deeper into what those things actually were and i'm yet to get a straight answer with archives or something.
Maybe kiwifarms is all people say they are, but I've been part of a regional forum that was vilified for handwavy accusations from people that hated us and had said accusations get a life of their own, and were pretty much all fabrications or things blown out of context to the extreme, of course in an infinitely smaller scale, and of course you'll have to take my word for it. So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Its easy to say those things for someone you dislike, but zoom out and look at the implications, you have a campaign pretty much asking cloudflare to stand aside and allow them to do DDOS attacks on a website which apparently won several lawsuits against them already(ill dig up the sources a bit later on when I get home, sorry).
And that's before getting into what this "harassment" that is being reported by every journalist seems to actually be, or rather, the sources thereof. In the previous couple threads I tried to get a bit deeper into what those things actually were and i'm yet to get a straight answer with archives or something.
Maybe kiwifarms is all people say they are, but I've been part of a regional forum that was vilified for handwavy accusations from people that hated us and had said accusations get a life of their own, and were pretty much all fabrications or things blown out of context to the extreme, of course in an infinitely smaller scale, and of course you'll have to take my word for it. So I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
> Maybe kiwifarms is all people say they are
"All people say they are" is a site running coordinated harassment campaigns, including SWATing and bomb threats, though. Those are clear crimes. You can't seriously be arguing that CloudFlare or DDos-Guard or whoever shouldn't be allowed to choose not to do business with that sort of thing, can you?
Like so many others here[1], your perception thing seems to be based solely on your personal judgement as to whether the claims are true. But if they're true, it doesn't seem very controversial at all. And even if they're not true, it seems like the only party's judgement that really matters here (absent law enforcement, of course), is CloudFlare's.
[1] I admit I've been stunned at the general level of anti-trans sentiment in these threads. So many of these subthreads end in arguments like yours, which sound like they're trying to be arguments of general libertarian principle but end up falling into subjectivity traps.
"All people say they are" is a site running coordinated harassment campaigns, including SWATing and bomb threats, though. Those are clear crimes. You can't seriously be arguing that CloudFlare or DDos-Guard or whoever shouldn't be allowed to choose not to do business with that sort of thing, can you?
Like so many others here[1], your perception thing seems to be based solely on your personal judgement as to whether the claims are true. But if they're true, it doesn't seem very controversial at all. And even if they're not true, it seems like the only party's judgement that really matters here (absent law enforcement, of course), is CloudFlare's.
[1] I admit I've been stunned at the general level of anti-trans sentiment in these threads. So many of these subthreads end in arguments like yours, which sound like they're trying to be arguments of general libertarian principle but end up falling into subjectivity traps.
My friend i've been trying to get some archive links or anything that shows any real evidence of swatting from the website, which seemed at the time to be completely open and freely archive-able and yet it's like trying to pull water out of a stone. Furthermore you have articles like the one from the AP[0] straight up saying: "They gang up on victims and pool their personal details such as addresses and phone numbers in a practice called “doxxing,” spreading vile rumors and targeting workplaces, friends, families and homes. Another favorite tactic has been “swatting” — making false emergency calls to provoke an armed police response at a target’s home. " Without any evidence of it anywhere, surely if a public open forum had been so infamous for swatting someone as to be described as "another favorite tactic" there would be a paper trail? And that's pretty much all the articles I've read.
I'm not even being given a chance to use my personal judgement to evaluate the evidence because there doesn't seem to be evidence?
My original post in this thread already addresses the matter regarding it being CloudFlare's judgment in the end.
[0]: https://apnews.com/article/technology-gay-rights-7d64f7b7173...
I'm not even being given a chance to use my personal judgement to evaluate the evidence because there doesn't seem to be evidence?
My original post in this thread already addresses the matter regarding it being CloudFlare's judgment in the end.
[0]: https://apnews.com/article/technology-gay-rights-7d64f7b7173...
is more due to the fact that KF is born from the sole purpose of harassment(CWC) then move to harass more than just that one person
How have they won court cases over this? That's what I don't understand. They seem to be doing illegal things, and yet there's no legal recourse? Honestly it's just a matter of time until they figure out some way to make it work. They're still on TOR which is probably enough for their most dedicated members. A legal ruling could really tie their hands
Individuals have sued them repeatedly and lost; the case I remember best is a woman called Melinda Scott. Here's an explanatory video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iqkpN9a6q8
It is possible that KF content was cruel and abhorrent and yet not actually illegal.
I have only seen a handful of anti-trans sentiments here, and those were quickly downvoted, flagged, and eventually deleted. Care to link to one live example in this thread?
I suspect linking is against site guidelines, but if you search for 'degenerate' you will find at least one example of a trans person being called such in an unflagged comment.
It is not against site guidelines, as far as I know or have seen
Searching for "degenerate" on the page leads to a single comment for me [0], and that comment uses it completely impersonally:
> When I was a baby queer in the mid 90s, it was functionally impossible to talk to gay adults in person at all because the AIDS epidemic had convinced society that all gay people were dangerous degenerates.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32726080
Searching for "degenerate" on the page leads to a single comment for me [0], and that comment uses it completely impersonally:
> When I was a baby queer in the mid 90s, it was functionally impossible to talk to gay adults in person at all because the AIDS epidemic had convinced society that all gay people were dangerous degenerates.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32726080
It's perhaps not against the guidelines per se, but linking to flamebait comments does tend to lead discussions in the wrong direction, and tends to be discouraged by mods AFAIK.
I'm not sure why your browser search is not turning up the other comment. Here it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32729604
edit: Actually, the comment seems to have been flagged just now, a few minutes after I replied here. At least it is flagged now, I guess.
I'm not sure why your browser search is not turning up the other comment. Here it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32729604
edit: Actually, the comment seems to have been flagged just now, a few minutes after I replied here. At least it is flagged now, I guess.
Perhaps there were some collapsed comments so that's why I missed it.
Still, I believe 1h for it to be removed seems decent time for moderation, especially in such a large and relatively flamey thread.
Still, I believe 1h for it to be removed seems decent time for moderation, especially in such a large and relatively flamey thread.
> This is not reddit, calm down on the snark and try to actually have a discussion if you're gonna go for it.
Like the slippery slope of dropping terrorist harrasser site being "extremely scary" is actually an attempt of discussion, right?
Like the slippery slope of dropping terrorist harrasser site being "extremely scary" is actually an attempt of discussion, right?
You could call any politically-adjacent forum a "terrorist harasser" site. Is Wikileaks not a "terrorist harasser site" in the 9/11-era rhetoric?
The average person is much, much more likely to get fired because of a Twitter mob than a Kiwi Farms mob. Twitter users got David Shor fired because he said riots often cause political blowback; Emmanuel Cafferty because someone saw him make an OK sign and got a Twitter mob riled up. Both stories here[1].
We can argue about the merits of free speech vs. the merits of cutting off all sites that enable harassment. But this isn't where we're at. At the moment, we're in a situation where sites that create some of the largest amounts of harassment are allowed to continue on just fine, while smaller sites are taken down after successful social media campaigns.
This isn't a principled stance against harassment that's evenly applied. It's selective enforcement directed by whoever has the largest online mob.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firin...
We can argue about the merits of free speech vs. the merits of cutting off all sites that enable harassment. But this isn't where we're at. At the moment, we're in a situation where sites that create some of the largest amounts of harassment are allowed to continue on just fine, while smaller sites are taken down after successful social media campaigns.
This isn't a principled stance against harassment that's evenly applied. It's selective enforcement directed by whoever has the largest online mob.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firin...
It has become increasingly clear over the recent years that there is no real rationality that we can apply here. You cannot reason about it. The foundational axioms have fallen off and eroded.
Right? Thoughts and prayers for this service that has the express purpose of instigating and facilitating targeted abuse, doxxing and other harmful crimes. Get some perspective please.
> this service that has the express purpose of instigating and facilitating targeted abuse
Source?
Source?
There have been loads of recent articles and posts on HN about the type of content Kiwifarms hosts and promotes, easily findable from the HN search bar. Even people who disagree with Cloudflare's actions aren't debating the odiousness of Kiwifarms' content.
That's a different statement though. Twitter hosts some terrible content. Hell, Cloudflare provides CDN-services for some terrible content. But I'm sure you wouldn't say that therefore they exist for the "express purpose" of doing that.
In many of the recent discussions on the topic on HN, you can easily read about the origins of Kiwi Farms, which was originally "CWCki Forums", created for the express purpose of harassing a webcomic creator, Chris Chandler - the name literally grew out of the initials of their first primary target.
Furthermore, heck, the Wikipedia page on Kiwi Farms has tons of references to primary sources that detail some of the directed harassment, e.g. from one well sourced article at https://web.archive.org/web/20190511184633/http://nymag.com/...
> In the most extreme instance of this, they goaded a 13-year-old boy into masquerading as a 19-year-old girl in order to have phone sex with Chandler (and record it, of course).
This information is so trivially easy to find (just go down the Wikipedia rabbit-hole, or again, read many of the posts on this topic on HN) that I can't believe the requests for "Source?" and false equivalence statements of "lots of companies host objectionable content" are made in good faith.
TBH, I haven't seen anyone really try to defend any of Kiwi Farms' content. The only real question is whether Cloudflare should be in the position to make judgement calls on the level of danger inherent to any of the sites that use their DDoS protection services.
Furthermore, heck, the Wikipedia page on Kiwi Farms has tons of references to primary sources that detail some of the directed harassment, e.g. from one well sourced article at https://web.archive.org/web/20190511184633/http://nymag.com/...
> In the most extreme instance of this, they goaded a 13-year-old boy into masquerading as a 19-year-old girl in order to have phone sex with Chandler (and record it, of course).
This information is so trivially easy to find (just go down the Wikipedia rabbit-hole, or again, read many of the posts on this topic on HN) that I can't believe the requests for "Source?" and false equivalence statements of "lots of companies host objectionable content" are made in good faith.
TBH, I haven't seen anyone really try to defend any of Kiwi Farms' content. The only real question is whether Cloudflare should be in the position to make judgement calls on the level of danger inherent to any of the sites that use their DDoS protection services.
None of what you said makes it different than Twitter.
Let's propose a test. We can scrape all of the tweets submitted in the last month and all of the posts on Kiwi Farms in the last month. Then let's count up the percentage of posts that contain a slur for black people, jewish people, or trans people. If the rate of slurs on KF is no more than 10x that of Twitter then we can consider these sites comparable. Otherwise, we can consider them to be in different categories.
Why should we only count slurs for these groups?
And all of them boil down to hearsay. I havent seen any actual evidence.
Type the name of the site into a web search engine, click the Wikipedia result, and look at the sources there. It literally would have been less effort for you than copying/pasting my message, adding a caret and posting a question.
cowtools(3)
What happens if another site that you consider completely legitimate can't be hosted just because others think it is not acceptable? Maybe your views are currently acceptable, but will they be in 5, 10, 20 years?
When was the last time a site got taken down because "others think it is not acceptable"? Please, name a single one. There's a difference between people simply "not liking" a site, and people using extremely well-established principles of ethical concepts and human rights (which have been refined over centuries) to decide what content is violating the "laws", as we call them, which have been generally agreed upon in modern society. Further to that, hosts have what we call "terms of service" or "acceptable use policy" which clearly define what content is acceptable for that host to continue to serve the customer operating the site and administrating its content. Again, not someone "thinking it is not acceptable".
The most recent one was probably Parler. Usually deplatforming is due to a moral panic involving a massively exaggerated risk. All sites probably violate the AUP or TOS if you look closely enough. But during the panic, you can't see that the risk is tiny in the grand scheme of things.
oh, that's easy: Stormfront, the Daily Stormer...
... hey, Kiwifarm's holding company was named 'Final Solutions, LLC', what a coincidence! ;)
https://twitter.com/keffals/status/1563748563926089730
take a seat, gamers... we've found the REAL most-oppressed minority here (/s)
... hey, Kiwifarm's holding company was named 'Final Solutions, LLC', what a coincidence! ;)
https://twitter.com/keffals/status/1563748563926089730
take a seat, gamers... we've found the REAL most-oppressed minority here (/s)
This argument can't persuade those who never have any views of their own and always adopt the currently acceptable ones.
>Maybe your views are currently acceptable, but will they be in 5, 10, 20 years?
Not just that. It's views that anyone else on the site shares. Your community on a site can be destroyed by the actions of a completely separate community on the same site.
Not just that. It's views that anyone else on the site shares. Your community on a site can be destroyed by the actions of a completely separate community on the same site.
Depends on the specifics, as always. I'm comfortable saying that whatever the line is, KF is firmly on the other side of it.
If you do not have a consistent standard other than something arbitrary and subjective then it is only a matter of time until the line changes again.
Yeah well, such is life.
Let’s cross that bridge if it happens.
At that point it will be too late.
Censorship like this creeps on forward until everyone is scared to speak up against it and then it clamps down hard enough that no one is able to speak up against it.
Censorship like this creeps on forward until everyone is scared to speak up against it and then it clamps down hard enough that no one is able to speak up against it.
History has told that lesson a thousand times.
Still, there are ever new people that seemingly lack the capacity to recognize the lesson (my guess is, the minority), or, for arguments sake, chose to ignore it (my guess, the majority).
That’s because it’s a garbage argument disproved by exemple.
Most of Europe has strong law regarding hate speech and didn’t devolve into an awful fascist tyranny. A free country doesn’t have to tolerate everything.
Meanwhile their allegedly incredible laws didn’t stop the USA to conduct kidnapping, jailing without trial and for indefinite duration and torture of dozens.
Most of Europe has strong law regarding hate speech and didn’t devolve into an awful fascist tyranny. A free country doesn’t have to tolerate everything.
Meanwhile their allegedly incredible laws didn’t stop the USA to conduct kidnapping, jailing without trial and for indefinite duration and torture of dozens.
The guy who made the nazi pug video might disagree.
Yea! Today death threats are banned, tomorrow it will be collecting Pokémon!
Why should private entities bear the burden of supporting content they don't endorse?
Do you believe your ISP should be allowed to drop you if you say something they don't like? What about your phone company? We, as a society, already forcing companies to support content they don't endorse.
Those are bad examples; Telcos are almost universally heavily regulated and as such in many (most?) countries out there can't just refuse people service.
Cloudflare is doing neither here. This is closer to Subway banning you than your phone company; it's highly optional to do business with CF.
Cloudflare is doing neither here. This is closer to Subway banning you than your phone company; it's highly optional to do business with CF.
Do you believe that Kiwi Farms should be able to set up shop in a restaurant and peddle their hateful shit?
What about an airline terminal?
We, as a society, are already denying individuals and organizations the right to disseminate information while using our private property when it doesn't align with our goals and beliefs.
What about an airline terminal?
We, as a society, are already denying individuals and organizations the right to disseminate information while using our private property when it doesn't align with our goals and beliefs.
What about the site owner's water supply?
The disagreement here seems to over whether Cloudflare is more like a restaurant, or more like a utility company. Given the ubiquity of DDOS attacks online, (and the fact that KF seemingly can't stay online without DDOS mitigation), I think there's a good argument to be made that DDOS mitigation might be more like a utility.
The disagreement here seems to over whether Cloudflare is more like a restaurant, or more like a utility company. Given the ubiquity of DDOS attacks online, (and the fact that KF seemingly can't stay online without DDOS mitigation), I think there's a good argument to be made that DDOS mitigation might be more like a utility.
It's far closer to an insurance company than a utility. And either way, utilities aren't common carriers.
I dont understand this post, it seems so backwards. Are we upset that a social harm has been deplatformed by a private company by simply choosing to not serve them? No one has prevented Kiwifarms from being on the internet, in fact that isn't even really possible.
Free speech is working as intended. There is legally nothing wrong with saying what you want on the internet, but that doesn't mean everyone else needs to listen to you or agree with you.
If Kiwifarms is worried about free speech, they can stand on a milk crate and hand out free newspapers, completely legally.
Free speech is working as intended. There is legally nothing wrong with saying what you want on the internet, but that doesn't mean everyone else needs to listen to you or agree with you.
If Kiwifarms is worried about free speech, they can stand on a milk crate and hand out free newspapers, completely legally.
Let's hope you abide by this standard if the same happens to a site you care about.
> Let's hope you abide by this standard if the same happens to a site you care about
Gladly. We need more competition in the space anyway [1].
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/985443/worldwide-ddos-bo...
Gladly. We need more competition in the space anyway [1].
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/985443/worldwide-ddos-bo...
> the firefighters will just stop serving said target
I saw a good analogy the other day [1]. Cloudflare is a bartender throwing out a brawler. They called the cops, but nobody is arrested. And while yes, brawling on the streets may be riskier than brawling inside, it’s extreme to insist the brawler be sheltered because their right to brawl overrides others’ physical safety.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32708253
I saw a good analogy the other day [1]. Cloudflare is a bartender throwing out a brawler. They called the cops, but nobody is arrested. And while yes, brawling on the streets may be riskier than brawling inside, it’s extreme to insist the brawler be sheltered because their right to brawl overrides others’ physical safety.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32708253
While I agree that CloudFlare should not be required to provide service to anyone if they don't want to, this is a bad analogy. A brawler in a bar disrupts the ability of other customers to enjoy the service. CloudFlare providing DDoS protection to Kiwi Farms doesn't disrupt the ability of its other clients from receiving this service.
The entire point of DDoS protection is that your clients will be the targets of attacks, possibly because they're saying or doing something someone objects to. This is like a bodyguard being shocked that some of its clients are criminals. With this, CloudFlare has tipped its hand and shown that it's not a reliable provider of protection; the first time anyone raises a little stink they unilaterally terminate the service of one of their clients and throw them to the wolves.
The entire point of DDoS protection is that your clients will be the targets of attacks, possibly because they're saying or doing something someone objects to. This is like a bodyguard being shocked that some of its clients are criminals. With this, CloudFlare has tipped its hand and shown that it's not a reliable provider of protection; the first time anyone raises a little stink they unilaterally terminate the service of one of their clients and throw them to the wolves.
Yeah, as much as one might be glad to see Stormfront, Kiwifarms and the like gone, the reality that without the protection of Cloudflare, pretty much any site without serious corporate backing can be taken off the Internet by anyone willing to pay a botnet operator a few bucks to have the deed done.
This wasn't just due to Twitter outrage. People are actually being targeted and harmed through this site.
Hate and harm are not covered under free speech.
> This wasn't just due to Twitter outrage. People are actually being targeted and harmed through this site.
I'm saying the following comment without knowing much about Kiwifarms and the back and forth drama about it other than some of the surface-level accusations. If people there were engaging in false swatting or other crimes, sure throw the book at those individuals. That's reprehensible behavior, and should be treated about as harshly as attempted murder IMO.
But one big reason that I think taking down a website like this is very morally questionable without a court order is that there's no way for the public to know what really happened. Was Kiwifarms the site engaging in bad behavior, or were a few individual users there guilty of crimes? It's almost impossible to get an unbiased accounting of what actually happened there, and there's no way for an outsider to research this after the fact with the site down. I can't just trust a big corporation's word on what really happened here.
Additionally, who really committed crimes? The level of drama around what happened there seemed personal and insane from the little I saw about it. If you were an unhinged person who was willing to take a "the ends justify the means" to "win", you'd probably be willing to create fake accounts on that site and engage in illegal activity to try and get a site shut down that you hated. I have no idea if this is the case, but it's hard to rule out anything when it comes to the level of personal drama that seemed to be going on there.
> Hate and harm are not covered under free speech.
Organizing harm against others probably isn't considered free speech by most legal systems or philosophers, but an expression of hate in and of itself is absolutely covered under free speech.
I'm saying the following comment without knowing much about Kiwifarms and the back and forth drama about it other than some of the surface-level accusations. If people there were engaging in false swatting or other crimes, sure throw the book at those individuals. That's reprehensible behavior, and should be treated about as harshly as attempted murder IMO.
But one big reason that I think taking down a website like this is very morally questionable without a court order is that there's no way for the public to know what really happened. Was Kiwifarms the site engaging in bad behavior, or were a few individual users there guilty of crimes? It's almost impossible to get an unbiased accounting of what actually happened there, and there's no way for an outsider to research this after the fact with the site down. I can't just trust a big corporation's word on what really happened here.
Additionally, who really committed crimes? The level of drama around what happened there seemed personal and insane from the little I saw about it. If you were an unhinged person who was willing to take a "the ends justify the means" to "win", you'd probably be willing to create fake accounts on that site and engage in illegal activity to try and get a site shut down that you hated. I have no idea if this is the case, but it's hard to rule out anything when it comes to the level of personal drama that seemed to be going on there.
> Hate and harm are not covered under free speech.
Organizing harm against others probably isn't considered free speech by most legal systems or philosophers, but an expression of hate in and of itself is absolutely covered under free speech.
> But one big reason that I think taking down a website like this is very morally questionable without a court order is that there's no way for the public to know what really happened. Was Kiwifarms the site engaging in bad behavior, or were a few individual users there guilty of crimes?
Kiwi Farms exists solely to serve as a breeding ground for harassers.
This is not a case of some bad actors on the forum and mods/admins aren't doing anything about it because they're either, lazy, incompetent, or simply can't keep up. That would be true in the case of a site like reddit.
No, the owners of Kiwi Farms are actively malicious and encourage bad behavior.
Honestly, your comment feels like bad faith. It could be summed up as "I don't know anything about Kiwi Farms, therefore, nobody else does either, and they could be being unfairly targeted just because of a few bad actors on the site."
> Organizing harm against others probably isn't considered free speech by most legal systems or philosophers
Organizing harm against others is essentially the mission statement for Kiwi Farms.
Kiwi Farms exists solely to serve as a breeding ground for harassers.
This is not a case of some bad actors on the forum and mods/admins aren't doing anything about it because they're either, lazy, incompetent, or simply can't keep up. That would be true in the case of a site like reddit.
No, the owners of Kiwi Farms are actively malicious and encourage bad behavior.
Honestly, your comment feels like bad faith. It could be summed up as "I don't know anything about Kiwi Farms, therefore, nobody else does either, and they could be being unfairly targeted just because of a few bad actors on the site."
> Organizing harm against others probably isn't considered free speech by most legal systems or philosophers
Organizing harm against others is essentially the mission statement for Kiwi Farms.
> Kiwi Farms exists solely to serve as a breeding ground for harassers.
> Organizing harm against others is essentially the mission statement for Kiwi Farms.
How are you such an informed expert in Kiwifarm's culture and mission statement?
Your opinion may or may not reflect reality, but you don't sound the slightest bit objective about this at all.
And given all of the censoring and deplatforming that has been done in the last few years, how can an outside observer take any of these types claims at face value? Whatever marginal trust I've had in taking these kinds of claims at face value has been squandered by censorious pricks.
> No, the owners of Kiwi Farms are actively malicious and encourage bad behavior.
First hand citations in context that can simply be judged for myself?
> Organizing harm against others is essentially the mission statement for Kiwi Farms.
How are you such an informed expert in Kiwifarm's culture and mission statement?
Your opinion may or may not reflect reality, but you don't sound the slightest bit objective about this at all.
And given all of the censoring and deplatforming that has been done in the last few years, how can an outside observer take any of these types claims at face value? Whatever marginal trust I've had in taking these kinds of claims at face value has been squandered by censorious pricks.
> No, the owners of Kiwi Farms are actively malicious and encourage bad behavior.
First hand citations in context that can simply be judged for myself?
You're commenting as if your ignorance on what Kiwi Farms is gives you some sort of moral high ground.
As much as I hate to say "Do your research"...well...do some research.
Start at the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms). Check the sources for the article and make an actual informed decision rather than just acting like it's impossible to know and then acting like such a position is somehow virtuous.
Kiwi Farms started as a forum created for the purpose of trolling and harassing the creator of a webcomic and escalated from there. This is easily verifiable information.
As much as I hate to say "Do your research"...well...do some research.
Start at the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms). Check the sources for the article and make an actual informed decision rather than just acting like it's impossible to know and then acting like such a position is somehow virtuous.
Kiwi Farms started as a forum created for the purpose of trolling and harassing the creator of a webcomic and escalated from there. This is easily verifiable information.
Ever observe a certain level of intense personal drama in real life where people start getting unhinged and start getting into the slashing tires, keying cars, jumping the other with a weapon, or setting others' property on fire phase of conflict? You have 2 sets of friends both telling you that the other side did X,Y,Z because they're evil and insane. You can sort of parcel out the gist of what might have happened with enough investigation, but ultimately you weren't there and making a concrete decision on whose fault the drama was involves making a judgement call after talking to friends who are all biased about what happened and knowing that each side is trying to be persuasive towards their side.
That's sort of where I am stuck right now.
Wikipedia and the mainstream news sources it links to are absolutely not trustworthy, unbiased sources or interpreters about anything like this event. Asking me to look at Wikipedia links for the best objective interpretation of this mess would be like asking me to ask the best friend of a jilted lover in the middle of intense personal drama and assuming that I'm getting a purely accurate portrayal of events.
I'm not claiming any sort of moral high ground here. I'm only claiming 2 things.
1) Ignorance about Kiwifarms. I never followed that drama to begin with or knew about that site's culture and activity. Maybe they're very guilty, I just can't prove that with what I know.
2) Wikipedia and the media are horrendously awful sources for this kind of drama.
Please note: I'm not claiming Kiwifarms is innocent here. I acknowledge that they could be very guilty. I think it's reasonable to guess that they probably are. I just can't reasonably make a concrete judgement like that without seeing first-hand info in context that illustrates this clearly.
It's an important detail to me that the Kiwifarms site is down and can't really be researched very fully outside of perhaps some Archived links. And even if the site was up, you'd miss out on what was deleted by admins or not in real-time...which is very important to this case. Was Kiwifarms trying to remove illegal content? It's hard to say after the fact with this level of drama unless you were in the middle of it and following posts and how they operated in real time.
All I'm going to do from now on is keep my eyes open and try and learn more about Kiwifarms if I come across any reasonably trustworthy looking articles that aren't obvious polemics.
That's sort of where I am stuck right now.
Wikipedia and the mainstream news sources it links to are absolutely not trustworthy, unbiased sources or interpreters about anything like this event. Asking me to look at Wikipedia links for the best objective interpretation of this mess would be like asking me to ask the best friend of a jilted lover in the middle of intense personal drama and assuming that I'm getting a purely accurate portrayal of events.
I'm not claiming any sort of moral high ground here. I'm only claiming 2 things.
1) Ignorance about Kiwifarms. I never followed that drama to begin with or knew about that site's culture and activity. Maybe they're very guilty, I just can't prove that with what I know.
2) Wikipedia and the media are horrendously awful sources for this kind of drama.
Please note: I'm not claiming Kiwifarms is innocent here. I acknowledge that they could be very guilty. I think it's reasonable to guess that they probably are. I just can't reasonably make a concrete judgement like that without seeing first-hand info in context that illustrates this clearly.
It's an important detail to me that the Kiwifarms site is down and can't really be researched very fully outside of perhaps some Archived links. And even if the site was up, you'd miss out on what was deleted by admins or not in real-time...which is very important to this case. Was Kiwifarms trying to remove illegal content? It's hard to say after the fact with this level of drama unless you were in the middle of it and following posts and how they operated in real time.
All I'm going to do from now on is keep my eyes open and try and learn more about Kiwifarms if I come across any reasonably trustworthy looking articles that aren't obvious polemics.
Not to mention that this isn’t the government shutting them down, but private companies and citizens; free speech is only protected against government censorship and retaliation, not that of private companies or citizens.
Nobody is required to provide a platform for this.
Nobody is required to provide a platform for this.
Careful - this group _IS_ the arsonist who are caring torches. Hacker news is not the place to rail against this hypocrisy unless you are fully anon. One target looks a lot like the other when you have a 'cause' you are fighting for.
And this is not @dang or other moderators fault. Its the changing times and the changing opinions of the user base.
And this is not @dang or other moderators fault. Its the changing times and the changing opinions of the user base.
I’ve actually accepted and have come around to prefer a regulated internet. I actually don’t want my kid to be exposed to any information coming out of anyone except experts that are excepted at a societal level like we’ve had these past few decades. I like the status quo and that’s why I now identify as a conservative.
>I actually don’t want my kid to be exposed...
We used to call this parenting. Censoring the internet at large because some people don't actively police their children's access is not a solution.
We used to call this parenting. Censoring the internet at large because some people don't actively police their children's access is not a solution.
It also actively undermines other people's ability to parent.
My parents made the active parenting decision to expose us to things and stress the value of information. We never had our media/internet consumption censored (hell, I remember sitting on my dad's lap and playing a DOOM mod where we shot Barney and yet it was the Grue from Zork who terrified me), but we were also taught the difference between real life and fiction, that it was okay to not like or feel comfortable with things and stop playing/reading/watching them, and to never uncritically believe anybody.
Whatever you think of my upbringing, it was a choice my parents made because they thought it was best. Plus different children can handle different things. It's very Harrison Bergeronesque to censor everyone for the sake of the few.
My parents made the active parenting decision to expose us to things and stress the value of information. We never had our media/internet consumption censored (hell, I remember sitting on my dad's lap and playing a DOOM mod where we shot Barney and yet it was the Grue from Zork who terrified me), but we were also taught the difference between real life and fiction, that it was okay to not like or feel comfortable with things and stop playing/reading/watching them, and to never uncritically believe anybody.
Whatever you think of my upbringing, it was a choice my parents made because they thought it was best. Plus different children can handle different things. It's very Harrison Bergeronesque to censor everyone for the sake of the few.
We never had a problem like the Internet as parents. It's completely beyond our ability to control. We are in the middle of a grand sociological experiment, and the results so far show sharply increased mental problems and worse academic results.
I'm also not a big fan of censorship, but this is a big problem we should not just ignore. The best way I think would be if it became a norm that children simply don't get to spend their time on screens. Kind of like it's a norm (also law, but mostly norm) that kids don't get to drink alcohol and smoke.
I'm also not a big fan of censorship, but this is a big problem we should not just ignore. The best way I think would be if it became a norm that children simply don't get to spend their time on screens. Kind of like it's a norm (also law, but mostly norm) that kids don't get to drink alcohol and smoke.
I don’t agree with the parent re: regulating the internet, but private companies are by no means beholden to host or support content they disagree with (or, moreover, that they believe is illegal).
If there is enough political will and enough people that want to support KF garbage, there are other providers out there, or they can build one.
If there is enough political will and enough people that want to support KF garbage, there are other providers out there, or they can build one.
You can’t parent something that is everywhere else in society unless you homeschool your kids and I’m not going to do that.
Sit down in the boat. Thepiratebay is still online a trizillion years after all the debacles.
Cloudflare is not the biggest player at these services. Any other major competitor does not allow services like KW. This whole ordeal is stupid.
Cloudflare is not the biggest player at these services. Any other major competitor does not allow services like KW. This whole ordeal is stupid.
Thepiratebay hasn't had an angry mob of people trying to take it down via any means necessary. A site being taken down because of copyright infringement is different from a site being taken down because of social pressure.
Thepiratebay has been offline because of DDOS-attacks in the past.
It's had an angry mob of copyright fanatics targeting it since it's inception
> it just shows how hard you can shut someone down by just twitter outrage.
Your analysis is absurd. First, supposing we only care about "free speech" and no other values is absurd from the outset*. It should be obvious that people can't make use of any right to free speech" if they get swatted and killed, so the idea that free speech as a value exists in a moral phantom zone of its own where no other ethical considerations have any weight is pretty much false.
Let's put aside for now the incredibly insincere enforcement of 'free speech' principles that exists in the US, where black community organisers like MLK and Fred Hampton are blackmailed and murdered (respectively) intentionally by top levels law enforcement for their speech, and put aside the historical record that shows how the anti-war movement of the 1970s was suppressed by an intentionally manufactured war on drugs (as admitted to by ringleaders), a war on drugs that is still costing lives 50 years later. Let's put aside the clear legislative efforts to suppress speech (in the forms of suppressing speech of say the BDS movement) that is occurring at the moment. Let's put aside the decades of law enforcement targeting gay and trans people.
Let's pretend, just for now, that we sincerely felt only "free speech" was the only relevant ethical concern. We still have to ask: Whose? Who is speaking, is it more than one party? Who is being protected for their speech? Against who?
I cannot see a planet on which the speech rights of kiwifarms forum members is somehow relevant but the speech of trans people who they target is either not relevant or is 'less' relevant.
If trans people get harassed, stalked and even have the armed apparatus of state sent to have them intimidated into silence or murdered, for the speech of posting what amounts to "I am trans, and I think that's good", then it is incoherent even for 'free speech adovcates' to place the speech of kiwifarms users (up to and including stalking and harassment) as some noble idea worth protecting while the speech rights of trans people to say even benign things like "i exist" *isn't even part of the ethical considerations*.
Basically, there are two ways of approaching 'free speech' issues. For it to be genuine, it cannot be concerned about protecting the speech of one of the groups, and not the other. It cannot be concerned about the speech of one group and think that the speech of a different second group isn't important if that second group gets killed or is forced to move out of the town or nation due to the clear threat to their wellbeing. Anything less than this sincere interest in all parties and a clearheaded interest in how the abstract moral position plays out in practice and our 'free speech advocacy' becomes an insincere figleaf for perpetuating the violence of thugs.
Maybe I'm just pissed off because kiwifarms users have harassed and stalked people I care about for over a decade, chased them into their homes, accosted them at their places of work, for literally nothing except being trans, and then I come to HN and see people willing to dismiss all that, or dismiss the rebuke of the unfathomable damage that has been done by this site as this as "twitter outrage" without so much as acknowledging the extraordinary grounds for that criticism.
* we should pretty surely concede that further considerations like safety, privacy, health, life, the right to the "pursuit of happiness", etc have relevance here
Your analysis is absurd. First, supposing we only care about "free speech" and no other values is absurd from the outset*. It should be obvious that people can't make use of any right to free speech" if they get swatted and killed, so the idea that free speech as a value exists in a moral phantom zone of its own where no other ethical considerations have any weight is pretty much false.
Let's put aside for now the incredibly insincere enforcement of 'free speech' principles that exists in the US, where black community organisers like MLK and Fred Hampton are blackmailed and murdered (respectively) intentionally by top levels law enforcement for their speech, and put aside the historical record that shows how the anti-war movement of the 1970s was suppressed by an intentionally manufactured war on drugs (as admitted to by ringleaders), a war on drugs that is still costing lives 50 years later. Let's put aside the clear legislative efforts to suppress speech (in the forms of suppressing speech of say the BDS movement) that is occurring at the moment. Let's put aside the decades of law enforcement targeting gay and trans people.
Let's pretend, just for now, that we sincerely felt only "free speech" was the only relevant ethical concern. We still have to ask: Whose? Who is speaking, is it more than one party? Who is being protected for their speech? Against who?
I cannot see a planet on which the speech rights of kiwifarms forum members is somehow relevant but the speech of trans people who they target is either not relevant or is 'less' relevant.
If trans people get harassed, stalked and even have the armed apparatus of state sent to have them intimidated into silence or murdered, for the speech of posting what amounts to "I am trans, and I think that's good", then it is incoherent even for 'free speech adovcates' to place the speech of kiwifarms users (up to and including stalking and harassment) as some noble idea worth protecting while the speech rights of trans people to say even benign things like "i exist" *isn't even part of the ethical considerations*.
