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Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by donohoe on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:34PM (#32706845)

  Private companies should not be 
  the de facto moderators 
  of free speech
Hate speech and organizing to harass and other IRL hate acts is not ‘free speech’. That was the major point.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by cowtools on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:39PM (#32706898)
>Hate speech in the United States cannot be directly regulated by the government due to the fundamental right to freedom of speech protected by the Constitution. While "hate speech" is not a legal term in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that most of what would qualify as hate speech in other western countries is legally protected free speech under the First Amendment.

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

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by chrisan on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:15PM (#32707403)
There is no government involved here though. If Cloudflare has a hate speech company policy, then as a company they can choose who they serve.

Kiwifarms is free to get another company that aligns with their goals.

I'm having trouble understanding how 1) everyone thinks Cloudflare is the singular hole through which the internet flows and 2) how a private company does not have the freedom to do what they want.

If you don't like what Cloudflare is doing, then speak with your wallet and don't use them, there are numerous other providers of ddos protection

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by cowtools on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:21PM (#32707467)
>There is no government involved here though.

See the parent comment I was replying to. We agreed on the statement that "Private companies should not be the de facto moderators of free speech". I just think it is weird to argue this in a thread where we have just turned 180 degrees from our original premise.

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Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by unethical_ban on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:46PM (#32707000)
We tolerate it legally, but a majority of society certainly does not tolerate it morally nor agree with the content.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by Spivak on Sunday September 04, 2022 @08:51AM (#32712480)
Which is how we end up here with a thread full of people morally outraged that a group decided to not tolerate hate speech, harassment, stalking, and driving people to suicide. I think you’re right that a majority doesn’t agree with the content but a majority certainly tolerates it.
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Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by anigbrowl on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:52PM (#32707095)
The economy of Germany is a highly developed social market economy.[24] It has the largest national economy in Europe, the fourth-largest by nominal GDP in the world, and fifth by GDP (PPP). In 2017, the country accounted for 28% of the euro area economy according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).[25]

Looks OK

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by jdasdf on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:28PM (#32707556)
Compare it to US states. Hint: its at the bottom in GDP and income per capita
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by anigbrowl on Saturday September 03, 2022 @08:11PM (#32708022)
No it isn't. German GDP per capita exceeds that of Florida.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by lovich on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:54PM (#32707126)
The EU has a similar population size, wide censorship laws for this kinda of conduct, and a similar economy size. China has a similar economy and much stricter speech laws. The US isn't economically special because of free speech

Edit: fixed a typo, changed a “must” to “much”

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by spoils19 on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:04PM (#32707274)
The lack of free speech laws means its impossible to accurately determine whether the reported figures are accurate, since the government can just censor what they don't like. So no, I (and I imagine most conservatives) don't accept that conclusion.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by lovich on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:07PM (#32707304)
oh ok, well if were in the conspiracy zone then you just have to accept that actually they have a 1 million times greater economy, because no figures can be trusted.

Facetiousness aside, the censorship laws in the EU are around hate speech like flying Nazi symbology, not laws that let them silence people reporting economic numbers.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by jchw on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:48PM (#32707029)
The problem isn't that nobody understands that free speech is not limitless, the problem is that literally nobody wants to be in the business of defining the exact boundaries of allowed speech and how to enforce it; there is no perfect answer. Cloudflare was taking the position that it's not their job, and they're not alone as far as internet services go. There are, in fact, other hosts that do basically the same thing, see Nearlyfreespeech for example.

My point isn't to weigh in on this specific decision, but I want the rhetoric around this stuff to evolve away from pretending that defining the boundaries of what speech should be protected is super easy and objective. It's really not, and it never will be.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by lapinot on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:27PM (#32707537)
> literally nobody wants to be in the business of defining the exact boundaries of allowed speech

That's because there shouldn't be one global boundary enforced centrally. This kind of problem is a direct consequence of the scale and alignment miss-match between the technical structures (here cloudfare) and the scale at which there is political cohesion (apparently much lower scale here, since there is such an irreconcilable disagreement). Each politically cohesive group should have the ability to make their own policies. That's how federated things work (email, mastodon or bgp). Hence these kind of clashes we get regularly because of the size of most things has become so huge which is completely nonsense imho (eurozone, food/simple goods production, media).

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by jchw on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:45PM (#32707747)
Are you suggesting that large services like Cloudflare shouldn't exist, and instead there should be an ecosystem of DDoS-filtering reverse proxies? I do agree to that, though I think the problem remains that most of them do not want to be in the business of trying to decipher law and morality. So at the end of the day, the buck does stop somewhere.

And frankly, the example of Mastodon doesn't inspire confidence. Mastodon instance-level blocks have turned the platform into a huge mess. I genuinely would not be surprised if there was no single instance I can sit on that will allow me to interact with everyone I know on Mastodon, and as far as I've heard, if I choose to host my own instance and not to block certain instances, this will lead to my instance being blocked on some instances. I could be exaggerating a little, but this seems quite annoying.

