Cloudflare terminate 8Chan

[rcmaehl]

1 hour ago, realpetertdm said:

Yes my cherrypicked example is totally representative of an internet forum known to harbor alt-right racists

 

I'm pretty sure those imageboards contain all kinds both of the extreme left and extreme right. With extremely lax moderation ideas of all sorts can blossom, even those others or even the general public may not agree with. Sites such as 4chan and 8chan are a dual edged sword. Even with slight moderation, you can easily introduce religious, political, and other idealistic bias for conversational topics, preventing truly free speech. On the other hand, having no moderation, you're allowing potential for conversational topics and media to allow the promotion and sale of sexual and physical abuse.

[NunoLava1998]

8 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

 

I'm pretty sure those imageboards contain all kinds both of the extreme left and extreme right. With extremely lax moderation ideas of all sorts can blossom, even those others or even the general public may not agree with. Sites such as 4chan and 8chan are a dual edged sword. Even with slight moderation, you can easily introduce religious, political, and other idealistic bias for conversational topics, preventing truly free speech. On the other hand, having no moderation, you're allowing potential for conversational topics and media to allow the promotion and sale of sexual and physical abuse.

4chan definitely has moderation and they definitely enforce the rules. No idea about 8chan

[Drak3]

Just now, NunoLava1998 said:

4chan definitely has moderation

Here's the thing, to many of the people calling for 4Chan's ban see equal moderation as a lack of it.

[spartaman64]

ive been thinking maybe we should start going to 8chan not to attack the people there in fact that would be quite detrimental to what i want to achieve but to just share our ideas. i think that a big reason why the shooters became like that is because they are in an echo chamber which creates a feedback loop giving them more and more extreme views so we need more moderate people on 8chan

[TacoSenpai]

1 minute ago, spartaman64 said:

ive been thinking maybe we should start going to 8chan not to attack the people there in fact that would be quite detrimental to what i want to achieve but to just share our ideas. i think that a big reason why the shooters became like that is because they are in an echo chamber which creates a feedback loop giving them more and more extreme views so we need more moderate people on 8chan

No you mean have the freedom to discuss possibly widely different ideas to deescalate the situation and possibly come out better on both sides for it instead of banning people for wrong think?  What a novel concept...

[rcmaehl]

9 minutes ago, TacoSenpai said:

No you mean have the freedom to discuss possibly widely different ideas to deescalate the situation and possibly come out better on both sides for it instead of banning people for wrong think?  What a novel concept...

Where's my thonk emoji when I need it

[PCGuy_5960]

I disagree with that decision TBH, Cloudflare offers hosting/website protection, right? So, in what way are they responsible for the content that is posted on the websites they host? This kind of reminds me of the platform or publisher debate about YouTube.

[rcmaehl]

2 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

... does having someone as the customer mean that the company is implied to fully stand behind them morally? ._.

 (not mentioning their point of refusing service to problematic clients for the moment)

 

By associating with them, you're siding with them is the current cultural thinking apparently.

[vorticalbox]

9 hours ago, BigDamn said:

I'm not big on censorship but I think this is the right move. Many people on these message boards are sick and get their motivation to kill from other users there. These killers need someone to impress and their fellow 8chan, 4chan, etc. peers are the only ones they can. Obviously this won't eliminate 8chan from the internet, but I like the stance Cloudflare is taking.

Sick they my be not not illegal. 

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

 

By associating with them, you're siding with them is the current cultural thinking apparently.

While I can understand, and have joined that crowd, this shouldn’t apply here. They’re being paid for DDOS protections and hosting, not for content moderation, advertising, or search engine optimization.

[rcmaehl]

2 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

but like when is it "defending" and when is it "allowing"? I'm sure people would want to "allow" others of differing opinions, but when is "defending" someone "a means to maintain civil discourse" and when is it "fully receptive of the opposing view"?

I'm not fully qualified to answer this kind of question. I'll refer you to one of these experts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_sociopolitical_thinkers

[Commodus]

5 hours ago, Trixanity said:

Aren't we just moving into the same territory as the war on drugs? This is essentially "if we kill all bad sites, there will be no bad people" similar to "if we try to get rid of drugs, say how bad they are and punish any seller or buyer severely; then drugs will go away".

 

How did that one go again?

I don't think the argument is that hyperbolic.  It's just that you don't want to make it easy for people like that to have a haven online.

