Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Death of the Internet (2021)(madattheinternet.substack.com)
madattheinternet.substack.com
Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Death of the Internet (2021)
https://madattheinternet.substack.com/p/where-the-sidewalk-ends-the-death
75 comments
The "real" (i.e. without central authority) internet isn't over HTTP. It hasn't been for some time now, and all of the web3 stuff lately is the result of that latent sentiment bubbling up for the last 30 years.
The core issue is that alternate options for maintaining a generally accessible presence rely on squatting traditional infrastructure -- TOR, freenet, i2p, urbit, etc. all rely on some sort of cloaked communication over the standard global network hierarchy, and can at any time be blocked on a packet level if the established entities wish it. These blocks can be circumvented, and so far they have been, but freedom is generally on the defensive here.
What is the solution? Meshnets are the only thing that come to mind, but they're not a feasible thing to construct, especially with a niche userbase.
The core issue is that alternate options for maintaining a generally accessible presence rely on squatting traditional infrastructure -- TOR, freenet, i2p, urbit, etc. all rely on some sort of cloaked communication over the standard global network hierarchy, and can at any time be blocked on a packet level if the established entities wish it. These blocks can be circumvented, and so far they have been, but freedom is generally on the defensive here.
What is the solution? Meshnets are the only thing that come to mind, but they're not a feasible thing to construct, especially with a niche userbase.
> These blocks can be circumvented, and so far they have been, but freedom is generally on the defensive here.
This weakness has become especially apparent in recent years when governments react to civil unrest or protests by shutting off the internet. Signal doesn't help much when the data pipes stop flowing.
I recall hearing about another privacy-focused messaging app that could be used peer-to-peer with Bluetooth, though I cannot recall its name. Edit: I think it was Briar? Not something I'm familiar with.
This weakness has become especially apparent in recent years when governments react to civil unrest or protests by shutting off the internet. Signal doesn't help much when the data pipes stop flowing.
I recall hearing about another privacy-focused messaging app that could be used peer-to-peer with Bluetooth, though I cannot recall its name. Edit: I think it was Briar? Not something I'm familiar with.
App might have been https://scuttlebutt.nz/ off the grid focused p2p messaging system.
I just came across "something p2p with Bluetooth" called Berty, though didn't get much further than bookmarking it for later.
Mesh networks are easy to destroy as the only scalable solution is wireless and that is obviously weak against localized jamming.
A protest or other meatspace collective organized through a mesh net would be cut off and disrupted to the point where the network would be viewed as unreliable. Kids on horses are far more reliable.
Mesh networks to share information broadly are susceptible to misinformation campaigns, partisan politics, and the simple problem of covering vast distances with pedestrian tech. AM Radio is far more reliable.
A protest or other meatspace collective organized through a mesh net would be cut off and disrupted to the point where the network would be viewed as unreliable. Kids on horses are far more reliable.
Mesh networks to share information broadly are susceptible to misinformation campaigns, partisan politics, and the simple problem of covering vast distances with pedestrian tech. AM Radio is far more reliable.
Reforming section 230 is misguided. The author already seems quite wary of how that might be screwed up, but in my view still not wary enough. Instead, infrastructure companies (ISPs, DDoS protection, CDNs, hosting providers) should be regulated as common carriers[1].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
Has Kiwi Farms now been kicked off the internet? It doesn’t show up in Google, there is no link on the Wikipedia page, and a more recent Cloudflare announcement says they stopped providing DDoS protection service.
A week ago, they were dropped by their ISP, Zayo, for an alleged violation of Zayo's AUP. There was a thread discussing this last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33307711
So, who wants to crowdfund a tortitious interference suit against Zayo ?
They seem to be online via Tor, but have temporarily taken down whatever proxy/server their .net domain points to for the last ~week for reasons. It's likely that they will put their stuff back online though. And before that they were online on clearnet for many weeks and thwarting DDoS fine.
The owner has been posting updates on telegram. He didn’t take it down. The tier 1 ISP Zayo blackholes his IP.
He has VPS providers willing to host the site but there are only 16 tier 1 ISPs and now that they are engaging in censorship, it’s impossible to run anything but a tor site. And the owner stated that if he is unable to get back on the clear net he will shut the site down and change name.
He has VPS providers willing to host the site but there are only 16 tier 1 ISPs and now that they are engaging in censorship, it’s impossible to run anything but a tor site. And the owner stated that if he is unable to get back on the clear net he will shut the site down and change name.
Does 'blackhole' imply that Zayo accepted packets for delivery and then threw them away ? Because if UPS had done that, someone would have gone to prison.
Looks like it's back online, anon.
We need to normalize anonymity online so Kiwi Farms wouldn't be able to kill people. The successful push for real identities destroyed the internet.
But the FAANGs don't want that because they can't make billions selling you ads and compiling your information.
I think you're right but for the wrong reason. Social media is insanely profitable, and when you anonymize that people wouldn't be as invested, so they want people in it personally and often.
I don't think it has to do with them compiling your information because it'd be easy for us to be outwardly anonymous on the web so no one you're interacting with has any idea who you are while still allowing those companies to track you in depth since they're behind the scenes. It's not like they need to know your real name to give you targeted ads.
I don't think it has to do with them compiling your information because it'd be easy for us to be outwardly anonymous on the web so no one you're interacting with has any idea who you are while still allowing those companies to track you in depth since they're behind the scenes. It's not like they need to know your real name to give you targeted ads.
> It's not like they need to know your real name to give you targeted ads.
They don't need your real name, but it helps. If Google knows to who you are everytime you sign into your Google account, that's easier than just relying on IP address to target those ads.