Admittedly, e-mail works a bit better in this regard, but it's certainly not without issues (SPAM, deliverability, etc.) Still, it's perhaps possible that platforms that deal with public broadcasting are inherently more sensitive to cultural clash than ones that only deal with more or less direct communication.

Consolidation of power into platforms like Cloudflare is still a problem, but even if we fix that, we still have another service that has a lot of people all in one big amorphous zone: the Internet. I do wonder a lot if the Internet will ultimately wind up unifying a bunch of cultures, or if it will wind up creating even more bifurcation than it eliminates. It's starting to feel more and more like it creates more bifurcation, just a bit.

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Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by rajin444 on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:48PM (#32707772)
I don't understand trying to hide behind an argument other than "my tribe is in power here so you submit to our rules". The post you linked falls apart with how you define various concepts (how you define the terms of peace, etc.). The argument is eventually settled (like nearly all of them these days) by who is in power. They'll define the terms of peace and in a way that paints their causes as good and their enemies as evil.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by Spivak on Sunday September 04, 2022 @08:58AM (#32712534)
If this is how you view someone using their weight to protect people from literally being stalked, harassed, and driven to suicide for fun then gods help us all if that ever stops being the case and the next tribe decides that it’s fine.

This act is evil and morally wrong in all political reference frames. Anyone who’s arguing that it’s partisan or woke is focusing too hard on the victims, trans women, and not hard enough on the perpetrators.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by stale2002 on Saturday September 03, 2022 @09:08PM (#32708563)
There are established ways that we as a society, determine what to tolerate.

Most people would say the legal system is the correct avenue for this.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by jchw on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:26PM (#32707526)
This is a nice platitude, but I'm not seeing the relation. Service providers that follow the law will in fact, stop tolerating a client when law enforcement tells them to do so.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by JumpCrisscross on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:37PM (#32706879)
> Hate speech and organizing to harass and other IRL gate acts is not free speech

“Free speech” is a philosophy. It makes no sense to describe a particular expression of speech as free or not. Hate speech is speech. Whether one should be free to make it is another question.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by Spivak on Sunday September 04, 2022 @09:08AM (#32712632)
I think it’s easier than that, hate speech just isn’t speech, it’s an act of violence that happens to use your mouth, pen, or keyboard — 1A as it’s currently interpreted is way too broad, the court seems to find other forms of violence, even those done for political expression, as not protected, but gives exception here for some naive “sticks and stones” argument.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by topynate on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:45PM (#32706975)
It is in America, for the most part. You can absolutely organize to harass people if the harassment is in the form of verbal abuse, for instance. Cloudflare is saying that something happened in the last few days on KF that was a genuine "emergency". I don't think this is just an excuse, actually – Prince seems unusually committed to honesty about this sort of thing. I presume people were organizing specific violent acts on KF, which is not "free speech" even in America.
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Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by happyopossum on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:44PM (#32707736)
Your second item isn’t even close to an illegal threat in the USA, it’s the loser equivalent of saying “mine is 12 inches”. It’s not true, never happened, and nobody believed them.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by JumpCrisscross on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:58PM (#32707871)
> second item isn’t even close to an illegal threat in the USA

They said they called people to "plant bombs" where the woman was going and had posted "armed men...waiting" for her. That sounds an awful lot like "the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual" [1].

[1] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/538/343/

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by nostrebored on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:54PM (#32707115)
Completely conjecture. Why do you assume good will from companies?
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by topynate on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:02PM (#32707251)
I don't. I'm going on what I think about Matthew Prince, who wrote the post we're talking about.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by halostatue on Saturday September 03, 2022 @08:10PM (#32707998)
Not conjecture. Documented evidence of KF users doxxing and making threats against people: https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/15657982526702387...
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by oldgradstudent on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:46PM (#32706994)
If hate speech is not free speech, then they who define what is hate speech, define what you can or cannot say.

If there's defamation, harassment, or incitement to violence, we should deal with that in an open court with juries of our peers, not in some dark board room.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by noasaservice on Saturday September 03, 2022 @10:29PM (#32709170)
That's easy. Are they calling for illegal actions against people?

That's a pretty easy litmus test.

As a colloary, it's akin to comparing "I don't like the president" vs "Let's go kill the president" (this is a comparison of allowed vs unallowed speech in the USA, not a call to).

Advocating voting against is 100% legal. Advocation of killing is 100% ILLEGAL.

Kiwifarms was doing the latter, up to and including actions threatening violence, "assisted" suicide, and murder.

Those were never 1fa protected actions.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by oldgradstudent on Sunday September 04, 2022 @03:57AM (#32710882)
> That's a pretty easy litmus test.

Then a proceeding in open court will be simple and fast.

A proceeding where the accused has the right to cross examine and present evidence in their defense.

