At the same time, if someone points a finger at you and shouts "I'm going to kill you", then we're getting outside of speech and into actions, and certainly actions can be prohibited. The question we have, really, is whether the content of 8chan was just speech (and therefore should be protected unless you buy into censorship) or crosses into actions (convincing someone to massacre immigrants). From what I've seen, 8chan certainly seems to be in the action category.
At least in my state, this is not actionable as described.
For it to be actionable, the person saying "I'm going to kill you" needs to reasonably be in a position to do so - i.e. brandishing a weapon, etc.
Idle threats and banter do not actions make.
Thought crime isn't what we want, is it?
The details make the case. Coaxing in detail throngs online to attack immigrants, in my non-legal non-expert opinion, seems to be more in the actionable case.
> The details make the case.
That's pretty much what I was saying, as well, I believe.
In and of itself, saying (even in person) "I'm going to kill you" is an idle threat that the police in my state will not do anything about in a vacuum.
However, saying such a thing while also being in a position to reasonably carry out such an action, the Police will step in on those threats.
In the situation you described, unfortunately, the first time they may just tell the couple to stay at different places that night to cool off. This assumes by the time they arrive there are no visible marks on the victim and no weapons out.
Now if they have to come out for several of these calls, it's no longer "in a vacuum", and they can probably detain the threatening person.
Your state or country's police force may operate under different rules and laws.
For libertarian extremists who, just treat the right to be left in peace to live your life as you see fit... as a property right.
Another reply to my comment supposed my criticism means that the alternative is a Soviet surveillance state. Really?
In the context of 8chan, I think there's a difference between allowing people to say whatever they want online and punishing the people that use that freedom to incite violence.
The part where it gets blurry to me is the hateful rhetoric that doesn't directly call for violence, but the only logical conclusion of the position is genocidal or otherwise racial violence. Talking about "invaders" or "American cities under foreign occupation" for example.
The more we censor, the less we know, the farther from the enemy we are.
You have to understand, we don't live in a go lucky happy world, thousands to millions of people die every day. Livestream vs Youtube.
The more statistics we can get before a threat occurs, the better. I really don't understand why "normal web" doesn't grasp this concept.
I agree with this, and I'd further say that no man is really fit to rule or have real power over his fellow men. But human society can't function, or defend itself from tyrants, without some sort of power structure. The best we can do is try to make sure that the people in power aren't tyrants.
Users on 8chan, perhaps, but no the website itself. 8chan has cooperated with law enforcement against individuals making legally-actionable threats effectively since the website's beginning.
Moreover 8chan posts, though vile, arguably do not fit the narrow free speech exemptions of the US such as true threat or incitement. The law and judicial precedent would require a reasonable reader to take it seriously. All that is moot though as the government has taken no action here.
Those motivated by animus towards a minority group do generally target areas frequented by members of that group, like in the Texas shooting where the gunman targeted a Walmart in a largely Hispanic community. As a non-Hispanic white person (who lives in the US), that does put me at less risk of being a victim of that type of shooting. Also, to the extent that terrorism’s impact is emotional rather than purely rational, I’m less impacted simply because I don’t feel targeted in the same way.
Nevertheless, I wouldn’t say the risk is zero; it’s not impossible that I could be in a place like that when the next shooting happens. So I have at least a bit of skin in the game.
Edit: Also, while perhaps not 8chan specifically, Internet forums have been implicated in shootings that weren’t targeting ethnic groups and thus would put me at more risk. An example would be Elliot Rodger’s shooting, which was driven by a hatred of women, but ended up killing an equal number of men and women (not too surprising, since people don’t self-segregate by gender to the same extent they do by race and religion).
Isn't this usually where hate crimes come into the picture?
A mosque in America that openly fostered extremism like 8chan did would of course get shut down.
"The free speech of muslims"? It's almost as if you think 9/11 was caused by a domestic terrorist. You do realize the hijackers were mostly from Saudi Arabia right? And there is no free speech there? So... what are you trying to imply? Please use more clear language instead of just trying to meme.
These arguments can be directly used to argue for the suppression of Islamic religious speech. Using the same "guilt by association" reasoning, you can easily argue that 9/11 is proof that Islam itself is a hateful and dangerous ideology which, when spread, has "consequences".
“Extremist Islamic terrorists” on the other hand, that is a narrowly defined enough population to feel justified in going to war against.
But the point is, no one’s speech in particular is being suppressed. To keep the metaphor, a “mosque got too radical” and was shut down. People who were practicing there will have to find another place to go.
Be extremely careful about drawing conclusions about people based on the books they read or the websites they visit.
This wasn’t a blow against 8chan or 8channers, this was a blow against everyone who reads things on the internet.
If ethno-nationalists are not allowed to make their political case with speech, what alternative would they have but violence? You obviously can't change their minds with censorship, only harden them.
[1] http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf
If a man can't speak his truth, what alternative does he have to violence?
No one is stopping anyone from speaking their truth. They're just saying they're not going to help you.
If you want to speak your truth, speak it. Go down to a public square and preach. Write your truth down, print it, and hand it out. If its truth and you believe it so much, you'll do the work necessary in getting it out there.
And that essentially is not going to happen. Companies are "people too". They are allowed to express their free speech by not doing business with you.
Cloud Flare is within their rights to protect their stock value by doing business with whomever they choose. If the government declared the opposite, then it would truly require a massive shakeup of law and precedent.
Culture and custom generally precede law and government. If the Internet is a public square, it is only so as a result of our various social relations. Passing laws would be merely to preserve it as such.
That study does show that banning content within a forum means that you will get less of that content on that forum. A useful but not entirely surprising result. As a Reddit user, I'm glad that the site has less of such content.
It does not prove that censorship reduces "radicalization" (whatever that is). As the study says, many of those users just moved their content to Voat.
*By which I mean cognitive empathy: the capacity to infer the motivational states of other people and anticipate their actions.
Agree, hyperrational people often forget how easy it is to lie with (true) numbers.
If 1% of the people on a site agree with you, you will have an harder time memeing with your buddies undisturbed.
Whether in practice the tradeoff is worth it, is another topic.
You don't have a plan, just a knee jerk impulse to censor.
If they want to speak in public, they are free to. They probably won't get a warm reception.
See, two can play at that game.
It's not some "gotcha game".
If the claim is [Donald Trump supports and advocates for ethno-nationalists causes] ...
I'd like to a source for that claim because it seems like Orange Man Bad delusions, but I'm willing to remain open minded if someone can provide a citation!
Since you already incline to the view that such assertions are delusional and employ a common political trope to characterize such delusions, I feel nagging doubts about your purported open-mindedness. Discussions like this generally devolve into pedantic quibbling which would be a waste of both your time and mine.
Plenty of nazi sites on the web where they make all sorts of “political cases”. Don’t confuse inability to make the case with repugnance to that case in general public.
It is sadly true that some people are capable to manipulate others without the need for censorship to isolate them first.
How many free speech absolutists have "skin in the game", or whatever? Every alternative to censorship suggested always puts the burden on the victimized. Like, "if you debate it in public you will defeat these bad ideas". Few who are free speech absolutists roll up their sleeves and volunteer to take the action they prescribe.
Or, you have the sophists who believe free speech is the most important thing in the world but will deny that speech has any connection to its consequences. For example, separating the white nationalist rhetoric on 8chan from the white nationalist terrorism perpetrated by 8channers.