They don't need your real name, but it helps. If Google knows to who you are everytime you sign into your Google account, that's easier than just relying on IP address to target those ads.
Everyone can make an anonymous website. And anonymity has nothing to do with ads. You can allow people to post anonymously, without a username, so that they can't be doxxed, and still show them targetted ads.
Oops, you've been DDOSed, better start paying cloudflare to keep your site up.
The old internet is dead and replaced with something worse.
The old internet is dead and replaced with something worse.
There was no old internet without DDoS attacks.
Kiwifarms and their users has not been confirmed to have killed anyone or caused any suicides.
But yes, pseudoanonymity is important.
But yes, pseudoanonymity is important.
To the author and everyone who might think the way he does:
Here are a couple of rules I have found true and are actually really basic.
- No one owes you anything not attention, not money, not food, not land, not bandwidth, not domain name, not peering agreements, nothing.
- Access to everything in the above list is predicated on not being an asshole, because if you are an asshole, you are going to be shunned in the best of cases.
Finally if you can't find hosting, peering whatever, setup your own ISP and peer with Jim Watkins, I am sure you are going to love each other.
Here are a couple of rules I have found true and are actually really basic.
- No one owes you anything not attention, not money, not food, not land, not bandwidth, not domain name, not peering agreements, nothing.
- Access to everything in the above list is predicated on not being an asshole, because if you are an asshole, you are going to be shunned in the best of cases.
Finally if you can't find hosting, peering whatever, setup your own ISP and peer with Jim Watkins, I am sure you are going to love each other.
> No one owes you anything not attention, not money, not food, not land, not bandwidth, not domain name, not peering agreements, nothing.
Naturally when it's your turn to have the boot on your neck I'm sure you'll lamely acquiesce to the situation because, after all, nobody owes you anything.
Sometimes tortious interference really is tortious interference. Sometimes common carriers need to be regulated as common carriers.
Naturally when it's your turn to have the boot on your neck I'm sure you'll lamely acquiesce to the situation because, after all, nobody owes you anything.
Sometimes tortious interference really is tortious interference. Sometimes common carriers need to be regulated as common carriers.
Wow. This felt psychopathic & elitist to core.
Nobody gets born in void and from void & not sharing faith of kinds, he never chose, just by own unique starting point he was spawn in.
You are born with roots & strings attached to everything around that specific spot.
nobody ever in history existed as a free electron.
Being born as a slave 2000 years ago is reality millions of people still experience just under different cultural name.
Pretending world works other way is just a wishful thinking of somebody lucky to isolate himself in own bubble, illusory reality.
BTW you probably were born in West and it itself means being born already indebted by decisions of generations before you & forced to pay collective ransom for their collective mistakes.
Every person owns to own parents for getting born, the less siblings has the more owns them, no matter what kind of raising got. Except if you believe it to be their debt to repay for own existence.
Asshole will never admit to being asshole himself but will see assholes even where there are none to make himself look better.
Asshole will deny all reality before him coming to the world & claim all his imaginary rights to start fresh as if being the first entitled human in history. Like the first exeuropean farmer immigrant on stolen commonly indian land.
Despite obviously being a one generic part of bigger picture, of long chain that will be still growing & continuing long after him and his meaningless brief moment of rebelling against own nature, origin & higher level purpose passess.
Cables put by my ancestors are co-owned by them, and through them by me, the same as right to send data through it anyway I wish, the same as land payed for for eternity by their blood, tears, scars, sweat, the same as their ideals & dreams, and space of mental freedom created by their thoughts & physical efforts. The same as public national forests. The same as free water & air. The same as common treasures under common ground & what living nature yields on that common wild & put loose territory.
And I owe to my fellow co-owners respect for their rightful share, even if they ignore own inborn rights, as long as they don't make it less as they are managing it faithfully & pass it to those after them.
The same as to those outsiders who come to build & increase this heritage in good will becoming part of it freely & by buying recognition through their sacrifices to this common eternal monument.
Betraying these principles & selling all national, historical land to some big entities or new monarchy doesn't change rightful ownership. You can take it back any time you want.
The same when a King betrays nation and gives away national crown to other foreign crown cutting off royal line of succession, as long as his blood exists, obligation to lead the nation exists too & can be restored by will of nation. As long as blood & myth lives as long the historical law of continuity is in power. Similarly with multigenerational ownership of a piece of land by a family or clan. the same family law, on smaller scale until the last one dies or looses memory of it.
All problems started when people were forced to live on territory in proportion comparable to a rathole without self-sustainability. Then all the competition & forced pyramidal centralisation & ratrace started. Farming at start helped to later make it worse by creation of rat colonies, called cities, full of assholes claiming nobody owns them nothing & they not own anything to blood related neighbours, even when an uninvited war or domestic aggression bites their "free" asses equally.
Nobody gets born in void and from void & not sharing faith of kinds, he never chose, just by own unique starting point he was spawn in.
You are born with roots & strings attached to everything around that specific spot.
nobody ever in history existed as a free electron.
Being born as a slave 2000 years ago is reality millions of people still experience just under different cultural name.
Pretending world works other way is just a wishful thinking of somebody lucky to isolate himself in own bubble, illusory reality.
BTW you probably were born in West and it itself means being born already indebted by decisions of generations before you & forced to pay collective ransom for their collective mistakes.
Every person owns to own parents for getting born, the less siblings has the more owns them, no matter what kind of raising got. Except if you believe it to be their debt to repay for own existence.
Asshole will never admit to being asshole himself but will see assholes even where there are none to make himself look better.
Asshole will deny all reality before him coming to the world & claim all his imaginary rights to start fresh as if being the first entitled human in history. Like the first exeuropean farmer immigrant on stolen commonly indian land.