Basically, there are two ways of approaching 'free speech' issues. For it to be genuine, it cannot be concerned about protecting the speech of one of the groups, and not the other. It cannot be concerned about the speech of one group and think that the speech of a different second group isn't important if that second group gets killed or is forced to move out of the town or nation due to the clear threat to their wellbeing. Anything less than this sincere interest in all parties and a clearheaded interest in how the abstract moral position plays out in practice and our 'free speech advocacy' becomes an insincere figleaf for perpetuating the violence of thugs.
Maybe I'm just pissed off because kiwifarms users have harassed and stalked people I care about for over a decade, chased them into their homes, accosted them at their places of work, for literally nothing except being trans, and then I come to HN and see people willing to dismiss all that, or dismiss the rebuke of the unfathomable damage that has been done by this site as this as "twitter outrage" without so much as acknowledging the extraordinary grounds for that criticism.
* we should pretty surely concede that further considerations like safety, privacy, health, life, the right to the "pursuit of happiness", etc have relevance here
The idea that this is scary or unsettling is libertarian bullshit.
Kiwi Farms is a societal antagonist. The paradox of tolerance shows us that we need to not tolerate assholes like them.
This whole idea that there's a "mob" that's "screaming loud enough" is, in this case, is just the rest of well-adjusted society refusing to tolerate these assholes.
I think of it this way: if I build something that's "agnostic" and still offer it to someone I know is harming others, and in some cases committing crimes or enabling them, that means a part of my labor is helping that act, and my service is no longer agnostic. It's almost like I am working for them.
If I know who my customer is, and I know what they do, I can no longer claim ignorance. If I sell Internet service to Adolf Hitler and I know who he is, I'm complicit.
Kiwi Farms is a societal antagonist. The paradox of tolerance shows us that we need to not tolerate assholes like them.
This whole idea that there's a "mob" that's "screaming loud enough" is, in this case, is just the rest of well-adjusted society refusing to tolerate these assholes.
I think of it this way: if I build something that's "agnostic" and still offer it to someone I know is harming others, and in some cases committing crimes or enabling them, that means a part of my labor is helping that act, and my service is no longer agnostic. It's almost like I am working for them.
If I know who my customer is, and I know what they do, I can no longer claim ignorance. If I sell Internet service to Adolf Hitler and I know who he is, I'm complicit.
Hopefully there will always be enough screaming on the internet to take down a doxxing operation.
Real principled stance there from their CEO - 3 days to totally flip-flop? I mean, if your stance is we will ban content we arbitrarily find bad then just state it as such. Put into your agreement terms precisely what is and isn’t allowed. Be consistent. This “conflicted” act makes them look weak and of questionable leadership.
Either take a principled stance on speech or put into your terms how you censor speech.
Either take a principled stance on speech or put into your terms how you censor speech.
My headcanon is that Price wanted to take a stand, but the legal team actually took a better look at the situation because of the pressure and had a long meeting, explaining to him why it's a really bad idea. I hope we learn what really happened in a few years.
Reason: twice I sent messages directly to appropriate teams at (large-companies) with something like "are you aware of what your ceo is doing at (link)" which was followed by the team sending a new response and ceo disappearing from that conversation.
Reason: twice I sent messages directly to appropriate teams at (large-companies) with something like "are you aware of what your ceo is doing at (link)" which was followed by the team sending a new response and ceo disappearing from that conversation.
Didn't he previously say he took down the nazi site because they were saying that the reason they weren't taken down was that he agreed with them? That provides the sort of decision making process.
Also, I find it hard to believe that a legal team would all of a sudden decide 3 days after they publically announce they wouldn't remove security services from a customer that one customer who has basically been the same for god only knows how long needs to have those services removed. I honestly, would be surprised if the original announcement hadn't already had input from legal. So if legal thought this customer was so bad, why wouldn't they have it done before they publically say they won't do it.
I think the twitter mobbing of CloudFlare worked.
Also, I find it hard to believe that a legal team would all of a sudden decide 3 days after they publically announce they wouldn't remove security services from a customer that one customer who has basically been the same for god only knows how long needs to have those services removed. I honestly, would be surprised if the original announcement hadn't already had input from legal. So if legal thought this customer was so bad, why wouldn't they have it done before they publically say they won't do it.
I think the twitter mobbing of CloudFlare worked.
> Didn't he previously say he took down the nazi site because they were saying that the reason they weren't taken down was that he agreed with them?
And about that decision, he said this:
> Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision. It was different than what I’d talked talked with our senior team about yesterday. I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. I called our legal team and told them what we were going to do. I called our Trust & Safety team and had them stop the service. It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company.
> Having made that decision we now need to talk about why it is so dangerous. I’ll be posting something on our blog later today. Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power.
https://gizmodo.com/cloudflare-ceo-on-terminating-service-to...
And about that decision, he said this:
> Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision. It was different than what I’d talked talked with our senior team about yesterday. I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. I called our legal team and told them what we were going to do. I called our Trust & Safety team and had them stop the service. It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company.
> Having made that decision we now need to talk about why it is so dangerous. I’ll be posting something on our blog later today. Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power.
https://gizmodo.com/cloudflare-ceo-on-terminating-service-to...
I wonder if he's actually so delusional to think that he's got the power to decide what goes on the internet, or if this is just something Cloudflare marketing is trying to push to make them seem like the only option anyone could possibly work with.
Isn’t the simplest read on that statement “there should be legislation that means nobody has this power”? Basically, something like “if it’s legal I’ll do it, but I don’t think it should be legal”.
This is kind of dubious as a basic ethical position (if you think it’s bad just don’t do it) but note that it’s not entirely ridiculous as if it’s legal, others can and will pressure you to do it. Whereas if you cede the right to do a thing, you can’t be coerced by an angry mob to do it.
This is kind of dubious as a basic ethical position (if you think it’s bad just don’t do it) but note that it’s not entirely ridiculous as if it’s legal, others can and will pressure you to do it. Whereas if you cede the right to do a thing, you can’t be coerced by an angry mob to do it.
Nobody has this kind of power, you can easily switch to another provider. If literally nobody wants to work with you, then ...
>Whereas if you cede the right to do a thing
Perhaps we shouldn't be hurrying to get rid of freedom of association.
>Whereas if you cede the right to do a thing
Perhaps we shouldn't be hurrying to get rid of freedom of association.
I think his consternation is performative.
If he doesn't think that Cloudflare should hold any responsibility for illegal or criminal activity using their services, then I welcome them being treated as a utility and subject to all of the regulation that that would entail.
If he doesn't think he should have the power he has, he should step away from it. It's not as though he's Claudius, an inadvertent emperor who believes in the Republic but is afraid of being murdered if he lets go of the reins. He's free to quit any time he likes and take this weight off his mind. If he has qualms about handing this power to anybody else, he shouldn't have accumulated this much power in the first place.
Truth is he likes the money, and the power. That's why he has it.
Truth is he likes the money, and the power. That's why he has it.
He said he took down the Daily Stormer because they claimed to have friends at Cloudflare (which was true https://nitter.net/GossiTheDog/status/1565128386753843201)
If you think screenshots of someone saying slurs in 2014 is evidence of someone being part of the daily stormer i'm afraid a lot more of the internet is a part of the daily stormer than you think.
The usage of weev's the trial is also pretty absurd and manipulative, given that his trial wasn't really related to the daily stormer, but about hacking, so much so that the EFF[0] defended him.
[0]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/weevs-case-flawed-begi...
The usage of weev's the trial is also pretty absurd and manipulative, given that his trial wasn't really related to the daily stormer, but about hacking, so much so that the EFF[0] defended him.
[0]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/weevs-case-flawed-begi...
Nobody has ever suggested that Asshurt was a part of the daily stormer, she wasn't.
>The usage of weev's the trial is also pretty absurd and manipulative, given that his trial wasn't really related to the daily stormer, but about hacking, so much so that the EFF[0] defended him.
Pretty sure most smart people have already distanced themselves from the EFF at this point, so that's not very convincing.
EFF, despite getting repeatedly called out by several top experts, spent years pushing downright dangerous disinformation via their "secure messaging scorecard". Not exactly a trustworthy organisation.
It was also a bizarre choice to defend weev, both from a legal and moral point of view. tptacek explained it well at the time https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5978686
>The usage of weev's the trial is also pretty absurd and manipulative, given that his trial wasn't really related to the daily stormer, but about hacking, so much so that the EFF[0] defended him.
Pretty sure most smart people have already distanced themselves from the EFF at this point, so that's not very convincing.
EFF, despite getting repeatedly called out by several top experts, spent years pushing downright dangerous disinformation via their "secure messaging scorecard". Not exactly a trustworthy organisation.
It was also a bizarre choice to defend weev, both from a legal and moral point of view. tptacek explained it well at the time https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5978686
> Nobody has ever suggested that Asshurt was a part of the daily stormer, she wasn't.
Then why link the slurs at all to accompany the argument?
> It was also a bizarre choice to defend weev, both from a legal and moral point of view. tptacek explained it well at the time https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5978686
On that same page you linked there are about as many people in favor as against, tptacek's word is not the law regardless of his competency, and it sure wasn't as uncontroversial as you make it out to be.
Then why link the slurs at all to accompany the argument?
> It was also a bizarre choice to defend weev, both from a legal and moral point of view. tptacek explained it well at the time https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5978686
On that same page you linked there are about as many people in favor as against, tptacek's word is not the law regardless of his competency, and it sure wasn't as uncontroversial as you make it out to be.
She left the company shortly thereafter...I assume when her viewpoints became known, probably couldn't keep her mouth shut after the "outrage" of not providing service to daily stormer.
It would be silly to say there are definitely no Nazis in a company above a certain size. It's easy to fire them as soon as you know about them, but a lot of shitheads know to fly under the radar, so you can't really proactively hunt them out.
It would be silly to say there are definitely no Nazis in a company above a certain size. It's easy to fire them as soon as you know about them, but a lot of shitheads know to fly under the radar, so you can't really proactively hunt them out.
Given she has stated in public that she is a 'troll' on twitter I don't think those twitter posts are evidence that she was a nazi. They seem consistent with her shitposting on twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNgLq_naOKw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNgLq_naOKw
Legal? I think you mean PR team. They realized it would have an impact on income. There was obviously no legal issue.
There's definite legal liability here. Kiwi Farms was organizing doxxing that was directly leading to real world harm. The heirs of the next victim would have a colorable claim against CF for knowingly enabling Kiwi farms to continue organizing doxxing campaigns. CF could probably prevail in court, at least in the US, but it's always better to avoid lawsuits if you can.
On income? How would this work?
As a CF customer, I am far more concerned with a policy or precedent of capriciously cutting off customers than a policy of defending "bad" customers.
As a CF customer, I am far more concerned with a policy or precedent of capriciously cutting off customers than a policy of defending "bad" customers.
That CF would have made a judgment that a larger percentage of their customers would feel uncomfortable using a service that also appears to support sites like KF is hardly surprising though. And as a corporation they're well within their rights to decide on that basis to cut off relationships with clients that they see as bad for business.
Cloudflare/DDoS-Guard doesn't care about you. You don't do enough business. The DDOS protection company cares about the reactions of the abstract things called corporations and institutions. Corporate persons have different motives than human person do. I don't think it is controversial to say most corporations and institutions have no problem with this decision. That'd be despite what any informed IT dept. employee might believe about the situation.
So yes, they worried about their income.
So yes, they worried about their income.
Because you (and others like you) are probably not a substantial source of revenue to Cloudflare. Big companies who are the bulk of Cloudflare's sales (and whom they spend >1.5x on courting than they do on engineering) would rather not be hosted on the same infrastructure that powers hate groups. Not really as a moral thing, but in the same way that e.g. Volkswagen or Samsung or Allianz would rather not advertise on a child pornography website, they'd also rather not host on an infrastructure provider who provide services to a forum whose members try to drive people to commit suicide, make bomb threats, fake calls to counterterrorism hotlines and generally espouse _extreme_ right ideology.
> On income? How would this work?
Cloudflare is a public company. I can tell you from being in a position to know this at a small company, but the "vendor review / procurement process" that happens to acquire a new service is non-trivial and usually offers several checkpoints to make sure that you're only onboarding vendors that meet strict criteria. One of those criteria is "not being embroiled in an obviously bad PR scandal easily revealed by a basic Google search."
CloudFlare is public and that means that their shareholders have the final say, not the individual customers. If shareholders see that CloudFlare's revenue is declining or that key customers are leaving, and there's an obvious reason why that's happening, well, that's the answer to who has the most say.
The whole operational plan that @SleepingGiants had during the Trump administration was to systematically identify corporate links and associations, and to highlight them to PR and legal teams who knew how this worked. "Cancellation" works not because individuals are easily moved by emotional arguments. It works because most companies answer to shareholders, and most shareholders care about value and growth. The company has a fiduciary duty to drive value for shareholders. When those stars align, obvious reasons why value is being artificially capped don't become "hard decisions." They become easy ways to increase value.
There are very few companies that can successfully hold an ideology. When they do hold an ideology, that ideology is usually aligned with some market force. Apple advertises privacy as its ideology because it's seemingly aligned with shareholder value. The ideology becomes expensive or even net-negative commensurate with the value being driven.
Cloudflare is a public company. I can tell you from being in a position to know this at a small company, but the "vendor review / procurement process" that happens to acquire a new service is non-trivial and usually offers several checkpoints to make sure that you're only onboarding vendors that meet strict criteria. One of those criteria is "not being embroiled in an obviously bad PR scandal easily revealed by a basic Google search."
CloudFlare is public and that means that their shareholders have the final say, not the individual customers. If shareholders see that CloudFlare's revenue is declining or that key customers are leaving, and there's an obvious reason why that's happening, well, that's the answer to who has the most say.
The whole operational plan that @SleepingGiants had during the Trump administration was to systematically identify corporate links and associations, and to highlight them to PR and legal teams who knew how this worked. "Cancellation" works not because individuals are easily moved by emotional arguments. It works because most companies answer to shareholders, and most shareholders care about value and growth. The company has a fiduciary duty to drive value for shareholders. When those stars align, obvious reasons why value is being artificially capped don't become "hard decisions." They become easy ways to increase value.
There are very few companies that can successfully hold an ideology. When they do hold an ideology, that ideology is usually aligned with some market force. Apple advertises privacy as its ideology because it's seemingly aligned with shareholder value. The ideology becomes expensive or even net-negative commensurate with the value being driven.
I'm not sure that it was PR. It is quite popular to be consistent and defend anybody who isn't convicted of a crime. If you are choosing to get CDN / DDOS protection and are running any site that may not be the most popular do you want to go with the company that bends their knee when the internet comes calling?
> It is quite popular to be consistent and defend anybody who isn't convicted of a crime.
I don’t know how popular this is, or at least how popular it should be.
Conviction is based on the extremely high bar of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This is the standard for depriving a person of their liberty.
Society rightly does not operate at that standard. Conviction was never meant to be a proxy for whether you ought to do business with somebody.
Think about killers who “got off on a technicality,” where everyone knew they were guilty. Or open criminals who for whatever reason were unable to face a jury, like many mass shooters. It just doesn’t make sense to say “well the courts never formally convicted them so we have a duty to defend them.”
Sorry if this is long-winded. I am just alarmed by this trend of equating legal standards with social standards.
I don’t know how popular this is, or at least how popular it should be.
Conviction is based on the extremely high bar of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This is the standard for depriving a person of their liberty.
Society rightly does not operate at that standard. Conviction was never meant to be a proxy for whether you ought to do business with somebody.
Think about killers who “got off on a technicality,” where everyone knew they were guilty. Or open criminals who for whatever reason were unable to face a jury, like many mass shooters. It just doesn’t make sense to say “well the courts never formally convicted them so we have a duty to defend them.”
Sorry if this is long-winded. I am just alarmed by this trend of equating legal standards with social standards.
It's not popular if you're complicit in spreading hate for trans people.
Can you name a website that allows user content that is not "complicit in spreading hate for trans people"?
[deleted]
The problem is the site got named in a swatting attack on a GOP House member.
That ups the stakes a bit and probably made providing a DDOS service for kiwifarms problematic.
It got named because the alleged attacker called the police and said "it was me, Kiwi Farms user so-and-so." The user in question denied making this call and claimed they had been impersonated. This happened in the midst of the pressure campaign on Cloudflare, to a GOP House member known for jumping the gun who had no prior history with Kiwi Farms. If that's not extremely suspect I don't know what is.
Agreed it was just unrelated but it made news headlines then old history about keffals , them not helping the police with the Auckland shooter so they became "the baddies".
It simply made Cloudflare's position untenable - they are not piratebay but need customers.
It simply made Cloudflare's position untenable - they are not piratebay but need customers.
Real principled stance there from their CEO - 3 days to totally flip-flop? I mean, if your stance is we will ban content we arbitrarily find bad then just state it as such.
The thing is that just about every company and individual is going to have the caveat "be bad enough and I won't deal with you" in practice. Kiwi Farms is pretty horrible but you could have an even more awful site - say real murder for hire - and it would be dropped even faster.
Do really expect someone to offer a "principled position" that no matter the real world consequences, they'll never stand against some horror getting out onto the Internet?
Edit: I want to add that Cloudflair's original statement and it's recent statement have involved a consistent point of "we shouldn't be the one to suppress this" which is fundamentally different from "nothing should be done about these problems". They're basically saying "we should be doing this but we should be doing this based on a court order rather than on our own". Which is to say there are never any "free speech fundamentalism" in these statements.
The thing is that just about every company and individual is going to have the caveat "be bad enough and I won't deal with you" in practice. Kiwi Farms is pretty horrible but you could have an even more awful site - say real murder for hire - and it would be dropped even faster.
Do really expect someone to offer a "principled position" that no matter the real world consequences, they'll never stand against some horror getting out onto the Internet?
Edit: I want to add that Cloudflair's original statement and it's recent statement have involved a consistent point of "we shouldn't be the one to suppress this" which is fundamentally different from "nothing should be done about these problems". They're basically saying "we should be doing this but we should be doing this based on a court order rather than on our own". Which is to say there are never any "free speech fundamentalism" in these statements.
There's always going to be something of a judgment call though. You might say "this content is against our TOS", but what if that content is in a book? At a bookseller?
You can think of many other examples, but the point is, if you think there's an easy-to-create and easy-to-enforce content policy on the Internet, I think you're mistaken.
You can think of many other examples, but the point is, if you think there's an easy-to-create and easy-to-enforce content policy on the Internet, I think you're mistaken.
Of course and it’s a bit of a trap. They’d end up having to ban half the internet if they were consistent and non-arbitrary.
Half the internet isn't forums devoted to stalking and harassing people.
What exactly is inconsistent about their banning of services? Is there another site which is on their radar, which does what kiwifarm does, and they've come out and stated they will never ban them?
What exactly is inconsistent about their banning of services? Is there another site which is on their radar, which does what kiwifarm does, and they've come out and stated they will never ban them?
Half the Internet is indeed forums where bad behavior is taking place though. Reddit, for example, has plenty of bad (often illegal) behavior on it and the moderation is far from aggressive. You eventually go down the rabbit hole of gradations of moderation and "how much" moderation you'll require.
Half the internet probably includes porn and piracy.
I run a web publishing product with over 10M deployments. The easy-to-enforce content policy is this "Are we breaking the law by hosting this content?". Basically the answer for an ISP is always no until there is a takedown order from the courts which your are under jurisdiction, OR you knowingly are hosting a phishing attack intended to defraud unsuspecting members of the public, OR you are put on notice of content infringement via sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury. It really is that simple because ISPs are immune by default.
But why would he? Bloviating about his love for free speech and then suppressing the speech that makes him trouble is much more convenient. And why should he worry how he looks to you? What you'd do, use another provider? Good luck with that, think they'd be any different?
The reality is, we're moving from an early pseudo-anarchic ideals of early internet free speech mode to the pseudo-feudal setups where if you want to have an internet presence you must have a liege lord and must live at their sufferance, or you'll quickly fall victim to one of the roving mobs that live to collect the scalps of the likes of you. It's not a fun place to be in, but that's where we're at. And as a vassal you don't have too much position to make demands on your lord. You can change the lord, for sure, but there aren't many and if none of them likes you, you're out of luck. Welcome to the Web 3.0, it's not what you thought it'd be.
The reality is, we're moving from an early pseudo-anarchic ideals of early internet free speech mode to the pseudo-feudal setups where if you want to have an internet presence you must have a liege lord and must live at their sufferance, or you'll quickly fall victim to one of the roving mobs that live to collect the scalps of the likes of you. It's not a fun place to be in, but that's where we're at. And as a vassal you don't have too much position to make demands on your lord. You can change the lord, for sure, but there aren't many and if none of them likes you, you're out of luck. Welcome to the Web 3.0, it's not what you thought it'd be.
Kevin has been hammering on them for many days now, and for good reason.
Everyone has a different line in the sand. For me, a platform designed to promote hate speech crosses that line.
Everyone has a different line in the sand. For me, a platform designed to promote hate speech crosses that line.
What is hate speech? Was Charlie Hebdo hate speech? Rushdie? A lot of people certainly think so. I see hate speech across nearly every internet platform including this one. There’s no shortage of hate speech against wealthy people or white men, etc. Is that allowed?
I'm not here to define hate speech, and I think that you'd agree that HN was not designed to encourage and promote hate speech.
You absolutely can not say the same thing of Kiwifarms. Let's not be deliberately obtuse here.
You absolutely can not say the same thing of Kiwifarms. Let's not be deliberately obtuse here.
Depends on what you mean by "hate speech". It's a literally Orwellian term designed to be bad but not specific.
In this case, the entire forum was created to target and harass a specific person. From there it evolved to target and harass specific people / communities.
As I said in my initial response, we all have a line in the sand that we draw. For me, Kiwifarms crosses that line.
Maybe you're okay with a website dedicated to harassing and doxxing specific people. I am not.
As I said in my initial response, we all have a line in the sand that we draw. For me, Kiwifarms crosses that line.
Maybe you're okay with a website dedicated to harassing and doxxing specific people. I am not.
Do you agree that Daily Stormer should not have been banned? They were created to opine about white ethno-nationalism, etc. and not to target or doxx or harass specific people. Is your line moving now?
Given that they also engage in targeting, harassing, and doxxing specific people, yes, they should have been banned. My line has not moved.
What’s your opinion on sites not targeting specific individuals? Like, “people with Property X have no place in civilized society” where readers of this site occasionally went on killing sprees of people in the category?
The big mistake here is trying to come up with a single code by which to codify speech. I mean, a government (even one supporting free speech) has to do this, because they're the enforcer of last resort, and it's really necessary that such a code promulgated by the government err on the side of being "too permissive".
But-- we should have big markets of many participants who all make their own decisions about what they condone. Then, the individual decisions are not so toxic. And if you are doing something egregious where almost all of them say no, well, you got what you deserved.
My personal thoughts: exposing peoples' personal information for the explicit purpose of severe and illegal harassment is on the "definitely not OK" side of things. Ordinary hate speech that occasionally leads to spree violence is much murkier.
But-- we should have big markets of many participants who all make their own decisions about what they condone. Then, the individual decisions are not so toxic. And if you are doing something egregious where almost all of them say no, well, you got what you deserved.
My personal thoughts: exposing peoples' personal information for the explicit purpose of severe and illegal harassment is on the "definitely not OK" side of things. Ordinary hate speech that occasionally leads to spree violence is much murkier.
Honestly, it depends on what that property is and if the person went on a killing spree based on their views on property X or for other reasons.
If Property X is something like the color of their skin, their sexuality, their gender, etc, then I would support cloudflare banning them.
I am certainly not the master of what should and should not be on the internet, and neither should cloudflare. As a society, though, there are some things that most can agree on.
If Property X is something like the color of their skin, their sexuality, their gender, etc, then I would support cloudflare banning them.
I am certainly not the master of what should and should not be on the internet, and neither should cloudflare. As a society, though, there are some things that most can agree on.
There are mechanisms in law for courts to order removal of illegal content. ISPs don't ever have to define "hate speech". Sounds to me want to censor speech you hate.
Again, we all have a line here. Would you, for example, be supportive of banning websites which knowingly promote and distribute child pornography?
We may disagree on where that line should be, but most people absolutely have this line.
We may disagree on where that line should be, but most people absolutely have this line.
Are you any different? If I graffiti'd a slogan you hated on your garage, would you cover it up? Would you censor speech you hate?
Someone defines what gets removed. Ideally in a democracy "society" as a whole decides what that is. The obvious example is child exploitation, are pedophiles rights to swap images of kids currently being "censored as speech YOU hate"?.
Harassment forums like the one in discussion here have no place in civilized society and I am happy for them to be censored. The people that frequent these sites can get together in person and chat about hating all they want, but the method of their harassment (the global platform of the internet) should removed -- insofar as that is possible.
Harassment forums like the one in discussion here have no place in civilized society and I am happy for them to be censored. The people that frequent these sites can get together in person and chat about hating all they want, but the method of their harassment (the global platform of the internet) should removed -- insofar as that is possible.
As I was discussing in the previous thread, I disagree with this.
> Someone defines what gets removed. Ideally in a democracy "society" as a whole decides what that is.
Ideally, many smaller elements make their decisions about what speech to promote or convey, and "society" or the "government" is the actor of last resort-- stepping in for the most not-OK stuff when the market has been shown to fail.
Concentrated power is dangerous-- whether it's in the hands of a government or a single overly-powerful commercial actor-- and needs to be restrained one way or another.
> Someone defines what gets removed. Ideally in a democracy "society" as a whole decides what that is.
Ideally, many smaller elements make their decisions about what speech to promote or convey, and "society" or the "government" is the actor of last resort-- stepping in for the most not-OK stuff when the market has been shown to fail.
Concentrated power is dangerous-- whether it's in the hands of a government or a single overly-powerful commercial actor-- and needs to be restrained one way or another.
They never said their only line was doxxing or harassing.
> As I said in my initial response, we all have a line in the sand that we draw. For me, Kiwifarms crosses that line.
Okay, please, if you dont mind, specify how that line is drawn up
Okay, please, if you dont mind, specify how that line is drawn up
Sure thing, boss, although I'll be repeating myself. Actively encouraging others to harass and doxx specific individuals or groups crosses that line.
okay, would this include CNN that threatened to doxx someone for creating the trump cnn boxxing meme photo? (which he actually did not create)
For a one-time thing? No. That's something which can be repaired, reprimanded, or something upon which future policies could be set.
They're also not encouraging their viewers to harass, contact, and troll specific individuals.
I don't support doxxing, and this is a false equivalency at best.
I don't watch CNN, so I had to read up on the boxing meme thing first.
They're also not encouraging their viewers to harass, contact, and troll specific individuals.
I don't support doxxing, and this is a false equivalency at best.
I don't watch CNN, so I had to read up on the boxing meme thing first.
There are different degrees, sure. And this place has moderation. But what is the line? Be precise and avoid arbitrary definitions.
There are threads here where people call for wealthy peoples heads. Did that cross a line? Could we say it about other people?
There are threads here where people call for wealthy peoples heads. Did that cross a line? Could we say it about other people?
> There are threads here where people call for wealthy peoples heads. Did that cross a line? Could we say it about other people?
Are they targeting specific rich people in a dedicated and persistent fashion to the point that said rich persons kill themselves? No, that's not happening. I've seen posts of the type you've described. They're almost always dead/banned/shadowbanned. They're much less frequent than any one of anti-black, anti-gay, anti-jew, or anti-trans comments... which are almost always dead/banned/shadowbanned as well. This site does not remotely compare to KF.
Are they targeting specific rich people in a dedicated and persistent fashion to the point that said rich persons kill themselves? No, that's not happening. I've seen posts of the type you've described. They're almost always dead/banned/shadowbanned. They're much less frequent than any one of anti-black, anti-gay, anti-jew, or anti-trans comments... which are almost always dead/banned/shadowbanned as well. This site does not remotely compare to KF.
That is still not the primary purpose of HN. Those comments should be flagged, of course, but they in no way align with the specific purpose of HN.
Kiwifarms was founded to troll and harass a specific webcomic author. From there it evolved to target and harass specific people or communities.
Surely you see the difference here.
Kiwifarms was founded to troll and harass a specific webcomic author. From there it evolved to target and harass specific people or communities.
Surely you see the difference here.
You're falling for the heap paradox: If you remove a grain of sand from a heap, tell precisely at which grain of sand it stops being a heap. You can't? Therefore it's impossible to tell if something is a heap of sand! QED
That just says "don't use the word 'heap' for anything normative", surely not "let's hope what we think is a heap is universal consensus"? I support the current thing though
> Be precise and avoid arbitrary definitions.
Why should we?
Society has been doing pretty fine with some fuzziness until now. Sometimes something really goes to far and they end up not hosted anymore. That’s the system working, not it failing to work. Well, that came a bit slowly for kiwifarms sadly but I’m glade sanity prevailed in the end.
Why should we?
Society has been doing pretty fine with some fuzziness until now. Sometimes something really goes to far and they end up not hosted anymore. That’s the system working, not it failing to work. Well, that came a bit slowly for kiwifarms sadly but I’m glade sanity prevailed in the end.
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So you want to enforce restrictions on hate speech, but you have no clear boundary as to what "hate speech" really is?
Keep reading, but here's the crux of the matter:
HN was made to discuss tech topics. KF was made to harass and doxx a specific target.
I'm not here to explicitly define "hate speech", but I think that we can agree that KF has crossed that line into hate speech.
Unless you're cool with encouraging harassment and doxxing, that is.
HN was made to discuss tech topics. KF was made to harass and doxx a specific target.
I'm not here to explicitly define "hate speech", but I think that we can agree that KF has crossed that line into hate speech.
Unless you're cool with encouraging harassment and doxxing, that is.
If you cannot define a term, you should not use it. I'm surprised that you're so honest about your irrationality, though. Normally, you would "define" hate speech as follows: "Weasel term, weasel term, weasel term" and that would be that.
I would define hate speech as speech that directs hatred at a particular group. For instance, Joe Biden recently gave a state speech (The "Gates of Hell" speech) that was completely choked with hatred for a group. Shrug. I have no interest in banning this, whether from the "president" or from anon. My understanding of Kiwifarms is that they basically just make fun of idiot liberals--a sport on endless grounds.
If you gave your honest definition of hate speech it would likely be "People who disagree with me and make me look bad showing how stupid or wrong I am."
I would define hate speech as speech that directs hatred at a particular group. For instance, Joe Biden recently gave a state speech (The "Gates of Hell" speech) that was completely choked with hatred for a group. Shrug. I have no interest in banning this, whether from the "president" or from anon. My understanding of Kiwifarms is that they basically just make fun of idiot liberals--a sport on endless grounds.
If you gave your honest definition of hate speech it would likely be "People who disagree with me and make me look bad showing how stupid or wrong I am."
Look, man, if you can't agree that people shouldn't target, harass and doxx people then we have no common ground to continue this conversation.
I don't think we should target, harass and doxx people, therefore I do not do those things. That doesn't mean that I think we should censor entire websites because they are sometimes used as platforms to do those kinds of things.
Kiwi Farms was not "sometimes" used to target, harass, and doxx.
It was the entire purpose of the site.
It was the entire purpose of the site.
When I visited it, some time ago, it mostly seemed like a lot of angsty teens shitposting.
My thoroughly unscientific analysis of the situation seemed like it was about 98% bullshit posts and maybe 2% of the posts I found truly objectionable (mostly jew/black hate) but not illegal.
I'm not doubting that there is some illegal stuff there, nor that there is some truly vile content, but, I don't even think it's in the majority on a post-level basis.
My thoroughly unscientific analysis of the situation seemed like it was about 98% bullshit posts and maybe 2% of the posts I found truly objectionable (mostly jew/black hate) but not illegal.
I'm not doubting that there is some illegal stuff there, nor that there is some truly vile content, but, I don't even think it's in the majority on a post-level basis.
I see a lot of vile speech directed toward me on Hacker News.
Can you give examples?
People calling for my people and my nation to be wiped off the map. (And I don't try to get Hacker News blocked by their ISP or cache provider. I understand that an open forum will have speech like this.)
I mean actual links so we can see what you're talking about
One of many, many comments saying that the country I hold a citizenship in should be eliminated; the land it exists on is "occupied"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32701383
Threats that what happened in Germany in the 30s will happen again, and it's deserved:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32701442
People blaming Jews/Jewish conspiracies for various actions:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32692308
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32691199
I'd like to point out that I understand what's "vile" to one person isn't to another. I've had my posts reported as "hate speech" on reddit for saying that "the Fat Acceptance movement is dangerous" and that "Obesity is wrong."
Banned speech should have a very high bar -- direct, specific threats of physical harm.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32701383
Threats that what happened in Germany in the 30s will happen again, and it's deserved:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32701442
People blaming Jews/Jewish conspiracies for various actions:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32692308
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32691199
I'd like to point out that I understand what's "vile" to one person isn't to another. I've had my posts reported as "hate speech" on reddit for saying that "the Fat Acceptance movement is dangerous" and that "Obesity is wrong."
Banned speech should have a very high bar -- direct, specific threats of physical harm.
For the first link at least, they seem to be talking specifically about parts of Palestine occupied in defiance of international law and agreements being returned to them, not Israel broadly being eliminated. Israel/Palestine border disputes are massively controversial, so I don’t dispute people do say things like your summary of the comment, I just don’t believe the comment you posted is that. In fact I think your summary is a bad faith reading of the comment.
Some of those other links are vile though.
Some of those other links are vile though.
Notice as soon as you bring this up, they stop replying.
Those comments are really awful and wtf upvoted....
Those comments are really awful and wtf upvoted....
The person you’re responding to said “designed to promote hate speech”. Your examples don’t sound like that.
What does that mean? That the forum operator doesn’t have moderation facilities that suits your tastes in what is and is not hate speech?
A forum dedicated to the principal and culture of free speech is designed to promote hate speech?
A forum dedicated to the principal and culture of free speech is designed to promote hate speech?
Hate speech is clearly defined in various laws against the concept. So it’s not really up to taste. Most popular services attempt to remove hate speech, but doesn’t look like KF does.
Btw, a forum dedicated to the principle and culture of free speech would absolutely (by definition) be promoting/hosting hate speech.
Btw, a forum dedicated to the principle and culture of free speech would absolutely (by definition) be promoting/hosting hate speech.
Most laws on hate speech don't use the term hate speech.
What is your personal understanding of the term?
What is your personal understanding of the term?
Does it matter? That's up to the people hosting the content right?
I'm not sure I understand your last sentence? If I were running a forum dedicated to the principle/culture of "free speech" I would think it's especially important to avoid promoting hate speech, or you run the risk that free speech and hate speech become seen as synonymous, and the wider public deciding that free speech isn't a worthy ideal after all.
I ended up conflating hosting and promoting which wasn't clear enough. You would be definitely be hosting hate speech, which is essentially promoting it (by using the internet to make that speech more accessible to others than it would be otherwise).
The alternative is to accept that moderation is NECESSARY for online communities (or else spam and hate speech will take up a huge part of the content and suddenly you'll realize you're essentially promoting this content afterall) and moderation will always look like the opposite of "free speech".