 

The "sunlight is the best disinfectant" strategy doesn't really work online, I've found.  If you allow extremists on mainstream platforms, they just stick to their own kind for real conversations and only interact with other groups when they're sending death threats and harassment.  And if they operate in public in "anything goes" sites like 8chan or Voat, those communities end up primarily attracting people who were either the dregs of society to start with or are on a rapid slide toward that path... they rarely see the light.  Kicking those sites out at least reduces the chances they'll recruit new members.

[Dedayog]

What's so odd about about a company denying service to those espousing illegal acts?

 

I get it that we want to be social justice warriors and we go apeshit if a cake maker won't make a cake for a gay couple due to their religious beliefs, but at some point it's still MY FUCKING COMPANY and I should get to decide what customers I can and cannot serve.

 

A good line is "illegal shit".  Make gay people cakes, cuz that isn't illegal in the US.  8chan is crossing the line.   

 

As a company, we are there to provide a service/product.  Outside of legal issues, that should be done to any and all without discrimination.  Illegal is outside of that, or should be IMO.

[Trixanity]

25 minutes ago, Commodus said:

I don't think the argument is that hyperbolic.  It's just that you don't want to make it easy for people like that to have a haven online.

 

The "sunlight is the best disinfectant" strategy doesn't really work online, I've found.  If you allow extremists on mainstream platforms, they just stick to their own kind for real conversations and only interact with other groups when they're sending death threats and harassment.  And if they operate in public in "anything goes" sites like 8chan or Voat, those communities end up primarily attracting people who were either the dregs of society to start with or are on a rapid slide toward that path... they rarely see the light.  Kicking those sites out at least reduces the chances they'll recruit new members.

So making the dregs of society, as you call them, feel hunted will help them onto the path of enlightenment? I somehow doubt it'll improve the situation. In fact it's more likely that they'll explode if they have no outlet at all because they're not welcome anywhere and they won't feel so either. That's the core problem. Basically you've got a rabid dog and you're trapping it in a corner. Good luck with that.

[Commodus]

Just now, Trixanity said:

So making the dregs of society, as you call them, feel hunted will help them onto the path of enlightenment? I somehow doubt it'll improve the situation. In fact it's more likely that they'll explode if they have no outlet at all because they're not welcome anywhere and they won't feel so either. That's the core problem. Basically you've got a rabid dog and you're trapping it in a corner. Good luck with that.

There is the potential for that, but at the same time, you also won't have a ready outlet for these extremists to goad each other on and recruit new members into their fold.  There's more than one story of people sliding into extremism after finding a ready outlet for it at sites like this.  Hell, the El Paso shooter may have been one.  He last posted on Twitter in 2017, when he was an enthusiastic Trump supporter; 8chan was apparently his next step.

[SenKa]

9 hours ago, poochyena said:

4Chan is really bad guise lets ban dem!!!1!

 

In the US, Cloudflare is legally in the right here. The supreme court has upheld a very dangerous precedent that businesses are allowed to refuse service to people/groups they do not agree with. This was harmless and SEEMED like the right move, before I thought more of it I even agreed with the decision of the high court. But, this is what comes of that ruling, exactly this.

 

4Chan and 8Chan are very tight knit communities, they will not die. They will move from provider to provider to other apps or just set up local meetups. You cannot kill something this essential to some peoples lives without banning it, and we all see how that worked when ANTIFA was brought up to put on the terrorist groups list. 

 

I don't agree with Cloudflare's decision at all, but in the end all they're is doing is losing money, some provider will wise up and advertise "WE WILL NOT TERMINATE YOUR SERVICE FOR ANY REASON WITHOUT WARNING!", and once Cloudflare oversteps by cutting something a little more socially acceptable they will feel the pain of their actions.

[narglesnoop]

People use the internet to seek validation and reinforcement of their world view. Services like Twitter are popular partly because they provide the capability to minutely filter the information that users see. Rather than expose people to new ideas, the internet serves to reinforce existing ideas. Closing a particular website will not change this, and I'm not even sure it's a bad thing. People like what they like, and who am I to judge?

 

Law enforcement probably likes these sites because they provide the opportunity to infiltrate and observe. Every message is recorded, every data packet traced. There is no privacy, no anonymity.

 

And no easy answers.