Despite obviously being a one generic part of bigger picture, of long chain that will be still growing & continuing long after him and his meaningless brief moment of rebelling against own nature, origin & higher level purpose passess.
Cables put by my ancestors are co-owned by them, and through them by me, the same as right to send data through it anyway I wish, the same as land payed for for eternity by their blood, tears, scars, sweat, the same as their ideals & dreams, and space of mental freedom created by their thoughts & physical efforts. The same as public national forests. The same as free water & air. The same as common treasures under common ground & what living nature yields on that common wild & put loose territory.
And I owe to my fellow co-owners respect for their rightful share, even if they ignore own inborn rights, as long as they don't make it less as they are managing it faithfully & pass it to those after them.
The same as to those outsiders who come to build & increase this heritage in good will becoming part of it freely & by buying recognition through their sacrifices to this common eternal monument.
Betraying these principles & selling all national, historical land to some big entities or new monarchy doesn't change rightful ownership. You can take it back any time you want.
The same when a King betrays nation and gives away national crown to other foreign crown cutting off royal line of succession, as long as his blood exists, obligation to lead the nation exists too & can be restored by will of nation. As long as blood & myth lives as long the historical law of continuity is in power. Similarly with multigenerational ownership of a piece of land by a family or clan. the same family law, on smaller scale until the last one dies or looses memory of it.
All problems started when people were forced to live on territory in proportion comparable to a rathole without self-sustainability. Then all the competition & forced pyramidal centralisation & ratrace started. Farming at start helped to later make it worse by creation of rat colonies, called cities, full of assholes claiming nobody owns them nothing & they not own anything to blood related neighbours, even when an uninvited war or domestic aggression bites their "free" asses equally.
Would there be any merit in rebuilding the internet inside the exising one, using it only as transport ? Rebuilding all of it, including DNS ?
You can already host just about anything via Tor. But it’s so slow and inconvenient, especially on mobile that you may as well not exist.
Only because of the way modern web is developed now. If you build for a slow network it is much faster. We had internet when infrastructure was much slower you know.. And why to not mix both.
There might be if the current Internet wasn't almost entirely at the mercy of the whims of governments and mega-corporations. Either can too readily just "shut you off" if they desire, leaving you "out in the cold" with no means of connectivity. No VPN or encryption will help you if you're barred from even connecting to the network.
Against government it wouldn't help much. But against mega-corporations, it could be quite effective. How do you pull the plug when the logical and physical topologies don't match ?
I don't know how to feel about this.
The interlocutor is not neutral. He is - to put it politely - an enabler of, or an active participant in, some of the most distasteful acts a person can commit short of physical violence.
I try to avoid thinking about these things as I strongly believe in GIGO, but based on cursory research this person's website has,
> The Kiwi Farms community considers it a goal to drive its targets to suicide, and has celebrated such deaths with a counter on the website
> The forum’s homepage featured a “kill count” that tallied how many people the site had hounded to suicide
https://forward.com/news/517780/kiwi-farms-trolling-website-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms
-
> On August 24, 2022, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene stated in an interview with NewsMax that she was swatted twice by an individual claiming to be Kiwifarms moderator "AltisticRight". She demanded that the website be shut down
https://www.businessinsider.com/kiwi-farms-trans-activists-m...
-
> "A few years back, I was doxed by Kiwi Farms, and someone came to my home and raped me. I have reason to believe he got my address from KF."
https://twitter.com/BathysphereHat/status/155387982349959578...
-
> Twitch streamer under the name "Keffals", was doxxed on Kiwi Farms in a thread dedicated to discussing her. Users on the site posted personal information about her (e.g. addresses, phone numbers) as well as that of her friends and family. Users also leaked sexually explicit photos of her and made death threats.[34][35] She was later swatted, arrested, and detained for over ten hours in August 2022 when someone stole her identity and sent fake emails to local politicians threatening mass violence. She was later cleared of any wrongdoing, and police acknowledged the incident as a swatting attempt.
-
> In the final Twitter thread they posted before their death, Near—who also went by Byuu, and identified as nonbinary—publicly called out Kiwi Farms for making their lifelong experience with online harassment and bullying “orders of magnitude worse.”
> “It’s escalated from attacking me for being autistic, to attacking and doxing my friends, and trying to suicide bait another, just to get a reaction from me,” they wrote. “The internet is not a game. It’s real life. I’m a real person. This stuff really hurts.”
https://gizmodo.com/the-worst-site-on-the-web-gets-ddosd-aft...
-
And the list goes on and on.
There's a difference between maintaining a forum whose users do horrid things v. maintaining a forum where the owner/chief moderator posts a counter of the number of people they've driven to suicide.
It's vile. BUT does that merit banishment?
In the spirit of Jean-Luc Picard, while the interlocutor is abhorrent, removing him from the internet, a fundamental service feels just as wrong as doing nothing.
I don't know what the answer is over here.
What is the morally correct thing to do in the face of such immediate evil and a righteous choice that will also (eventually) lead to evil? How do we pick the lesser?
How do we know that we've made the right choice?
To quote one of my favorite TNG lines, "Villains who twirl their mustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well-camouflaged."
The interlocutor is not neutral. He is - to put it politely - an enabler of, or an active participant in, some of the most distasteful acts a person can commit short of physical violence.