The alternative is to accept that moderation is NECESSARY for online communities (or else spam and hate speech will take up a huge part of the content and suddenly you'll realize you're essentially promoting this content afterall) and moderation will always look like the opposite of "free speech".
Great, my line is people like you. Please disconnect from the internet.
See the problem?
See the problem?
I am not asking for any of these people, specifically, to be removed from the internet. I am saying that I support cloudflare banning hosts which specifically target, harass, and doxx specific individuals or communities.
I'm not supportive of banning Joshua Moon from the internet. Do you agree that there is a difference here?
I'm not supportive of banning Joshua Moon from the internet. Do you agree that there is a difference here?
This move and people's response to it is not about lines and principles. It's pretty much a slippery slope and we all know it; some cheer it on because this time their line was crossed, and others see it for what it's signaling. The overall erosion of discourse on non-accepted ideas and topics that are on the scale of mean/offensive/hateful.
Yeah none of us here are happy about this site existing or innocent people being targeted, of course. But the next one will be slightly less extreme as kiwi farms and we'll say the same things.
Yeah none of us here are happy about this site existing or innocent people being targeted, of course. But the next one will be slightly less extreme as kiwi farms and we'll say the same things.
Would you be okay with a website which targeted you, specifically, tracked down your home, your employer, your family? One which encouraged others to do the same, filled your inbox with hateful messages?
One which hid behind Cloudflare in order to hide their identity while simultaneously exposing yours?
This is how KF started and continued to operate.
You have a line. I have a line. What is happening here is that we're trying to define a common line which works for society, and it is going to "slip" over time as views change.
In the past, that line would have included books which even mentioned homosexual behavior. Today that is more tolerated and accepted, which is good in my opinion because gay people certainly exist.
I guess what I'm saying is that the line is going to have to slip a bit, and in more than one direction.
One which hid behind Cloudflare in order to hide their identity while simultaneously exposing yours?
This is how KF started and continued to operate.
You have a line. I have a line. What is happening here is that we're trying to define a common line which works for society, and it is going to "slip" over time as views change.
In the past, that line would have included books which even mentioned homosexual behavior. Today that is more tolerated and accepted, which is good in my opinion because gay people certainly exist.
I guess what I'm saying is that the line is going to have to slip a bit, and in more than one direction.
Should the Washington Post be banned? Or should their journalist, Taylor Lorenz be banned from Twitter for doxxing the Libs of TikTok person?
We should be consistent and non-arbitrary. There’s so many more examples.
We should be consistent and non-arbitrary. There’s so many more examples.
She should be reprimanded, in my opinion. The Washington Post is not encouraging their readers to harass or doxx individuals or groups, so this is a false equivalency.
How would you feel if someone made a "Finding Nemo" forum in which they tracked down your identity, your family, and your friends and encouraged its members to harass and doxx you and your family?
Oh, and this forum hid their identity behind Cloudflare while, at the same time exposing your identity and personal details?
Would you support Cloudflare banning said forum?
How would you feel if someone made a "Finding Nemo" forum in which they tracked down your identity, your family, and your friends and encouraged its members to harass and doxx you and your family?
Oh, and this forum hid their identity behind Cloudflare while, at the same time exposing your identity and personal details?
Would you support Cloudflare banning said forum?
> The Washington Post is not encouraging their readers to harass or doxx individuals or groups
Publishing libsoftiktok's information was definitely intended to harass them, and implicit support for doxxing.
> Would you support Cloudflare banning said forum?
No.
Publishing libsoftiktok's information was definitely intended to harass them, and implicit support for doxxing.
> Would you support Cloudflare banning said forum?
No.
It's crazy how many people on this forum are disagreeing with you. Has HN's truly lost its community and the old greybeards who used to stand up for free speech?
This is nimby logic. It’s indirect. There is clear damage caused by kiwi farms. I don’t care if we can come up with a philosophically coherent rule that captures kiwi farms and not other websites, it is still good that they are banned.
But that’s an imaginary problem. You seem to think that having some standards even if they are not clearly defined necessary means anything could happen and the most silly things will. It is not the case in practice.
Sadly, I've had to block him and all the other people on this self-righteous authoritarian crusade and don't think I'll ever interact with them again. Most of the security community (and larger technology community) used to care a lot about free speech, but they've completely abandoned that principle.
> larger technology community) used to care a lot about free speech, but they've completely abandoned that principle
I agree and I'm very worried for it.
I agree and I'm very worried for it.
There are no solid principles, times change and people change. Would it have made a difference if a month ago they forbade websites that dox people?
Since when is "doxxing" a crime? I'm told that the new york times has "doxxed" people on numerous occasions. Should they get taken down?
It doesn't have to be a crime, just a waste of bandwidth.
they doxxed a twitter user causing that user to face credible life threats and had to evacuate and go into hiding.. but they are a-okay naturally
If "go into hiding" means "not posting personally-identifiable information on the public internet", then that doesn't sound so bad. In fact, that's what I always do all the time on the internet, as should everyone.
by "go into hiding" i mean leaving their house, living in a new undisclosed location, as people are coming to their house
This is why it's unwise to ever post one's location online.
It is truly pitiful, because this is ultimately what social media encourages. They encourage tagging posts by location, they rip the EXIF data from the images (which most users don't even know exists in the first place). This is all information that is fed into the advertising and mass surveillance machine.
At the very least, this is what we have castle doctrine and self-defense law for.
It is truly pitiful, because this is ultimately what social media encourages. They encourage tagging posts by location, they rip the EXIF data from the images (which most users don't even know exists in the first place). This is all information that is fed into the advertising and mass surveillance machine.
At the very least, this is what we have castle doctrine and self-defense law for.
this twitter user did not, the washington post editor decided to do that, and personally went to harras the user in questions family
Why should most of the internet change their habits due to one website? Or a handful if you include Chan's.
How was it determined that the life threats were credible? If they were *actually* credible I'd imagine Keffals is gonna end up dead pretty soon given the escalation of attacks on KF.
But they're not credible and nothing will happen.
But they're not credible and nothing will happen.
i would consider it credible when people show up at your house, for one.
Did they commit violence or make any attempt on her life when they were there? Seems like a pretty good time to do it to me if they had intended to do so.
The thing is, it's hard to feel bad for kiwifarms. They seem to be one of the worst sites there are. But freedom of speech/expression/opinions aren't about defending those who speech/expression/opinions you like but all of them.
Personally, I think the site being shutdown is a good thing. But it's hard to look at the fact a few corporations can remove a website from the internet and think this is good for a free and open society.
Personally, I think the site being shutdown is a good thing. But it's hard to look at the fact a few corporations can remove a website from the internet and think this is good for a free and open society.
3 people are dead because of that site. What they were doing was a crime. Criminal activity is not is not protected free speech. That's like arguing carding and SIM swapping sites are just expressing their right to free speech and should be protected.
Even if that were true, and I think it's pretty doubtful to just attribute a suicide to some people who made fun of or harassed the deceased, it's a criminal or civil matter. If people on that forum committed a crime, let them face the legal penalties. Why should the website be made persona non grata by Internet companies?
How many more are dead from activities on Facebook, Instagram, etc? Why is it that big businesses see no punishment for vastly larger crimes and small communities are harshly dealt with?
How many more are dead from activities on Facebook, Instagram, etc? Why is it that big businesses see no punishment for vastly larger crimes and small communities are harshly dealt with?
KF was made _for_ harassment, that's very different.
Facebook was made for sexual harassment. It was originally made so that Zucc and his friends could rate the girls at Harvard.
‘ratsmack: harassment was explicitly their stated goal from the very beginning. The very name is a play on the first person they decided to go after (and why the forum formed).
Even if Facebook were made for harassment (which it wasn’t; you’re thinking of the website pre-FB), they would have since evolved and given that up.
KF never evolved.
KF never evolved.
If you know that for a fact, maybe you can elaborate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms It doesn't seem a very controversial statement.
dunno, maybe I didn't browse the 'right' threads for that, but those that I read were just making fun of someone (or a group of people)
So how many more are dead from Facebook etc?
It's not countable, but vastly more than three. There are civil wars and ethnic cleansing that get organized and supported on Facebook (e.g. Ethiopia and Myanmar). Gang violence and mass murder also get spread on Facebook. Nevermind the harassment and bullying that happens on Facebook, which is, of course, orders of magnitude more than what goes on on KF.
It's just not very sensible to think that big companies care about a few people dying because of a small forum when they demonstrably do not care about many, many, more people dying because of a big forum. It seems way more plausible to me that big tech companies work together to kill small social media than that they have some secret ethic which compels them to care about small harms over big harms.
It's just not very sensible to think that big companies care about a few people dying because of a small forum when they demonstrably do not care about many, many, more people dying because of a big forum. It seems way more plausible to me that big tech companies work together to kill small social media than that they have some secret ethic which compels them to care about small harms over big harms.
Intent is the key ingredient to crime (or other behaviours society does not tolerate). You totally ignore this.
Oh, I see. Thank you for clearing this up for me. When big, rich, powerful companies get people killed they didn't intend to, so, actually, no harm done. When big, rich, powerful companies accuse a small community of getting someone killed obviously they did intend to do it and so they need to be shut down.
Very illuminating!
Very illuminating!
Can't you engage the point in good faith? Of course intent matters! If you have a fleet of trucks and occasionally one of your drivers gets in an accident, that's way different than if you have a fleet going out there running people off the road.
I think you may have good point hiding in there (maybe "Facebook may not do it intentionally, but they've been so negligent that..."), but it's lost in the dripping sarcasm. The point you're replying to wasn't that ridiculous.
I think you may have good point hiding in there (maybe "Facebook may not do it intentionally, but they've been so negligent that..."), but it's lost in the dripping sarcasm. The point you're replying to wasn't that ridiculous.
How do you even define intent when Facebook knows this stuff is happening but doesn't do anything? Intent is hardly relevant when they are aware of consequences of their behavior and still don't change. Don't know intend for it to happen, but it does happen and they're aware of it and continue I do it. I honestly think this is just another case of third world lives being less important to people.
I would say that I did engage in good faith. I mean the argument I'm making and I'm making my arguments the way I feel is best.
It is, of course, completely ridiculous to think that "intent" separates Facebook and KiwiFarms. Facebook doesn't intend to cause civil wars, genocides, spree killers, gang violence, body dismorphia, self-harm, harassment, and suicide. Facebook intends to connect people so that they can develop a social network and monetize the social network and they are willing to break a few eggs to make that omelette.
You might as well say that it is the color of Mark Zuckerberg's shoes that matters as say it is Facebook's intent. No, obviously, what matters is the bad stuff and the people harmed. It's not like any of those people are less dead because of Facebook's intentions. If Facebook had terrible intentions and excellent outcomes that would be a much better world.
The other problem with saying intent is what matters is that the people who make this argument also make some kind of magical mind reading claim that they know the intentions of others. "Intent is what matters, and I know the intentions of KiwiFarms! They are bad!" Just save everyone some time and explain that you know KiwiFarms is bad and that is why they must be destroyed.
KiwiFarms is bad because they intended to get people killed. No, there is no evidence for that. And yes, there is plenty of evidence against that in the form of trying to get people hurt being against the rules and moderation of the site. No, there was no police or legal action against KiwiFarms for the crimes we "know" they were committing - but all that is beside the point. We know their intent! It is bad and they must be removed!
It is, of course, completely ridiculous to think that "intent" separates Facebook and KiwiFarms. Facebook doesn't intend to cause civil wars, genocides, spree killers, gang violence, body dismorphia, self-harm, harassment, and suicide. Facebook intends to connect people so that they can develop a social network and monetize the social network and they are willing to break a few eggs to make that omelette.
You might as well say that it is the color of Mark Zuckerberg's shoes that matters as say it is Facebook's intent. No, obviously, what matters is the bad stuff and the people harmed. It's not like any of those people are less dead because of Facebook's intentions. If Facebook had terrible intentions and excellent outcomes that would be a much better world.
The other problem with saying intent is what matters is that the people who make this argument also make some kind of magical mind reading claim that they know the intentions of others. "Intent is what matters, and I know the intentions of KiwiFarms! They are bad!" Just save everyone some time and explain that you know KiwiFarms is bad and that is why they must be destroyed.
KiwiFarms is bad because they intended to get people killed. No, there is no evidence for that. And yes, there is plenty of evidence against that in the form of trying to get people hurt being against the rules and moderation of the site. No, there was no police or legal action against KiwiFarms for the crimes we "know" they were committing - but all that is beside the point. We know their intent! It is bad and they must be removed!
If you had a crystal ball and could magically determine how many incidents of harassment per daily active user were coordinated on KF vs. Facebook, which site do you think would come out looking worse?
Or... Let's say a group of a dozen people got together and decided to make life a living hell for their target. They are going to mock the target mercilessly, following up on any online interaction by posting vile shit, sending nasty DMs on every platform they can find, etc... Nothing illegal, but just being awful.
But let's say in one world, they're coordinating this stuff on Facebook, and in another they're coordinating it on KF. Now let's say the target gets logs of the coordination, and they report it to the site where it happened. Which site do you think would be most likely to take action, FB or KF? I think the obvious answer is that FB is much more likely to try to put a stop to the harassment.
Also, for you to claim you're arguing in good faith when your entire response to a reasonable argument was to mockingly agree with it and say "Very illuminating!" is really rich. If you want to actually convince people of your points, you're going to have to do a lot better.
For the record, I really don't like that KF has been forced off the internet the way it has. But you're not going to convince anyone by being sarcastic and pretending that KF isn't an awful place where users try to do awful things.
Or... Let's say a group of a dozen people got together and decided to make life a living hell for their target. They are going to mock the target mercilessly, following up on any online interaction by posting vile shit, sending nasty DMs on every platform they can find, etc... Nothing illegal, but just being awful.
But let's say in one world, they're coordinating this stuff on Facebook, and in another they're coordinating it on KF. Now let's say the target gets logs of the coordination, and they report it to the site where it happened. Which site do you think would be most likely to take action, FB or KF? I think the obvious answer is that FB is much more likely to try to put a stop to the harassment.
Also, for you to claim you're arguing in good faith when your entire response to a reasonable argument was to mockingly agree with it and say "Very illuminating!" is really rich. If you want to actually convince people of your points, you're going to have to do a lot better.
For the record, I really don't like that KF has been forced off the internet the way it has. But you're not going to convince anyone by being sarcastic and pretending that KF isn't an awful place where users try to do awful things.
Yeah I know, isn't it illuminating to see Facebook profit off of disinformation campaigns and to be used as tool and aided a genocide in another country, killing thousands. Here we also have Twitter [0][1][2] still unable to remove CP images off of their website for years despite it being absolutely illegal in many countries.
I think the fine should be substantially higher since they are 'big, rich and powerful as well' [3].
[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/30/india-twitter-kashm...
[1] https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-rules-twitter-can-be-su...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-20/twitter-f...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...
I think the fine should be substantially higher since they are 'big, rich and powerful as well' [3].
[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/30/india-twitter-kashm...
[1] https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-rules-twitter-can-be-su...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-20/twitter-f...
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...
Yeah, when you intentionally cause harm and even drive people to suicide, its worse than unintentionally causing harm.
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Intent - mens rea in the law - is not about the intent to [commit insert crime here]. It is about the intent to do the thing that resulted in the crime. That is why if you get blackout drunk and drive through a crowd of kids, you get charged with manslaughter: you didn't intend to kill those kids, but you intended to get blackout drunk and drive, which resulted in the death of the kids.
Facebook absolutely would have criminal intent the same way kiwifarms would - in both cases, they intended to serve content from their users.
Facebook absolutely would have criminal intent the same way kiwifarms would - in both cases, they intended to serve content from their users.
At least seven. I did a quick search on DuckDuckGo, because I remembered at least one suicide covered in Danish media. The first page alone yielded seven different teenagers from Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada and Danmark.
So just guessing here, but Meta properties alone must have killed thousands of teenagers.
So just guessing here, but Meta properties alone must have killed thousands of teenagers.
Facebook has probably killed more people with face detection and name tagging in photos alone.
If even only half the material presented in "The social dilemma" was credible, Meta have absolutely been knowingly responsible for more harm than KF. I don't know what the right solution is.
[deleted]
> I think it's pretty doubtful to just attribute a suicide to some people who made fun of or harassed the deceased
Near literally said he was committing suicide due to the abuse from Kiwi Farms. If you're doubtful, it's because you're willfully ignorant.
https://twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408986839743037448
Near literally said he was committing suicide due to the abuse from Kiwi Farms. If you're doubtful, it's because you're willfully ignorant.
https://twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408986839743037448
Not even the tweet you linked says this. The person says they have been depressed and mocked their entire life and that they have tried therapy and medication and that it did not work. That seems much more like a depressed person driven to suicide than a forum being responsible for responsible for their death.
He did go on to say that if the KiwiFarms founder/owner/whatever had been more compassionate he would have carried on.
https://twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408986855014428672
It could be guilting those who harrassed and bullied him. But it's probably just highlighting how bad it was for him.
To me, it's pretty clear KiwiFarms were a major contributing factor to their sucide.
https://twitter.com/near_koukai/status/1408986855014428672
It could be guilting those who harrassed and bullied him. But it's probably just highlighting how bad it was for him.
To me, it's pretty clear KiwiFarms were a major contributing factor to their sucide.
To my knowledge there was a thread with ~13 pages of comments making fun of near, but nothing threatening or harmful to his life. So far as I know the true identity of near was never known - so it's not even like the mean internet comments were intruding on his life. Can you link to the mean things (or an archive of them) that the KiwiFarms people did or said that drove near to suicide? If not, can you summarize the things they said or did?
It literally says, "Kiwi Farms has made the harassment orders of magnitude worse." By all means, continue to enjoy your willful ignorance, it must be nice.
One of Near's friends just tweeted a message where they had begged, "do something about this site already" the day they killed themself. Nier committed suicide because of KF harassment. https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1567014389282385922
One of Near's friends just tweeted a message where they had begged, "do something about this site already" the day they killed themself. Nier committed suicide because of KF harassment. https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1567014389282385922
Why is it that big businesses see no punishment for vastly larger crimes and small communities are harshly dealt with?
Because they have more resources and it's easier to take down a small target than a large one. I am more than fine with Zuckerberg and others being held to account for harms negligently or callously inflicted by Facebook.
Because they have more resources and it's easier to take down a small target than a large one. I am more than fine with Zuckerberg and others being held to account for harms negligently or callously inflicted by Facebook.
What doesn’t make sense to me is why is Cloudflare harassed for providing an utility to some bad actors while other traditional providers aren’t?
Is Comcast getting any flak for providing internet to the KKK offices? Or their water provider? Is Netflix getting any complains for providing entertainment to terrorists? Or vodafone for mobile connectivity?
Why is it different for cloudflare?
Is Comcast getting any flak for providing internet to the KKK offices? Or their water provider? Is Netflix getting any complains for providing entertainment to terrorists? Or vodafone for mobile connectivity?
Why is it different for cloudflare?
Netflix theoretically can’t provide entertainment to known terrorizes because KYC rules would prevent them from being able to pay for it.
Comcast must provide service as part of the agreement to give them local monopoly privilege.
The water company where I am is the government so they are forced to provide service because of the 1st amendment.
Vodafone similarly bought public airspace and it came with rules. I wonder if they can pick and choose their customers.
Cloudflare though is just a regular company. They provide a service, but there is nothing restricting them from banning people. It’s like how Google can ban you for almost no reason.
Comcast must provide service as part of the agreement to give them local monopoly privilege.
The water company where I am is the government so they are forced to provide service because of the 1st amendment.
Vodafone similarly bought public airspace and it came with rules. I wonder if they can pick and choose their customers.
Cloudflare though is just a regular company. They provide a service, but there is nothing restricting them from banning people. It’s like how Google can ban you for almost no reason.
I think because some of us look at Internet access or phone service as akin to water or electricity service. You just don't deprive someone of those things.
Regarding your Netflix example, I doubt Netflix knows if any particular customer is a terrorist.
Having access to a CDN provider isn't in the same "basic rights" league.
Regarding your Netflix example, I doubt Netflix knows if any particular customer is a terrorist.
Having access to a CDN provider isn't in the same "basic rights" league.
I look at having a home and a place to sleep at night as categorically more important than KF having CDN access, but maybe I'm just being weird about stuff.
>I think because some of us look at Internet access or phone service as akin to water or electricity service. You just don't deprive someone of those things.
I agree that trying to cancel people from being able to enjoy baseline physical necessities is not a line that's being crossed yet, but an attack on utilities may not necessitate this. Let's say Joshua Moon also happened to run a small hobby store in a strip mall. Would going after the utility providers (or landlord) for this store be "fair game" in order to attack KiwiFarms? Why or why not?
I agree that trying to cancel people from being able to enjoy baseline physical necessities is not a line that's being crossed yet, but an attack on utilities may not necessitate this. Let's say Joshua Moon also happened to run a small hobby store in a strip mall. Would going after the utility providers (or landlord) for this store be "fair game" in order to attack KiwiFarms? Why or why not?
Anything is fair game when the ends justify the means and the target is accused of killing people on your side. The only reason power companies aren't yet subject to pressure to disconnect bad people is because that tactic is presently judged as infeasible.
They absolutely will ask landlords to kick somebody out. If it becomes known that you're renting a spare room to a neonazi who's become infamous to twitter, don't expect to stay out of the fray.
They absolutely will ask landlords to kick somebody out. If it becomes known that you're renting a spare room to a neonazi who's become infamous to twitter, don't expect to stay out of the fray.
>If it becomes known that you're renting a spare room to a neonazi who's become infamous to twitter, don't expect to stay out of the fray.
Do you have any examples of this line being crossed? I mean I'm sure that oftentimes the mob has raised these issues to landlords and managed to get leases revoked, but I haven't seen an actual serious attempt to attack an unresponsive landlord in the way we've seen with the attack on Cloudflare.
Do you have any examples of this line being crossed? I mean I'm sure that oftentimes the mob has raised these issues to landlords and managed to get leases revoked, but I haven't seen an actual serious attempt to attack an unresponsive landlord in the way we've seen with the attack on Cloudflare.
Also I am almost certain if you were using your natural gas utility to shoot flames at the neighbors houses, or using your power to electrocute people walking by, that you'd have your service disconnected rather quickly until it was proved you're not a public harm.
Were you actually electrocuting them I'm fairly sure you'd end up in gaol before having to deal with service disconnection.
While from my original post it's assumed it was intentional malice creating the dangerous situation, but there plenty of real world situations where service is disconnected for safety reasons.
We act like utilities are some inalienable right, but this is by far the worst argument ever. Licensed installers setup the utilities and have the work inspected. At any point where your environment presents a hazard, the utilities will be disconnected until it passes another inspection.
We act like utilities are some inalienable right, but this is by far the worst argument ever. Licensed installers setup the utilities and have the work inspected. At any point where your environment presents a hazard, the utilities will be disconnected until it passes another inspection.
It's because Cloudflare actively protects these bad actors. They host DNS, they host proxy services, and they hide identifying information from WHOIS. They say they won't listen to anything short of a court order, so now we have to convene juries and get indictments to get Cloudflare to do anything at all.
Cloudflare is playing a big game.
Comparing Cloudflare protecting bad actors to the water company providing water to KKK members is completely disingenuous, but you know that, obviously. You should pick better examples.
Cloudflare is playing a big game.
Comparing Cloudflare protecting bad actors to the water company providing water to KKK members is completely disingenuous, but you know that, obviously. You should pick better examples.
cowtools(2)
Not sure that protection is a utility, but even then I think the reason Cloudflare gets criticism/critique (not harassment...) comes as a result of the online nature of LGBTQ communities and Cloudflare's location in the closest thing to a physical epicenter of those communities.
I don't know what distinction you were imagining, but I think this one is relatively simple
I don't know what distinction you were imagining, but I think this one is relatively simple
The services you mention don’t provide a platform for their message, except maybe Comcast.
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So why are they not being prosecuted if it was a crime? DDoS is also a crime, and equates to mob justice at best in this case.
> why are they not being prosecuted if it was a crime?
CloudFlare’s original announcement mentions law enforcement. The bomb threats will almost certainly see investigation; that’s domestic terrorism.
CloudFlare’s original announcement mentions law enforcement. The bomb threats will almost certainly see investigation; that’s domestic terrorism.
What mob is participating in this DDoS attack? Maybe vigilante justice is a more appropriate term.
Well, by definition almost a Distributed DoS attack implies some kind of mob. Now, it could conceivably be some rich individual illegally paying money to an illegal botnet, but it could also very well be a larger group of people conspiring to illegally pool their money to buy time on an illegal botnet. It could also theoretically be a large group of people illegally conspiring to attack the site directly using their own machines.
Well, seeing as this thread is about a website losing their DDoS protection, it would be whichever criminal mob that the DDoS protection was defending against.
This is just the marketplace of ideas in action. If KF wants to succeed, they can just have better ideas.
This is not a case of "good ideas" vs "better ideas", this is a case of DDoS: "inconvenient ideas and IP Bandwidth" vs "censorship and better IP bandwidth"
It's pretty contingent on ideas though. You don't see thecheesecakefactory.com getting blasted for exactly this reason.
The cheesecake factory has no meaningful ideological motivations, unless you include the advancement of poor dieting amongst Americans, which I suppose could be considered to be anti-american in a sense.
Additionally, it's a retail store. I can't imagine they would lose a lot of business if their website was down. Still, they could just as easily fall victim to a DDoS racketeering scheme I suppose.
If somehow someone objected to cheesecake factory's practices (let's say they're a vegan or they disapproved of cheesecake factory's health practices or something), then it would be disproportionately easy for the cheesecake factory to conduct a DDoS attack on the protester's website than vice-versa. So the idea that we should support DDoS as some form of free speech is obviously pro-corporatist in my perspective, because it empowers those with more financial and bureaucratic control over the internet.
Additionally, it's a retail store. I can't imagine they would lose a lot of business if their website was down. Still, they could just as easily fall victim to a DDoS racketeering scheme I suppose.
If somehow someone objected to cheesecake factory's practices (let's say they're a vegan or they disapproved of cheesecake factory's health practices or something), then it would be disproportionately easy for the cheesecake factory to conduct a DDoS attack on the protester's website than vice-versa. So the idea that we should support DDoS as some form of free speech is obviously pro-corporatist in my perspective, because it empowers those with more financial and bureaucratic control over the internet.
So let's see, if I don't like this comment of yours and I find out where you live and go and shoot you in the face so you can't make such comments again, that's also competition in the marketplace of ideas, right? It's my idea to shoot you in the face against your idea of making comments I don't like.
You're equating a website going offline to shooting me in the face? No, that's not a competition of ideas. It's murder. Does that really need to be spelled out for you?
Congratulations, you got the analogy. Both me shooting you in the face and a mob agreeing to perform a DDoS against a web server are both measures of force.
"I don't like what you're saying, so I'm going to shoot you in the face so you stop."
"I don't like the content your web server is serving, so I'm going to DDoS it so it stops."
The DDoS is not an idea in the same way that a bullet isn't one. Therefore no, this is not "the marketplace of ideas in action".
"I don't like what you're saying, so I'm going to shoot you in the face so you stop."
"I don't like the content your web server is serving, so I'm going to DDoS it so it stops."
The DDoS is not an idea in the same way that a bullet isn't one. Therefore no, this is not "the marketplace of ideas in action".
Now explain how not all measures of force are equal. Or are you one of those people who thinks cops should shoot people for traffic violations?
It's just that some people are really interested in KF and hit f5 frequently to load more KF content. Problem?
Might (in DDOS power) makes right is pretty far from a free market.
Same for the asymmetry of anonymous KF users vs a random LGBT person, so what's the point?
The "point" is that anyone engaging in illegal violence, or similar, anywhere, should be punished via the legal system, and not via some other forms of illegal violence.
And that goes to anyone involved in any part of this whole fight.
And that goes to anyone involved in any part of this whole fight.
And what if the legal system do not protect (or punish) all equally?
There was no physical not psychological violence here. Only Ddos. Why is that bad? Do you have an inherent right to not be buried under request? protected from bots?
There was no physical not psychological violence here. Only Ddos. Why is that bad? Do you have an inherent right to not be buried under request? protected from bots?
> Do you have an inherent right to not be buried under request?
Well, we have a lot of laws against that in every major country.
Yes, if police catch you doing that, then they will put you in a cage.
Well, we have a lot of laws against that in every major country.
Yes, if police catch you doing that, then they will put you in a cage.
It's just packets and packets are speech. Just like the packets used to post this embody free speech
Actually, DDoSing website is a crime, that police will throw you in a cage for doing so.
"Free speech" is a bit of a misnomer. The valuable thing is the freedom to hear, not the freedom to speak.
With a DDOS the goal is to prevent people from reading someone's words. With harassment the goal is to prevent people hearing the targets future words.
Both are forms of censorship.
With a DDOS the goal is to prevent people from reading someone's words. With harassment the goal is to prevent people hearing the targets future words.
Both are forms of censorship.
Sounds like we're actually on the same page. I am ddos, hear me roar!
It's actually illegal to DDoS websites.
Generally speaking, the best way to handle situations like that is to get the police to put someone in a cage.
Generally speaking, the best way to handle situations like that is to get the police to put someone in a cage.
You seem to be under the impression most crimes are prosecuted. Very few are, because, amongst many other things, the police do not exist to protect citizens.
Harassment, especially online harassment, is a crime that is especially unlikely to lead to prosecution, also.
So why not try to do something about the police, and instead focusing on Cloud Flare. Surely there are many more important crimes that Cloud Flare can't help with, and that the police could if it were forced by people to act as it is supposed to.
Also, have any of the people complaining about this on the internet actually filed complaints with the police/procesutor's office? Have they even attempted to follow the legal channels before deciding to take the law into their own hands?
Surely a prosecutor standing for re-election would be much more likely to be swayed than a massive mega corporation. But why go through the bother of actually doing something that could help set legal precedent when you can simply tweet furiously.
Also, have any of the people complaining about this on the internet actually filed complaints with the police/procesutor's office? Have they even attempted to follow the legal channels before deciding to take the law into their own hands?
Surely a prosecutor standing for re-election would be much more likely to be swayed than a massive mega corporation. But why go through the bother of actually doing something that could help set legal precedent when you can simply tweet furiously.
I know you’re asking questions rhetorically, but these questions have straightforward answers that contradict your thesis. Read Zoe Quinn sometime.
I don't know of any SIM swapping sites that have been taken down - I would be happy to be corrected here but there doesn't seem to be a populist fervor demanding it. Aren't there ISIS members on Twitter? There are also people advocating for the industrial scale genital mutilation of babies. I just checked and Purdue Pharma is still online and their cynical campaign of mass murder puts 3 people dead in a very stark perspective. This whack-a-mole approach to de-platforming seems reactionary and very fashion based and not based on coherent set of morals. There seems to be no proportionality. This extrajudicial punishment sounds like a neat solution to a lot of problems but I'm worried about setting precedents that will almost definitely be used against things I care about. Anti-war movements always start out as fringe minority (now casually defined as extremists paroting Russian talking points) and are very undermining to a state that has decided to mobilize its population for war - which leaves me counting down the days until I'm deplatformed.
How are three people dead because of KF?
Not concern trolling, a google search only turned up a kiwifarms thread that _could_ have been relevant, but is now obviously inaccessable.
Not concern trolling, a google search only turned up a kiwifarms thread that _could_ have been relevant, but is now obviously inaccessable.
People who have threads on KiwiFarms have (allegedly) committed suicide. That's about all that's required to attribute each death causally to KiwiFarms. It's an incredibly weak standard.
KiwiFarms members often don't just take notes of those they laugh at. They actively get involved in harassing them, online, through the phone and in person.
So was this the case for any of the people who actually committed suicide in a way that establishes a reasonable causal nexus? My impression is that the answer is "no".
Yes. KF has been explicitly mentioned in a suicide note.
Yes, but iirc the suicide note doesn't claim that the KF thread was leading to ongoing direct harassment that motivated the (alleged) suicide. Just that the mere existence of the thread played a role. So we're back to "if someone has a KiwiFarms thread and kills themselves, then KiwiFarms is to blame".
If somebody writes about something in their suicide note, that easily clears the bar for "relevant for their decision making about their suicide" to me. What would the required evidence look like for you? Sworn testimony to a notary saying that it was KF and nothing else?
There are two questions here:
- Whether KF was relevant to their suicide
- Whether ongoing harassment from KF was relevant to their suicide
Unless one equates the mere existence to the thread itself with ongoing harassment then one can answer affirm the former question without the latter. The "required evidence" for the latter would require some sort of allegation that KF members were actively harassing Near at some point reasonably prior to their suicide, which afaik was just not alleged.
- Whether KF was relevant to their suicide
- Whether ongoing harassment from KF was relevant to their suicide
Unless one equates the mere existence to the thread itself with ongoing harassment then one can answer affirm the former question without the latter. The "required evidence" for the latter would require some sort of allegation that KF members were actively harassing Near at some point reasonably prior to their suicide, which afaik was just not alleged.
I do wish people would archive these pages to dissuade any doubt of wrongdoing.
For the love of god, please use archive.ph or archive.org.
For the love of god, please use archive.ph or archive.org.
People do archive those pages and have seen links were posted multiple times here. The issue is those pages posted end up going against to what the people wanting KF down say.
What they were doing was not a crime, as evidenced by every lawsuit against the site getting thrown out and the owner's extensive cooperation with law enforcement.
The line with "Kiwi Farms is responsible for 3 suicides" seems to be repeating that lie until it sticks. The truth is more complicated:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32712037
The line with "Kiwi Farms is responsible for 3 suicides" seems to be repeating that lie until it sticks. The truth is more complicated:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32712037
Whoop tee doo. I've seen dozens of livestreamed murders on Instagram Live and Facebook Live. Reddit has /r/chiraqology where there are hundreds of videos of gang bangers and drill rappers beefing with each other and shooting at each other, and commenters celebrate the lifestyle and keep detailed ontologies of it all.
Nobody is talking about nuking any of these platforms from existence just because of some isolated illegal incidents.
Nobody is talking about nuking any of these platforms from existence just because of some isolated illegal incidents.
Reddit nukes hate subs weekly. They're slow to get to it, but they do it. As far as Facebook live and Instagram live, those platforms weren't made with the sole purpose of harassing and doxxing people. Neither is reddit. When they find communities that promote those things they do take them down. Their moderation is slow and overwhelmed, but don't pretend Facebook encourages murders on live streams. KiwiFarms does encourage everything that happens on it.
If you're going to take a strawman this far, blame the cellphone and camera manufacturers involved in those live streams. As well as the landlord who owned the building it happened in. And any restaurants that serve them, can't murder if you don't eat.
If you're going to take a strawman this far, blame the cellphone and camera manufacturers involved in those live streams. As well as the landlord who owned the building it happened in. And any restaurants that serve them, can't murder if you don't eat.
Wrong, Reddit explicitly allows hate speech against white people because it follows the nouveau definition of "racism" not including whites. There's a Reddit admin response to repeated requests to ban /r/FragileWhiteRedditor somewhere that outlines this.
> KiwiFarms does encourage everything that happens on it
Wrong. The admin, Null, has explicitly said they don't allow doxxing or swatting and complies with law enforcement
> If you're going to take a strawman this far, blame the cellphone and camera manufacturers involved in those live streams. As well as the landlord who owned the building it happened in. And any restaurants that serve them, can't murder if you don't eat.
