That anybody'd even think to block a website on such grounds is worrying.
That it actually happened is alarming.
That it actually happened is alarming.
I don't really see much value lost in taking 4chan down, just like it's not a big deal if Stormfront or an Isis affiliated site was blocked.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want, with no threat of consequences.
Of course it doesn't. Who said it does? What it means is there is a governmental, and cultural, commitment to not bestowing authoritative power on the state to determine what people can or cannot say, read, or discuss.
No, it means the government cannot prevent you from saying whatever you want. Its frightening how widespread opposition to free speech has become (especially among the younger generation who has been conditioned to accept authoritarianism).
There's nothing like that to be found in mosques. They're echo chambers.
Under that logic, let's also shut down Twitter, Facebook and Reddit.
Also, one thing has nothing to do with the other.
>I don't really see much value lost in taking 4chan down, just like it's not a big deal if Stormfront or an Isis affiliated site was blocked.
Censorship is fine if it's against people you don't like?
>Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want, with no threat of consequences.
It means you get to say whatever you want without the state or other people attacking you for saying it.
At some point, you need to recognize that what's happening on those boards isn't "free speech", it's "incitement" to commit violent acts, and that has never been protected by any of the free speech regimes, even in the U.S. New Zealand's free speech rights are not as broad or strong as they are in the US.
I wouldn't be surprised if 4chan and 8chan find themselves blocked across most of the globe by the end of the year.
You can say the same about Twitter and Facebook. In fact, the guy had a Twitter where he posted guns and ammunition with slogans on it, days earlier. Had it received more attention, this could've possibly been prevented.
> At some point, you need to recognize that what's happening on those boards isn't "free speech", it's "incitement" to commit violent acts, and that has never been protected by any of the free speech regimes, even in the U.S. New Zealand's free speech rights are not as broad or strong as they are in the US.
It's a bunch of anonymous people posting crap, often for shock value. Sure, there's incitement on there, but nobody takes anybody serious.
Having said that, I was pretty shocked about the reaction on 8chan. I haven't been there before. It's pretty sad to see.
You have no idea who is posting there, or why, and yet you take the posts at face value? Interesting.
I guess you're implying though that there's some sort of elaborate false-flag operation going on there?
As someone who frequents 8chan, I can tell you this categorically is not the case and /pol/acks are very serious.
On there you have literal Nazis, MAGA people and white identitarians all disagreeing and trolling each other. They can't even agree on everything being a Jewish conspiracy.
What you can't say is that this is some sort of organization that poses a threat as such. It is a bunch of random people on the internet that do not know each other and that vaguely share certain beliefs.
This is an obvious advantage to all of this happening in the open, over it happening in some members-only curated hate forum where any voice of reason is just removed and banned.
I'm baffled with how irrational some people can get, irresponsibly calling for the suppression of public, anonymous image boards.
That's not true, and it's notable that you had to create a new account just to make this FUD claim. Those murderers may all have used Twitter and Facebook to try to disseminate their idea vomit, but they were radicalized and incited by 4chan and/or 8chan. Also, Twitter and Facebook make the effort to remove those posts once they are made aware of them. 4chan and 8chan revel in keeping up those promote, and even promote them to show just how "free speech" they are.
It's a bunch of anonymous people posting crap, often for shock value. Sure, there's incitement on there, but nobody takes anybody serious.
More than a dozen mass murderers in the past few years took 4chan and 8chan seriously enough to murder hundreds of people. Mass murder might be an abstract concept to basement dwellers, but I know people who were shot at in the Santa Barbara, Vegas, and Thousand Oaks shooting, and it sure as fuck isn't an abstract concept to me or the thousands of other people who knew the victims of those shootings.
This isn't a specific platform problem but a problem with a subset of humanity.
But in those rare instances where a bar crosses over into openly supporting that type of speech, the police start taking an interest and monitoring that bar and its customers. And if a line gets crossed with respect to incitement, conspiracy, etc., the local municipality will usually pull the bar's liquor license and get it shut down to prevent future such crimes from being organized or incited at that bar.
So, really, you're actually quite spot on with the bar analogy. 4chan/8chan are exactly like a skinhead bar that's getting shutdown because the customers kept inciting each other to kill people and actually followed through.
Incidentally the police did nothing.
Edit: this was early 90s.
What exactly isn't true? The guy did have that Twitter.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/4vW9tadY1zUt-CwkgRo6DWG7N...
> ...and it's notable that you had to create a new account just to make this FUD claim.
I created this account three days ago to comment on an entirely unrelated matter.
> Those murderers may all have used Twitter and Facebook to try to disseminate their idea vomit...
So you agree that Twitter and Facebook are linked to the murderers?
> ...but they were radicalized and incited by 4chan and/or 8chan.
That's a pretty questionable claim. The guy had a manifesto similar to Breivik. Would you say Breivik was radicalized by 4chan? He holds specific political beliefs, whereas on places like 4chan, no belief is taken serious at all. There are real Neo-Nazi forums where there is serious discussion on Neo-Nazi ideals, but 4chan isn't one of them.
> More than a dozen mass murderers in the past few years took 4chan and 8chan seriously enough to murder hundreds of people.
Again, these forums are made up of pure shitposting. Nobody knows anybody. Nothing on there is taken serious, even things that should be taken serious. It's a brain dump.
4chan and 8chan have numerous skinhead forums. They are two of the most popular forum sites for skinheads and white nationalists.
Again, these forums are made up of pure shitposting. Nobody knows anybody. Nothing on there is taken serious, even things that should be taken serious. It's a brain dump.
This is objectively not true. You can repeat it all you want, and you might even believe it because it's true for you, but plenty of people take the stuff on 4chan and 8chan at face value and take posts their seriously.