I try to avoid thinking about these things as I strongly believe in GIGO, but based on cursory research this person's website has,
> The Kiwi Farms community considers it a goal to drive its targets to suicide, and has celebrated such deaths with a counter on the website
> The forum’s homepage featured a “kill count” that tallied how many people the site had hounded to suicide
https://forward.com/news/517780/kiwi-farms-trolling-website-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms
-
> On August 24, 2022, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene stated in an interview with NewsMax that she was swatted twice by an individual claiming to be Kiwifarms moderator "AltisticRight". She demanded that the website be shut down
https://www.businessinsider.com/kiwi-farms-trans-activists-m...
-
> "A few years back, I was doxed by Kiwi Farms, and someone came to my home and raped me. I have reason to believe he got my address from KF."
https://twitter.com/BathysphereHat/status/155387982349959578...
-
> Twitch streamer under the name "Keffals", was doxxed on Kiwi Farms in a thread dedicated to discussing her. Users on the site posted personal information about her (e.g. addresses, phone numbers) as well as that of her friends and family. Users also leaked sexually explicit photos of her and made death threats.[34][35] She was later swatted, arrested, and detained for over ten hours in August 2022 when someone stole her identity and sent fake emails to local politicians threatening mass violence. She was later cleared of any wrongdoing, and police acknowledged the incident as a swatting attempt.
-
> In the final Twitter thread they posted before their death, Near—who also went by Byuu, and identified as nonbinary—publicly called out Kiwi Farms for making their lifelong experience with online harassment and bullying “orders of magnitude worse.”
> “It’s escalated from attacking me for being autistic, to attacking and doxing my friends, and trying to suicide bait another, just to get a reaction from me,” they wrote. “The internet is not a game. It’s real life. I’m a real person. This stuff really hurts.”
https://gizmodo.com/the-worst-site-on-the-web-gets-ddosd-aft...
-
And the list goes on and on.
There's a difference between maintaining a forum whose users do horrid things v. maintaining a forum where the owner/chief moderator posts a counter of the number of people they've driven to suicide.
It's vile. BUT does that merit banishment?
In the spirit of Jean-Luc Picard, while the interlocutor is abhorrent, removing him from the internet, a fundamental service feels just as wrong as doing nothing.
I don't know what the answer is over here.
What is the morally correct thing to do in the face of such immediate evil and a righteous choice that will also (eventually) lead to evil? How do we pick the lesser?
How do we know that we've made the right choice?
To quote one of my favorite TNG lines, "Villains who twirl their mustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well-camouflaged."
> On August 24, 2022, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene stated in an interview with NewsMax that she was swatted twice by an individual claiming to be Kiwifarms moderator "AltisticRight". She demanded that the website be shut down.
I think it's naive to accept claims like this at face value.
Kiwi Farms is an extremely controversial website that people are constantly trying to take down by any means necessary, including DDOS and hacking. Isn't it suspicious that in the midst of a massive public campaign against KF, someone SWATs a far-right political figure and then calls back to say "by the way I am <well-known user> on KF"?
I think it's naive to accept claims like this at face value.
Kiwi Farms is an extremely controversial website that people are constantly trying to take down by any means necessary, including DDOS and hacking. Isn't it suspicious that in the midst of a massive public campaign against KF, someone SWATs a far-right political figure and then calls back to say "by the way I am <well-known user> on KF"?
I can't speak for all of the mentioned incidents, but I know that the MTG swatting at the very least was fabricated for the specific purpose of trying to take down the website.
The situation was patently absurd -- the chance somebody called in a swatting and included the name of their online persona is far lesser than it being a false flag attack.
The situation was patently absurd -- the chance somebody called in a swatting and included the name of their online persona is far lesser than it being a false flag attack.
I find it bizarre that you can list all of those incidents and then cap it off with a soliloquy depicting the banishment of the website as some deep moral dilemma. I don’t mean to be rude when I use the word bizarre, but I am seriously perplexed. Based on what you’ve described, expulsion from the internet pales in comparison to the criminal prosecution that normally follows these kind of allegations.
criminal prosecution that normally follows these kind of allegations.
That's the thing. Illegal content posted to KF is reported and removed. Even Mathew Prince couldn't show a screenshot of the "imminent threat" that got KF taken down. The illegal acts committed by people who have KF accounts aren't committed on Kiwi Farms. So the question becomes, is your website being populated largely by assholes celebrating other people being assholes a good reason to terminate its access to hosting and ISPs?
Personally I stand by my now decade-old position that ISPs should be common carriers.
That's the thing. Illegal content posted to KF is reported and removed. Even Mathew Prince couldn't show a screenshot of the "imminent threat" that got KF taken down. The illegal acts committed by people who have KF accounts aren't committed on Kiwi Farms. So the question becomes, is your website being populated largely by assholes celebrating other people being assholes a good reason to terminate its access to hosting and ISPs?
Personally I stand by my now decade-old position that ISPs should be common carriers.
Agreed, and to put it more simply - Shutting down a website that aims to kill people is not at all on the same level of sin as trying to kill people. To argue otherwise is asinine and, frankly, offensively pretentious.
Besides that, I've lost patience with the high-road wait-and-see attitide. Being "good" is not simply to condemn and look down upon the "bad". Being good requires intentional, decisive action to eliminate the world's evils. Anything less is indifference and virtue signaling. All that is required for evil to prevail is for "good" people to do nothing.
Besides that, I've lost patience with the high-road wait-and-see attitide. Being "good" is not simply to condemn and look down upon the "bad". Being good requires intentional, decisive action to eliminate the world's evils. Anything less is indifference and virtue signaling. All that is required for evil to prevail is for "good" people to do nothing.
------
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
------
People like you are too easily manipulated. And for what? If it's "just a website" then allowing it to exist isn't a big deal. But it's more than just a website in the same way that the vehicle used to run someone over is more than "just a car".