That's cute but what you're describing as absurd is basically what Keffals et al are doing with this website by hounding every service they tangentially use to get them banned. If they could make the site operator unbankable or unable to receive postal mail it's pretty obvious they gladly would
> KiwiFarms does encourage everything that happens on it
Wrong. The admin, Null, has explicitly said they don't allow doxxing or swatting and complies with law enforcement
> If you're going to take a strawman this far, blame the cellphone and camera manufacturers involved in those live streams. As well as the landlord who owned the building it happened in. And any restaurants that serve them, can't murder if you don't eat.
That's cute but what you're describing as absurd is basically what Keffals et al are doing with this website by hounding every service they tangentially use to get them banned. If they could make the site operator unbankable or unable to receive postal mail it's pretty obvious they gladly would
They nuke hate subs selectively. There are plenty of hate subs they leave online routinely and don't nuke.
Heck, there are plenty of anecdotes showing they bias towards keeping hate subs targeted at "majorities" alive, and have actively changed their ToS multiple times to discriminate between who they consider vulnerable.
Heck, there are plenty of anecdotes showing they bias towards keeping hate subs targeted at "majorities" alive, and have actively changed their ToS multiple times to discriminate between who they consider vulnerable.
Pussypassdenied is basically misogyny, fatlogic is fat hate, religiousfruitcake is full of Islamophobia and antisemitism, combatfootage is just videos of foreigners dying with vile bigotry filled comments(wouldn't be surprised if many of them were innocent). Reddit hardly does anything about the hate they host, honestly.
People talk about threatening reddit and pulling out advertising all the time. It's also why on a random basis that reddit goes around and wipes some communities off the map. Especially when they start showing up in other media.
The Chiraqology stuff is wild. People threaten each other on YouTube and then follow through with murder! The only reason it’s not banned is because nobody with power cares what happens to impoverished black kids in Chicago unless they can make money from it.
I doubt that banning the subreddit would stop the violence, all that would do is sweep the problem under the rug where it's easier for people in power to ignore.
The solutions put forth by the elected officials of Chicago and Illinois seem to fall into two general strategies; providing funding for anti-violence programs in Chicago, and lobbying for DOA legislation in Washington. Those outreach programs, such as Chicago CRED, READI Chicago and Metropolitan Peace Initiatives, have social science studies backing up their efficacy, but say they need more money to have a greater impact (Chicago's 2021 budget was $12.8 billion, with $16.5 million allocated to violence prevention.) They're very clear about needing more money to hire more social workers, but I can't find any statements from these organizations about the need for moderating reddit and youtube.
The solutions put forth by the elected officials of Chicago and Illinois seem to fall into two general strategies; providing funding for anti-violence programs in Chicago, and lobbying for DOA legislation in Washington. Those outreach programs, such as Chicago CRED, READI Chicago and Metropolitan Peace Initiatives, have social science studies backing up their efficacy, but say they need more money to have a greater impact (Chicago's 2021 budget was $12.8 billion, with $16.5 million allocated to violence prevention.) They're very clear about needing more money to hire more social workers, but I can't find any statements from these organizations about the need for moderating reddit and youtube.
I think it's worse than that. They aren't banned precisely because people are making money from it.
If Reddit were materialists to that degree then they wouldn't have banned popular gore subs.
It's more likely the sub taps into a vein of black culture that happens to be interwoven with some violence, and Reddit tolerates it because they don't want to be seen as trampling out anything to do with black culture.
Now if there were a sub dedicated to a popular genre of exclusively white musicians who occasionally livestream themselves murdering their white "opps," Reddit would ban it in a heartbeat under their "glorifying violence" ToS policy
It's more likely the sub taps into a vein of black culture that happens to be interwoven with some violence, and Reddit tolerates it because they don't want to be seen as trampling out anything to do with black culture.
Now if there were a sub dedicated to a popular genre of exclusively white musicians who occasionally livestream themselves murdering their white "opps," Reddit would ban it in a heartbeat under their "glorifying violence" ToS policy
There are still plenty of subs for hating fat people, Muslims, Indians, etc. Reddit just doesn't care about most of its issues, unless a journalist writes about them and puts on the heat.
>Now if there were a sub dedicated to a popular genre of exclusively white musicians who occasionally livestream themselves murdering their white "opps," Reddit would ban it in a heartbeat under their "glorifying violence" ToS policy
Not the same, but combat footage is a popular sub that's basically just watching brown people get bombed.
>Now if there were a sub dedicated to a popular genre of exclusively white musicians who occasionally livestream themselves murdering their white "opps," Reddit would ban it in a heartbeat under their "glorifying violence" ToS policy
Not the same, but combat footage is a popular sub that's basically just watching brown people get bombed.
> combat footage is a popular sub that's basically just watching brown people get bombed
That's a reeeeach. I've been subbed there since 2013 and there were also many contemporary posts of white Americans (because that's disproportionately who serves and dies in combat) and European service members being shot and blown up by IEDs and so forth in GWOT (although the votes and comments were more controversial).
The war in Donbas also yielded plenty of footage of white casualties. And now the latest Ukrainian conflict.
The most controversial time on the sub was when ISIS was at their peak and people were straight posting their propaganda (executions and so forth). That was all disallowed unless it was only traditional combat footage, preferably with nasheeds stripped out. If the sub was about enjoying brown death that carnage would've been allowed.
That's a reeeeach. I've been subbed there since 2013 and there were also many contemporary posts of white Americans (because that's disproportionately who serves and dies in combat) and European service members being shot and blown up by IEDs and so forth in GWOT (although the votes and comments were more controversial).
The war in Donbas also yielded plenty of footage of white casualties. And now the latest Ukrainian conflict.
The most controversial time on the sub was when ISIS was at their peak and people were straight posting their propaganda (executions and so forth). That was all disallowed unless it was only traditional combat footage, preferably with nasheeds stripped out. If the sub was about enjoying brown death that carnage would've been allowed.
> combat footage is a popular sub that's basically just watching brown people get bombed.
With the war in Ukraine, it's gotten more diverse (even if there's still some ME content published)
With the war in Ukraine, it's gotten more diverse (even if there's still some ME content published)
>3 people are dead because of that site
How many people are dead because of twitter/facebook/tiktok stalking, arguments, etc?
How many people are dead because of twitter/facebook/tiktok stalking, arguments, etc?
Were any of them made _for_ stalking/doxxing/harassing? It's a totally different ballpark.
it's not made for illegal activities, it's made for discussion and making fun of people. rhetorical hyperbole (e.g. "Bob is a big fat idiot") is protected speech and the site owner routinely fights this in court and wins every single time.
This information is hard to believe. How is a forum is responsible? Seriously, has someone hired a hitman or what?
I happened to see someone else post KF's response while it was protected by DDoS guard and read it.
Their story, which doesn't seem to appear in the responses in that Twitter thread, was that a 2 year old account that only posted once previously in its history suddenly activated, posted a picture of someone holding a threatening letter of some type outside of someone's home, then this was screencapped on Twitter a short time later (~15 minutes). The post was removed 2 minutes after it hit Twitter by the submitter (they originally thought their mods did it, but corrected this, saying it was removed with the note "retarded").
I don't ever read that site other than to look at stuff like this when it hits the news, so I don't claim to know anything more than that, but you were for a time able to look at the forum threads and see the posts they mentioned, etc.
Their story, which doesn't seem to appear in the responses in that Twitter thread, was that a 2 year old account that only posted once previously in its history suddenly activated, posted a picture of someone holding a threatening letter of some type outside of someone's home, then this was screencapped on Twitter a short time later (~15 minutes). The post was removed 2 minutes after it hit Twitter by the submitter (they originally thought their mods did it, but corrected this, saying it was removed with the note "retarded").
I don't ever read that site other than to look at stuff like this when it hits the news, so I don't claim to know anything more than that, but you were for a time able to look at the forum threads and see the posts they mentioned, etc.
If they have killed them, they shouldn't be kicked of the internet. They should be charged with the appropriate charge and go to prison if found guilty.
Whether the operators of the site are guilty of a crime is surely for the courts to determine, not for Cloudflare or Twitter's userbase.
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If they committed a crime, let the authorities deal with it. Committing another crime (DDoSing a website) is hardly the answer. Vigilantism is also a crime.
if you think the fault lies with the website and the posters won't just use some other website (plenty of death threats on twitter are still up)... you are sorely uninformed.
Do you think any teens have committed suicide due to body dysmorphia from watching TikToks or Instagram?
with a very high suicide rate among transgender individuals I'm not sure if the deaths can solely be attributed to the site.
Moreover some of the people, who pushed to shut down the forum, openly support the transition of teens (even without the knowledge of their parents). Yet trans teens face an even higher risk of attempting suicide. Therefore one must ask if those who wanted to remove KF are not responsible for more suicides by promoting and facilitating transition among teens in identity crisis i.e. by making their problems even worse.
Moreover some of the people, who pushed to shut down the forum, openly support the transition of teens (even without the knowledge of their parents). Yet trans teens face an even higher risk of attempting suicide. Therefore one must ask if those who wanted to remove KF are not responsible for more suicides by promoting and facilitating transition among teens in identity crisis i.e. by making their problems even worse.
I'm a free speech advocate but 100% agree with you.
Our legislators needs to make laws against targeted, anonymous, non-journalistic doxxing. It needs to include clauses that escalate the severity when revenge porn or racial, sexual, or other discrimination is being incited. If this bullying results in suicide, that should also increase the severity of the crime.
Until these laws exist, prosecutors need to use this angle and try these cases anyway.
Our legislators needs to make laws against targeted, anonymous, non-journalistic doxxing. It needs to include clauses that escalate the severity when revenge porn or racial, sexual, or other discrimination is being incited. If this bullying results in suicide, that should also increase the severity of the crime.
Until these laws exist, prosecutors need to use this angle and try these cases anyway.
Non-journalistic doxxing? What makes doxxing someone journalistic and why is it okay when a journalist does it?
Documenting any of:
- leader of a mafia
- any government leader
- billionaires in general
- anyone in a position of power
Investigating their crimes and doxxing them is very different from "lmao look at this piece of shit loser, let's bully it to death".
- leader of a mafia
- any government leader
- billionaires in general
- anyone in a position of power
Investigating their crimes and doxxing them is very different from "lmao look at this piece of shit loser, let's bully it to death".
If someone is the leader of a mafia and it is known without a doubt and you know their location you should call the police not put it in the news. What does "government leader" means? what does "anyone in a position of power" actually means? Especially in the era of twitter and immense followings from people that are just regulars and not some ultra-rich celebrities.
Man it really didn't take long for people to forget things like the CNN reddit kid dox or even more recent the twitter account from tiktok dox by journalists active still today.
[0]https://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/04/politics/kfile-reddit-use...
Man it really didn't take long for people to forget things like the CNN reddit kid dox or even more recent the twitter account from tiktok dox by journalists active still today.
[0]https://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/04/politics/kfile-reddit-use...
>If someone is the leader of a mafia and it is known without a doubt and you know their location you should call the police not put it in the news.
Fair enough.
>What does "government leader" means?
>what does "anyone in a position of power" actually means?
I'm not a lawmaker, it's one of those "you know it when you see it" things.
>Man it really didn't take long for people to forget things like the CNN reddit kid dox or even more recent the twitter account from tiktok dox by journalists active still today.
That's exactly why I put the above caveat.
Fair enough.
>What does "government leader" means?
>what does "anyone in a position of power" actually means?
I'm not a lawmaker, it's one of those "you know it when you see it" things.
>Man it really didn't take long for people to forget things like the CNN reddit kid dox or even more recent the twitter account from tiktok dox by journalists active still today.
That's exactly why I put the above caveat.
Journalists are the guardians of democracy.
Now be a good boy or else CNN might release your name and address: https://www.engadget.com/2017-07-05-cnn-will-expose-reddit-u...
Now be a good boy or else CNN might release your name and address: https://www.engadget.com/2017-07-05-cnn-will-expose-reddit-u...
Why would the US make any laws against doxxing? As of so far we've been nearly completely allergic to any laws for privacy. It's going to be very problematic in itself attempting to make a legal argument that disclosing an anonymous persons name is not protected under the first amendment.
Whoever still puts out a phone book is going to be in big trouble.
I treat these sites as cannaries. As long as they exist I can be confident that censorship isn't too bad, as they start to get shut down I start to worry. First the came for the X and I was not an X etc etc...
They also provide a good counter to propaganda. You don't have to believe you get Covid chipped or in evil lizard people to see serious and concerning displays of media propaganda. And yes, it is US corporations in cooperation with government far more than the Russians on the English speaking net. There is just as much propaganda in Russia in Russian of course.
It is just the usual type of propaganda and works even more effectively as it did in the past.
It is just the usual type of propaganda and works even more effectively as it did in the past.
I think there are much better ways to counter propaganda than running a site that doxxes people you don't like and harasses them to the point they commit suicide. We should not enable folks like this.
If these are the only sorts of people who can counter propaganda, then perhaps we deserve the propaganda.
If these are the only sorts of people who can counter propaganda, then perhaps we deserve the propaganda.
It isn't about this site in particular. These are people that make fun of others, there is no deeper "service" the platform provides, no particular insights to be gained. It is morally questionable endeavor to stay diplomatic and I hope users can learn to moderate themselves.
The real problem is that a pretext to remove a platform is very easily found. I am not convinced there was any immediate threat here and if so it could have been posted by anyone, even activists themselves. This would not be a precedent since this has happened numerous times already. Cloudflare now is part of the problem the same way companies that pay ransoms to phishers are.
The real problem is that a pretext to remove a platform is very easily found. I am not convinced there was any immediate threat here and if so it could have been posted by anyone, even activists themselves. This would not be a precedent since this has happened numerous times already. Cloudflare now is part of the problem the same way companies that pay ransoms to phishers are.
Note that "the site" doesn't do this. Some of their users may do so and may or may not (I couldn't dig very deep before it went down) organise via the site.
the counter to propaganda is thoughtful, deep investigation of the matter at hand, getting at least some minimal subject matter expertise and getting the opinion of experts, etc. (nowadays this has the fancy name of epistemological rationalism)
KF is at best more/different propaganda against the mainstream propaganda
KF is at best more/different propaganda against the mainstream propaganda
I too measure my freedom based on how easily bigots terrorize groups I am not a part of. Sad day for me, personally
That's more of a measure of how inadequate your laws currently are. I view GP's measure to be far more accurate and reasonable, and one that I use myself.
What about the freedom of speech of all those they harass and dox?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
Harassing people (and their families and friends) off the internet is absolutely something that has chilling effects on freedom of speech.
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.
Conflating criticism and harassment is disingenuous.
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.
In that case, as long as we're keeping "criticism" and "harassment" distinct, I'm all for Cloudflare yanking services from both groups of harassers.
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?
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?
Kiwifarms goal is to remove the freedom of speech of LGBTQ people online. Is it okay for them to this?
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]
This is an inflammatory, fact-free assertion.
smoldesu(4)
How are they trying to remove freedom of speech for LGBTQ people? Being mean to people doesn't remove their freedom of speech ability.
How do you feel about the washington post doxxing libsoftiktok? Did that violate her freedom of speech? Should cloudflare drop the washington post?
Hard to believe that people honestly use that poem in situations like this. The poem was about not resisting virulent bigotry enough. It isn't about platforming bigots.
This is a pretty weak argument and extremely susceptible to Goodhart’s Law. It feels like you’re treating the existence of vile sites like this as a metric for the health of internet free speech. Be careful you don’t make the continued existence of such bigotry your target
[deleted]
This is just civilized society finally catching up with criminals on the internet, the internet as a tolerant forum for information exchange and discussion was lost as soon as serious money got involved.
Hopefully more of them are taken offline.
Hopefully more of them are taken offline.
I expect the vast vast majority of kiwifarms posters were not criminals, just arseholes.
[flagged]
I think you're being gullible here. Look at what was actually on that site and the many others that have been shut down rather than relying on reports from their enemies (oh wait, the whole point is to make it so you can't do this).
When this hit Hacker news I actually went onto kiwifarms to find out what it was like because I suspected it would be killed soon. The descriptions given by most hackernews commentators did not match the reality. Don't get me wrong, they say awful stuff, but I saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading or indeed any attempts to get things to happen outside the site and I checked dozens of threads.
When this hit Hacker news I actually went onto kiwifarms to find out what it was like because I suspected it would be killed soon. The descriptions given by most hackernews commentators did not match the reality. Don't get me wrong, they say awful stuff, but I saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading or indeed any attempts to get things to happen outside the site and I checked dozens of threads.
I've lurked on KF with an empty account for a couple of years. (I have an interest in niche drama and as a lesbian, trans drama is pushed into any space for lesbians ANYWAY).
I didn't see brigading, but I did see doxxing.
And of course the whole thing is a mentally-toxic nut-picking echo chamber, but that's kind of par for the course on the modern Web.
I didn't see brigading, but I did see doxxing.
And of course the whole thing is a mentally-toxic nut-picking echo chamber, but that's kind of par for the course on the modern Web.
This is my experience of Kiwifarms. If you do not have a thick skin, you should not be reading there. Moreover, most of the internet is probably not suitable for people who do not want to experience offense.
And if I am brutally honest, from the threads I have seen, the people they make posts about are not people I would want to associate myself with or anywhere near young members of my family.
I have seen many more threats against Kiwifarms that I have seen originate from within it. The forum seems to be a melting pot for grossly offensive people to make grossly offensive comments. And considering 4chan is still around (even if it only used to have a problem with CSAM) I'm at a loss at why Kiwifarms is being "deplatformed".
I can only assume it's like the "jailbait" subreddit - something reprehensible but action is only taken when it gets media attention.
And if I am brutally honest, from the threads I have seen, the people they make posts about are not people I would want to associate myself with or anywhere near young members of my family.
I have seen many more threats against Kiwifarms that I have seen originate from within it. The forum seems to be a melting pot for grossly offensive people to make grossly offensive comments. And considering 4chan is still around (even if it only used to have a problem with CSAM) I'm at a loss at why Kiwifarms is being "deplatformed".
I can only assume it's like the "jailbait" subreddit - something reprehensible but action is only taken when it gets media attention.
The hilarious thing is that neither side are good or nice people. I've been queer online longer than keffels has been alive and I've been anti-censorship the entire time partially because I remember when people were trying to censor LGBT+ information. This is like my two mentally ill parents fighting.
One side is going to call me a dyke, carpet-muncher, and link the fact that I like women to being a child groomer.
The other is going to call me transphobic, a bitch, a cunt, and a TERF for not wanting to suck dick/not wanting all queer spaces to be about trans issues 24/7.
> And if I am brutally honest, from the threads I have seen, the people they make posts about are not people I would want to associate myself with or anywhere near young members of my family.
This is one thing that pisses me off about people like keffals. When I was a baby queer in the mid 90s, it was functionally impossible to talk to gay adults in person at all because the AIDS epidemic had convinced society that all gay people were dangerous degenerates. The Internet changed that. Since I had WWW access, I could talk to gay adults and realize that a.) you could find love being gay, b.) get advice on what to avoid and how to stay safe, and c.) start to plan out a gay life for myself. Nobody was ever inappropriate with me. (That was always straight men...) Keffels et al. are dragging us right back so gay adults can't support gay kids that are genuinely in danger or suicidal. Thanks, guys.
At this point, parents are RIGHT to be leery of the most vocal parts of the queer community, because we refuse to eject predators.
One side is going to call me a dyke, carpet-muncher, and link the fact that I like women to being a child groomer.
The other is going to call me transphobic, a bitch, a cunt, and a TERF for not wanting to suck dick/not wanting all queer spaces to be about trans issues 24/7.
> And if I am brutally honest, from the threads I have seen, the people they make posts about are not people I would want to associate myself with or anywhere near young members of my family.
This is one thing that pisses me off about people like keffals. When I was a baby queer in the mid 90s, it was functionally impossible to talk to gay adults in person at all because the AIDS epidemic had convinced society that all gay people were dangerous degenerates. The Internet changed that. Since I had WWW access, I could talk to gay adults and realize that a.) you could find love being gay, b.) get advice on what to avoid and how to stay safe, and c.) start to plan out a gay life for myself. Nobody was ever inappropriate with me. (That was always straight men...) Keffels et al. are dragging us right back so gay adults can't support gay kids that are genuinely in danger or suicidal. Thanks, guys.
At this point, parents are RIGHT to be leery of the most vocal parts of the queer community, because we refuse to eject predators.
> At this point, parents are RIGHT to be leery of the most vocal parts of the queer community, because we refuse to eject predators.
This is something I feel too, having seen some of the most fringe communities on the internet (a good example is furrys) and how they act predatory around children. I am afraid to say it to any of my friends, colleagues, or even my partner as I feel like I would be seen as bigoted.
I think some people don't see how some behaviour is completely inappropriate (like that Reddit moderator who had a parent that raped children in the attic and, thanks to Kiwifarms, you saw how they were also very predatory). It seems that as soon as you say this about someone that is trans though, you are a labeled a massive bigot.
What annoys me is this is the exact behaviour that turns people into right wing lunatics. It provides the fuel for their conspiracies/hoaxes/insane ramblings.
This is something I feel too, having seen some of the most fringe communities on the internet (a good example is furrys) and how they act predatory around children. I am afraid to say it to any of my friends, colleagues, or even my partner as I feel like I would be seen as bigoted.
I think some people don't see how some behaviour is completely inappropriate (like that Reddit moderator who had a parent that raped children in the attic and, thanks to Kiwifarms, you saw how they were also very predatory). It seems that as soon as you say this about someone that is trans though, you are a labeled a massive bigot.
What annoys me is this is the exact behaviour that turns people into right wing lunatics. It provides the fuel for their conspiracies/hoaxes/insane ramblings.
There's multiple layers to it.
Those people are sometimes right that an INORDINATE amount of moral panic are focused on LGBT+ people. (Again, all the people who tried to prey on me were straight dudes and I think the percentage of predators are roughly equal between straight cis guys and trans women).
On the other hand, most of them are so urban and online that they can't conceive of trying to navigate this space as a normie parent. Most normal parents are AWARE that strange men are potential dangers to female people and teach us about it accordingly so we're wary, we can go to them or teachers if someone DOES prey on us, etc. (I see a lot of warnings to teen girls that 'that guy doesn't think he's mature for your age, he just wants someone easy to manipulate').
But most normal parents aren't plugged into the queer community enough to teach their kids how to avoid predators in those spaces. And most of those parents just have too much else going on to learn - if somebody is working 50 hours a week with 3 kids, they don't have TIME to keep up with the drama of who was revealed to be a predator this week. And the instinct to not take chances when it comes to one's child's safety makes sense.
> What annoys me is this is the exact behaviour that turns people into right wing lunatics. It provides the fuel for their conspiracies/hoaxes/insane ramblings.
One of the reasons I made an account for lurking was to watch and see where waves of newbies arrived to KF from and why. There are a lot of participants who ended up there after what they wanted to discuss was completely banned from the other places they talked about things online.
> It seems that as soon as you say this about someone that is trans though, you are a labeled a massive bigot.
The lack of tolerance for dissent or deviation bothers me. In a lot of places, you can't even have procedural or intellectual disagreements about trans orthodoxy, or discuss how some of the rhetoric is hurtful to other members of the community. It's very 'there is one way to be and only one way'. Very similar to conservative Christian spaces. (My family is half conservative Christians, so I'm familiar with THEIR filter bubbles too).
Those people are sometimes right that an INORDINATE amount of moral panic are focused on LGBT+ people. (Again, all the people who tried to prey on me were straight dudes and I think the percentage of predators are roughly equal between straight cis guys and trans women).
On the other hand, most of them are so urban and online that they can't conceive of trying to navigate this space as a normie parent. Most normal parents are AWARE that strange men are potential dangers to female people and teach us about it accordingly so we're wary, we can go to them or teachers if someone DOES prey on us, etc. (I see a lot of warnings to teen girls that 'that guy doesn't think he's mature for your age, he just wants someone easy to manipulate').
But most normal parents aren't plugged into the queer community enough to teach their kids how to avoid predators in those spaces. And most of those parents just have too much else going on to learn - if somebody is working 50 hours a week with 3 kids, they don't have TIME to keep up with the drama of who was revealed to be a predator this week. And the instinct to not take chances when it comes to one's child's safety makes sense.
> What annoys me is this is the exact behaviour that turns people into right wing lunatics. It provides the fuel for their conspiracies/hoaxes/insane ramblings.
One of the reasons I made an account for lurking was to watch and see where waves of newbies arrived to KF from and why. There are a lot of participants who ended up there after what they wanted to discuss was completely banned from the other places they talked about things online.
> It seems that as soon as you say this about someone that is trans though, you are a labeled a massive bigot.
The lack of tolerance for dissent or deviation bothers me. In a lot of places, you can't even have procedural or intellectual disagreements about trans orthodoxy, or discuss how some of the rhetoric is hurtful to other members of the community. It's very 'there is one way to be and only one way'. Very similar to conservative Christian spaces. (My family is half conservative Christians, so I'm familiar with THEIR filter bubbles too).
> Again, all the people who tried to prey on me were straight dudes and I think the percentage of predators are roughly equal between straight cis guys and trans women
Wait, so you're saying 100% of the people who tried to prey on you were straight cis guys, and 0% were trans women? But you're further saying that you think trans women are as likely to be predators as straight men? Doesn't your own experience contradict that?
You're upset that the trans women posted on KF are going to make the public think all LGBT people are groomers. I'm upset that they'll make the public think all trans women are groomers. And comments like yours feel like punching down, frankly.
Wait, so you're saying 100% of the people who tried to prey on you were straight cis guys, and 0% were trans women? But you're further saying that you think trans women are as likely to be predators as straight men? Doesn't your own experience contradict that?
You're upset that the trans women posted on KF are going to make the public think all LGBT people are groomers. I'm upset that they'll make the public think all trans women are groomers. And comments like yours feel like punching down, frankly.
Girls are mostly preyed on when they're younger than 20- and mostly when they're in middle and high school. At the time, out trans women were rare enough that no, none of the people who tried to prey on me identified as such. I haven't looked everyone up to make sure that they still identify that way, obviously.
So there's a confounding variable. If 5% of straight cis men and 5% of trans women are predators but I only meet 2 trans women, odds are I'm never going to run into a trans woman predator. Whereas being a geek in the 90s and 00s I was SURROUNDED by cis straight dudes. It was very common for me to be the only female in the room, or there to be less than 5 of us at a computer show.
(I also think women and trans men are about as likely to be predators but that they show/act it out differently. I tend to think assholeishness/predatory natures are fairly equally dispersed across different identity groups but expressed differently due to socio-cultural factors.)
So there's a confounding variable. If 5% of straight cis men and 5% of trans women are predators but I only meet 2 trans women, odds are I'm never going to run into a trans woman predator. Whereas being a geek in the 90s and 00s I was SURROUNDED by cis straight dudes. It was very common for me to be the only female in the room, or there to be less than 5 of us at a computer show.
(I also think women and trans men are about as likely to be predators but that they show/act it out differently. I tend to think assholeishness/predatory natures are fairly equally dispersed across different identity groups but expressed differently due to socio-cultural factors.)
> Wait, so you're saying 100% of the people who tried to prey on you were straight cis guys, and 0% were trans women?
Isn't it a numbers game? ~50% of the population are men. You see thousands of men a day (if you don't WFH). I think the occurrence rate of trans people (in real life) is vastly smaller.
I think it is entirely reasonable for the likelihood of predation to be the same, but not experience any from one group that is vastly under-represented in daily life.
Isn't it a numbers game? ~50% of the population are men. You see thousands of men a day (if you don't WFH). I think the occurrence rate of trans people (in real life) is vastly smaller.
I think it is entirely reasonable for the likelihood of predation to be the same, but not experience any from one group that is vastly under-represented in daily life.
Yeah, this basically.
Trans people weren't a substantial portion of queer spaces until the mid to late 2010s, and I'm talking about the 90s and early-mid 00s. There was also more of a focus on passing/not talking about it + it was more common to be in the closet, so even if I had been acquainted with trans women, I probably wouldn't have known.
On the other hand, I've seen entitled behavior from trans women in lesbian spaces post 2015ish. It just hasn't been directed at me personally because predators choose their victims based on vulnerability and I aged out of that. Not many sexual predators go after men or women OLDER than they are.
Trans people weren't a substantial portion of queer spaces until the mid to late 2010s, and I'm talking about the 90s and early-mid 00s. There was also more of a focus on passing/not talking about it + it was more common to be in the closet, so even if I had been acquainted with trans women, I probably wouldn't have known.
On the other hand, I've seen entitled behavior from trans women in lesbian spaces post 2015ish. It just hasn't been directed at me personally because predators choose their victims based on vulnerability and I aged out of that. Not many sexual predators go after men or women OLDER than they are.
Good point, actually, I forgot about prior probability. I concede the logic of your point.
Personally, I am a trans woman, so my social circle includes many more trans women than the average. And I am not a predator, and I don't know any predators personally, so I conclude we're not likely to be predators. But I'm just a random person on the internet, so you can't know if I'm telling the truth, or even if I am, whether my circle of friends is a representative sample of trans women in general.
I do find it distressing how the worst examples of my group are held up as typical of us, though.
Personally, I am a trans woman, so my social circle includes many more trans women than the average. And I am not a predator, and I don't know any predators personally, so I conclude we're not likely to be predators. But I'm just a random person on the internet, so you can't know if I'm telling the truth, or even if I am, whether my circle of friends is a representative sample of trans women in general.
I do find it distressing how the worst examples of my group are held up as typical of us, though.
I've been on there when some harrassment stuff has came up in the past and have seen some threads. It's probably 0.00x% of it's posts but it's also what it's famous for.
> I saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading
Didn't see it so it must not exist? That's the kind of "research" everyone should ignore.
Didn't see it so it must not exist? That's the kind of "research" everyone should ignore.
So you go to the source site _after_ the evil things they've done are reported on, and the site posted a rebuttal. And you think you're getting a true, unaltered representation of the things that occured BEFORE this happened? Bad take.
> saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading
Either because it was now removed or hidden from public view. These activities have definitely occured on KF and just because you "don't see it happening now", doesn't mean it hasn't.
> saw no organised harassment, doxing, brigading
Either because it was now removed or hidden from public view. These activities have definitely occured on KF and just because you "don't see it happening now", doesn't mean it hasn't.
It’s also possible its moderation process worked. Though I understand the skepticism.
“We’ll I didn’t see anything” is a terribly unscientific methodology.
Better than "someone said this is true".
Right, because they would let someone who created an account in the last month or two and has no presence into their hunting lobby?
Right now there is no way to have a good faith argument due to the witch hunt. Anyone who 'confessed' to being active is a witch so their word is no good, and anyone who isn't active doesn't know the dark sorceries of the inner circle so their word is no good.
I walked into a nightclub and asked for sex. I did not get sex, so therefore nightclubs are not places people go for sex. All those people claiming nightclubbers hook up for one night stands seems like scurrilous slander to me. It’s terrible to see people believing the journalists who attended night clubs for years and reported on their supposed sexual exploits over my story which is clearly a sign of leftist bias. Why do these people believe a journalist over my reliable reporting?
No one is willing to say "I'm a witch but I didn't see any child sacrifices", because the mob goes after witches separate from the current crime.
I am sometimes very worried about the apparent naivete of people who think this way, and then I am even more worried thinking that they might just be intentionally obtuse.
If freedom of speech doesn't protect Kiwifarms I don't see why we should put up with sex workers either. Either we should defend speech we don't like or we should make the world a better place.
You realize that Cloudflare took down a bunch of sites with sex workers on them already, right? Including ones that weren't actually violating any laws. The internet already slipped off that particular slippery slope.
That X is not a variable in an infinite domain.
"First they came for the Nazis" is how World War II could be described (1), and with the exception of a few misguided sympathizers the story ends well with the destruction of their power structure and hanging of their leadership.
Probably worth noting that among the reasons KF just lost their newest DDoS protector is that many Russians are understandably sensitive to Nazi sympathizing, even "for the lulz".
(1) One could even argue that hesitating to come for the Nazis sooner was a significant mistake in the international community that allowed the severity of the War and the atrocities that occurred in it.
"First they came for the Nazis" is how World War II could be described (1), and with the exception of a few misguided sympathizers the story ends well with the destruction of their power structure and hanging of their leadership.
Probably worth noting that among the reasons KF just lost their newest DDoS protector is that many Russians are understandably sensitive to Nazi sympathizing, even "for the lulz".
(1) One could even argue that hesitating to come for the Nazis sooner was a significant mistake in the international community that allowed the severity of the War and the atrocities that occurred in it.
leereeves(1)
> But freedom of speech/expression/opinions aren't about defending those who speech/expression/opinions you like but all of them.
The fallacy of tolerance. This isn’t about supporting or not supporting a certain ideology, it’s about perpetuating real world violence. I don’t know and don’t care if kiwifarms is “liberal” or “conservative”. What I do know is they’re terrorizing and perpetuating violence upon people in the real world and there’s just no place for that. That’s beyond a philosophical discussion about freedom of speech.
The fallacy of tolerance. This isn’t about supporting or not supporting a certain ideology, it’s about perpetuating real world violence. I don’t know and don’t care if kiwifarms is “liberal” or “conservative”. What I do know is they’re terrorizing and perpetuating violence upon people in the real world and there’s just no place for that. That’s beyond a philosophical discussion about freedom of speech.
What I would prefer is that they have a day in court. Even this twitter thread tries to make the case that these aren't "criminals" effecting the DDoS, but rather they should be viewed as "victims."
I'm entirely uncomfortable with the lack of due process and the easy justifications of vigilantism simply because some people perceive the site in a particular way.
I'm entirely uncomfortable with the lack of due process and the easy justifications of vigilantism simply because some people perceive the site in a particular way.
>This isn’t about supporting or not supporting a certain ideology, it’s about perpetuating real world violence.
It's about not shutting down speech via a pretextual appeal to its causal nexus to violence. Censorship based on "stochastic terrorism" claims are almost always demanded in an extremely ideological fashion.
It's about not shutting down speech via a pretextual appeal to its causal nexus to violence. Censorship based on "stochastic terrorism" claims are almost always demanded in an extremely ideological fashion.
What they wish to do is cut the head off the proverbial snake when the snake hasn't committed a crime or directly conspired with people who did commit a crime. It might be an effective strategy, but it's not one our laws allow, because we don't base guilt on "but-for" causation alone. Nor do we base it on that icky feeling we get when we look at the proverbial snake.
Kiwifarms is a downgrade from the others aka its already a slippery slope. Cloudflare and DDOS-Guard are known to protect booters.
So, they can in effect decide who is allowed online and who will be DDOS'ed offline by services protected by them.
The more website use them, the more power they have to abuse and they are already going down the slippery slope..... Soon even countries will have to decide if Cloudflare and DDOS-Guard are national security risks for protecting the DDOS-for-Hire industry that helps fund botnets (The resources for that industry provides would likely have helped Russia in their DDOS attacks against Ukraine) and if arrest warrents needs to be issued for their leadership.
So, they can in effect decide who is allowed online and who will be DDOS'ed offline by services protected by them.