 

[justpoet]

42 minutes ago, SenKa said:

In the US, Cloudflare is legally in the right here. The supreme court has upheld a very dangerous precedent that businesses are allowed to refuse service to people/groups they do not agree with. This was harmless and SEEMED like the right move, before I thought more of it I even agreed with the decision of the high court. But, this is what comes of that ruling, exactly this.

So, there's a real legal issue here, that boils down to rights and freedoms.  The supreme court ruled in that way because of examples of small private businesses saying they didn't want to work for specific customers (such as the gays demanding a cake from somebody making wedding cakes that was religiously opposed to gay marriage).  That is an example of freedom of religion and freedom of speech.  Then there's situations like this, which I would call being "in the middle" where CloudFlare is the de-facto option for this sort of distributed service until you are large enough to do your own similar services (akami can do some similar things, in certain situations, for portions of your traffic, but not all).  Cloudflare is obviously a large company, and you could even argue that they're "essential" on the internet today for many sites…but there are other options, and they're still privately owned (they do have a planned IPO though, and are certainly not a "small business" anymore that gets more lax laws for various other things, such as equal opportunity hiring, etc).  Next you get to platforms with real competition (even if not highly used), such as Youtube (vimeo, dailymotion, etc).  This is where it starts to be a really interesting discussion, because they're not only large, they're also public, and the sole purpose of them is to be a media platform.  This is also where you really have the issues of "copyright" vs "free speech" vs "decent for the average audience" vs "we allow kids on here, so limit content" all become nuanced, and likely to have laws created if they aren't already.  Then lastly, you have the "I'm 100% a monopoly" level of things like FaceBook where they're so integrated into EVERYTHING that it is becoming increasingly hard to do business or get people to talk in any other form (I prefer old fashioned e-mail…but most people don't bother to check theirs anymore).  This is the level where the REAL "free speech" argument can be made, because when they're blocking or banning what somebody says that not popular, not allowing links to websites that say similar…they really are effectively stifling the ability to have any meaningful large scale discussion.

 

Of course…then there's the even larger problem.  Most people can no longer have a discussion and agree that they disagree, but try to work to something they can both agree on as a compromise.  The mass majority have unfortunately been conditioned to think they have freedoms FROM everything that offends them, rather than that they have freedom OF the ability to think and express the views they want, be it majority or minority.  The only time that SHOULD be legally limited (and used to be the actual legal precedent) is when your right of expression steps on somebody else's rights (such as "inciting to violence"…like calling for a mob to go after somebody).

 

Law makers, and many keyboard warriors, are currently all caught up trying to fight against a simple rule from IT.

"You can't fix sociological problems technologically, and you can't fix technical problems sociologically."

[poochyena]

4 hours ago, realpetertdm said:

Yes my cherrypicked example is totally representative of an internet forum known to harbor alt-right racists

I can't speak for 8chan, but for 4chan, what you describe only happens on /pol/ and maybe /b/. The rest of the dozens of boards don't have any more alt-right racists than, say, LTT forums. Lumping all the boards into one really shows you don't know what you are talking about.

[Tristerin]

Me: My platform I can choose who can and cannot use it - if CloudFare (I don't even keep up with any of this) wants to decide who can and cannot use THEIR service or platform, well - its theirs not yours.  Go make your own.

[rcmaehl]

28 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Lumping all the boards into one really shows you don't know what you are talking about.

White supremacy in one board's thread. LGBT Interracial pornography in another.

One or two boards don't represent the site as a whole

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

I won't say that Cloudflare did a good thing, but I won't say they didn't, either.

[justpoet]

23 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

White supremacy in one board's thread. LGBT Interracial pornography in another.

One or two boards don't represent the site as a whole

Actually, they BOTH represent the site.  The content of ALL the various channels/threads is the site people come to view and discuss, so any content on the site is actually representative of the site.

 

This is not an attack on any given view/thread/channel/site.  Just a correction in logic.

[vorticalbox]

4 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Here's the thing, to many of the people calling for 4Chan's ban see equal moderation as a lack of it.

Hear hear.

[Majinhoju]

1 hour ago, Tristerin said:

Me: My platform I can choose who can and cannot use it - if CloudFare (I don't even keep up with any of this) wants to decide who can and cannot use THEIR service or platform, well - its theirs not yours.  Go make your own.

Exactly.

This is just capitalism at work.  These companies can choose to drop a customer they feel keeping them is bad for business or bad for their own corporate image.