And while I agree with your overall sentiment, shutting down a website is exact what you're arguing against. If you want to be "good" maybe you should step up and start getting these people thrown in jail for their harassment. But doing so removes the anonymity of the internet, which is a far greater evil.
And that's what it boils down to. You take the good with the bad, just as you take the bad with the good.
Giving everyone the ability to exist online protects both FB and Kiwifarms. To protect FB means to protect kiwifarms. Failing to protect kiwifarms means failing to protect FB. And if you're still not understanding, replace FB with "you" in the previous sentences.
That Kiwifarms needs to be protected but FB doesn't is a circumstance of the current times, but you can't uncork that bottle once it's opened. Failing to protect Kiwifarms means when FB does need to be protected it will not be.
So we tolerate Kiwifarms, not because we think it should exist, but because if we act on the impulse to remove it, it enables others to do the same and the argument is that NO ONE should be able to do that.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
------
People like you are too easily manipulated. And for what? If it's "just a website" then allowing it to exist isn't a big deal. But it's more than just a website in the same way that the vehicle used to run someone over is more than "just a car".
And while I agree with your overall sentiment, shutting down a website is exact what you're arguing against. If you want to be "good" maybe you should step up and start getting these people thrown in jail for their harassment. But doing so removes the anonymity of the internet, which is a far greater evil.
And that's what it boils down to. You take the good with the bad, just as you take the bad with the good.
Giving everyone the ability to exist online protects both FB and Kiwifarms. To protect FB means to protect kiwifarms. Failing to protect kiwifarms means failing to protect FB. And if you're still not understanding, replace FB with "you" in the previous sentences.
That Kiwifarms needs to be protected but FB doesn't is a circumstance of the current times, but you can't uncork that bottle once it's opened. Failing to protect Kiwifarms means when FB does need to be protected it will not be.
So we tolerate Kiwifarms, not because we think it should exist, but because if we act on the impulse to remove it, it enables others to do the same and the argument is that NO ONE should be able to do that.
If a person fears that their affiliation with a website threatens their well-being if their identity were to be exposed as a result of their interactions with it, then they need to disassociate themselves from the website and depending on the nature of the website’s community, take a long look in the mirror. If they aren’t up for those options, then pony up and take whatever consequences come along with sticking around, that is, if the internet itself and the nature of how it exists today is that dear to a person.
> When the Nazis came for the communists,
This is a misquote.
Niemöller was wise enough to know there were limits in what should be defended.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-nie...
> The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
This is a misquote.
Niemöller was wise enough to know there were limits in what should be defended.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-nie...
> The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
The paradox of tolerance has nothing to do with the idea that we should protect all or we'll find ourselves unable to protect any.
I can be intolerant of murder while also protecting a murderers right not to be murdered.
I can be intolerant of murder while also protecting a murderers right not to be murdered.
The paradox of intolerance says we should not tolerate (or protect) intolerance.
That doesn't mean we should allow murderers to be murdered. But nor should we protect the speech of someone who is using it to harass, intimidate and victimize people.
That doesn't mean we should allow murderers to be murdered. But nor should we protect the speech of someone who is using it to harass, intimidate and victimize people.
Yes we should for all the reasons already outlined.
It isn't the popular speech that needs protecting.
It isn't the popular speech that needs protecting.
So you disagree with the principle of the paradox of intolerance?
To quote Karl Popper:
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
It seems to me that KiwiFarms is exactly the type of "movement preaching intolerance" and they themselves have "placed itself outside the law" (cite: Moon's response to the NZ request to take down the Christchurch shooter's live stream).
So why should a tolerant society accept this intolerance?
As Popper points out: [this does] "not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies". But clearly KiwiFarms has gone beyond rational argument - they claim the right to harass people in the name of free speech.
To quote Karl Popper:
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
It seems to me that KiwiFarms is exactly the type of "movement preaching intolerance" and they themselves have "placed itself outside the law" (cite: Moon's response to the NZ request to take down the Christchurch shooter's live stream).
So why should a tolerant society accept this intolerance?
As Popper points out: [this does] "not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies". But clearly KiwiFarms has gone beyond rational argument - they claim the right to harass people in the name of free speech.
Please stop reiterating lies.
Kiwifarms is a gossip site, offensive and obscene at that, but there is no evidence of "harassment and murder" being orchestrated or organized by its members.
To the contrary, any threats posted there are removed faster than on commercial platforms such as Facebook, and the website, its owner and its users make a point of "do not contact the discussion targets" quite often.
Why a US site should obey NZ law is also beyond me.
Kiwifarms is a gossip site, offensive and obscene at that, but there is no evidence of "harassment and murder" being orchestrated or organized by its members.
To the contrary, any threats posted there are removed faster than on commercial platforms such as Facebook, and the website, its owner and its users make a point of "do not contact the discussion targets" quite often.
Why a US site should obey NZ law is also beyond me.
This has nothing to do with the paradox of tolerance and everything to do with the principle of free speech.
When we as a society become ok with harassment and murder, come talk to me. Until then, you're abusing the idea because you think it agrees with you. It's a gateway to censorship.
If this ability had been put into place 20 years ago it would be gay-oriented websites that were shut down due to their indecency. After all, the paradox of tolerance, right!?!?
No, it's real easy. free speech is free speech. If someone is found to be harassing, use criminal law to prosecute. Does criminal law have a higher bar than kicking websites off the internet? Yep, and that's on purpose.
When we as a society become ok with harassment and murder, come talk to me. Until then, you're abusing the idea because you think it agrees with you. It's a gateway to censorship.