The more website use them, the more power they have to abuse and they are already going down the slippery slope..... Soon even countries will have to decide if Cloudflare and DDOS-Guard are national security risks for protecting the DDOS-for-Hire industry that helps fund botnets (The resources for that industry provides would likely have helped Russia in their DDOS attacks against Ukraine) and if arrest warrents needs to be issued for their leadership.
A private company having a policy against using their platform to incite violence is not the human rights violation you think it is.
These listed companies literally break the law to grow. They create demand by knownly allowing illegal DDOS-for-Hire websites. That is not a free market if the people on top are allowed to break the law to stifle competition and force people to use them or stop existing.
> But freedom of speech/expression/opinions aren't about defending those who speech/expression/opinions you like but all of them.
Freedom of Speech is not absolute.[1] There are limitations, and it sounds like KiwiFarms members crossed that line many, many times without KiwiFarms doing anything about it.
But more importantly, CloudFlare is not a government entity. There’s no First Amendment right to speak on social media, because free speech is a right guaranteed against government censorship. Though in an astounding overreach, courts have declared the Internet a "Free Speech Zone," (whatever that means), courts have also ruled that platforms have a First Amendment right to ban those they wish to ban.
So the outrage here is really about the long-standing Constitutional and case law limitations on Freedom of Speech and not about anything CloudFlare did in exercising their First Amendment right to dissociate from KiwiFarms and its members.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Limitations
Freedom of Speech is not absolute.[1] There are limitations, and it sounds like KiwiFarms members crossed that line many, many times without KiwiFarms doing anything about it.
But more importantly, CloudFlare is not a government entity. There’s no First Amendment right to speak on social media, because free speech is a right guaranteed against government censorship. Though in an astounding overreach, courts have declared the Internet a "Free Speech Zone," (whatever that means), courts have also ruled that platforms have a First Amendment right to ban those they wish to ban.
So the outrage here is really about the long-standing Constitutional and case law limitations on Freedom of Speech and not about anything CloudFlare did in exercising their First Amendment right to dissociate from KiwiFarms and its members.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#Limitations
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> But freedom of speech/expression/opinions aren't about defending those who speech/expression/opinions you like but all of them.
What if the freedom of speech you are defending is impeding on the right of others to speak freely?
While I agree with the sentiment, that we have to be especially observant how we treat the freedoms of the people whose opinions we dislike, I don't think just defending those and forgetting about the grand picture is in great service of freedom of speech as it stands.
Maybe this is my liberal (?) European bias, but I don't think for example there is much value in definding some extremist political group that goes after some other people whose opinion they don't like. In the worst case, you are defending a group who has a huge chilling effect on the free speech of the other group, by making them afraid of speaking publicly about their cause.
What if the freedom of speech you are defending is impeding on the right of others to speak freely?
While I agree with the sentiment, that we have to be especially observant how we treat the freedoms of the people whose opinions we dislike, I don't think just defending those and forgetting about the grand picture is in great service of freedom of speech as it stands.
Maybe this is my liberal (?) European bias, but I don't think for example there is much value in definding some extremist political group that goes after some other people whose opinion they don't like. In the worst case, you are defending a group who has a huge chilling effect on the free speech of the other group, by making them afraid of speaking publicly about their cause.
> What if the freedom of speech you are defending is impeding on the right of others to speak freely?
How is the impediment happening? If through the threat of violent or illegal action, then that should be illegal. If it's libel (false statement, made while knowing and believing that it is false, with intent to harm), then maybe it should be illegal too. Otherwise, it's protected speech.
How is the impediment happening? If through the threat of violent or illegal action, then that should be illegal. If it's libel (false statement, made while knowing and believing that it is false, with intent to harm), then maybe it should be illegal too. Otherwise, it's protected speech.
As you might have read, I am european. Threats of violence can be illegal here. I did not seek to explain the US flavour of freedom of speech here, I sought to explain a limitation on it I grew up with and why I think it produces a (to me) desirable outcome.
Whether a thing is legal or not doesn't mean everything that stays within the legal bounds is desirable as a society or morally, ethically just. Many of the most atrocious deeds of humanity have been legal at the time they were carried out.
By saying all of this I am not doing myself a service here. Such opinions get downvoted on an US dominated platform like this one. I still think it is important to note that any freedom we are gurantueed comes with a duty to protect these freedoms for others. Those who enjoy a freedom and at the same time try to take that very freedom away from others can not complain if a free society tries to defend itself and limits their rights.
When thinking about how societies can stop aliding into fascism after the genocides of the second world war Austrian philosopher Karl Popper coined the term "paradoxon of intolerance" for this. Any free society that wants to survive, cannot be universally tolerant — otherwise the intolerant will abuse that "hospitality" and abolish that free society. That means any free society has to be intolerant towards the intolerant, after a certain degree. I would argue this degree has been reached in the US a while ago.
Protected speech is a strong word in a nation which killed civilians on foreigns soil based on what they have been communicating via SMS without a trial. Here, suddenly, it is okay to go after people based on what they say somehow?
Whether a thing is legal or not doesn't mean everything that stays within the legal bounds is desirable as a society or morally, ethically just. Many of the most atrocious deeds of humanity have been legal at the time they were carried out.
By saying all of this I am not doing myself a service here. Such opinions get downvoted on an US dominated platform like this one. I still think it is important to note that any freedom we are gurantueed comes with a duty to protect these freedoms for others. Those who enjoy a freedom and at the same time try to take that very freedom away from others can not complain if a free society tries to defend itself and limits their rights.
When thinking about how societies can stop aliding into fascism after the genocides of the second world war Austrian philosopher Karl Popper coined the term "paradoxon of intolerance" for this. Any free society that wants to survive, cannot be universally tolerant — otherwise the intolerant will abuse that "hospitality" and abolish that free society. That means any free society has to be intolerant towards the intolerant, after a certain degree. I would argue this degree has been reached in the US a while ago.
Protected speech is a strong word in a nation which killed civilians on foreigns soil based on what they have been communicating via SMS without a trial. Here, suddenly, it is okay to go after people based on what they say somehow?
Threats of violence are illegal in the US as well. (I have lived in both US and Europe)
> What if the freedom of speech you are defending is impeding on the right of others to speak freely?
I'm not sure how speech can impede on the right of others to speak freely. Speech can certainly discourage others from speaking freely, and that's bad for freedom of speech in a broad millian sense[1], but it's too vague to justify shutting down an entire forum because some speech there might discourage others from speaking freely.
[1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2
I'm not sure how speech can impede on the right of others to speak freely. Speech can certainly discourage others from speaking freely, and that's bad for freedom of speech in a broad millian sense[1], but it's too vague to justify shutting down an entire forum because some speech there might discourage others from speaking freely.
[1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2
If I were to threaten to shoot your kids if you again post something that I don't like, while making clear that I know where you live, my speach will certainly imped with your ability to express yourself freely, or wouldn't it?
If you think it wouldn't I'd like to know how your thinking goes. I am not from the US, so maybe the whole theoretical idea is different from the ground up.
If you think it wouldn't I'd like to know how your thinking goes. I am not from the US, so maybe the whole theoretical idea is different from the ground up.
> If I were to threaten to shoot your kids if you again post something that I don't like, while making clear that I know where you live, my speech will certainly impede with your ability to express yourself freely, or wouldn't it?
You're right, certain speech, like direct threats of violence can impede on other people's right to freedom of speech. But such speech is illegal even in the US and also banned on Kiwi Farms.
You're right, certain speech, like direct threats of violence can impede on other people's right to freedom of speech. But such speech is illegal even in the US and also banned on Kiwi Farms.
How about coordinating to targeted attacks? Imagine a muslim terrorist groups forum and how their coordination works there.
Is it legitimate to take that platform down? You don't have to answer, the US certainly thought so during the past wars.
Is it legitimate speech to write some vague SMS to the wrong person? You don't have to answer, whole wedding societies have been killed for that speech.
Now one could argue, "Yeah but they might have been terrorists, or associated themselves with the wrong people."
But what is terrorism and why does a free society break it's promise of freedom of speech to fight it? Terrorism is trying to reach political goals by (often) violent means, with the aim to create fear. This fear stifles the free discourse in a free society by targeting specific symbolic targets. And isn't that a definition that fits many fringe political groups that would target individuals and make their lives hell like it apparently happened in the case of KF?
Is it legitimate to take that platform down? You don't have to answer, the US certainly thought so during the past wars.
Is it legitimate speech to write some vague SMS to the wrong person? You don't have to answer, whole wedding societies have been killed for that speech.
Now one could argue, "Yeah but they might have been terrorists, or associated themselves with the wrong people."
But what is terrorism and why does a free society break it's promise of freedom of speech to fight it? Terrorism is trying to reach political goals by (often) violent means, with the aim to create fear. This fear stifles the free discourse in a free society by targeting specific symbolic targets. And isn't that a definition that fits many fringe political groups that would target individuals and make their lives hell like it apparently happened in the case of KF?
It appears that there is no plan for this to stop with Kiwifarms, some twitter searches lead me to believe Ovarit and Mumsnet are the next targets.
Ovarit has some interesting threads on the Kiwifarms takedown and the possibility of it happening to their site:
https://ovarit.com/o/Ovarit/146818/if-kiwifarms-stays-down-o...
https://ovarit.com/o/Cancelled/150947/kiwifarms-blocked-by-c...
https://ovarit.com/o/Cancelled/151211/kiwifarms-latest-state...
https://ovarit.com/o/Cancelled/152066/the-kiwi-has-been-rend...
Choice quote: "What I find interesting is of ALL the things on kiwi farms (and there's some vile stuff on there, threads about special needs kids, woman hating, racism etc.) and what took them down is the documenting of literal correct information about these groups of people. Not just nasty behaviour just to be mean and talk shit but documentation of this group of men's behaviour.
"There's a level of totalitarianism that’s pretty scary."
https://ovarit.com/o/Ovarit/146818/if-kiwifarms-stays-down-o...
https://ovarit.com/o/Cancelled/150947/kiwifarms-blocked-by-c...
https://ovarit.com/o/Cancelled/151211/kiwifarms-latest-state...
https://ovarit.com/o/Cancelled/152066/the-kiwi-has-been-rend...
Choice quote: "What I find interesting is of ALL the things on kiwi farms (and there's some vile stuff on there, threads about special needs kids, woman hating, racism etc.) and what took them down is the documenting of literal correct information about these groups of people. Not just nasty behaviour just to be mean and talk shit but documentation of this group of men's behaviour.
"There's a level of totalitarianism that’s pretty scary."
You presenting that as "interesting" and thinking a choice quote that is absolutely a hateful transphobic interpretation of the state of things ("literal correct information") is extremely telling.
Ovarit is no hero here. They're a hate site through a "feminist" slant too.
Though I have no issues with them staying online. They are exactly the kind of hate speech I can defend because they haven't actively attempted harm to others (yet).
Ovarit is no hero here. They're a hate site through a "feminist" slant too.
Though I have no issues with them staying online. They are exactly the kind of hate speech I can defend because they haven't actively attempted harm to others (yet).
I personally find Ovarit interesting reading in general. I don't consider it to be a "hate site", but rather, one of the very few places on the internet where women can be openly critical of the ideology of gender identity, particularly with regards to the legal and social implications, from a feminist perspective.
I remember when the public image of Mumsnet was all warm and friendly and Mums looking out for each other and all of a sudden every time I hear about them it's because they've gone on a rager againist some poor person whose greatest crime is that they decided they wanted a sex change.
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KF is essentially a deniable harassment vector (ie they say 'we don't condone harassment, so please don't harass Random Person* who lives at 123 Name Street and whose phone # is 212-555-1212 and whose email is... (etc)).'
Random Person is typically some very minor e-celeb or individual that finds themselves in the news, as opposed to an accountable official or someone credibly accused of a serious crime.
The point of such harassment is to drive Random Person off the internet and/or out of public life, so arguably it's just censorship-by-intimidation. I can't help noticing that the people who complain about DDOS being internet mobs seem indifferent to the fact that KF is itself an internet mob, and I'd be pretty surprised if most KF members haven't done their own share of raids, DDOS attacks etc.
I personally think DDOS and forum raids are both a part of internet culture, and pretty civilized compared to in-person harassment, swatting etc., and don't agree that everything should be turned into a police/legal matter given the various downsides of that.
Random Person is typically some very minor e-celeb or individual that finds themselves in the news, as opposed to an accountable official or someone credibly accused of a serious crime.
The point of such harassment is to drive Random Person off the internet and/or out of public life, so arguably it's just censorship-by-intimidation. I can't help noticing that the people who complain about DDOS being internet mobs seem indifferent to the fact that KF is itself an internet mob, and I'd be pretty surprised if most KF members haven't done their own share of raids, DDOS attacks etc.
I personally think DDOS and forum raids are both a part of internet culture, and pretty civilized compared to in-person harassment, swatting etc., and don't agree that everything should be turned into a police/legal matter given the various downsides of that.
Kiwifarms looks like it is essentially a technical evolution of the tabloid. Tabloid media has been doxxing people and saying really terrible things about them forever. It's hard to feel sympathetic for people like tabloid media, but tabloid media still has a place in society.
when 'all the news that's fit to print' stops reporting what goes against their upper crust values, you need to look in the gutters for the truth.
There are several times where the goddamn Daily Mail was the fastest quick and dirty way to get the facts, while the fancy papers avoided, deflected, or put on their three pairs of "systemic" eyeglasses before telling the reader the where, when, whys of what's happened.
There are several times where the goddamn Daily Mail was the fastest quick and dirty way to get the facts, while the fancy papers avoided, deflected, or put on their three pairs of "systemic" eyeglasses before telling the reader the where, when, whys of what's happened.
I mean, what are your alternatives? Should the government legislate as to which clients companies should accept and which they shouldn’t? Even if the client is unprofitable?
Should the government itself offer these services?
Yes, the internet is very centralised these days. The question is what you would find acceptable to change it.
Should the government itself offer these services?
Yes, the internet is very centralised these days. The question is what you would find acceptable to change it.
> But freedom of speech/expression/opinions aren't about defending those who speech/expression/opinions you like but all of them.
This is not true at all, and educating yourself on the matter is trivial. "Free speech absolutism" is a very niche, unpopular, and unrealistic (some forms of speech ultimately limit other's speech, e.g. the dead don't speak) form of free speech.
Spreading this pro-KF propaganda needs to stop.
This is not true at all, and educating yourself on the matter is trivial. "Free speech absolutism" is a very niche, unpopular, and unrealistic (some forms of speech ultimately limit other's speech, e.g. the dead don't speak) form of free speech.
Spreading this pro-KF propaganda needs to stop.
Speak for yourself. Speech is ingrained in American culture on both aisles of the political spectrum until last 5-10 years. It’s way beyond 1st amendment and the technicalities of Government limits.
ACLU used to defend KKK’s right to march and express. Liberals used to be extremely pro free speech even reaching across the spectrum in the bowels of right-wing extremism to protect their rights.
The fact of the matter is that speech and generally liberty is one generation away from being dismantled and eroded. If the newer generation wants to abolish it and institute an authoritarian style censorship, they’ll get an American equivalent of CCP censorship, but through proxy of corporations. All buttons and knobs are in place with Big Tech. It just needs following.
The fall of speech rights in the west is a recent phenomenon and America appears to be the last bastion fighting for it. COVID was the last straw that broke camel’s back for places like Canada and New Zealand.
ACLU used to defend KKK’s right to march and express. Liberals used to be extremely pro free speech even reaching across the spectrum in the bowels of right-wing extremism to protect their rights.
The fact of the matter is that speech and generally liberty is one generation away from being dismantled and eroded. If the newer generation wants to abolish it and institute an authoritarian style censorship, they’ll get an American equivalent of CCP censorship, but through proxy of corporations. All buttons and knobs are in place with Big Tech. It just needs following.
The fall of speech rights in the west is a recent phenomenon and America appears to be the last bastion fighting for it. COVID was the last straw that broke camel’s back for places like Canada and New Zealand.
> Speech is ingrained in American culture on both aisles of the political spectrum until last 5-10 years.
Death threats, fraud, harassment, libel, and other harmful forms of speech have had legal consequences for much longer than that.
Death threats, fraud, harassment, libel, and other harmful forms of speech have had legal consequences for much longer than that.
This has been said many times in all of these threads, but the operator of the site has always been very clear that he will comply with all legal subpoenas he is served. He condemns death threats and really anything that isn’t just pointing and laughing.
The reason this is a big deal to some is because there was no legal procedure at all. If the site was so obviously guilty as some are claiming, why hasn’t anything been done about it?
The reason this is a big deal to some is because there was no legal procedure at all. If the site was so obviously guilty as some are claiming, why hasn’t anything been done about it?
Also said many times in all these threads: Getting law enforcement to act on these sorts of things is a difficult game, and a lengthy one even if you get very lucky.
Meanwhile, victims can face years of harassment while they wait for a bored cop to get a "yep, they used Tor" conclusion to the case.
Meanwhile, victims can face years of harassment while they wait for a bored cop to get a "yep, they used Tor" conclusion to the case.
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then prosecute them, don't let corporate monopolies play judge, jury, and executioner
Why should I not be allowed to use my freedom of speech to ask a company to not do business with someone doing something nasty?
Why should that business not be allowed to use their freedom of association to not do business with those folks?
Why is legal action the only acceptable approach to bad actions? Direct action, pressure, and boycots have worked well against injustices in the past; see sit-ins in the American south during the civil rights era as an example.
Why should that business not be allowed to use their freedom of association to not do business with those folks?
Why is legal action the only acceptable approach to bad actions? Direct action, pressure, and boycots have worked well against injustices in the past; see sit-ins in the American south during the civil rights era as an example.
I don't believe in "freedom of association" for monopolies and oligopolies, it's an end-run around our rights by another means. And "freedom of association" was also the excuse given by businesses to not serve black people in the South in the first place.
Organizing through market pressure only works if you're already rich, it's just another concentration of power at the top in what's already a very unequal country. No one is going to pressure or boycott facebook off the internet.
> And "freedom of association" was also the excuse given by businesses to not serve black people in the South in the first place.
Sure, freedom of association goes both ways. We decided as a society to add protections for minority groups to prevent that sort of specific abuse. I don't think we'll do the same for Kiwifarms, and I'd argue that's the correct call.
Sure, freedom of association goes both ways. We decided as a society to add protections for minority groups to prevent that sort of specific abuse. I don't think we'll do the same for Kiwifarms, and I'd argue that's the correct call.
I don't believe abuses are okay if you have more market power, and I don't believe they will stop with Kiwifarms, which was not the first victim of this phenomenon.
I was active on an anarchist forum that died because Cloudflare pulled the plug on 8chan, which hosted said forum. You may want a world where a few companies decide what you can and can't say; I don't think I can afford to live in one.
'Just go to the state monopoly instead and hope they're responsive' is a poor strategy. As is well established in law, cops and prosecutors aren't obliged to protect yu even though they have vast legal immunity of their own.
There are no criminal consequences to speech in America.
Fraud is theft. Harassment is forcing a non-consenting party to listen. Libel is a civil issue, not criminal.
Fraud is theft. Harassment is forcing a non-consenting party to listen. Libel is a civil issue, not criminal.
Cool. Let's say you are forbidden by law from posting comments on the Internet. Not because I'm limiting your speech, but because I made the law "it's illegal to make ceejayoz sad".
Come on.
The Constitution doesn't say "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, unless it is super loud late at night near sleeping people." We read that in, because we're not idiots.
Come on.
The Constitution doesn't say "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, unless it is super loud late at night near sleeping people." We read that in, because we're not idiots.
So we don't need Cloud Flare or Facebook deciding whose speech is bad, we can use the court system.
In a world where i can order drugs online with the comforts of a amazon order this sounds absurd.
No, the censorship is not through the “proxy of corporations”, it’s directly instituted by corporations. It’s simply company leadership deciding they don’t want noxious people in their private club anymore.
Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. If you start talking and everyone tells you to shut up, then tough shit, you live in a society that doesn't like what you’re saying. This has always been the case, and it continues to be the case.
For many years, marginalized groups of all stripes were denied the megaphone of popular media, but they fought and convinced people they were right and built popular acceptance. If Kiwifarms wants to get the private protection and reach afforded to broader society then they need to convince the public that its actually good to harass and stalk trans people. Good luck.
Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. If you start talking and everyone tells you to shut up, then tough shit, you live in a society that doesn't like what you’re saying. This has always been the case, and it continues to be the case.
For many years, marginalized groups of all stripes were denied the megaphone of popular media, but they fought and convinced people they were right and built popular acceptance. If Kiwifarms wants to get the private protection and reach afforded to broader society then they need to convince the public that its actually good to harass and stalk trans people. Good luck.
A lot of marginalized groups (or at least their loudest activists) used the internet to organize and then pulled the ladder up behind them, and I don't want to live a society where only a few tech billionaires get a vote.
Cloudflare is not "society" but a specific for-profit corporation located in a specific part of the world, just like google and amazon and reddit.
The web is only 20 or so years old so these online speech issues are new.
> ACLU used to defend KKK’s right to march and express. Liberals used to be extremely pro free speech even reaching across the spectrum in the bowels of right-wing extremism to protect their rights.
Yes, because that speech was within the limits of constitutional free speech. Most of my knowledge about free speech comes from reading up on how America has defined it for more than a century.
Yes, because that speech was within the limits of constitutional free speech. Most of my knowledge about free speech comes from reading up on how America has defined it for more than a century.
It's not hard to feel bad for anyone getting censored/booted off the Internet. I see that "Gossithedog" lives in England, which - I reckon - makes it impossible for him to understand the value of free speech. The US is one of few countries on the planet where "freedom of speech" is a protected right (a list that doesn't include England).
We're collectively worse off when the pitchforks come out and the mob allowed to erode our hard-earned freedoms. It doesn't matter if it's Kiwi Farms or someone else, capitulating to the demands of the mob is a slippery slope that doesn't lead to progress.
We're collectively worse off when the pitchforks come out and the mob allowed to erode our hard-earned freedoms. It doesn't matter if it's Kiwi Farms or someone else, capitulating to the demands of the mob is a slippery slope that doesn't lead to progress.
> The US is one of few countries on the planet where "freedom of speech" is a protected right
If you mean 1A, that only protects your speech from the government, not anyone else (and even then it's not an unabridged right since there are legal limits on what you can say.)
If you mean 1A, that only protects your speech from the government, not anyone else (and even then it's not an unabridged right since there are legal limits on what you can say.)
I often hear this argument, but the US is currently on a much clearer trajectory towards increased authoritarianism than most EU countries/CANZUK despite all of this freedom. The situation is more complicated than just straightforward definitions of what freedom is. What really matters is not edge cases where some forum or other is banned, but whether your society is populated with authoritarian ideologies and to what extent these ideologies are present in the institutions.
It's not that freedom of speech is not important, just that it's only one facet of everything and tends to be trotted out as the absolute barometer. It's a circular argument where the US is defined as the freest country at the start and thus its particular mixture of authoritarianism and libertarianism is defined as the gold standard despite having the highest prisoner per capita ratio and other such problems.
It's not that freedom of speech is not important, just that it's only one facet of everything and tends to be trotted out as the absolute barometer. It's a circular argument where the US is defined as the freest country at the start and thus its particular mixture of authoritarianism and libertarianism is defined as the gold standard despite having the highest prisoner per capita ratio and other such problems.
> What really matters is not edge cases…
That’s what 100% matters.
I’ve seen multiple civil rights attorneys say this because that’s who they go after to set the precedent to erode everyone’s rights. So they have to defend kiddypornographers and neo-nazis and everyone else common people don’t care if the government tramples all over their rights.
Like the iPhone hacking thing the fbi was trying to force apple to do, literally no one cared about some dead terrorist so they chose that case to set the precedent that they could force a company to defeat the security of their product.
Nobody gives a shit about Kiwi Farms and everyone has sympathy for Keffals but that’s not what any of this is about.
That’s what 100% matters.
I’ve seen multiple civil rights attorneys say this because that’s who they go after to set the precedent to erode everyone’s rights. So they have to defend kiddypornographers and neo-nazis and everyone else common people don’t care if the government tramples all over their rights.
Like the iPhone hacking thing the fbi was trying to force apple to do, literally no one cared about some dead terrorist so they chose that case to set the precedent that they could force a company to defeat the security of their product.
Nobody gives a shit about Kiwi Farms and everyone has sympathy for Keffals but that’s not what any of this is about.
I understand this concept, but that's not the point. The GP was condescendingly referring to people outside of the US as being unable to understand freedom of speech or slippery legal slopes. We do in fact understand it, it's just that we don't all agree that the American cultural model is conducive to freedom overall, as evidenced by the current state of the country.
It's like a person smugly telling you their hydrangeas are better watered than yours while you are trying to get them to notice that there is clearly a house fire starting in one of their bedrooms.
It's like a person smugly telling you their hydrangeas are better watered than yours while you are trying to get them to notice that there is clearly a house fire starting in one of their bedrooms.
In the US the government just ask corporations to censor content and they comply. Activists will spout their usual XKCD-interpretations of free speech, which is legally correct, but heavily fails to see the larger picture.
There's an even larger picture than this, which is that the argumentation around speech is gamed by people who have no interest in preserving it overall.
What truly matters is which speech ends up being successful and adopted in the broader society. This is why the focus is placed on the availability of platforms rather than the presence of free speech on its own. The argument is never just to let people speak without arrest or restraint, but to let them speak AND give them access to a convenient platform that will help their speech be more successful. The next step is to force platforms to host them and give them an algorithmic pipeline of views.
If freedom of speech is the key ingredient on its own, why is the US on an steeper authoritarian slide compared to the rest of the West despite more robust speech protections? Largely because authoritarian elements there are extremely adept at using speech rules for their own ends, and will then be able to discard most freedoms of any type once they solidify their grip on the institutions.
What truly matters is which speech ends up being successful and adopted in the broader society. This is why the focus is placed on the availability of platforms rather than the presence of free speech on its own. The argument is never just to let people speak without arrest or restraint, but to let them speak AND give them access to a convenient platform that will help their speech be more successful. The next step is to force platforms to host them and give them an algorithmic pipeline of views.
If freedom of speech is the key ingredient on its own, why is the US on an steeper authoritarian slide compared to the rest of the West despite more robust speech protections? Largely because authoritarian elements there are extremely adept at using speech rules for their own ends, and will then be able to discard most freedoms of any type once they solidify their grip on the institutions.
The internet was founded on very laissez-faire speech attitudes. We've been living the larger picture for decades; it's how we got where we are.
Does the old laissez-faire approach continue to work when more than half the living population is online?
Does the old laissez-faire approach continue to work when more than half the living population is online?
> makes it impossible for him to understand the value of free speech.
We understand. And the 2nd amendment. And the rest of the constitution. We just don't think the American ideas are the best.
We understand. And the 2nd amendment. And the rest of the constitution. We just don't think the American ideas are the best.
No. You're absolutely wrong here. The issue isn't that "it's hard to look at the fact a few corporations can remove a website from the internet" - that's a dog whistle to try to say Cloudflare is a victim.
Let's be clear about a few things:
Either Cloudflare is a utility, and therefore it acts as one and is regulated as one - or they're not.
Whether or not they are a utility, they want everyone to believe they were coerced in to doing something that's horrible - CENSORSHIP.
Non-rhetorically, is termination because of violation of a company's or utility's terms of service censorship? If you use your phone to call people and harass people non-stop, and dozens of people complain to your phone company, and they terminate you, are they censoring you? Or have you violated their TOS?
The problem here is that Cloudflare wants their cake and wants to eat it, too - they want to say their terms of service can be wildly lax when they're acting as a "utility" and they'll DTRT when legally compelled, but there are plenty of examples where they terminate for significantly less than a violation of their TOS, plus plenty of examples of where they don't terminate even when legally compelled.
They claim they don't host by trying to redefine the definition of hosting. They want us to believe they don't host, and that providing material services which facilitate presence on the Internet is neither hosting nor should in any way be their responsibility.
Their TOS for proxy services is bullshit, because they're basically saying that someone REALLY has to do some criminal shit before Cloudflare will take action. They want a district attorney to convene a jury to indict a John / Jane Doe before they'll do anything. In other words, they want to be a safe haven for any illegal activity that isn't serious enough to warrant that a district attorney to take direct action.
What happens if they become the monopoly they want to become and they're a safe haven for 90% of the illegal activity out there? They make tons of $. You can't block bad sites by IP because they serve all the legitimate sites from the same IPs as the illegal sites. You can't block bad sites by DNS, if they have their way, because DNS-over-https has taken control of that out of our hands.
So any claim of "censorship" is bullshit. Cloudflare wants to be the victim here, when it's their own attempts at manipulating the market that have brought us to where we are.
Let's be clear about a few things:
Either Cloudflare is a utility, and therefore it acts as one and is regulated as one - or they're not.
Whether or not they are a utility, they want everyone to believe they were coerced in to doing something that's horrible - CENSORSHIP.
Non-rhetorically, is termination because of violation of a company's or utility's terms of service censorship? If you use your phone to call people and harass people non-stop, and dozens of people complain to your phone company, and they terminate you, are they censoring you? Or have you violated their TOS?
The problem here is that Cloudflare wants their cake and wants to eat it, too - they want to say their terms of service can be wildly lax when they're acting as a "utility" and they'll DTRT when legally compelled, but there are plenty of examples where they terminate for significantly less than a violation of their TOS, plus plenty of examples of where they don't terminate even when legally compelled.
They claim they don't host by trying to redefine the definition of hosting. They want us to believe they don't host, and that providing material services which facilitate presence on the Internet is neither hosting nor should in any way be their responsibility.
Their TOS for proxy services is bullshit, because they're basically saying that someone REALLY has to do some criminal shit before Cloudflare will take action. They want a district attorney to convene a jury to indict a John / Jane Doe before they'll do anything. In other words, they want to be a safe haven for any illegal activity that isn't serious enough to warrant that a district attorney to take direct action.
What happens if they become the monopoly they want to become and they're a safe haven for 90% of the illegal activity out there? They make tons of $. You can't block bad sites by IP because they serve all the legitimate sites from the same IPs as the illegal sites. You can't block bad sites by DNS, if they have their way, because DNS-over-https has taken control of that out of our hands.
So any claim of "censorship" is bullshit. Cloudflare wants to be the victim here, when it's their own attempts at manipulating the market that have brought us to where we are.
This has all the hallmarks of an overreaction to a moral panic, not a rational response to the actual evidence. People become incredibly sure of their positions and don't even want to look at the evidence, but to be honest, the evidence doesn't matter, because people won't be persuaded by it anyway given the stress level and strong emotions.
Is the internet a better place without this site? Who knows. But that's not the question we should ask when making censorship decisions, because these panics invariably exaggerate the immediate harms of keeping a site and minimize the longer-term harms of terminating it.
Is the internet a better place without this site? Who knows. But that's not the question we should ask when making censorship decisions, because these panics invariably exaggerate the immediate harms of keeping a site and minimize the longer-term harms of terminating it.
I mean, this is a site with a body count. How many people do you think hid themselves from the public, or guarded what they said online or had to be suspicious of mundane interactions for fear of being targeted? Why is their freedom of speech less important than Kiwi Farms’?
As for looking at the evidence: all I can say is that I’ve glanced through Kiwi Farms a couple of times over the years when people spoke up about being targeted by them, and it is abundantly clear to even a casual observer that this was a community built with the intention of stalking and intimidating people.
As for looking at the evidence: all I can say is that I’ve glanced through Kiwi Farms a couple of times over the years when people spoke up about being targeted by them, and it is abundantly clear to even a casual observer that this was a community built with the intention of stalking and intimidating people.
> Is the internet a better place without this site? Who knows
Uh I do
Uh I do
Freedom of speech, famously, doesn't give you the right to shout "fire" in a crowded movie theater [1]. It also doesn't give you the right to target, stalk, and harass people.
The question to me isn't why did it take Cloudflare so long to make this decision. The question is why hadn't governments stepped in and _forced_ Cloudflare to take action, given the illegal activity taking place on the site.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
The question to me isn't why did it take Cloudflare so long to make this decision. The question is why hadn't governments stepped in and _forced_ Cloudflare to take action, given the illegal activity taking place on the site.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
Except you do have the right to shout "Fire" at a crowded theater, at least in the US. The original Supreme Court case (about criticism of the draft) was, IMO, a miscarriage of justice. Fortunately it was overturned a few decades later.
To stretch the metaphor (which was a throwaway comment in a brief, not a formal supreme court opinion about fire safety), you can shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. What you can't do is lead a mob to a theater and tell them to set it on fire.
To stretch the metaphor (which was a throwaway comment in a brief, not a formal supreme court opinion about fire safety), you can shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. What you can't do is lead a mob to a theater and tell them to set it on fire.
How else would the website be removed? Should Cloudflare have hosted a vote or something? I think they took it down because millions of people wanted them to, not on a whim.
What is supposedly being suppressed by Cloudflair is kiwifarm's ability to coordinate violent harassment campaigns against vulnerable individuals. I'm pretty sure neither the US nor any nation state includes immediate, credible threats of and facilitation of violence in their concept of Freedom Of Speech.
Moreover, I don't think it's new for a communication company to suppress such things. The problem as Cloudflair notes, is that while this isn't their job, the courts and states who should be suppressing and prosecuting Kiwifarm are falling down on the job.
Moreover, I don't think it's new for a communication company to suppress such things. The problem as Cloudflair notes, is that while this isn't their job, the courts and states who should be suppressing and prosecuting Kiwifarm are falling down on the job.
[deleted]
It's not the speech that people are objecting to, it's the part where they get people killed.
.. by speech.
The whole thing relies on the loose causality of stochastic terrorism. It's a bit like the Nuremberg trials "only gave orders" defense, except they're not even orders, just innuendo - it's just spreading smear material and a general attitude of hate among a fractious, isolated and angry audience.
A makes the post. B makes a fake phone call to the police. Cop C arrives and pulls the trigger. All in different countries. Is A really free of the repercussions?
The whole thing relies on the loose causality of stochastic terrorism. It's a bit like the Nuremberg trials "only gave orders" defense, except they're not even orders, just innuendo - it's just spreading smear material and a general attitude of hate among a fractious, isolated and angry audience.
A makes the post. B makes a fake phone call to the police. Cop C arrives and pulls the trigger. All in different countries. Is A really free of the repercussions?
Are you saying B is not a forum member? Because I'm pretty sure the people ordering pizza to targets are getting their info directly from the site.
"I'm pretty sure" isn't evidence.
Actual evidence of harassment from members of kiwifarms seems to be missing in all of these discussions. There is no doubt that there was lots of doxxing and lots of mean words on the site, but I haven't seen any evidence of harassment campaigns or anything similar. The closest thing that there was to evidence is someone who called in a SWAT team on a Republican congressperson and said to the police, "I am a kiwifarms mod, please come investigate me."
If that evidence existed, given the microscope this site was under, someone would have found it.
Actual evidence of harassment from members of kiwifarms seems to be missing in all of these discussions. There is no doubt that there was lots of doxxing and lots of mean words on the site, but I haven't seen any evidence of harassment campaigns or anything similar. The closest thing that there was to evidence is someone who called in a SWAT team on a Republican congressperson and said to the police, "I am a kiwifarms mod, please come investigate me."