I never said anything like that. I said I haven't been on 8chan before today. You shouldn't lump both together like that anyway, it's disingenuous.
> 4chan and 8chan have numerous skinhead forums.
I wouldn't qualify /pol/ or /b/ as "skinhead forums" by any reasonable standard.
> They are two of the most popular forum sites for skinheads and white nationalists.
4chan has subforums for anime, lgbt, video games, porn and all kinds of other things. It's a popular site in general and there's people from all over the political spectrum.
Isn't that kinda helpful for law enforcement. There are so many ways those planning violence could interact privately, that they'd do it all in the open is a massive help, no?
If I understand correctly, you're making an argument that goes around this: Exposure to freedom of speech is dangerous to society.
From this, you're proposing: All online discussion should be curated.
I don't want to live in such a world, so I kindly disagree with your proposal. Adults should be able to talk about whatever they want, and no third party should decide what they can or cannot read.
For this to be possible, communities with a very light handed approach to moderation should be allowed to continue to exist. This includes those that allow anonymous posting, as there's enough precedent in human history on perfectly fine ideas that are now generally accepted have been met with hostility. If posting safely is not an option, many will choose to not post at all. Thus ideas would get repressed.
If I understand you correctly, you're making the argument that inciting someone to commit violent acts of murder is freedom of speech which is good for society.
I believe in freedom of speech. I've defended it in court. What happens on 4chan and 8chan isn't free speech. It's acts of incitement that just happen to take the form of text.
Adults should be able to talk about whatever they want, and no third party should decide what they can or cannot read.
You don't understand that free speech relates to the words and ideas. Free speech means that the people on 4chan and 8chan can use whatever words they want, and spread whatever ideas they want. So long as they aren't committing criminal acts such as incitement. The words and ideas are protected, not the acts they represent.
For this to be possible, communities with a very light handed approach to moderation should be allowed to continue to exist. This includes those that allow anonymous posting, as there's enough precedent in human history on perfectly fine ideas that are now generally accepted have been met with hostility. If posting safely is not an option, many will choose to not post at all. Thus ideas would get repressed.
I agree. And if 4chan and 8chan were solely about the sharing of ideas, I would be opposed to banning them...in the US, where the law would protect such speech, however abhorrent it is. But 4chan and 8chan long ago crossed over the line into being more than just sharing ideas...they're now websites where people incite and plan violent crimes.
There are many SFW boards on 4chan related to specific hobbies. I have learned a lot from diy, fa, mu, g, and ck. There are many NSFW boards on 4chan that do contain posts inciting violence.
The same situation is present on reddit, but due to advertiser interest, subs get banned.
There were crazy people before 4chan and there will be crazy people after. Removing a site does less than helping those in need before they become radicals.
This is a quite excessive claim. While posting in these communities is extremely easy, they are also extremely moderated. I'm somewhat familiar with the sites, and I know that while hateful posts do happen, they do get removed and posters do get banned fairly quickly. Often, within seconds. What could pass legally as actual incitement is extremely rare. Most communities and regular threads in these places are extremely friendly.
Ultimately, freedom of speech isn't about being able to say whatever you want, but about others being able to say that which you don't like. Few people understand that.
Can you cite any evidence that people are planning crimes on a public-only anonymous forum that has no vetting of its members?
Again, there are Nazi forums that are public, there are also Nazi networks that are certainly not public and where such attacks may have been planned, but 4chan? That would be a pretty absurd place to plan anything.
As for incitement, at least in the legal sense in the US, the bar for that is quite high:
If you can prove that statement then it certainly deserves to get shutdown, but you cant
if you read something in the newspaper and it makes you angry and/or sparks an extreme reaction, should that newspaper be banned? or a TV network, or any other news source?
Its a slippery slope if you go down this road IMO
Too many non-lawyers on this board think that saying "slippery slope" makes two things on the opposite ends of the spectrum one and the same, and that's not true at all. The law is perfectly capable of handling degees of difference. After all, there are no less than 5 degrees of homicide (more, depending on jurisdiction).
It's quite possible to ban a newspaper that says "Kill all the X this weekend" without it having any bearing on a newspaper that opines "X people should die." If you can't see the difference between the two, then I won't bother responding further.
No. It used to be like this. Maybe in the mid-2000s when 4chan was first getting popular, it could have been seen as this. It might have been seen like this during the early 2010s, does anyone remember Anonymous and how it started basically from /b/?
It used to be a troll site -- it's not anymore. It's literally a cesspool of white supremacy. Seriously, go read what's on /pol/ right now. It's not shock value, it's sympathy.
Do get argued against in /pol/ all the time. It literally acts as a safeguard against these twisted beliefs.
If it doesn't happen in 4chan, then I'm worried. Because these fascists/racists/etc. might end up in a members-only, non-public-viewable fascist/racist/etc echo chamber, with not a trace of voices of reason.
i believe that imageboards are highly valuable and that the problems that can be seen within them are reflective of greater societal issues that we refuse to acknowledge.
Without it, I would not be nearly as interested in OSS development or RMS' contributions to GNU+LINUX. There are boards which tend towards topics you may consider "incitement to commit violent acts" but this is a function of a website allowing user content. HN or Reddit or any other popular website could have been used for this announcement just the same.
Removing a website will not remove the people who use it, they will find other places.
Edit: I am blocked from some sites.
Snuffing the Medium will not remove the Cause nor the Means.
The fact that banning 4chan won't solve anything isn't lost on anyone with a working mind, especially not the government. But hey, that's how they stop the violent peace protests and not loose the next election in advance.
Everyone wins here. The terrorists win, the government gets popularity, the peace loving people get internet brownie points and moral satisfaction to overcome their insomnia till the next time, the media gets their clicks and ad revenue and the people on 4chan get their kicks.