If this ability had been put into place 20 years ago it would be gay-oriented websites that were shut down due to their indecency. After all, the paradox of tolerance, right!?!?
No, it's real easy. free speech is free speech. If someone is found to be harassing, use criminal law to prosecute. Does criminal law have a higher bar than kicking websites off the internet? Yep, and that's on purpose.
> No, it's real easy. free speech is free speech.
It's difficult to say how fundamentally I disagree with this premise.
It's difficult to say how fundamentally I disagree with this premise.
Then I suggest you move to an authoritarian country where free speech rights aren't guaranteed. Because if you're in the US, it will never be false that free speech is free speech.
You will certainly be more likely to achieve your goals of limiting others speech.
You will certainly be more likely to achieve your goals of limiting others speech.
Why would a murderer have any right to live? That's completely immortal & illogical. That's also against the oldest law in western civilization from Bible (in one place prohibiting killing for no reason but advicing murdering a murderer in other, in self-defence obviously).
If a person breaks other person right to live & takes away their life they by law of justice loose own right to living. If somebody steals my property he looses right to keep his property as it becomes means to balance the harm.
If a doctor gives a lethal diagnosis despite not being 100% sure of lethal outcome instead of informing of possibility in objective and balanced way unnecessarily inducing lethal stress in his patient and the patient dies soon after then I can expect him to pay back for his harmful action with equal lethal stress, as just compensation. If it causes death to child that had some chance of being born healthy but caused miscarriage it also can be assessed as consciously causing harm. Or if a doctor do not inform about drugs treating "a plague" that exist just are censored or can't be bought legally in this particular state also is intentionally doing harm. Such doctor should not stay doctor for one second longer.
Doing differently would be a double standard and suicidal acceptance to more injustice adding incentive to this unpunished injustice. And so being a sucker asking to be suckered more. That's the reason why suckers of Christendom got crushed by barbarians and western civilization shrunk by half. Until they regained self-survival instinct. This kind of retoric is used by hostile minorities to atomise hosting majority system & take advantage of it's instability (divide and conquer) Special privileges for these hostile minorities promoting them to top of society is the next step to disarm & highjack law, disturb sense of proportions in such state/nation what naturally seeds common distrust & hostility in majority or unites it in common sense of injustice in own country against the privileged.
When you have justice & clear minimal laws you have order without need for any artificial concepts to keep social relations stable & people behaving morally.
The only problem is when the ruling elite is not part of the ruled majority. Then any good law in theory becomes own caricature in practice.
But you can easily notice it when law becomes complex, volumous & you need a special caste of priests of the law to translate it to commoners...
And if you create a cultural division and you can't have one law fitting all then it's time to accept irriversible division & divorce into two or more stable units with clear moral identity & clean system or prepare for inevitable cultural rot & collapse or war.
BTW Are you believing in self-defence from "death" by wearing a facediaper & isolating healthy people with natural immunity without new popular genetic blood modification too? And do you see abortion as it is as a murder of a human being? Just curious. I often see many hypocrites with double standards in our civilization nowadays. More eager to save a murderer than give a child with 10% chance to get born healthy a chance or to sacrifice kids health & normal conditions of their early development for sake of old sick half-dead zombies..
If a person breaks other person right to live & takes away their life they by law of justice loose own right to living. If somebody steals my property he looses right to keep his property as it becomes means to balance the harm.
If a doctor gives a lethal diagnosis despite not being 100% sure of lethal outcome instead of informing of possibility in objective and balanced way unnecessarily inducing lethal stress in his patient and the patient dies soon after then I can expect him to pay back for his harmful action with equal lethal stress, as just compensation. If it causes death to child that had some chance of being born healthy but caused miscarriage it also can be assessed as consciously causing harm. Or if a doctor do not inform about drugs treating "a plague" that exist just are censored or can't be bought legally in this particular state also is intentionally doing harm. Such doctor should not stay doctor for one second longer.
Doing differently would be a double standard and suicidal acceptance to more injustice adding incentive to this unpunished injustice. And so being a sucker asking to be suckered more. That's the reason why suckers of Christendom got crushed by barbarians and western civilization shrunk by half. Until they regained self-survival instinct. This kind of retoric is used by hostile minorities to atomise hosting majority system & take advantage of it's instability (divide and conquer) Special privileges for these hostile minorities promoting them to top of society is the next step to disarm & highjack law, disturb sense of proportions in such state/nation what naturally seeds common distrust & hostility in majority or unites it in common sense of injustice in own country against the privileged.
When you have justice & clear minimal laws you have order without need for any artificial concepts to keep social relations stable & people behaving morally.
The only problem is when the ruling elite is not part of the ruled majority. Then any good law in theory becomes own caricature in practice.
But you can easily notice it when law becomes complex, volumous & you need a special caste of priests of the law to translate it to commoners...
And if you create a cultural division and you can't have one law fitting all then it's time to accept irriversible division & divorce into two or more stable units with clear moral identity & clean system or prepare for inevitable cultural rot & collapse or war.
BTW Are you believing in self-defence from "death" by wearing a facediaper & isolating healthy people with natural immunity without new popular genetic blood modification too? And do you see abortion as it is as a murder of a human being? Just curious. I often see many hypocrites with double standards in our civilization nowadays. More eager to save a murderer than give a child with 10% chance to get born healthy a chance or to sacrifice kids health & normal conditions of their early development for sake of old sick half-dead zombies..
The pathological liar aka keffal is not someone I would take their words to heart[1].
KF is at best passively in support of doxing and of harassing people or at worst actively doing both of it.
[1]https://destinygg.substack.com/p/keffals-a-case-study-on-int...
KF is at best passively in support of doxing and of harassing people or at worst actively doing both of it.