If that evidence existed, given the microscope this site was under, someone would have found it.
that's actually false, if you're referring to keffals at least, the doxing of the second hotel where the whole ordering food happened was done by Vile on doxbin[0]. Furthermore there's a lot more places that get those doxes on the web, pretty much all i've learned from kiwifarms was in the last 3 days or so and I still know of half a dozen.
[0]https://doxbin.org/upload/Keffals
[0]https://doxbin.org/upload/Keffals
squabbles(4)
Yet the "free speech absolutists" are absolutely nowhere to be found when the speech of groups other than right wing bigots are relevant to the discussion. If we must protect the speech of the most vile and disgusting and hateful and wretched monsters on the planet then surely we should also protect the speech of those who are oppressed and suffering. Where's that?
pjc50(1)
Do you support sites like Kiwifarms that try and attack the freedoms of others?
If you think you can say anything you want in any way you want, you might not have many friends left.
And the "you" is meant as in general, or in this case Kiwi Farms.
And the "you" is meant as in general, or in this case Kiwi Farms.
I personally have never seen any content on Kiwifarms that would lead to statements as we saw the other day from Cloudflare. It is a place where people say some horrible stuff, but I think 4chan is worse (including CSAM) and they are protected by Cloudflare as far as I know.
I don't know much about the people who post there, other than that they say some nasty things. I have also seen such content on Facebook and Twitter - nastier content, in greater volume, with a larger audience.
I have found comments about people on kiwifarms that have been moderated out of other sites (not death threats or harassment, but factual information), in that regard it has been somewhat useful.
I don't know much about the people who post there, other than that they say some nasty things. I have also seen such content on Facebook and Twitter - nastier content, in greater volume, with a larger audience.
I have found comments about people on kiwifarms that have been moderated out of other sites (not death threats or harassment, but factual information), in that regard it has been somewhat useful.
The difference is probably that KF mocks individuals in easy to locate and follow threads. 4-Chan's set up is just too chaotic; proving that 4-Chan is going after a specific person would be...difficult. KF organizes its mocking into easily discoverable forums and threads, which makes it easy for the individuals in question to find all the nastiness.
Finding ANYTHING with any kind of historical evidence on 4-Chan is difficult. The thousand+ posts about keffals are all collected together where she and others can read them all at once, which also contributes to making it look 'worse'.
A haystack may have more needles in it than a sewing kit, but you KNOW which ones are in the sewing kit.
Finding ANYTHING with any kind of historical evidence on 4-Chan is difficult. The thousand+ posts about keffals are all collected together where she and others can read them all at once, which also contributes to making it look 'worse'.
A haystack may have more needles in it than a sewing kit, but you KNOW which ones are in the sewing kit.
It's also a cultural thing. 4chan is not a place where you go obsess over one particular person with aims to ruin their life. It's, as you say, a place of chaos and inanity.
> 4chan is not a place where you go obsess over one particular person with aims to ruin their life.
Uh, this has happened many times. The thing is that it's more difficult to systematically document.
Uh, this has happened many times. The thing is that it's more difficult to systematically document.
It's more incidental/emergent than intentional, though. And that can happen with any group that has more than a certain number of empathy-impaired people participating. (Including most groups of teenage girls.)
And there's a cultural resistance on 4chan to obsessing over one person and trying to get the group to back you up. "Not Your Personal Army."
KF are mean librarians.
4chan are just 12 year olds.
KF are mean librarians.
4chan are just 12 year olds.
Unless that person is critiquing games from a feminist perspective.
That was so fucking weird.
I still remember watching AS's videos and being confused as to how something so bland pissed off that many people.
I still remember watching AS's videos and being confused as to how something so bland pissed off that many people.
saying "your critiques are bad and you're a grifter" is a far cry from ruining someone's life and doing anything worse got you banned
I agree with this. I think the aging-off process on the 4chan boards has probably protected it from a lot of heat. The heinous stuff will be gone and forgotten in a few days but any comments on Kiwifarms remain forever.
Multiple 4chan archives exist, and Google indexes them. Most even have a search function, 4chan doesn't (except for currently active thread titles in catalog)
CSAM on 4chan hasn’t been a thing for a decade. Shit 4chan even has a secret archive to help glowies find out who posted CP.
How is 4chan worse? They rapidly take down any CSAM and anything that vaguely resembles a raid. Most KF threads wouldn't survive on today's 4chan for even an hour.
This 12 years old comment describes the situation in 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1947648 , although neglects to mention that things were this way due to strict moderation on 4chan.
This 12 years old comment describes the situation in 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1947648 , although neglects to mention that things were this way due to strict moderation on 4chan.
I, personally, have seen much worse on 4chan than I have on Kiwifarms. If I read the Cloudflare blog post and didn't know which site it was referring to I would have put 95% of my money on it being 4chan over Kiwifarms.
I am not an omnipotent arbiter of what is bad or worse, this is my own subjective opinion. I just haven't seen anything on Kiwifarms that would call for such a response. It made it seem like we were hours away from people dying.
I guess as an example though:
> they rapidly take down any CSAM
I haven't seen that posted to Kiwifarms in the first place, regardless if 4chan has a quick response.
I am not an omnipotent arbiter of what is bad or worse, this is my own subjective opinion. I just haven't seen anything on Kiwifarms that would call for such a response. It made it seem like we were hours away from people dying.
I guess as an example though:
> they rapidly take down any CSAM
I haven't seen that posted to Kiwifarms in the first place, regardless if 4chan has a quick response.
I've read that 4chan works proactively with law enforcement, regularly notifying them as soon as possible. They don't have a "wait for a warrant" policy that neutral providers claim, they will eagerly submit and support LEOs. This might be why it has survived so long.
The common idea about the forum is that there is no moderation, but the truth is that the moderation is invisible. (The content is beyond the pale, and I don't support it which used to be needless to say)
The common idea about the forum is that there is no moderation, but the truth is that the moderation is invisible. (The content is beyond the pale, and I don't support it which used to be needless to say)
I think they probably do. There is another comment below saying the owner/moderator/whatever of Kiwifarms also works with "law enforcement organisations" on anything illegal on the site.
Mass murderers have live-streamed their rampages on Facebook. I'm sure Facebook also work with police.
Other than the horrible nasty comments (which I've seen much worse on Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/social media in greater numbers) I don't see what's so special about Kiwifarms.
Mass murderers have live-streamed their rampages on Facebook. I'm sure Facebook also work with police.
Other than the horrible nasty comments (which I've seen much worse on Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/social media in greater numbers) I don't see what's so special about Kiwifarms.
Most sites would delete your posts if you post someones SSN and credit report. Yet, I can easily find such posts going back years on Kiwifarms
For example: http://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificedz...
For example: http://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificedz...
I think this is obviously bad. I believe in Europe is just flatly illegal under GDPR? I would expect this to be illegal everywhere (if it was private information like medical records etc.) but I'm not a lawyer.
There is another comment below saying the owner/moderator/whatever of Kiwifarms also works with "law enforcement organisations" on anything illegal on the site.
Not ones from New Zealand, though: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/christchurch-mosque-shootings-...
Not ones from New Zealand, though: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/christchurch-mosque-shootings-...
Yeah, the guy comes across as a massive [expletive] in that article. It reminds me of the piratebay "F U" emails from decades ago. It seems to me that a lot of Americans or American Companies (and Swedish pirates) ignore other countries' jurisdiction.
Edit: just reading into this and New Zealand apparently wanted to take legal action (up to ten years in prison) against any New Zealand citizen who simply watched the video on Kiwifarms forums? That's astonishing.
Edit: just reading into this and New Zealand apparently wanted to take legal action (up to ten years in prison) against any New Zealand citizen who simply watched the video on Kiwifarms forums? That's astonishing.
This is how I (and I'm sure many others) first heard about kiwifarms, the NZ govt threatening to arrest citizens for even watching footage of the shooting. I was running a little warrant canary meta-service at the time (since the EFF let theirs lapse) and asked Josh Moon if I could implement theirs as a part of my service. Never got a response from him, or it got caught in spam.
Heard about them again when they hosted the twitch source code and revenue leaks, and now a third time with all of the cloudfront stuff. Hosting content like this is always a big gamble, I'm sure Moon knew this was always a possibility.
Heard about them again when they hosted the twitch source code and revenue leaks, and now a third time with all of the cloudfront stuff. Hosting content like this is always a big gamble, I'm sure Moon knew this was always a possibility.
> New Zealand apparently wanted to take legal action (up to ten years in prison) against any New Zealand citizen who simply watched the video on Kiwifarms forums?
Sounds like the owner was right to say "go fuck yourself" then.
Sounds like the owner was right to say "go fuck yourself" then.
> Not ones from New Zealand, though: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/christchurch-mosque-shootings-...
While his reply was incredibly edgy and immature, I'm don't think this is a compelling example. The NZ police wanted information on people discussing the shooting after it had already occurred.
While his reply was incredibly edgy and immature, I'm don't think this is a compelling example. The NZ police wanted information on people discussing the shooting after it had already occurred.
Yeah, not ones from Saudi Arabia either. It's an american website, and in that context working with law enforcement means working with american law enforcement.
Yep, I was curious recently and opened KF and 4chan boards. KF is rather tame meanwhile the first page of /pol/ on 4chan was like walking into a KKK convention complete with the hoods and seeing the Third Reich in attendance at their own booth.
>How is 4chan worse?
/pol/ is far worse from a "hate speech" perspective, but not as nearly as bad when it comes to serial harassment.
From a "people are in imminent danger" perspective I don't see how 4chan isn't worse. Remember "Some of you guys are alright, don't come to school tomorrow" from a few years back? Is there an equivalent to that on KF that I'm not aware of? The people there have given up on life in a completely different way than edgy board 4chan users.
/pol/ is far worse from a "hate speech" perspective, but not as nearly as bad when it comes to serial harassment.
From a "people are in imminent danger" perspective I don't see how 4chan isn't worse. Remember "Some of you guys are alright, don't come to school tomorrow" from a few years back? Is there an equivalent to that on KF that I'm not aware of? The people there have given up on life in a completely different way than edgy board 4chan users.
Deep down in our heart we all know that kiwifarms is a forum made for hate and cloudflare has no responsibility to host them.
Yeah, sometimes the Twitter mob comes and cancels someone for no real reason, but this is not the case here.
Yeah, sometimes the Twitter mob comes and cancels someone for no real reason, but this is not the case here.
I think the fear people have is that; if you can be canceled for a reason AND the reasons people are seen as wrong often change THEN there's a worry that next time it could be us. After all, there was a time when being black or gay could get you canceled and presumably that can come back. The reigning ideology switches every 4-8 years, it's a possibility no matter what side you take
It looks like KiwiFarms is still running on their onion site:
http://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificedz...
(Need TOR browser or Brave)
http://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificedz...
(Need TOR browser or Brave)
One can also use a Tor proxy (tor2web), there is a list here: https://gist.github.com/adulau/5caf188bb1f63263bf7ac00c4a19f...
For example, appending ".moe" to the ".onion" in that URL:
https://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificed...
Which also allows it to be archived (as the mainstream archive sites don't recognise Tor hidden services):
https://web.archive.org/web/20220905153904/https://uquusqsaa...
For example, appending ".moe" to the ".onion" in that URL:
https://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificed...
Which also allows it to be archived (as the mainstream archive sites don't recognise Tor hidden services):
https://web.archive.org/web/20220905153904/https://uquusqsaa...
I learned this morning that they've managed to acquire the services of a Chinese company to run kiwifarms.top on the public Internet.
They host (or shield) a bunch of high-profile piracy sites (the largest repacker for example) and hosted Parler after it was kicked from AWS. I've never heard of anyone being suspended by DG. Great achievement, that surely wasn't easy.
It is quite surprising that they took action. I wonder if this will negatively affect DDoS-Guard's reputation as the first choice for hosting illegal content.
It's rare, but it has happened before. 8chan/8kun and Hamas managed to get suspended by DG.
That’s more action than Twitter has taken against the Taliban accounts active on Twitter. They even issued a statement [0] about it, months after banning the President of the United States:
> Twitter gave the Taliban a green light to keep tweeting while noting the social media site would “continue to proactively enforce” its rules on the “glorification of violence, platform manipulation and spam.”
[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-twitter-allows-taliban-ma...
> Twitter gave the Taliban a green light to keep tweeting while noting the social media site would “continue to proactively enforce” its rules on the “glorification of violence, platform manipulation and spam.”
[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-twitter-allows-taliban-ma...
I wonder what their suspension criteria is. Maybe it's just "too much bad press"?
DDoS-Guard are in the strange position of being seen as a legitimate service within Russia, used by banks and telecoms and newspapers, but are almost exclusively used for illegal or unsavory purposes outside of Russia. They are well aware of what their global clientele are up to, but I assume they would rather avoid their domestic clients becoming too aware of it.
I don't have a strong opinion about them but i'd be surprised if they were really independent of the Russian state. Too much commercial autonomy can be a liability in some places; it goes to your head and next thing you know you're falling out of a window.
Of course that’s always one criteria. But at it’s core it just comes down to certain customer relationships being deeply unprofitable and not worth continuing.
Nah, too much Nazi is their line I believe. Pro Nazi speech is heavily banned in Russia and it is a Russian company.
Strangely enough Russia is quite a transphobic country itself where people like Keffals are thrown into prison so I'm surprised they would take action against something they blame the West for
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/23/putin-gender...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/23/putin-gender...
[deleted]
"At least Russian cyber firms have more corporate ethics than @CloudflareHelp." :')
(https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1566729178807926785)
(https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1566729178807926785)
Something I'm curious about in this whole thing: who is DDoSing kiwifarms? Most people find their content reprehensible but does that usually translate into people DDoSing something?
Wouldn't surprise me. People used to DDoS to knock competitor IRC networks offline for laughs, never mind something people believe in.
It helps it's the easiest way to do damage to a website and you just can pay someone to do the tech part of the hack. A DDoS attack is as easy to buy as the web hosting you're attacking now, back in the day you had to set up the botnet yourself
It helps it's the easiest way to do damage to a website and you just can pay someone to do the tech part of the hack. A DDoS attack is as easy to buy as the web hosting you're attacking now, back in the day you had to set up the botnet yourself
Just speculating, but I’m sure any internet thing involving drama at scale also involves DDoSes.
People pay for DDOS for the stupidest reasons, one of my favorite game servers have been under constant DDOS attack because they changed their discord icon in support of Ukraine.
It may also be the case that it's not "people paying others to DDOS" and rather a state-level actor trying to influence their actions.
Maybe start with the people protesting the loudest that they have DDoS mitigation?
Yes. Why do you think KF's enemies went after Cloudflare and not some other aspect of their operation - it's because they want to destroy the site totally and that means DDoSing it off the internet.
People DDoS everything. Every public video game server, random forums, home IPs of opponents in League of Legends matches, etc.
It takes literally one disgruntled person to pay $5 to take down most IPs that don't have DDoS protection. Sometimes a free booter is enough.
It takes literally one disgruntled person to pay $5 to take down most IPs that don't have DDoS protection. Sometimes a free booter is enough.
I don't think anyone is actually DDoSing kiwifarms at any significant scale.
If they end up running the site on a server with no DDoS filtering at all, people will probably DoS them because it will be super easy.
If they end up running the site on a server with no DDoS filtering at all, people will probably DoS them because it will be super easy.
[deleted]
DDOS attacks enabled by Cloudflare and DDOS-Guard protecting the attackers.
keffals.
In previous years, the admin noticed a repeated monthly pattern of DDOS attacks, and believed that it was due to the cycle of people getting welfare/disability and spending as much as they could each month on rent-a-DDOS services.
I’ve read some hilariously out-of-touch comments on this site, but this might take the cake. You know what else happens on a monthly basis? Normal paychecks.
Only some ivory tower conservative could believe people on welfare or disability are throwing money at tech nerd services to bring them down. What an incredible victim complex.
Only some ivory tower conservative could believe people on welfare or disability are throwing money at tech nerd services to bring them down. What an incredible victim complex.
> I’ve read some hilariously out-of-touch comments on this site, but this might take the cake. You know what else happens on a monthly basis? Normal paychecks.
IIRC the context of that quote was that Kiwi Farms has/had several people constantly filing frivolous lawsuits against it who were literally on welfare/government support.
IIRC the context of that quote was that Kiwi Farms has/had several people constantly filing frivolous lawsuits against it who were literally on welfare/government support.
I thought the GP comment was wild, but "I just got my welfare check, time to hire a lawyer" is an even stranger take.
Suing people is unpleasant and expensive and tends to favor people with money who can afford to hire effective lawyers, very few of whom will work for so little that they can be afforded on welfare. If people on welfare are suing someone, it's probably because they actually have a grievance with them and feel legally wronged, regardless of whether their lawsuits are frivolous or not.
I don't think anyone on welfare is thinking, "the most enjoyable way for me to spend this money is to get involved in a legal process." If a lot of Kiwi Farms lawsuits come from people who are jobless and on disability, I think the more likely conclusion is that it might have something to do with who the site's common targets were.
Suing people is unpleasant and expensive and tends to favor people with money who can afford to hire effective lawyers, very few of whom will work for so little that they can be afforded on welfare. If people on welfare are suing someone, it's probably because they actually have a grievance with them and feel legally wronged, regardless of whether their lawsuits are frivolous or not.
I don't think anyone on welfare is thinking, "the most enjoyable way for me to spend this money is to get involved in a legal process." If a lot of Kiwi Farms lawsuits come from people who are jobless and on disability, I think the more likely conclusion is that it might have something to do with who the site's common targets were.
> I thought the GP comment was wild, but "I just got my welfare check, time to hire a lawyer" is an even stranger take.
I don't have any links on hand, but from what I recall they were all Pro Se. My understanding is that many of them were discovered by KF in the first place because they were vexatious litigants.
One of the vexatious litigants had previously sued Taylor Swift and threatened to abuse her lawyer's daughter, resulting in a high-profile lawyer representing Kiwi Farms Pro Bono against him.
The truth is wilder than fiction.
I don't have any links on hand, but from what I recall they were all Pro Se. My understanding is that many of them were discovered by KF in the first place because they were vexatious litigants.
One of the vexatious litigants had previously sued Taylor Swift and threatened to abuse her lawyer's daughter, resulting in a high-profile lawyer representing Kiwi Farms Pro Bono against him.
The truth is wilder than fiction.
> My understanding is that many of them were discovered by KF in the first place because they were vexatious litigants.
That seems if anything to reinforce the idea that this is unrelated to welfare?
- KF finds some vexatious litigants and starts targeting them
- The vexatious litigants sue KF
- ???
The pattern that's jumping out to me here isn't that people are on government assistance.
That seems if anything to reinforce the idea that this is unrelated to welfare?
- KF finds some vexatious litigants and starts targeting them
- The vexatious litigants sue KF
- ???
The pattern that's jumping out to me here isn't that people are on government assistance.
> That seems if anything to reinforce the idea that this is unrelated to welfare?
I don't recall claiming that it was because of welfare. I'm merely providing context to one of the earlier posts — a number of people on government assistance are constantly trying to take the site down, the admin notices a pattern with the DDoS attacks, and speculates it's because that aligns with when government assistance is paid out.
I am not saying that his speculation was true, but it makes significantly more sense if you understand why he may have come to the conclusion.
I don't recall claiming that it was because of welfare. I'm merely providing context to one of the earlier posts — a number of people on government assistance are constantly trying to take the site down, the admin notices a pattern with the DDoS attacks, and speculates it's because that aligns with when government assistance is paid out.
I am not saying that his speculation was true, but it makes significantly more sense if you understand why he may have come to the conclusion.
Are people on assistance not allowed to sue people?
The narrative is obviously "those idiot leftists on the dole don't have jobs and waste their time and money on this." The causal relationship is critical to the narrative.
The narrative is obviously "those idiot leftists on the dole don't have jobs and waste their time and money on this." The causal relationship is critical to the narrative.
> Are people on assistance not allowed to sue people?
Of course they are, which is why I never said or implied this.
I am referring to people who spend years filing frivolous lawsuits that are continuously dismissed for things like improper jurisdiction, failing to state a claim, or suing the wrong people, and ignore any judgement or advice provided by the judge. Hence why I referred to them as vexatious.
> The narrative is obviously "those idiot leftists on the dole don't have jobs and waste their time and money on this." The causal relationship is critical to the narrative.
I am fairly left-leaning and grew up on government assistance. There is no narrative beyond describing factual events.
I will try to link some relevant court cases when I get home.
Of course they are, which is why I never said or implied this.
I am referring to people who spend years filing frivolous lawsuits that are continuously dismissed for things like improper jurisdiction, failing to state a claim, or suing the wrong people, and ignore any judgement or advice provided by the judge. Hence why I referred to them as vexatious.
> The narrative is obviously "those idiot leftists on the dole don't have jobs and waste their time and money on this." The causal relationship is critical to the narrative.
I am fairly left-leaning and grew up on government assistance. There is no narrative beyond describing factual events.
I will try to link some relevant court cases when I get home.
To be fair just because you're on welfare doesn't mean there aren't issues you are concerned about enough to do extraordinary things about. Lowered expectations for the poor are another sort of negative generalization.
That's a fair criticism, thanks for pointing it out -- definitely wasn't my intention to say that people with lower incomes are never going to be involved in a lawsuit, just that it's probably not going to be a common thing that they're doing for fun.
Is this a good thing? That internet vigilantes are able to decide what can stay and what must go? If Kiwifarms was a hive for so much illegal activity then certainly the FBI must have heard of them by now and I'd expect them along with the courts to be the arbiters of justice rather than some angry people on Twitter.
I'm not celebrating because I'm not short sighted. We can all see where this is going.
I'm not celebrating because I'm not short sighted. We can all see where this is going.
Not every slope is this slippery. You can allow a bunch of things, but have boundaries for what is allowed on your platform.
A bar owner can kick out a troublemaker, and people won't think "first they kick Shitstarter Steve, and next thing you know they kick you out because you order the wrong beer". Other patrons are relieved that Steve will have to start shit somewhere else.
It's fine to show some people the door.
A bar owner can kick out a troublemaker, and people won't think "first they kick Shitstarter Steve, and next thing you know they kick you out because you order the wrong beer". Other patrons are relieved that Steve will have to start shit somewhere else.
It's fine to show some people the door.
It's an interesting problem - designing a basic forum that can survive DDoS attacks without a centralized protector such as cloudflare.
A simple web server can hold millions of connections. With some smart caching you could serve a wide audience. If the DDOS is big enough you will max out your 1GB/s line - I'm not sure on ways around that. Even blocking ranges on your router won't fix it.
This is not too hard of a problem, but the issue is that it's expensive. You can likely get to ~100k packets/second of forum serving + DDoS attack filtering on one core, but you will eventually saturate your (likely 1 gbps or less) upstream connection. The only real mitigation to this is to have a much bigger upstream connection than you need.
Edit - clarifying that 100k pps per core would only be achievable if the vast majority of the traffic (>95%) could be filtered out.
Edit - clarifying that 100k pps per core would only be achievable if the vast majority of the traffic (>95%) could be filtered out.
They might look into a federated server + p2p content exchange architecture like notabug.io was building for a few years.
You could build something on top of bittorrent for instance. With the consequence that the IPs of the users will get exposed.
Something like BitTorrent wouldn't work well for dynamic content such as a web forum.
There is live streaming built on top of Bittorrent. Sure you have to tweak it but it is very possible.
This, I think, is a useful perspective for all those here talking about free speech:
https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/kiwi-farms-cloudlfare-a...
The point is that if you're using your speech to silence people, not by disproving their arguments but through terror and the destruction of their reputation and social network, when you silence people by lying about them, your speech is a threat to free speech.
By protecting sites whose purpose is to silence particular individuals through lies and threats you are reducing free speech. This is a case where you have to choose which speech to protect. They are in conflict. And the site you might defend is not the one making a good faith use of the freedom you wish to protect.
https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/kiwi-farms-cloudlfare-a...
The point is that if you're using your speech to silence people, not by disproving their arguments but through terror and the destruction of their reputation and social network, when you silence people by lying about them, your speech is a threat to free speech.
By protecting sites whose purpose is to silence particular individuals through lies and threats you are reducing free speech. This is a case where you have to choose which speech to protect. They are in conflict. And the site you might defend is not the one making a good faith use of the freedom you wish to protect.
I don't see kiwifarms trying to silence keffals, I 100% see the reverse happening unless archiving keffals public statement about giving children drugs you aren't authorized to provide to anyone is somehow censorship.
The only ones who are attempting to silence people are the Twitter mob and the journalists who are aligned with them. That article is pure propaganda.
"Using your speech to silence people" is very vague, "the destruction of their reputation and social network" and "lying about them" could refer to any case of cancel culture. These things are bad of course, bad for freedom of speech in a broad millian sense[1], but they are way too vague for cloudflare to ban any forum that has speech like this (which is any forum I'm aware of, including HN).
[1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2
[1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2
The point isn't to prescribe behavior for cloudflare. The point is to show that "no censorship" doesn't provide a simple rule to follow in all cases. Speech itself can be censorship. In this case an entity like cloudflare needs to evaluate the particulars of the case, not apply a general rule.
This is setting aside the mechanism of the censorship -- removing DDOS protection versus a harassment campaign -- the social or other merit or the speech censored, etc.
Kiwi Farms is a particular clear case to illustrate this point.
This is setting aside the mechanism of the censorship -- removing DDOS protection versus a harassment campaign -- the social or other merit or the speech censored, etc.
Kiwi Farms is a particular clear case to illustrate this point.
> The point isn't to prescribe behavior for cloudflare.
No, that we're dealing with cloudflare, with DDoS protection, is the point here. If you want to run a forum where you ban speech that you feel silences people, that's great, but if you want to deny DDoS protection to other forums that don't have this rule, or don't enforce it to your satisfaction, that's very different.
> This is setting aside the mechanism of the censorship -- removing DDOS protection versus a harassment campaign
No we really can't set this aside. Removing DDoS protection directly makes it impossible to run any unpopular website. "Harassment campaign" is a vague term, that can be used (and arguably in this case is used) for any kind of persistent criticism, ridicule, outrage, doxxing - I see harassment campaigns on twitter every day.
No, that we're dealing with cloudflare, with DDoS protection, is the point here. If you want to run a forum where you ban speech that you feel silences people, that's great, but if you want to deny DDoS protection to other forums that don't have this rule, or don't enforce it to your satisfaction, that's very different.
> This is setting aside the mechanism of the censorship -- removing DDOS protection versus a harassment campaign
No we really can't set this aside. Removing DDoS protection directly makes it impossible to run any unpopular website. "Harassment campaign" is a vague term, that can be used (and arguably in this case is used) for any kind of persistent criticism, ridicule, outrage, doxxing - I see harassment campaigns on twitter every day.
[deleted]
Supporting the removal of a problematic site (as though that would do the trick) at the expense of setting a bad president is a profoundly oblique way to go about things.
A few years ago people urged CDNs and ISPs to drop the Daily Caller, then it was Parler, and for numerous times it was 4/8chan. At what point do we admit that the solution to extremism isn’t in blocking sites where this activity collaborates?
This is a cultural problem that can’t be fixed with the hammer of authoritarianism.
A few years ago people urged CDNs and ISPs to drop the Daily Caller, then it was Parler, and for numerous times it was 4/8chan. At what point do we admit that the solution to extremism isn’t in blocking sites where this activity collaborates?
This is a cultural problem that can’t be fixed with the hammer of authoritarianism.
Isn't the other option to facilitate it? There's no inaction here, since you provide a service to that group. You choose between turning a blind eye or kicking them out.
That’s a false dichotomy.
Tolerance of something you don’t like is a choice. It’s a particularly meaningful choice when you are restraining the urge to act for the sake of downstream consequences and future generations.
Note that I’m not suggesting to turn a blind eye either.
Tolerance of something you don’t like is a choice. It’s a particularly meaningful choice when you are restraining the urge to act for the sake of downstream consequences and future generations.
Note that I’m not suggesting to turn a blind eye either.
What I'm saying is that inaction is also a choice, and not a neutral one.
I'd add that tolerating/enabling those groups also bears consequences for the future generations.
Like I said in another comment, the slope isn't that slippery. You can ban these guys and stop there.
I'd add that tolerating/enabling those groups also bears consequences for the future generations.
Like I said in another comment, the slope isn't that slippery. You can ban these guys and stop there.
Is it too early to say the internet is done for because it's looking that way to me. keffals has given the government the recipe to kill off any website they want gone. I'm hearing that keffals creatures are now attacking TOR to get them to drop kiwi too.
This isn't going to stop, 4chan is definitely next then every other site that isn't mainstream.
This isn't going to stop, 4chan is definitely next then every other site that isn't mainstream.
I don’t think 4chan is next. I believe the site has staying power because its users are anonymous. Anonymity means it’s very difficult for leaders to emerge which means it’s difficult to rally behind a particular cause. This means it’s difficult for 4chan to grow in influence as an organized force. It’s just a steady state of low-level chaos, which is good for containment. I’m also quite confident that the FBI monitors the site and I don’t think they want to see all those borderline people scurry off into different corners of the internet should the site go offline.
Speaking from personal experience, when a “bad” forum is shut down the members are not usually successful in spreading their toxicity into other areas. Sadly it sort of just dies.
Kiwi Farms users are anonymous too. The owner of KF regularly cooperates with American law enforcement.
How is the government involved in the decision made by a private company? I fail to see the point you're trying to make here. Also, I seriously doubt that Keffals is influencing the entire "government" (what country are we even talking about). Also, "attacking TOR"? Do you know by any chance how TOR works?
4chan's experienced this kind of attack back in 2003, the year it was found. Users from another website contacted its host over it's hosting of lolicon. moot diplomatically resolved the issue and 4chan has more-or-less been up since. The lindy effect dictates that, having experienced these kinds of shocks along the way, 4chan will be up for another 15 years.
I visit some "non mainstream" D&D forums. I'm pretty sure I've seen the n-word written zero times there. Not a single forum avatar is a swastika. I'd be cautious about elevating KF to the level of "every other site that isn't mainstream."
> I'm hearing that keffals creatures are now attacking TOR to get them to drop kiwi too.
How is that even possible? Would the Tor project hard-code an onion-site it won't resolve?
How is that even possible? Would the Tor project hard-code an onion-site it won't resolve?
Anything is possible at this point. Even the administrator of Kiwi Farms is expecting APNIC to revoke their /24, because the Twitter mob has been very vocal of who their next harassment targets are.
Yes, and they actually already discussed such a possibility back when the Daily Stormer first moved to Tor[0].
They ultimately shot down the idea, and just put out a statement condemning them instead[1][2].
I think it's unlikely they would implement such a thing for KiwiFarms now that they've already set the precedent with a site that is arguably much worse.
[0] https://gitlab.torproject.org/legacy/trac/-/issues/23270
[1] https://twitter.com/torproject/status/898256109789687808
[2] https://blog.torproject.org/tor-project-defends-human-rights...
They ultimately shot down the idea, and just put out a statement condemning them instead[1][2].
I think it's unlikely they would implement such a thing for KiwiFarms now that they've already set the precedent with a site that is arguably much worse.
[0] https://gitlab.torproject.org/legacy/trac/-/issues/23270
[1] https://twitter.com/torproject/status/898256109789687808
[2] https://blog.torproject.org/tor-project-defends-human-rights...
You’re at least ten years late.
I'm very glad Kiwi Farms is gone.
But as a thought experiment, would an IPFS based distributed website survive attacks of this nature?
It could be pinned by individual users and gateways and accessed using browser plug-ins.
[1] https://ipfs.tech/
But as a thought experiment, would an IPFS based distributed website survive attacks of this nature?
It could be pinned by individual users and gateways and accessed using browser plug-ins.
[1] https://ipfs.tech/
I'd be interested to know if the users of the site would be brave and willing enough to pin Kiwi Farm's content to their attributable/personally owned devices...
Surely some of the appeal or enablers for the behaviour on there is that someone else is wearing the legal risk of storing it all
Surely some of the appeal or enablers for the behaviour on there is that someone else is wearing the legal risk of storing it all
I think this is the big flaw of systems like IPFS and BitTorrent. “If you pin it, it will stay online” is all well and good, but if it's a legal risk to keep the content online, you're putting a target on your head. Now, you could make everything encrypted and anonymised, but now you're Freenet (is that what it's called?) and the risk you're hosting e.g. CSAM means nobody wants anything to do with you no matter what you have pinned.
There are pinning services, that do the pinning for a fee.
But Those can also be DDosed I suppose. Can have multiple pinners of course but, but I doubt that makes a difference in the longer term.
And of course the pinning services can drop them just like cloudflare and DDOS-guard did.
I theory yes, but ipfs covers the distribution and publishing, not the editing. There would still have to be some stateful service for account management, posting, etc. that would suffer the same issues as the current service.
On top of that, access at two biggest gateways would likely be filtered since one is a hobbyist service and the other is cloudflare, so everyone would have to run their own nodes.
So in practice - no. Only an archive of the current state.
On top of that, access at two biggest gateways would likely be filtered since one is a hobbyist service and the other is cloudflare, so everyone would have to run their own nodes.
So in practice - no. Only an archive of the current state.
I don't think a forum is possible on IPFS?
To my knowledge, it's content addressable, and therefore limited to static content, because if the content of a file change, the URL to it changes.
To my knowledge, it's content addressable, and therefore limited to static content, because if the content of a file change, the URL to it changes.
You can keep the assets/media to IPFS and use a small server to host everything else? With proper archival, seems doable in a scalable way.
But that server has to be on the open internet, and can be trivially attacked.
Sure, it could. Good luck building a decent forum on IPFS though.
I wonder whether "botnet hosting" will become a thing over time. I mean one could buy "malware installs", so theoretically one could buy "decentralized storage app installs" as well, something like Sia/Filecoin/Storj.
Here's the most disingenuous part for any defender of KF so far. The linked Twitter feed has a post from the KF operator:
"For the time being, I am locking the threads of the most prominent members of the hashtag campaigns against us... I'm tired of hearing about it."
Very "Free Speech" of KF. This is all just public information after all, isn't it?
"For the time being, I am locking the threads of the most prominent members of the hashtag campaigns against us... I'm tired of hearing about it."
Very "Free Speech" of KF. This is all just public information after all, isn't it?
The problem with salem witch trials du jour so fervently pushed by certain groups of people is closing to its demise with every case like this. The advantage of emotionally immature people (regardless of their actual age) having too much time on their hands forcing their narrative and banning any discourse that they don't like will eventually cease when the majority of people will realize that they are, well, in a majority, and it's time to put stop to this madness.
In other news, http://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificedz... is up.
In other news, http://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificedz... is up.
You do realize that this wasn't simply about "discourse", yes? This was about active doxxing and swatting of real living human beings. Being transphobic might be just an (ignorant) opinion, but actively working to harm people needs to be shut right down.
SWATing and harassment is explicitly prohibited on Kiwi Farms, and the site owner aggressively removes such content. "Doxing" is for better or worse not a crime, and is practiced by the very same people currently crying for Kiwi Farms' deletion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms
I think maybe you should read this.
One side of a disagreement getting to write the relevant Wikipedia page has some trade-offs. On the one hand, the dominant side can cast the argument however they want. On the other hand, they can't really make it look like a fair or dispassionate accounting.
