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Comment by nematode_tech | Hacker News Reader

> Vigilantism isn't a great thing, but what choice do we have when authorities allow hate sites like Kiwifarms to stay online? After all, as Yonatan Zunger famously wrote, tolerance is not a moral precept.

In conclusion, vigilantism is fine if done against someone you dont like... cool

Whom I personally like is irrelevant. We're talking about public safety here. We opened a Pandora's box of hate and violence when we created the internet. The state, which is ordinarily charged with protecting the public from danger, has failed to respond to the threat, justifying its inaction with references to 18th century texts written before the steam engine became practical. If the state refuses to act, we as technologists must. For the good of society, we have to cut off access to hate --- not only at the DDOS prevention level, but at the browser, the network, and even operating system level. To stand by and do nothing while violent speech floods our communication channels is to be complicit in this speech.

For example: why is the Tor project facilitating the spread of hate by keeping Kiwifarms accessible? The Tor project's mission of preserving user privacy does not include facilitating access to harassment material.

I can't tell if your posts are parodies or not. This "cut[ting] off access to hate" through the entire technology stack would just function to limit people's free access to inconvenient information. Think of the Russian state. It may decide that any expression of Ukrainian identity is inherently hateful, and censor it using this system. Do we want to bring such a thing to the West? When the truth is deemed hateful and violent, such a system will be used to uphold an empire of lies. And I'm sure there will be a "backdoor" for regime-approved hate targeting its foes to slip right through ;)

>We opened a Pandora's box of hate and violence when we created the internet

With the advent of the internet, people's ability to easily communicate with each other was drastically increased. We opened up the ability for us to collaboratively see beyond the official narratives handed down through the media, government spokesmen, and educational institutions. Such a thing is of course abominable to those who desire centralized control over the demos, truth be damned, but I am grateful for it. Technologists should instead oppose anything like what you describe, and build technologies that thwart the efforts of those who wish to limit our ability to communicate with each other.

Not tolerating asocial behavior is not vigilantism. Me not accepting your calls for violence is not a violent act in itself. To think otherwise is near suicidal.

>Why do browser makers like Mozilla not put Kiwifarms and other hate sites on their "safe browsing" denylists when these sites are obviously unsafe for marginalized people?

Those lists are for malware. Not for site content. You have grossly misunderstood the function of those lists.

Malware is software that causes harm. Are you suggesting hate sites don't cause harm? Wow.

That is fine until your side ends up on the unsafe list.

Maybe you think if there is a place that is too critical to these marginalized groups that is unsafe and should be blocked. Ok, but then what happens when somebody who doesn't agree with you gets into the a position of power? They could easily say if you support trans then you are indoctrinating kids and that is unsafe and block all LGBT websites.

You are advocating for an arms race. Are you sure you can win?

> We as principal technologists must call on software makers around the world to adopt an "ethical source" approach to their products and build protections against hate into every layer of the stack. Bigotry is odious, and the price of freedom, as it's said, is eternal vigilance.

Kiwifarms, Gab (Still uses Cloudflare), 4chan, 8kun and the rest of them are still alive even after this. It's not Cloudflare's problem anymore, it is now the internet's problem.

So are you going to write a letter to ICANN just like the Ukrainian Government did to get them to take down all .ru or all possible 'hate' domains and TLDs? I bet you won't and even if you did ICANN won't do anything.

This just made them more uncensorable and now they can't be monitored easily and they are all still alive. This doesn't solve the doxing issues, therefore nothing has changed.

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