[1]https://destinygg.substack.com/p/keffals-a-case-study-on-int...
Note that most of these are false, misleading or unconfirmed.
Do not believe everything you read when looking at the heavy drama parts of the infosphere.
Do not believe everything you read when looking at the heavy drama parts of the infosphere.
Was there actually a kill count on there? I never noticed that and seems like something I wouldn't have missed.
IIRC a single user had a sarcastic "kill count" added to their profile description, which was then reported as the website itself having that.
That's not sarcasm.
> That's not sarcasm.
Regardless of the user's intent, I think it's at least misleading to claim that it represented the site as a whole.
I personally believe that it's sarcastic considering Kiwi Farm's history with Trans Lifeline. They exposed the founders for embezzling money and not answering the phones; the founders were removed by the board, but not before going on a public crusade claiming Kiwi Farms was responsible for the death of someone. This was back in 2016 and is the earliest instance of that claim, as far as I've been able to tell.
https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/5d5qgb/tran...
https://archive.ph/m1sfd
https://web.archive.org/web/20190412085911/https://www.faceb...
https://corinnacohn.substack.com/p/the-world-should-not-need...
I spent a considerable amount of time digging through internet archives to better understand the drama. It became clear to me that, while the owner and many users of the site are deplorable, they are not the cartoonishly evil caricature that people claim they are.
Regardless of the user's intent, I think it's at least misleading to claim that it represented the site as a whole.
I personally believe that it's sarcastic considering Kiwi Farm's history with Trans Lifeline. They exposed the founders for embezzling money and not answering the phones; the founders were removed by the board, but not before going on a public crusade claiming Kiwi Farms was responsible for the death of someone. This was back in 2016 and is the earliest instance of that claim, as far as I've been able to tell.
https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/5d5qgb/tran...
https://archive.ph/m1sfd
https://web.archive.org/web/20190412085911/https://www.faceb...
https://corinnacohn.substack.com/p/the-world-should-not-need...
I spent a considerable amount of time digging through internet archives to better understand the drama. It became clear to me that, while the owner and many users of the site are deplorable, they are not the cartoonishly evil caricature that people claim they are.
Thank you for this insight, I had no idea.
I came to know KiwiFarms from Byuu's death so I have a tendency to believe many of the negative things said about them.
But the media misrepresenting something like that is absolutely believable and I'm glad you were able to set me straight.
I came to know KiwiFarms from Byuu's death so I have a tendency to believe many of the negative things said about them.
But the media misrepresenting something like that is absolutely believable and I'm glad you were able to set me straight.
> In the spirit of Jean-Luc Picard, while the interlocutor is abhorrent, removing him from the internet, a fundamental service feels just as wrong as doing nothing.
I know that Finland will disagree with me here, but the internet is not a "fundamental service". It is set of insanely complex systems built and maintained at large cost by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
If I own a car dealership, or a bakery, I have the right to refuse service to anyone who walks in and insults me. Similarly, I think ISPs have the right, as businesses, to refuse service to anyone, for any reason.
Now you could argue something like "but it's a public good! The government pays for a part of it!". This is true, but you can say the same thing about the road system - the entity responsible for creating the road system (in this case, the government) has the power to decided under what conditions it can be used. For example, if you drive drunk, you can be excluded from the road system, 'fundamental rights' be damned.
Despite the lofty rhetoric of post-Enlightenment constitutions, it is wise to remember that the so-called 'social-contract' [0] is, like any contract, a two way engagement. You get police protection and education and access to services, ONLY on the condition that you play by the rules.
[0] and that's assuming we avoid the cynical anarchist view that really, a government is just a glorified protection racket imposing its will upon you by coercion.
I know that Finland will disagree with me here, but the internet is not a "fundamental service". It is set of insanely complex systems built and maintained at large cost by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
If I own a car dealership, or a bakery, I have the right to refuse service to anyone who walks in and insults me. Similarly, I think ISPs have the right, as businesses, to refuse service to anyone, for any reason.
Now you could argue something like "but it's a public good! The government pays for a part of it!". This is true, but you can say the same thing about the road system - the entity responsible for creating the road system (in this case, the government) has the power to decided under what conditions it can be used. For example, if you drive drunk, you can be excluded from the road system, 'fundamental rights' be damned.
Despite the lofty rhetoric of post-Enlightenment constitutions, it is wise to remember that the so-called 'social-contract' [0] is, like any contract, a two way engagement. You get police protection and education and access to services, ONLY on the condition that you play by the rules.
[0] and that's assuming we avoid the cynical anarchist view that really, a government is just a glorified protection racket imposing its will upon you by coercion.
> If I own a car dealership, or a bakery, I have the right to refuse service to anyone who walks in and insults me.
Yes, but not if you own a telephone company. Is an ISP more like a telephone company, or more like a bakery?
Yes, but not if you own a telephone company. Is an ISP more like a telephone company, or more like a bakery?
> Yes, but not if you own a telephone company.
Why not?
Why not?
Telephone companies are regulated as common carriers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier#Telecommunicati...
I'm perfectly fine for people that are a detriment to a society to not be let partecipate in the society.
My only gripe with the whole thing is that we shouldn't rely nor give private companies such power. That is something that provider should have deferred to judiciary, and then acted upon their direction.
There is a scale question in there to be solved, but frankly it's scary how much power comes from the oligopolization of certain aspect of the infrastructure. It's not even just internet, payment processors are so few they can literally meet in a zoom call and decide you won't do any business in half of the world.
My only gripe with the whole thing is that we shouldn't rely nor give private companies such power. That is something that provider should have deferred to judiciary, and then acted upon their direction.