And I think you should read this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32712037
And this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32728365
The fight over Kiwi Farms' Wikipedia page is intense. Keffals, a central figure to this story described in the second link above, is now quoting the Wikipedia page as fact because it quotes an NBC News story which quotes... Keffals. If you don't rely strictly on primary sources it's impossible to determine truth in this situation.
And this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32728365
The fight over Kiwi Farms' Wikipedia page is intense. Keffals, a central figure to this story described in the second link above, is now quoting the Wikipedia page as fact because it quotes an NBC News story which quotes... Keffals. If you don't rely strictly on primary sources it's impossible to determine truth in this situation.
It's interesting to see posts simply pointing out the facts getting downvoted. Almost as if it's more important to pursue something out of ideological and emotional motivation, reality be damned.
Also, a very good demonstration of the plague rampaging through STEM circles. Driving blind might be fashionable, but it won't make a wall one is running into go away.
Also, a very good demonstration of the plague rampaging through STEM circles. Driving blind might be fashionable, but it won't make a wall one is running into go away.
Your argument looks like blatant self victimisation. Kiwi Farms is involved in the suicides and endangerement of multiple people. I really don't see the coherence in your arguments here.
It is not without merit to assume the counter-argument is made in a bad faith. The discussion is about wider implications of deplatforming a specific site based on the mob justice of small group of people instead of legal proceedings where each side would be able to defend their position. It is also about the discrepancy between accusations and facts because the subject has become so distorted.
Last but not least, "...I would kick such people out of the healthcare system or make them pay more for living obese unhealthy lives." by Febra33 [0]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29286944#29287326 / https://web.archive.org/web/20220905202953/https://news.ycom...
Take from that what you will.
Last but not least, "...I would kick such people out of the healthcare system or make them pay more for living obese unhealthy lives." by Febra33 [0]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29286944#29287326 / https://web.archive.org/web/20220905202953/https://news.ycom...
Take from that what you will.
If they are doing something criminal, let the courts set them out with an established procedure and a a group of informed jurors instead of mob rule.
There's no mob rule. A private company decided to stop servicing that filth because it would hurt their profits. There's nothing freer than this.
This is mob rule, private companies do nothing but appeal to whatever they have to in order to make money, and to rely on them for control of our basic ability to have a platform is incredibly harmful and you should not support it.
There are some powers which should not be in the hands of corporate executives, this is one of them.
There are also times that it wouldn't be mob rule, those times should be shareholder rule, which is liable to be even more harmful and even less transparent.
There are some powers which should not be in the hands of corporate executives, this is one of them.
There are also times that it wouldn't be mob rule, those times should be shareholder rule, which is liable to be even more harmful and even less transparent.
As if the Kiwifarms community is anything other than a mob. This whole drama is basically about a bunch of people who love to dish out abuse but can't take it.
In an ideal world (in this world) we would be able to both deal with bad actors and not have mob rule at the same time.
That's not my idea of an ideal world. I think reciprocity has its place and don't wish to inhabit some sort of social kindergarten in which every dispute must be solved through a process of arbitration.
This only works if people who think like you are a minority. The other side can reciprocate just as hard as you can. If they can't, they'll escalate in different ways.
Society means having rules and agreeing to follow them. Yes, even for disputes like these.
Society means having rules and agreeing to follow them. Yes, even for disputes like these.
Nonsense. You can argue that to be true for a reciprocity -only proposition, but claiming that any reciprocity causes society to collapse is absurd. The proof is that most jurisdictions recognize rights of self-defense and expand it in some contexts (eg your home), and yet society endures.
So you're telling me that companies shouldn't have full control over their operations and products and that the government should limit them in that aspect?
I think that systems like cloudflare should be treated partially as utilities and required to provide services as if they were one, because that's what they are.
There are lots of times that companies find themselves in a position of such responsibility and power that they can no longer be trusted to wield that responsibility and power without public oversight.
My concern with this would evaporate entirely if I knew that there was some form of reasonable checks and balances against companies like cloudflare doing whatever the heck they want to do, and all it would take in the future to get a website off the internet is some mass of well connected people deciding that a site should go away.
This is not an issue with the site being taken down, it's an issue with entirely unregulated power held by people who should not hold that power.
There are lots of times that companies find themselves in a position of such responsibility and power that they can no longer be trusted to wield that responsibility and power without public oversight.
My concern with this would evaporate entirely if I knew that there was some form of reasonable checks and balances against companies like cloudflare doing whatever the heck they want to do, and all it would take in the future to get a website off the internet is some mass of well connected people deciding that a site should go away.
This is not an issue with the site being taken down, it's an issue with entirely unregulated power held by people who should not hold that power.
In this case, what's the difference between mob rule and serving your customers?
Odd, for some reason i'm getting the urge to disconnect your internet service, because it would hurt my profits, and i decided your opinion is dangerous to free society.
(I'm inferring that your comment is supporting KiwiFarms. If this is not the case, you should probably re-word it.)
> salem witch trials du jour so fervently pushed by certain groups of people
Hunting trans people and pushing them to suicide sounds like much more of a witch trial to me.
> forcing their narrative and banning any discourse that they don't like
Telling to people to kill themselves is "discourse" that we merely "don't like"?
> put stop to this madness
Even if you're a raging transphobe, how can you possibly think being trans is more madness than pushing people to kill themselves?
> salem witch trials du jour so fervently pushed by certain groups of people
Hunting trans people and pushing them to suicide sounds like much more of a witch trial to me.
> forcing their narrative and banning any discourse that they don't like
Telling to people to kill themselves is "discourse" that we merely "don't like"?
> put stop to this madness
Even if you're a raging transphobe, how can you possibly think being trans is more madness than pushing people to kill themselves?
Your response is a perfect demonstration of the issue at hand and the choice of words is driven by a desire to silence the people who question the logic of a tribe you perceive yourself a part of: nothing in my post indicated support of some narrow part of the spectrum of opinions yet you make an assumption and go through with accusation anyway.
As Paul Graham himself put this, anyone suspected of supporting yellowists is to be investigated for missteps and once one is found to the trial they go.
As Paul Graham himself put this, anyone suspected of supporting yellowists is to be investigated for missteps and once one is found to the trial they go.
Supporting Kiwi Farms right to exist is not the same as supporting the content.
You’re right, but they’re related.
KF has a right to exist. But if they want to be part of society at large, society owes them no great debt; they are welcome to remain insular and talk about their bullshit amongst themselves, or even host their own CDN mitigation service if nobody wants to work with them, but nobody is required to give them a platform to spew their odious content.
KF has a right to exist. But if they want to be part of society at large, society owes them no great debt; they are welcome to remain insular and talk about their bullshit amongst themselves, or even host their own CDN mitigation service if nobody wants to work with them, but nobody is required to give them a platform to spew their odious content.
KF has a responsibility to abide by the law. By extension, it has a responsibility to ensure its users do not use it to break the law. I support KF's right to exist, but not in this state.
[deleted]
Cloudflare or any other privately owned company doesn't have an obligation to service everyone. They are not violating their free speech, no matter how long you turn it on every side. Kiwi Farms can host their website on any other platform and get any other service they want. No one is forced to service them.
Let's not forget that they have been known to publicise private information of people that ended up with them being swatted. They are a big enable of this behaviour. Not only that, but they have been also involved in three suicides at this point. I don't think any private company wants to associate themselves with such a client.
Let's not forget that they have been known to publicise private information of people that ended up with them being swatted. They are a big enable of this behaviour. Not only that, but they have been also involved in three suicides at this point. I don't think any private company wants to associate themselves with such a client.
> Cloudflare or any other privately owned company doesn't have an obligation to service everyone.
That's mostly true legally, but also irrelevant. We also have a right to criticize them for anything.
> They are not violating their free speech
They aren't violating the First Amendment, which is the legal concept. But what they are doing is corporate censorship, which is of course against the idea of allowing free expression.
That's mostly true legally, but also irrelevant. We also have a right to criticize them for anything.
> They are not violating their free speech
They aren't violating the First Amendment, which is the legal concept. But what they are doing is corporate censorship, which is of course against the idea of allowing free expression.
De-platforming works.
You just create enemies who sharpen pointier sticks in the shadows. If you want to fix the behavior of individuals, it requires education and their exposure to "normals". All this does is generate "feel good" moments and "LALALALA I can't hear you". But o hey, it's no different than the numerous crises plaguing America, including homelessness, collapsing healthcare, poverty and more.
Just some Facebook likes and nothing actually gets solved.
Another thought, Hitler on his rise to power was also deplatformed, literally thrown into prison. Everyone laughed at him and his Nazi party. Next thing you know he is out of prison and is genociding an entire continent.
I truly fear we are in for bloodshed in the future because all we do is try and shut out the crazy Qanons, the MAGAs, the white supremacists and just complete fucking degenerates but nobody actually tries to fix the problem. We are just stuffing the problem in a closet and hoping it doesn't find its way out.
Just some Facebook likes and nothing actually gets solved.
Another thought, Hitler on his rise to power was also deplatformed, literally thrown into prison. Everyone laughed at him and his Nazi party. Next thing you know he is out of prison and is genociding an entire continent.
I truly fear we are in for bloodshed in the future because all we do is try and shut out the crazy Qanons, the MAGAs, the white supremacists and just complete fucking degenerates but nobody actually tries to fix the problem. We are just stuffing the problem in a closet and hoping it doesn't find its way out.
> Another thought, Hitler on his rise to power was also deplatformed, literally thrown into prison. Everyone laughed at him and his Nazi party.
And now for what actually happened:
> Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 16 Nazi Party members and four police officers... Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison, where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow prisoners Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess. On 20 December 1924, having served only nine months, Hitler was released. Once released, Hitler redirected his focus towards obtaining power through legal means rather than by revolution or force, and accordingly changed his tactics, further developing Nazi propaganda
If there is any lesson here it's that Hitler wasn't punished severely enough and forgiven too quickly.
What would you have had society do? Just ignore his literal attempted violent overthrow of the government??
And now for what actually happened:
> Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 16 Nazi Party members and four police officers... Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison, where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow prisoners Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess. On 20 December 1924, having served only nine months, Hitler was released. Once released, Hitler redirected his focus towards obtaining power through legal means rather than by revolution or force, and accordingly changed his tactics, further developing Nazi propaganda
If there is any lesson here it's that Hitler wasn't punished severely enough and forgiven too quickly.
What would you have had society do? Just ignore his literal attempted violent overthrow of the government??
Does it? I never heard of them before and I still haven't. I do know these lulzcow sites have been around for decades and honestly there are even some 'snark' subreddits that are beginning to amount to the same thing. Pure vitriol aimed at one minor celebrity, and occasional dozxing
This ability to "deplatform" is also what allows fascist nations to exist and keeps Putin in power today in Russia.
No.
In a free society business owners do whatever they want. That includes hosting content that runs counter to government positions, and the right to NOT HOST content they disagree with (for whatever reason, even financial or publicity-related reasons).
In Putin's Russia, organizations are forced to carry content they don't agree with, or they are prohibited.
That's not an exaggeration. If the government says you must publish an article about how awesome a new airplane or how righteous the orthodox church is, or how bad the evil Ukrainians are, you must do so.
Many free speech morons think that organizations should be forced to carry messages they disagree with... because freedom.
Freedom is being able to tell someone to fuck off.
Freedom is also having to deal with the consequences from the public if you tell the wrong person to fuck off or you don't tell a deserving person to fuck off.
What the free speech morons are proposing is so much worse than what we have now that the terror it could cause would be inconceivable, unless you're an anti-government journalist in Russia, of course. It's not inconceivable, it's your Monday.
It is so charming to see all of the fReE mArKeT lovers on HN twist themselves into pretzels when it comes to things like this.
It's not a hard concept but the free speech morons seem incapable of understanding it.
If the free speech morons had their way HN would be powerless to stop me from posting the addresses and phone numbers of people I disagree with.
In a free society business owners do whatever they want. That includes hosting content that runs counter to government positions, and the right to NOT HOST content they disagree with (for whatever reason, even financial or publicity-related reasons).
In Putin's Russia, organizations are forced to carry content they don't agree with, or they are prohibited.
That's not an exaggeration. If the government says you must publish an article about how awesome a new airplane or how righteous the orthodox church is, or how bad the evil Ukrainians are, you must do so.
Many free speech morons think that organizations should be forced to carry messages they disagree with... because freedom.
Freedom is being able to tell someone to fuck off.
Freedom is also having to deal with the consequences from the public if you tell the wrong person to fuck off or you don't tell a deserving person to fuck off.
What the free speech morons are proposing is so much worse than what we have now that the terror it could cause would be inconceivable, unless you're an anti-government journalist in Russia, of course. It's not inconceivable, it's your Monday.
It is so charming to see all of the fReE mArKeT lovers on HN twist themselves into pretzels when it comes to things like this.
It's not a hard concept but the free speech morons seem incapable of understanding it.
If the free speech morons had their way HN would be powerless to stop me from posting the addresses and phone numbers of people I disagree with.
I touched on this somewhere else in the thread, but it is not uncommon for companies to end up in a position where they have so much control over society that they need to be limited in their power, else they just hold too much power and that is not good in the long term.
Something like cloudflare, where their decision to host or not host you can be the difference between being able to be online and not, needs to be regulated as a utility because executives at cloudflare should not have the authority to determine who can and cannot host a website on the internet.
Mob rule is not good, and mob rule will lead to oppression of some form if left alone for long enough.
There is no exception to that rule, it is only a matter of time before it happens.
There should be reasonable restrictions on behavior based on harm, but those restrictions should not be in the hands of mob rule or companies like cloudflare. Those restrictions should be based on rule of law and determined in a courtroom with informed jurors and a fair trial.
There are times where that is excessive, this is not one of them because cloudflare is such an important piece of infrastructure. For a private form? You can delete whatever the heck you want, you should be able to.
Something like cloud flare, however, is more of a utility. Giving it the power to shut people off is giving it too much power.
Something like cloudflare, where their decision to host or not host you can be the difference between being able to be online and not, needs to be regulated as a utility because executives at cloudflare should not have the authority to determine who can and cannot host a website on the internet.
Mob rule is not good, and mob rule will lead to oppression of some form if left alone for long enough.
There is no exception to that rule, it is only a matter of time before it happens.
There should be reasonable restrictions on behavior based on harm, but those restrictions should not be in the hands of mob rule or companies like cloudflare. Those restrictions should be based on rule of law and determined in a courtroom with informed jurors and a fair trial.
There are times where that is excessive, this is not one of them because cloudflare is such an important piece of infrastructure. For a private form? You can delete whatever the heck you want, you should be able to.
Something like cloud flare, however, is more of a utility. Giving it the power to shut people off is giving it too much power.
Keeping up KF isn't going to stop Putin.
No, but I feel like the ideology of the person posting this misses the fact that they are on the side of what empowers people like Putin.
Kiwi farms is clearly an issue that needs to be handled, but in my mind to handle it requires you be hesitant, it requires you be reluctant to shut them down because you don't want to step over that line. It means setting up barriers to your authority to shut other people down.
This, what I see here, is a glee for it. It's loarding your power over others, it's enacting revenge.
That is the toxicity I see. Pragmatic handling of speech requires that you sometimes shut down bad actors, but when the people in charge are doing it without concern, or the people driving it or using unchecked forces to do it, that's an issue.
Kiwi farms is clearly an issue that needs to be handled, but in my mind to handle it requires you be hesitant, it requires you be reluctant to shut them down because you don't want to step over that line. It means setting up barriers to your authority to shut other people down.
This, what I see here, is a glee for it. It's loarding your power over others, it's enacting revenge.
That is the toxicity I see. Pragmatic handling of speech requires that you sometimes shut down bad actors, but when the people in charge are doing it without concern, or the people driving it or using unchecked forces to do it, that's an issue.
I do not believe that there is any connection between the presence of KF and the ability of states to crush oppressed groups. States are not actually bound by their principles and they regularly break those principles to attack minority groups that they do not like. Whether people are gleeful, dispassionate, or upset about Cloudflare stopping business with a forum whose purpose is largely to harass people has zero influence on future defenses that various oppressed groups must make against oppressive regimes.
Sure, a gun can also kill an innocent man or neo-Hitler. We just need to make sure that it is applied more on the latter and less on the former.
In civil society you generally aren't allowed to run around shooting anyone.
We are not talking just about guns here. We are talking about tools and the importance of applying them properly.
De-platforming are tools just like guns. Applied properly they are a force for good.
In this case, it was used well.
De-platforming are tools just like guns. Applied properly they are a force for good.
In this case, it was used well.
But you were talking about fascist nations, not civil society. Defenestration seems to have more impact that deplatforming in such places. Russian police also have no issue with arresting people for holding completely blank sign, on the basis that the medium (a sign on which a message of protest could be included) is a sufficiently message-like reason to take someone off the street. Mind you, the same is true of the US to some extent.
It’s almost like there are some behaviors we collectively won’t tolerate and if you engage in them people will pull out all the stops to bring you down.
Act like an asshole and you end up getting taken down. Who could have guessed?
Act like an asshole and you end up getting taken down. Who could have guessed?
This argument is too general. "Majority dislike what you do (even if not illegal) -> can pull out all stops to bring you down" is a very bad principle. Just look at the treatment of gay people in the 50s.
Asshole is also pretty subjective.
Asshole is also pretty subjective.
That's a bold claim to make that angry twitter mob is a majority. Keep in mind, the deplatforming you're celebrating today might have people you like at the receiving end tomorrow.
> Act like an asshole and you end up getting taken down. Who could have guessed?
Ah, but you see, there's a lot of right-wing HN posters here who disagree with this. They believe that acting terrible should be free from all consequences, social or legal, because ... well, I won't speculate.
Ah, but you see, there's a lot of right-wing HN posters here who disagree with this. They believe that acting terrible should be free from all consequences, social or legal, because ... well, I won't speculate.
They might have lived a life in which they have never had to feel real fear of targeted harassment online?
Hard to think of that many positions more right-wing than "corporate monopolies should be able to disappear anything you say on a whim with no safeguards" but that's the one you're endorsing.
Would it kill you to have any sort of critical analysis of power for once in your life? KF are scum but they're far from the only scum in this fight, and others are infinitely more dangerous
Would it kill you to have any sort of critical analysis of power for once in your life? KF are scum but they're far from the only scum in this fight, and others are infinitely more dangerous
> Would it kill you to have any sort of critical analysis of power for once in your life?
You seem angry. Have you considered addressing that?
You seem angry. Have you considered addressing that?
would be nice to have somewhere to blow off steam but the internet is down to like four or five active sites now and none of them are fun
(KF wasn't either, mind)
This really shows again that there is no use in giving in to angry Twitter mobs. There is something not quite right with them and even if they are given what they want, you are still the bad guy because it took too long. It happens again and again and people and institutions still give in.
I was just going through the page on Kiwifarms about the person behind the dropkiwifarms campaign and the stuff they have said is shocking. I would say it is on par with anything I've read on Kiwifarms and they're getting 30,000 people to "ratio" their posts so they have a massive audience.
There is no winner in this entire saga of internet drama.
There is no winner in this entire saga of internet drama.
*They still have a Tor Hidden Service, that's it though
I suspect that a TOR service is easy to DDOS. Anyone know if that's true?
Yes, Tor services are particularly easy to DoS and there's pretty much nothing the DoS recipient can do about it.
If they have the time and are willing to put in the effort, they can create a myriad of Tor onion servers that are just nginx proxy-cache nodes that forward over a VPN mesh to their application servers. The end-users would have to be aware of all the onion cache servers somehow or their application would have to load balance people across them and keep some unannounced and cycle some in and out.
This isn't meaningfully different from using onionbalance, the attackers will still be at a significant advantage.
I know what you mean and somewhat agree. I don't know much about KF but I assume they probably have subforums and groups of people within those forums. What I have seen people do in the past is set up what I described above and then share half of the random cache nodes with the general public and then share specific nodes with sub-groups of people keeping the site accessible to the regular or trusted users. The public cache nodes can have stricter limits on how many requests are forwarded over the VPN. Perhaps this is not compatible with KF's model. I've never seen their site aside from the CF error message.
Well, other than deregistering the onion address from dHT and quit :)
I'm glad their little "community" is being seen off into the void. Good riddance.
I'm glad their little "community" is being seen off into the void. Good riddance.
looks like it took down a related nz neo-nazi site too
> The ban may have also inadvertently blocked a New Zealand-based neo-nazi group called Action Zealandia.
> The Action Zealandia website, which is believed to be hosted by a website run by Moon, is also offline.
(https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/technology/2022/09/infamous-k...)
> The ban may have also inadvertently blocked a New Zealand-based neo-nazi group called Action Zealandia.
> The Action Zealandia website, which is believed to be hosted by a website run by Moon, is also offline.
(https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/technology/2022/09/infamous-k...)
Comments like these really make me see it as another Internet Battle of one group of dedicated assholes against the other group of dedicated assholes.
Tor services get DDOS’d all of the time - you generally have a single host somewhere that is the first hop in relaying traffic back to the service and that is easy to overwhelm. There is a hackish way to have several of those hosts but I think it tops out at a dozen. You lose a lot of audience going to Tor so might not be worth it.
32 hosts officially but there are ways of protecting onion websites (caching reverse proxies with some sort of challenge) that protects drug market places that have governments trying to DDOS them offline. Not to mention that Tor has been working on anti-DDOS (From what I remember that will be based on proof-of-work) which will massively increase the cost of DDOS attacks against hidden services.
No, that's not true. The first hop (last from the service's PoV) is basically randomly selected. Unless you restrict it, there will be thousands of possible IPs.
Yes but only one rendezvous point unless you do the hackish stuff. There are a lot of options for scaling the hidden service itself, but the rendezvous point is out of your control (and should be) so that is where the real constraint is.
Each hidden service has its own circuits to the Tor network. You can't their side of the connection.
You can DDoS TOR it self, but not a specific service easily.
Complete nonsense. You can easily DoS a specific service by flooding it with rendezvous requests.
As I understand, KF have been under attack for quite some time including employing techniques here discussed on this post.
https://blog.torproject.org/cooking-onions-reclaiming-onionb...
If it was easy, I wouldn't expect them to still be online on TOR after all this time.
https://blog.torproject.org/cooking-onions-reclaiming-onionb...
If it was easy, I wouldn't expect them to still be online on TOR after all this time.
Onionbalance doesn’t solve anything, the attack remains asymmetric so you’ll have to spend significantly more on hardware than the attacker is.
> If it was easy, I wouldn't expect them to still be online on TOR after all this time.
You seriously overestimate how many people care enough to DDoS kiwifarms.
> If it was easy, I wouldn't expect them to still be online on TOR after all this time.
You seriously overestimate how many people care enough to DDoS kiwifarms.
> You seriously overestimate how many people care enough to DDoS kiwifarms.
Doesn't sound easy to me if you need to get more people to care than they do now.
Just search 'kiwi farms' on Twitter.
Doesn't sound easy to me if you need to get more people to care than they do now.
Just search 'kiwi farms' on Twitter.
People screaming about this stuff on twitter are not ddosing anyone, different demographic.
That's far from "easy" - if it were so simple, people would be able to extort big money from drug markets for doing it.
People are extorting big money from drug markets doing this...
It's very easy, anyone with basic grasp of C can modify the Tor client to do this.
It's very easy, anyone with basic grasp of C can modify the Tor client to do this.
Wrong. It is very easy to mitigate (DoS) attacks on Tor, as long as you're happy to edit the source code.
Go on, how do you plan to do that while remaining compatible with stock tor clients?
It's simply not possible for the server to distinguish between real and malicious rendezvous requests.
It's simply not possible for the server to distinguish between real and malicious rendezvous requests.
heh it's quite a bit different but there are ways to avoid ddos (see dread, recon & co with endgame and onionbalance)
I come from a hosting background over 20+ years so I think I have a different perspective that others here. I know cloudflare is a large public company - perhaps it is slightly different for this type of company. As a hosting provider I have in the past been noticed for certain sites with in my network that the general internet is pushing back against hosting. What happens is there is of course bad publicity but also crazy people come out - people threatening employees, getting public information on employees and owners working there, calling and threatening at your house for sites you host - which moves beyond fighting for free speech but over to how much of your personal life you and your employees do you want to disrupt for a website you don't agree with and perhaps honestly does nothing to benefit society. So while many people are claiming this is a free speech issue, I can only imagine cloudflare is getting a whole bunch of crazy coming out of the woodwork and threats to their own employees. As a business you need to decide what is worth the safety of your employees and what stands you want to take and cloudflare is deciding kiwi farms is not worth it based on the type of site it is.
I really wish we held large internet platforms to the same standards we do to the phone company or the power company. You shouldn't be able to decline service just because you dislike a customer.
It's getting rather scary that the internet is so centralized these days and anyone who speaks out against the Cathedral loses their ability to speak.
It's getting rather scary that the internet is so centralized these days and anyone who speaks out against the Cathedral loses their ability to speak.
They should consider building their own DDOS protection. I've heard thats pretty simple and something website owners should be expected to do on their own. After all, it's not like most website owners rally behind like one or two giant services to mitigate the issue of DDOS against their sites.
I for one never voted to have CF and DDoS-Guard as censors of the internet.
I for one never voted to have CF and DDoS-Guard as censors of the internet.
Wonder how long it will be before it’s back online or if the owner will throw in the towel.
Further in the OP thread there is a screenshot of owner's statement:
https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1566746606396997635
He says he has a "family emergency" and will be unavailable for a "week or more".
https://twitter.com/GossiTheDog/status/1566746606396997635
He says he has a "family emergency" and will be unavailable for a "week or more".
Guess he’s taking time to reflect if it’s worth the effort. Hopefully it’s the end of kiwi farms.
Last thing I heard was that they were still somehow accessible, but this was just discord talk.
EDIT: This was yesterday evening, EU time
EDIT: This was yesterday evening, EU time
Stallman is right again…
> Hosting providers MUST be forced to provide a platform for everyone and anyone against the will of the provider. It SHALL NOT matter how many people their customers brag about driving to suicide. Nor should the hosting provider take into consideration harassment campaigns orchestrated by users of their platforms.
-- Stallman, probably?
/endsarcasm
-- Stallman, probably?
/endsarcasm
I want content-neutral infrastructure.
KF are scum and much of what they do should be illegal, but I want those decisions made in a court of law where they can defend themselves, not by whoever got in the ear of the right tech CEO. Platforms aren't people and shouldn't have rights.
Following due process? That's unheard of.
Forcing professors investing all their life into advancement of human civilization out of universities because they said a funny word? The should lose all their possessions, it's completely harmless and right, trust me!
Calling someone names and pointing out things that are glaring OPSEC mistakes? Immediately drop and do everything to attack them!
p.s.: it's very sad to see enthusiasts and prominent engineers like Marcan getting corrupted by the plague of our times.
Forcing professors investing all their life into advancement of human civilization out of universities because they said a funny word? The should lose all their possessions, it's completely harmless and right, trust me!
Calling someone names and pointing out things that are glaring OPSEC mistakes? Immediately drop and do everything to attack them!
p.s.: it's very sad to see enthusiasts and prominent engineers like Marcan getting corrupted by the plague of our times.
And yet the courts are inadequate about protecting small-scale, individual rights. KF does targeted harassment, not large-scale terrorism, so agencies don't have much incentive to dedicate a disproportionate amount of resources on taking them offline.
Isn't it common in the US to sue for damages and shut down illegal behavior that way, e.g. Bollea v. Gawker?
Freedom of association is enshrined in many constitutions and laws across the globe as a fundamental right. Why do you want to force people to associate with those they do not want to?
I am member of a badminton club, we have a code-of-conduct. It contains things like:
- Don't harass other players
- Don't harass or be an ass towards refs
- Don't litter it the gym, keep it tidy
- Don't take performance-enhancing drugs
- and a few other such rules.
Why do we have to ask a judge in a court of law to be able to stop associating with a team-mate that keeps shouting sexual expletives at referees, keeps littering in the locker rooms, and generally makes the situation unpleasant? Why can't we just use our first amendment (or equivalent elsewhere) rights and stop associating?
I am member of a badminton club, we have a code-of-conduct. It contains things like:
- Don't harass other players
- Don't harass or be an ass towards refs
- Don't litter it the gym, keep it tidy
- Don't take performance-enhancing drugs
- and a few other such rules.
Why do we have to ask a judge in a court of law to be able to stop associating with a team-mate that keeps shouting sexual expletives at referees, keeps littering in the locker rooms, and generally makes the situation unpleasant? Why can't we just use our first amendment (or equivalent elsewhere) rights and stop associating?
and if people think your code of conduct is too harshly enforced they can and will go elsewhere, there are thousands of badminton clubs in the world. Different strokes for different folks.
Trying to kick someone off the internet entirely is a completely different matter.
Nobody is kicking anybody off the internet here. Kiwi Farms are free to associate with anyone willing to associate with them, or host their own content. There are thousands of hosts. Different strokes for different folks. Why should anybody be forced to give up their free speech/association rights because you say so?
If only the folks saying this stuff showed up in force to defend people other than nightmare bigots.
Most of my outrage is aimed at censorship of left-wing and antiwar content. Much of which is already banned from most of reddit and deranked from google - I don't want to see the whole internet go down that road via DDoS protection, and fear KF, who I hate, was a first step and not a last one.
Tech giants started justifying their abuses through "nazis bad" and now pointing out US support for Azov gets your website hidden.
Tech giants started justifying their abuses through "nazis bad" and now pointing out US support for Azov gets your website hidden.
Actually yes, probably something close to this.
_dain_(5)
Many such cases.
oneplane(6)
Where’s the consideration for CFs speech? If management doesn’t want to help serve filth, they shouldn’t be compelled to. They’re a private company. It doesn’t even have to be consistent.
I didn't know about this site until yesterday. After reading the thread that got them took down, I know one thing, I will not be letting my children near discord. I mean, if this is how people act in public[0], I hate to imagine what kind of stuff they are doing in a private discord, away from parents prying eyes.
There's no heroes in this story.
[0] Bathtub hormones being sold to minors in bright packaging featuring a cartoon with the speech bubble: "Don't look at my giant Girldick" and a warning to "Keep out of reach of parents" https://archive.ph/6DnzT
I doubt this person is representative of the trans community, she is probably just the most controversial, and made a name for herself that way. No more heroes, any more.
[0] Bathtub hormones being sold to minors in bright packaging featuring a cartoon with the speech bubble: "Don't look at my giant Girldick" and a warning to "Keep out of reach of parents" https://archive.ph/6DnzT
I doubt this person is representative of the trans community, she is probably just the most controversial, and made a name for herself that way. No more heroes, any more.
This sentiment towards not just discord, but the entire internet, is becoming increasingly common for a reason. I regret my time spent on the internet more and more with each passing day, and I've heard similar sentiments pop up like a shepard's tone in the dad's group I'm in.
Every parent wants their kids lives to be better than theirs were, for our parents, that meant things like not smoking and making sure your kids go to college. For the current generation, it's making sure they don't turn into dopamine addicts chasing an endless stream of outage and temporary group acknowledgement.
Every parent wants their kids lives to be better than theirs were, for our parents, that meant things like not smoking and making sure your kids go to college. For the current generation, it's making sure they don't turn into dopamine addicts chasing an endless stream of outage and temporary group acknowledgement.
From the threads I have seen, these are generally the type of people they make threads out of.
> I will not be letting my children near discord.
This seems to be a hazardous approach to me.
My young son recently installed a sketchy browser on his computer while trying to install a mod installer for a game. I check on his computer every so often to make sure he's being safe, and noticed the browser. So I asked him where he got it, because he had obviously been using it and it was set to default. He told me it came with some mod installer he installed. So I told him about the checkboxes on install wizards that sometimes install bundled adware and malware. It was a good conversation and he asked questions about what spyware looks for and what the information they collect could be used for. He is now prepared for when this inevitably happens again. He watched me uninstall the browser and click through all the dark patterns in the uninstall process, and commented on how hard they make it to remove this stuff. I also looked at the website where he got his mod loader and, while I'm never thrilled about proprietary Windows binaries, it looks reputable within the community.
Now I feel pretty confident that my son will be more careful when installing things. If I just arbitrarily put some restrictions on his usage of the computer I'm not really preparing him for anything. I'm just delaying his development of skills that he's going to need later. I could either monitor and guide him now, or he could struggle on his own later. You can shield your kids and leave their curiosity to fester and turn into resentment, or you can use their curiosity to impart your wisdom.
This seems to be a hazardous approach to me.
My young son recently installed a sketchy browser on his computer while trying to install a mod installer for a game. I check on his computer every so often to make sure he's being safe, and noticed the browser. So I asked him where he got it, because he had obviously been using it and it was set to default. He told me it came with some mod installer he installed. So I told him about the checkboxes on install wizards that sometimes install bundled adware and malware. It was a good conversation and he asked questions about what spyware looks for and what the information they collect could be used for. He is now prepared for when this inevitably happens again. He watched me uninstall the browser and click through all the dark patterns in the uninstall process, and commented on how hard they make it to remove this stuff. I also looked at the website where he got his mod loader and, while I'm never thrilled about proprietary Windows binaries, it looks reputable within the community.
Now I feel pretty confident that my son will be more careful when installing things. If I just arbitrarily put some restrictions on his usage of the computer I'm not really preparing him for anything. I'm just delaying his development of skills that he's going to need later. I could either monitor and guide him now, or he could struggle on his own later. You can shield your kids and leave their curiosity to fester and turn into resentment, or you can use their curiosity to impart your wisdom.
> I will not be letting my children near discord
That's the equivalent of saying "I will not be letting my children near the internet"
That's the equivalent of saying "I will not be letting my children near the internet"
I think the general thinking is that due to the limited number of hours per day, if you can keep [bad thing] away from your child within your own house, then they will struggle to ever acquire enough of [bad thing] to do harm considering the fact that they spend:
24 hours - 8 hours sleeping - 6 hours at school - [time spent in house] = negligible time left for malfeasance
24 hours - 8 hours sleeping - 6 hours at school - [time spent in house] = negligible time left for malfeasance
People say parents have to parent, society won't. Then when people say they'll put rules on the internet people say "damn that's crazy you're gonna do that?". Sometimes I feel as though much of society doesn't understand how parenting actually works
> I will not be letting my children near discord.
Good luck with that. Your children will seek things out on their own, against your will.
Good luck with that. Your children will seek things out on their own, against your will.
> I know one thing, I will not be letting my children near discord.
You might consider being the kind of parent who a trans kid could talk to about their identity issues instead of trying to censor their access to content which they're going to see anyway. Are you aware of the horrifying suicide numbers among this group? Please don't be that kind of parent.
There are no heroes in any story. But in many cases in this field, it's the parents that are the worst villains.
You might consider being the kind of parent who a trans kid could talk to about their identity issues instead of trying to censor their access to content which they're going to see anyway. Are you aware of the horrifying suicide numbers among this group? Please don't be that kind of parent.
There are no heroes in any story. But in many cases in this field, it's the parents that are the worst villains.
>Bathtub hormones being sold to minors in bright packaging featuring a cartoon with the speech bubble
Reading this is hilarious from someone in the know: you're referring to 'Otoko no Ko pharmaceuticals', which is a website operated in South America which asks no questions as to who they're shipping to; they just accept crypto payment and send it off. It's not part of some grooming campaign, and the characters featured are anime characters, not 'cartoon' characters in the sense you suggest targets children as consumers.
Reading this is hilarious from someone in the know: you're referring to 'Otoko no Ko pharmaceuticals', which is a website operated in South America which asks no questions as to who they're shipping to; they just accept crypto payment and send it off. It's not part of some grooming campaign, and the characters featured are anime characters, not 'cartoon' characters in the sense you suggest targets children as consumers.
>I know one thing, I will not be letting my children near discord
Ten years later: why is my kid such a loner?
Discord is the main persistent group chat service in the west (telegram seems popular in the third world except for China). It's used for virtually everything. Socially it's almost equivalent to cutting your kids from any online chat.
Honestly, I would consider a total ban a mild form of child abuse.
Ten years later: why is my kid such a loner?
Discord is the main persistent group chat service in the west (telegram seems popular in the third world except for China). It's used for virtually everything. Socially it's almost equivalent to cutting your kids from any online chat.
Honestly, I would consider a total ban a mild form of child abuse.
Did you skip over my justification? That people are using discord to talk to kids about sex and DIY hormone therapy, and selling BATHTUB hormones to kids without their parents knowing?
Discord is just chatrooms, known as 'servers', either public or private, ranging from tiny to massive. Anyone can create a discord server and plenty do. They're used for gaming, art, animation, learning languages, programming and, most importantly, keeping in touch with friends.
I've joining a large number of public discord servers and they've all been safe and well moderated.
Only a miniscule number of people would come across the server mentioned. If your kids want to learn about sex or hormones they'll learn it from plenty of other websites, or their mates. It's also unlikely they would learn about hormones, they would have to intentionally look for it, and they're probably not trans so why would they?
I've joining a large number of public discord servers and they've all been safe and well moderated.
Only a miniscule number of people would come across the server mentioned. If your kids want to learn about sex or hormones they'll learn it from plenty of other websites, or their mates. It's also unlikely they would learn about hormones, they would have to intentionally look for it, and they're probably not trans so why would they?
Same reasoning works for banning internet in general.
Banning discord in general is of course less damaging, but the reasoning is similarly incorrect. It's an enormous platform for chats about virtually everything.
A general ban on discord is going to socially harm any kid in the west.
Banning discord in general is of course less damaging, but the reasoning is similarly incorrect. It's an enormous platform for chats about virtually everything.
A general ban on discord is going to socially harm any kid in the west.
Trans woman here, both 1) access to HRT for minors and 2) HRT without medical/parental gatekeeping are widely supported positions in the trans community (which I also endorse).
Rationale for 1. It's widely supported by the medical community and by scientific studies, and helps improve the quality of life of people with gender dysphoria.
Rationale for 2. Gatekeeping traditionally consist in telling a psychiatrist anecdotal personal stories about your gender expressions and behaviors. Some psychiatrist hold sexist attitudes, and can prolong your gatekeeping or refuse treatment if you don't tell them a nice tradwife story (always known, only attracted to boys (if MtF) or girls (if FtM), always played with [gendered toy]).
This even has the opposite effect of not wanting to talk with them about genuine doubts, since they can deny you HRT if they don't like your adherence to sex stereotypes.
In the end the trans person themself is more qualified to know whether they would like their bodies to be more masculine or feminine.
(EDIT: added rationales)
Rationale for 1. It's widely supported by the medical community and by scientific studies, and helps improve the quality of life of people with gender dysphoria.
Rationale for 2. Gatekeeping traditionally consist in telling a psychiatrist anecdotal personal stories about your gender expressions and behaviors. Some psychiatrist hold sexist attitudes, and can prolong your gatekeeping or refuse treatment if you don't tell them a nice tradwife story (always known, only attracted to boys (if MtF) or girls (if FtM), always played with [gendered toy]).
This even has the opposite effect of not wanting to talk with them about genuine doubts, since they can deny you HRT if they don't like your adherence to sex stereotypes.
In the end the trans person themself is more qualified to know whether they would like their bodies to be more masculine or feminine.
(EDIT: added rationales)
Anyone (anyone regardless of anything) who said they believed giving any medicine to a child without parental consent, even implying subterfuge, to me is extremely dangerous and I would pull my child out of any activity/school/club if there was someone there with those views in a responsible role of the children.
For that reason I think attitudes like this do more harm for the trans community than good. If I knew a trans person with these views I would do everything possible to avoid any contact with them and my children.
For that reason I think attitudes like this do more harm for the trans community than good. If I knew a trans person with these views I would do everything possible to avoid any contact with them and my children.
Many, many public schools in the US gave out COVID shots without parental consent. It also seems that several of them are encouraging kids to transition and hide it from their parents - a school in Alaska was recently sued for this.
In the UK vaccinations are not mandatory. However, medical professionals can force treatment (or refuse treatment) based on the medical needs of the child. I don't have a problem with this as some parents kill their child from neglect. I am also not a doctor.
I can't really comment on the US. But thank you for the insight...
I can't really comment on the US. But thank you for the insight...
Also, if you are in the UK, you should note that "public schools" in the US are government-run schools. Our equivalent of your "public schools" are called "private schools" (EDIT: they are called "private schools" in the US only).
I think the solution of having the doctor manage this kind of thing is a lot better than what happens in the US.
I think the solution of having the doctor manage this kind of thing is a lot better than what happens in the US.
In the UK we would also call a public school a private school. Our free schools could be any number of things: a state school (secondary or primary), a college (usually 16-18 but a secondary (11-16) can also be a college), 6th form (16-18 only), grammar school (you have to pass exams to get into), high school (an americanism used in some places in the UK), academy (a secondary school with a different funding model from the government). All very confusing! I think the safest bet is to just call the free schools "secondary school" and the private schools private or public schools.
> I think the solution of having the doctor manage this kind of thing is a lot better than what happens in the US.
I think it is difficult as in the US medical care is mostly privatised.
You cannot sue a doctor in the UK, you would sue the trust (a collection of hospitals in a geographical area). So if a doctor needs to force treatment on a child and the parents refused it would go to a board who would approve or deny it. All children (and adults) will receive treatment for free, so there is also no gotchas about who is going to pay.
> I think the solution of having the doctor manage this kind of thing is a lot better than what happens in the US.
I think it is difficult as in the US medical care is mostly privatised.
You cannot sue a doctor in the UK, you would sue the trust (a collection of hospitals in a geographical area). So if a doctor needs to force treatment on a child and the parents refused it would go to a board who would approve or deny it. All children (and adults) will receive treatment for free, so there is also no gotchas about who is going to pay.
Abortion is another example where minors are allowed to make decisions by themselves. Which is particularly important when you have politically heated topics like these, where the medical literature and your average parent often hold very different views.
Yes, a medical abortion approved and administered by medical professionals.
I don't think the medical literature suggests taking homemade drugs from strangers on the internet.
I don't think the medical literature suggests taking homemade drugs from strangers on the internet.
When the political reality of the place where you live influences that, I definitely support gray-market solutions. Just like https://abort.lol/ exists for abortion.
You and people like you truly have no idea how much harm you are causing, do you? It is utterly irresponsible to encourage anyone, but a child more than anything, to take this type of medication without medical supervision. Consequences can be extraordinarily dire.
I will refrain from name-calling, but I have never been as angry or disgusted by anyone else on this site.
Edit: I want to make it clear that the dire consequences I'm talking about are NOT feminization/masculinization, nor even common complications of either such as infertility.
Taking uncontrolled doses of hormones, at irregular times, without any kind of tracking of the quantitative effects (blood tests to determine effective levels), especially for someone undergoing puberty, can easily lead to hormone overdoses that can seriously harm pretty much any organ in the body - including at the very least the heart, kidneys and liver. Testosterone and estrogen have many many effects in the body outside of determining sexual characteristics.
I will refrain from name-calling, but I have never been as angry or disgusted by anyone else on this site.
Edit: I want to make it clear that the dire consequences I'm talking about are NOT feminization/masculinization, nor even common complications of either such as infertility.
Taking uncontrolled doses of hormones, at irregular times, without any kind of tracking of the quantitative effects (blood tests to determine effective levels), especially for someone undergoing puberty, can easily lead to hormone overdoses that can seriously harm pretty much any organ in the body - including at the very least the heart, kidneys and liver. Testosterone and estrogen have many many effects in the body outside of determining sexual characteristics.
Your original post is now flagged/dead (seems hard to justify), so I'll respond here:
How do you make a judgment that some 12 yo kid is more at risk from having to wait for HRT approval due to not being able to find a sympathetic medical professional, vs the risk from being highly suggestible, unable to sensibly judge that HRT is the right solution and consequently causing permanent change to their bodies (including possible loss of fertility, and a number of other side-effects around blood clotting etc.) as they progress through puberty?
How do you make a judgment that some 12 yo kid is more at risk from having to wait for HRT approval due to not being able to find a sympathetic medical professional, vs the risk from being highly suggestible, unable to sensibly judge that HRT is the right solution and consequently causing permanent change to their bodies (including possible loss of fertility, and a number of other side-effects around blood clotting etc.) as they progress through puberty?
> HRT without medical/parental gatekeeping are widely supported positions in the trans community
It's a widely supported position of the trans community that minors should have access to home-made HRT without any quality control or regulation?
Because honestly, I feel like if you're taking hormone replacement therapy you want some kind of guarantee of quality.
It's a widely supported position of the trans community that minors should have access to home-made HRT without any quality control or regulation?
Because honestly, I feel like if you're taking hormone replacement therapy you want some kind of guarantee of quality.
For some trans people, the alternative is no gender-affirming care at all, which tends to lead to bad health outcomes (e.g., suicide).
To be trans is to live on the edge of the law and on the very cutting edge of biopunk medical science. A lot of shit is off-off-off-label, where there are no guarantees of quality, but something is better than nothing which is what you'd get if it were up to your parents and doctors.
To be trans is to live on the edge of the law and on the very cutting edge of biopunk medical science. A lot of shit is off-off-off-label, where there are no guarantees of quality, but something is better than nothing which is what you'd get if it were up to your parents and doctors.
The alternative is the come to terms with one's sexuality, just like everybody else. In other words, in most relevant cases here, to come out as a gay man.
"Can you just not be confusing and ignore what you want to do with your life? That would mean the world to me."
This is what you said.
This is what you said.
This was the first time I heard about "homemade" HRT. But proper HRT can be easily bought on online pharmacies. An index of them is available for example at https://diyhrt.wiki/ or https://hrt.cafe/
Well, you're just wrong then, and the behavior you are encouraging is literally illegal in most of the world.
And beyond legality, kids self-administering HRT with neither parental nor medical supervision is a truly scary thought. It is certain to leave most with significant health issues, that no amount of good will will help them solve.
And beyond legality, kids self-administering HRT with neither parental nor medical supervision is a truly scary thought. It is certain to leave most with significant health issues, that no amount of good will will help them solve.
What is supported by medical literature and law/bureaucracy are not necessarily aligned. Abortion also faces this problem.
Ideally yes you would want a GP to prescribe you HRT. But if in the place where you currently live this is not possible without years of gatekeeping, or parents have veto power, gray-market solutions are the next best possible alternative.
Ideally yes you would want a GP to prescribe you HRT. But if in the place where you currently live this is not possible without years of gatekeeping, or parents have veto power, gray-market solutions are the next best possible alternative.
I very much doubt you'll find any piece of medical literature supporting the idea that it is better for a child to self-medicate on complex drugs like HRT then it is to wait until they are legally able to ignore their idiotic parents and move out to a state that actually cares about their well-being and happiness. Not to mention, HRT is not at all recommended for children, puberty blockers are.
I fully support the right of children to receive puberty blockers to help them achieve a smooth transition when they are old enough to fully understand the consequences. I bemoan states and parents that seek to harm trans children by refusing them access to this type of treatment, and others. But slef-medicating as a child is in absolutely no way an acceptable replacement. Being a non-passing trans adult, as bad as it is, is likely to be much much better than the harms you expose yourself to by accidentally overdosing on hormones as a child.
I fully support the right of children to receive puberty blockers to help them achieve a smooth transition when they are old enough to fully understand the consequences. I bemoan states and parents that seek to harm trans children by refusing them access to this type of treatment, and others. But slef-medicating as a child is in absolutely no way an acceptable replacement. Being a non-passing trans adult, as bad as it is, is likely to be much much better than the harms you expose yourself to by accidentally overdosing on hormones as a child.
What is the difference between "medical gatekeeping" and requiring a prescription? Because over-the-counter hormone therapy (regardless of the intent or reasoning behind it) seems like an all around bad idea.
Nothing bad per se in requiring a prescription. What I'm talking about is the multiple psychologist/psychiatrist sessions where they get to decide whether you are allowed to start HRT mostly based on your adherence to sex stereotypes.
I also read a lot of the kiwifarms thread after this latest news, and it seems like there are a lot of trans people on that thread, so at least a slice of the trans community disagrees. This may be a popular position among trans activists and the Twitter crowd, though.
Your post, even with its edits, is gross. However, I must thank you for providing your words so that I may show my own two children about the dangers of belief systems such as yours.
Go for it. As a trans person who grew up with abusive parents who beat me instead of helping me with my gender identity, I wish I'd known of a way to start hrt sooner so I don't have to suffer now as a non-passing trans person.
But as they say, the cruelty is the point.
But as they say, the cruelty is the point.
> I will not be letting my children near discord.
Isn't this kind of a whack-a-mole approach to things? The internet is full of hazards... are you going to ban everything that comes up?
Isn't this kind of a whack-a-mole approach to things? The internet is full of hazards... are you going to ban everything that comes up?
The correct answer is to be having regular discussions with your kids about what they're doing online, and occasionally log into their accounts, having access to their usernames so that you can do it, so that you know what they're up to.
Probably not as necessary once they're like 15 or so, but up that age do not let them be on there on their own. And, of course, make sure they know critical thinking and discuss everything that they see online with them instead of heavy-handedly barring them from it.
Teach them about the satanic panics of the 1970s. Teach them about social pressure, teach them about rationalism, show them some good old James randii.
I've seen some of this trend on discord. It is genuinely nasty and you should be keeping tabs on your kids.
Probably not as necessary once they're like 15 or so, but up that age do not let them be on there on their own. And, of course, make sure they know critical thinking and discuss everything that they see online with them instead of heavy-handedly barring them from it.
Teach them about the satanic panics of the 1970s. Teach them about social pressure, teach them about rationalism, show them some good old James randii.
I've seen some of this trend on discord. It is genuinely nasty and you should be keeping tabs on your kids.
> log into their accounts, having access to their usernames so that you can do it, so that you know what they're up to.
Wouldn't it damage the trust between you and your child? I think even monitoring internet usage in-person or outright restricting access to potentially dangerous websites would be less intrusive. If your kid discovers you can access their messages at any time, it would make them more inclined to make other accounts and not discuss about any dangerous interactions on them out of fear of being discovered.
Wouldn't it damage the trust between you and your child? I think even monitoring internet usage in-person or outright restricting access to potentially dangerous websites would be less intrusive. If your kid discovers you can access their messages at any time, it would make them more inclined to make other accounts and not discuss about any dangerous interactions on them out of fear of being discovered.
The only way that's going to damage your trust with your kid is if you are secret about it. Show them and tell them that you're getting onto their accounts. They could even be sitting in the room with you.
Eventually you have to stop doing this, they have to grow up, but especially when they're very young it is very important that you're actually on their account because they don't know enough to see and report when something harmful is going on.
Eventually you have to stop doing this, they have to grow up, but especially when they're very young it is very important that you're actually on their account because they don't know enough to see and report when something harmful is going on.
> The correct answer
I'm not a parent, so I didn't want to say that, but it is certainly what I was thinking. =)
I'm not a parent, so I didn't want to say that, but it is certainly what I was thinking. =)
To be fair I'm not a parent either, maybe this just won't work.
But I was also a kid, and I know that if I was barred from doing something I would 100% go behind my parents back and do it anyway, so that's not going to work.
You have to try something else.
But I was also a kid, and I know that if I was barred from doing something I would 100% go behind my parents back and do it anyway, so that's not going to work.
You have to try something else.
Agreed 100%.
That said, my parents always told me that if I wanted to try drugs (like weed), let them buy it for me so that they could at least know I was getting good stuff.
Honestly, that just made it more awkward... but it did instill in me that I should at least make sure that I was not just taking random shitty drugs. It also made me wait until I could find stuff I could trust before trying it.
That said, my parents always told me that if I wanted to try drugs (like weed), let them buy it for me so that they could at least know I was getting good stuff.
Honestly, that just made it more awkward... but it did instill in me that I should at least make sure that I was not just taking random shitty drugs. It also made me wait until I could find stuff I could trust before trying it.
I agree with the point you are making, but if we do nothing (out of apathy or pragmatism) then how is OP supposed to protect their children? A complete ban on all social media and all internet connected devices?
I don't have the answer, I think OPs solution is the only practical one: constant and even-handed-as-possible vigilance and rules and hopefully a bit of curation too.
Honestly, the internet really isn't a good place for a child and their mental health. I'm in my 30s and have been an internet native for my entire conscious memory, having seen the early 4chan, gore, etc. on the unfiltered internet. Saying all that I think it is somehow even worse today. I'm not sure how I would navigate this if I were to have children.
I don't have the answer, I think OPs solution is the only practical one: constant and even-handed-as-possible vigilance and rules and hopefully a bit of curation too.
Honestly, the internet really isn't a good place for a child and their mental health. I'm in my 30s and have been an internet native for my entire conscious memory, having seen the early 4chan, gore, etc. on the unfiltered internet. Saying all that I think it is somehow even worse today. I'm not sure how I would navigate this if I were to have children.
This may not be perfect, but I have regular conversations with my kids about what they do online. With Discord in particular, we have a rule that they are only allowed to be on discord servers where they know everyone IRL.
They use Discord to figure out what other things they’re going to do either in person or in an online game. So this rule hasn’t been hard to follow for them.
They use Discord to figure out what other things they’re going to do either in person or in an online game. So this rule hasn’t been hard to follow for them.
Out of curiosity, I wonder if Kiwi was on that list before they were blocked entirely. I'd assume so. But again, this is just whack-a-mole... a kid could easily use a friends device that didn't have this on there.
> I didn't know about this site until yesterday.
It's interesting that your takeaway in light of this knowledge is a strategy that totally misses keeping your children away from the forum responsible for three suicides [0].
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms#Suicides_of_harassm...
It's interesting that your takeaway in light of this knowledge is a strategy that totally misses keeping your children away from the forum responsible for three suicides [0].
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms#Suicides_of_harassm...
While it is certainly possible that Near committed suicide, there is no proof of it. Even on the linked Wikipedia article, the only evidence is a Twitter thread and a few people saying that they "spoke to the police", and nothing else.
USA Today reported on a Twitter thread. They did not claim to have access to any official documents, only second hand accounts of what the police said.
There would most likely have been an official record of his death. Embassies in Japan usually publish records of expat deaths. None of the confirmed expat deaths in Japan in that time window match anything like Near's description.
The only reason information about his death would be blocked is due to an ongoing investigation by police.
It is unlikely that the police would share information about an ongoing investigation with anyone, and if they did it would only be with family.
What it boils down to is that someone on the internet heard from the Japanese police that near had killed himself because of online bullying.
Just to be clear, if I were Near, I might hoax my own suicide if it hurt Kiwifarms. But I don't think there is nearly enough evidence to justify deplatforming Kiwifarms.
USA Today reported on a Twitter thread. They did not claim to have access to any official documents, only second hand accounts of what the police said.
There would most likely have been an official record of his death. Embassies in Japan usually publish records of expat deaths. None of the confirmed expat deaths in Japan in that time window match anything like Near's description.
The only reason information about his death would be blocked is due to an ongoing investigation by police.
It is unlikely that the police would share information about an ongoing investigation with anyone, and if they did it would only be with family.
What it boils down to is that someone on the internet heard from the Japanese police that near had killed himself because of online bullying.
Just to be clear, if I were Near, I might hoax my own suicide if it hurt Kiwifarms. But I don't think there is nearly enough evidence to justify deplatforming Kiwifarms.
Missing the point entirely. That forum was public. The discord servers, where unknown adults are advising teenagers on sexuality and DIY hormone therapy is private.
It's not really clear what your point is. Surely you aren't saying that your strategy is to allow your kids on any online site as long as it's public, but that's the only clarification you've provided here.
Have you actually read about what they where doing in that private - no parents allowed - discord server? I'd love to link you to the actual content, but I can't, because it's private. You will have to read the tweets from the owner describing it in her own words, which is in the link that is the subject of this thread.
Sure that stuff isn't good, too.
I'm just wondering what your plan is to keep your kids off of this other (public) forum that your just learned about (and ones like it), if you have one.
I'm just wondering what your plan is to keep your kids off of this other (public) forum that your just learned about (and ones like it), if you have one.
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[deleted]
Works fine for me on Tor.
Tor won’t go down - for now. Once his host buckles, all belts are off.
There are hosts who don't ask for personal information and won't know they are hosting Kiwifarms if its a Tor hidden service if Josh wants to go that route.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. Good to see it.
Freedom of speech for speech you hate is also a social principle - see the ACLU Klan cases.
Principles aren't supposed to be easy to keep, otherwise they're hobbies.
Principles aren't supposed to be easy to keep, otherwise they're hobbies.
Freedom of Speech also means Cloudflare doesn't have to host anyone it doesn't want to.
Freedom of speech is a cultural value, it's not something strictly defined by the US constitution. It's the reason there is a constitution not the other way around.
There's a lot of incorrect things in this, but to address the incorrect thing most relevant to this discussion:
What you are asking for is called compelled speech. If what you think "free speech" is were true, the government could force newspapers and online news websites to publish articles written by the government that they do not agree with.
What you are asking for is called compelled speech. If what you think "free speech" is were true, the government could force newspapers and online news websites to publish articles written by the government that they do not agree with.
I don't understand how anyone reading someone saying something like this doesn't immediately picture some government organization with an authoritarian leader holding the exact same value while considering dissenters a harm to their society.
Considering DDoS is illegal where I live, no, nobody has the right to do that here! What does that have to do with Kiwi Farms?
I agree! KF is expressing their speech just as freely as they did before. But less of society is choosing to support that speech. What do you see wrong with that?
The ACLU also protected racial minorities and queer groups. The "free speech absolutists" who come out in force to protect organizations like KF rarely do that.
So if someone doesn't like what you say (and I presume there are plenty such people), do they have the right to DDoS you too?
Just to be clear this is of course not a threat or anything. I really want to know when you think that speech becomes punishable and who is supposed to decide that.
No, DDoS is a crime. If you support CF dropping KF as a customer because CF doesn't like what KF say, the equivalent argument is that anyone who doesn't like CF has the right to drop CF as DDoS protection.
This is a stupid clichee even on its on terms, but it doesn't even apply here, since shutting down Kiwi Farms does not just impose consequences on speech, it actually directly suppresses speech.
Kiwi Farms is merely being encouraged to be responsible for their speech without the help of a few others. What is wrong with that?
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"There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech." —https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin
I am really not surprised.
They already bullied someone to death.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/o90ats/near_the_emul...
Kiwi Farms is a cesspool and I'm glad it got booted off. We need stronger protections and laws against such heinous forms of organised harassment that ends up killing people.
Slightly related, but why would Archive admins exclude near.sh from the wayback machine? https://web.archive.org/web/20220000000000*/https://near.sh
There's no actual evidence that Near is dead.
spoils19(1)
APNIC has, apparently, withdrawn the IP addresses and ASN for Kiwi Farms.
Fuck with the trans community, get blackholed. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Fuck with the trans community, get blackholed. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
No I'm pretty sure ipinfo just lists their AS as inactive because it might not be announcing their prefix at the moment or may not have an active peer
https://whois.arin.net/rest/asn/AS397702/pft?s=AS397702
https://whois.arin.net/rest/asn/AS397702/pft?s=AS397702
So the trans community stands with Keffals, a documented child groomer and provider of puberty blockers + hormones to minors behind their parents' backs?
https://archive.ph/HY4hK
Promoter (again, to children) of sketchy Internet pharmacies that sell hormones with anime lolita box art and labels that say “keep away from parents”?
https://archive.ph/zZMRp
https://archive.ph/HY4hK
Promoter (again, to children) of sketchy Internet pharmacies that sell hormones with anime lolita box art and labels that say “keep away from parents”?
https://archive.ph/zZMRp
The trans community stands against doxxing, harassing, swatting, and stalking one of their own because of her gender identity and activist activities. Because they know, in cisnormative society, they'll be next. Of course, Kiwi Farms does not condone that sort of behavior (wink wink, nudge nudge). Once Kiwi Farms is down for good, I'm sure there will be Twitter bickerfests and slapfights about this and other issues (apparently Keffals is racist too?), but as long as Kiwi Farms is around, it is a direct existential threat to trans people and the community will be pretty united in making sure it is not allowed to operate on the public internet.
Over the past week I’ve read enough on and about Kiwi Farms to conclude that while “doxing” does happen there, as it does on Twitter and other websites, the claims of harassment and SWATing and users driving people to suicide are highly and cynically exaggerated. The evidence simply doesn’t support these claims, particularly the suicides:
https://archive.ph/JPHtM
The main issue seems to be that Kiwi Farms documents the actual, public behavior of many disgusting, pedophilic, embarrassing people on the Internet, some of whom are trans. Some of the people they document and laugh at are also neo-Nazis or alt-right. Some of the Kiwi Farms users are trans.
The willingness of many in news media and at companies like Cloudflare to take these claims of SWATing and harassment at face value with next to no evidence, or in the face of obvious sock-puppet posts to Kiwi Farms that are instantly removed by moderators, has been disheartening. It reminds me how r/againsthatesubreddit mods posted CASM to conservative subreddits to get them banned by site admins. I increasingly understand that the opponents of Kiwi Farms use the exact same tactics they project onto the site: doxing and SWATing Joshua Moon, harassing him and Kiwi Farms, spreading false information about the site’s content and activities. Their goal seems to be wiping evidence of child grooming, illegal drug distribution to minors, and other very bad and embarrassing behavior by their community from the web. They may succeed.
I hope reasonable members of the trans community can distance themselves sufficiently from these unstable activists. I hope people like Keffals have their unsavory activities documented and shared with a wider audience. I hope this mob of unscrupulous activists doesn’t succeed in controlling all speech on the Internet.
https://archive.ph/JPHtM
The main issue seems to be that Kiwi Farms documents the actual, public behavior of many disgusting, pedophilic, embarrassing people on the Internet, some of whom are trans. Some of the people they document and laugh at are also neo-Nazis or alt-right. Some of the Kiwi Farms users are trans.
The willingness of many in news media and at companies like Cloudflare to take these claims of SWATing and harassment at face value with next to no evidence, or in the face of obvious sock-puppet posts to Kiwi Farms that are instantly removed by moderators, has been disheartening. It reminds me how r/againsthatesubreddit mods posted CASM to conservative subreddits to get them banned by site admins. I increasingly understand that the opponents of Kiwi Farms use the exact same tactics they project onto the site: doxing and SWATing Joshua Moon, harassing him and Kiwi Farms, spreading false information about the site’s content and activities. Their goal seems to be wiping evidence of child grooming, illegal drug distribution to minors, and other very bad and embarrassing behavior by their community from the web. They may succeed.
I hope reasonable members of the trans community can distance themselves sufficiently from these unstable activists. I hope people like Keffals have their unsavory activities documented and shared with a wider audience. I hope this mob of unscrupulous activists doesn’t succeed in controlling all speech on the Internet.
Again? They don’t mess around do they?
If I were ever in a good mood (because censorship bs tends to be common) I'd laugh at the fact that those who speak so loudly against misinformation (the 3 suicides, the greene swat, the sleeper agent bomb threat) weaponized it to silence an archive of their personal idiocy/crimes. It's like the usa's ministry of truth happened anyway and this is the first step to the end times.
[deleted]
tomohawk(1)
Cloudflare needs to stop terminating weird sites. Here's the Daily Stormer, which Cloudflare cut off some time back, and is now back.[1] It's not much worse than many other right-wing sites. Neo-Nazis have been around since the 1960s, and they've mostly been a joke. As a kid, I walked past the HQ of the American Nazi Party, a small house in Arlington, VA, with a large "White Man Fight - Smash the Black Revolution Now" sign. Nobody was very upset about it.
Some of the militia and gun sites are much scarier. Look at some of the sites referenced at Accelerationism in Wikipedia.[2]
[1] http://stormer-daily.rw/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism
Some of the militia and gun sites are much scarier. Look at some of the sites referenced at Accelerationism in Wikipedia.[2]
[1] http://stormer-daily.rw/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism
[deleted]
Amusingly, the rating on the above posting has ranged from -2 to +3.
The modern 'Net is demonstrating the ability to interpret abuse as damage and route around it.
The pre-modern internet was a far more interesting place.
I was there and I cannot agree. I caution, in general, against mythologizing the past.
It was a wilder place, but so was the Wild West. Is Vegas less interesting than Tombstone?
I find it to be a different kind of interesting (and this one is far more convenient than what we had when it was AOL and BBSes).
It was a wilder place, but so was the Wild West. Is Vegas less interesting than Tombstone?
I find it to be a different kind of interesting (and this one is far more convenient than what we had when it was AOL and BBSes).
The current internet has been taken over by corporations and made safe for advertisers. I could read the thoughts of neo-nazis and free love hippies back to back and really gain a better understanding of people with different philosophers to me. The current internet is overwhelmed with advertising friendly pink capitalism neoliberalism.
Good riddance
[deleted]
Those people are free to go and meet somewhere in private. That is how it used to be done. That approach does not require using services that you do not control. Except for regulated monopoly utilities, most everyone else has the freedom to not be a vendor.
I’m continually surprised that Facebook, Twitter, and the rest dont simply create a web interface for law enforcement that allows them to delete (or more likely make invisible) content they want to censor. Noting in place of the post or tweet or whatever “law enforcement in your jurisdiction has deemed this post illegal and have hidden it for your safety”.
There’s a culture war afoot, the government wants to insert itself between the warring parties, there’s no need for executives to place their (their shareholders) company in the way. “Let the dog see the rabbit” as they say. Just harvest the energy in the system and monetise it, if that’s your mission.
There’s a culture war afoot, the government wants to insert itself between the warring parties, there’s no need for executives to place their (their shareholders) company in the way. “Let the dog see the rabbit” as they say. Just harvest the energy in the system and monetise it, if that’s your mission.
> I’m continually surprised that Facebook, Twitter, and the rest dont simply create a web interface for law enforcement that allows them to delete (or more likely make invisible) content they want to censor.
In the US, we have the First Amendment, which prohibits government censorship. Of course, the government still sometimes uses political pressure to censor things, but there's a need to keep a semblance of rule of law.
In the US, we have the First Amendment, which prohibits government censorship. Of course, the government still sometimes uses political pressure to censor things, but there's a need to keep a semblance of rule of law.
Actually, if Twitter et al. want to provide the tools to block arbitrary content, they can do that just fine - companies can speak with the police and follow their wishes regardless of the first amendment because Twitter's own protected speech allows them to block any content for any reason, whether that be "it violated our content on harassment" or "the police don't like it and we're voluntarily following their wishes".
> companies can speak with the police and follow their wishes regardless of the first amendment because Twitter's own protected speech allows them to block any content for any reason, whether that be "it violated our content on harassment" or "the police don't like it and we're voluntarily following their wishes".
Even if that wasn't against the First Amendment (which is a more complicated issue [1]), that wouldn't fly politically in the US. The side which likes law enforcement also currently puts emphasis on free speech, and the side which doesn't like the police wouldn't want them to be in charge of censorship.
I think a company doing that would make everyone their enemy, and generate a lot of bad PR.
[1]: For example, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
Even if that wasn't against the First Amendment (which is a more complicated issue [1]), that wouldn't fly politically in the US. The side which likes law enforcement also currently puts emphasis on free speech, and the side which doesn't like the police wouldn't want them to be in charge of censorship.
I think a company doing that would make everyone their enemy, and generate a lot of bad PR.
[1]: For example, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
Companies generally already do this with non-FISA "National Security Letter Requests" - Apple received between 1 and 499 between January and June 2021[0], and Google received between 500 – 999 in the same time frame[1].
Of course, this is nothing like allowing arbitrary content censorship in collaboration with law enforcement, which would indeed trigger a lot more outrage and bad PR.
0: https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
1: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/us-national-...
Of course, this is nothing like allowing arbitrary content censorship in collaboration with law enforcement, which would indeed trigger a lot more outrage and bad PR.
0: https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
1: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/us-national-...
Not really. National Security Letters [1] are for requesting data, not censorship. And of course, they are also controversial. Many of us consider the PATRIOT act a disaster.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter
I fail to see how you connected all of these points together. How did you get from "a private company chooses who they service" to "the government inserts itself between warring parties"? It really looks like you're pushing an agenda.
I suppose my point of view is probably coloured by the fact I’m in a society where we do not have freedom of speech enshrined in law, and once upon a time I worked for a firm with common carrier/Telco protections. If there is an agenda I’m pushing, it is simply that private companies stick to what they are good at (in this case running a DDoS prevention service) and do not engage in removing things they are not legally required to remove. Not all slopes are slippery, but some are.
I made a similar suggestion a couple of years ago[0] on a discussion about Google banning a podcasting app ("after 9 years for letting users play podcasts that reference COVID-19").
Of course it's a terrible idea (which might be why you're being downvoted) but that's the point. If we don't want governments deciding (in secret, without due process) which apps and accounts and pages to censor, then we shouldn't be comfortable with a situation where a handful of unrepresentative CEOs (who might all share the same politics, and golf together, in a foreign jurisdiction relative to most of their users) have an equally big narrative-controlling effect on multiple societies.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23230550
Of course it's a terrible idea (which might be why you're being downvoted) but that's the point. If we don't want governments deciding (in secret, without due process) which apps and accounts and pages to censor, then we shouldn't be comfortable with a situation where a handful of unrepresentative CEOs (who might all share the same politics, and golf together, in a foreign jurisdiction relative to most of their users) have an equally big narrative-controlling effect on multiple societies.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23230550
I had faith. I knew someone would get it eventually.
https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/
The cloudflare blog is a better resource on this topic.
The cloudflare blog is a better resource on this topic.
Not really. Just allusions to bad things. The actual response from the site owner showed that it was likely an agent provocateur who used a dormant account, and then posted a screenshot to twitter. The post in question was deleted by staff within minutes.
They corrected that, apparently the person self-deleted their comment (with the note "retarded") some minutes after it was screencapped for Twitter. But yes, a 2 year old account that had never done anything but one random post posts some threatening message apparently outside someone's house, gets screencapped on Twitter and self-deletes minutes later is their story, basically.
If service providers wanted to take down e.g. HN, such a pretext would be easy enough to create. HN would never get to that point, however, since most posts here don't piss off "protected groups". From my brief perusal in the week that I've been aware of KF, nearly every thread was intended to piss off such a group. That's a widely appealing if thankless task, so alternatives will probably be created soon enough.
The key differences are Kiwifarms is targeting individuals personally. And that they’re doing it kind of randomly, for the lulz. Whereas their main opponents here are targeting a company/community, and acting in self-defence.
I know who I think is more worthy of protection.