There is a scale question in there to be solved, but frankly it's scary how much power comes from the oligopolization of certain aspect of the infrastructure. It's not even just internet, payment processors are so few they can literally meet in a zoom call and decide you won't do any business in half of the world.
thrown_22(1)
I typically bring up the ISIS murdersites that somehow lasted longer on the Internet than did sites like this, or Stormfront. Why do I do that?
Because I like to remind people who are all about how good they are that they focused on crap like Encyclopedia Dramatica versus places where you can see a row of men executed near simultaneously with detcord. Someone just has to point and say "Nazi!?" and everyone goes wild, but videos of a caged man being set on fire to dance about in his own self-immolation, that gets a pass. 8chan is bad if they take a clip of that and put "Disco Inferno" as a backing track as a .webm, but somehow the original source just ... well, that happened somewhere else. How does this work?
I remember the shoe being on the other foot in the distant past, but memories are short. Everything in this post is about the refutation of our naive "The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" beliefs back when it was "our guys" getting censored. While definitions of what constitutes fascism varies, many of them feature the tight alignment of corporations with the government, where the corporation carries out the will of the government at the time, side-stepping legal protections a citizen might have against the government.
Paypal is going to have its $2,500 disinformation fee. Payment processors can and will lock down anything not squeaky clean. This consolidation only allows for greater control by fewer and fewer entities.
If nothing else, allow me to appeal to your self-interest. Imagine that all of these strictures come into place and then the "wrong government" gets into power. Swap out wordlists of banned topics, update the image filters, and boom.
People are in such a hurry to create manacles but never stop to wonder if the shackles will end up on their own wrists.
Because I like to remind people who are all about how good they are that they focused on crap like Encyclopedia Dramatica versus places where you can see a row of men executed near simultaneously with detcord. Someone just has to point and say "Nazi!?" and everyone goes wild, but videos of a caged man being set on fire to dance about in his own self-immolation, that gets a pass. 8chan is bad if they take a clip of that and put "Disco Inferno" as a backing track as a .webm, but somehow the original source just ... well, that happened somewhere else. How does this work?
I remember the shoe being on the other foot in the distant past, but memories are short. Everything in this post is about the refutation of our naive "The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" beliefs back when it was "our guys" getting censored. While definitions of what constitutes fascism varies, many of them feature the tight alignment of corporations with the government, where the corporation carries out the will of the government at the time, side-stepping legal protections a citizen might have against the government.
Paypal is going to have its $2,500 disinformation fee. Payment processors can and will lock down anything not squeaky clean. This consolidation only allows for greater control by fewer and fewer entities.
If nothing else, allow me to appeal to your self-interest. Imagine that all of these strictures come into place and then the "wrong government" gets into power. Swap out wordlists of banned topics, update the image filters, and boom.
People are in such a hurry to create manacles but never stop to wonder if the shackles will end up on their own wrists.
The irony of complaining about the fragmentation of information and free things being given when a freemium modal block prevents you from reading the screed.
There's a difference between reading something for free and being free to read something.
A paywall is annoying but solvable with a wallet. Being behind the great firewall isn't.
A paywall is annoying but solvable with a wallet. Being behind the great firewall isn't.
[deleted]
It's not really that different, because there is no law that says the article must be made available to me as long as I pay a reasonable fee. The paywalling company is free to discriminate both the readers and the writers at it's whim.
Yes, because you don't have the right to force others to work for you at whatever you consider a 'fair price' and thank fuck for that.
Discrimination and slavery are othogonal. You can have a rule that says if you want to sell flour in a store, you have to apply the same standards to all comers. You can't be mysteriously out of flour just for the black family, or it costs 100x more just for the gay couple, etc. This does not make you a flour-selling slave because you don't have to be in the flour-selling buisiness at all.
Trying to make that somehow related merely exposes something unflattering about anyone who tries it.
I don't know how that could be applied to publishing/broadcasting platforms, but it doesn't matter because the point was only to say that there is no such rule, which means a wallet does not solve the paywall problem, and being free to read something and reading something for free are in fact not entirely unrelated, depending on the particulars of why you can't read something for free.
If there was say, some kind of unmoderated publicly run service where everyone had to pay a certain fee to access it, maybe even in the form of taxes, and everyone had access to it by law, that would be free to read and not read for free, but we don't have that. All we have are things where someone gets to decide what you are free to read.
Trying to make that somehow related merely exposes something unflattering about anyone who tries it.
I don't know how that could be applied to publishing/broadcasting platforms, but it doesn't matter because the point was only to say that there is no such rule, which means a wallet does not solve the paywall problem, and being free to read something and reading something for free are in fact not entirely unrelated, depending on the particulars of why you can't read something for free.
If there was say, some kind of unmoderated publicly run service where everyone had to pay a certain fee to access it, maybe even in the form of taxes, and everyone had access to it by law, that would be free to read and not read for free, but we don't have that. All we have are things where someone gets to decide what you are free to read.
and having sex with a 5 year and is no different from having sex with a 25 year old.
Oh wait ... yeah, it's different and the mechanics being roughly similar doesn't remove those differences.
Oh wait ... yeah, it's different and the mechanics being roughly similar doesn't remove those differences.
yes, I said exactly that
The internet is becoming smaller (I don't mean in physical size), more centralized, controlled by fewer parties, and I really fear at this point how far that is going to continue in the future. Truthfully at one point I never thought we'd end up where we now find ourselves.
I see the dream of what the internet was supposed to be dying and it makes feel hopeless if I'm honest. It's one of the most important things we've ever collectively built and yet I'm increasingly cynical about its impact and future.