I prefer that to a corporate decision done in secrecy in response to bad PR.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by Spivak on Sunday September 04, 2022 @09:15AM (#32712696)
Same, there’s no contradiction here. The same political group that is pressuring the companies that currently hold the real power to take down this hate is also pushing for a national hate speech law.

Where I’m sure the disagreement lies is whether or not you find it morally okay to protect the current victims by less than ideal means.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by google234123 on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:42PM (#32706934)
To be fair, there is the entire concept of cancel culture which basically is all about organizing to harass people and is basically supported by every large platform.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by lovich on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:59PM (#32707195)
canceling someone is about their professional or political connections. Kiwifarms eggs people on to kill their targets. They are not equivalent
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by Hamuko on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:40PM (#32706919)
Yes it is. Freedom of speech is the principle of being able to express your ideas and opinions. And hate speech is just that.

Obviously no country has absolute freedom of speech, but for example the First Amendment has no hate speech exemptions.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by anigbrowl on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:59PM (#32707197)
Hate speech is often about saying other people ought not be able to express their ideas and opinions, and that the most effective way to bring about this result is for them to not be not alive any more.

Eliminationist rhetoric is a subset of hate speech overall, but it certainly exists and is trivially easy to discover. It's odd to me that none of the self-professed 'free speech absolutists' ever seems to engage with this point.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by topynate on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:41PM (#32707700)
Most eliminationist rhetoric is still protected in the States under current precedent. It advocates unlawful action but without "imminency". It could have been forbidden under the old "clear and present danger" standard.

Forbidden eliminationist rhetoric is quite rare and would be something like the "cockroach" broadcasts in Rwanda.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by anigbrowl on Saturday September 03, 2022 @08:00PM (#32707894)
Fine, but I'm not making a legalistic argument. I'm just pointing out that eliminationist hate speech is inherently censorious.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by Banana699 on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:29PM (#32707581)
All of this is irrelevant and besides the point, 'hate speech' is not a magical word you say when mean people on the internet say things you don't like.

If you can't prove material damage in a court, it should be allowed.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by anigbrowl on Saturday September 03, 2022 @08:04PM (#32707942)
You're welcome to just ignore the narrow and technical point, which did not include any discussion of what was allowable or not.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by pixl97 on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:24PM (#32707513)
Hate speech always leads to further extremist behavior and death threats. Now, the US is very tolerant of hate speech in itself. The problem is haters are completely incapable of avoiding the next step wherein they call for the call for the deaths of those they hate. The very moment they do that I am perfectly fine with all of our existing laws on things like terroristic threats being wielded against those making the threats.

You have the right to speak, but you also have the right to repercussions, in specific when those actions are a call to harm.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by dart200 on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:34PM (#32707635)
in the US, there needs to be serious proof of intent beyond just saying something to prosecute.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by dart200 on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:37PM (#32707664)
yes it is. free speech as a philosophy is about allowing all speech, cause other it's just mostly free speech.

you're just using the words to act like you have a moral high ground you don't actually have.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by ceejayoz on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:54PM (#32707841)
> free speech as a philosophy is about allowing all speech, cause other it's just mostly free speech

Then that's a philosophy virtually no one actually holds.

Very few people think death threats, fraud, etc. fall under free speech. If you do your speech at 3am with a loudspeaker in a residential neighborhood, you're probably getting dinged for "disturbing the peace", because other people have rights too, and society winds up having to resolve the conflicts.

In this case, a similarly important right - freedom of association - also applies.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by dart200 on Monday September 05, 2022 @08:17PM (#32731030)
> Then that's a philosophy virtually no one actually holds.

correct. most people don't hold a free speech philosophy. people just like taking a high moral ground they don't actually have.

> Very few people think death threats, fraud, etc. fall under free speech

us govt can't prosecute death threats unless they can prove intent beyond you just saying it, they can't also arbitrarily prosecute for lying

> If you do your speech at 3am with a loudspeaker in a residential neighborhood, you're probably getting dinged for "disturbing the peace", because other people have rights too, and society winds up having to resolve the conflicts.

if you said the same thing at a much lower volume, no one would care. the problem there is noise pollution, not the content of the speech said.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by ThrowawayTestr on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:38PM (#32706887)
KF has a very explicit policy to not interact with subjects of a thread. Discussions about harassing them will get you banned.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by bb010g on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:48PM (#32707025)
I see that policy works extremely well in cases like <https://twitter.com/keffals/status/1566153033586810885>. As long as you give all the information necessary for someone interested to interact in a harmful way, it's fine, but you have to frame it in a way that doesn't suggest harassment. Just speculate about all the locations they could possibly be having lunch, and trust that nobody will harass them.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by millzlane on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:41PM (#32706931)
Spreading rumors about them and interacting with friends, family, and known associates is fair game. Also posting their public contact information is also fair game.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by robocat on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:54PM (#32707116)
I presume users on kiwifarms (KF) use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction techniques to publish private information elsewhere (such as private addresses) so that the information can then legally be reposted on KF. Coordination-of-information has an accomplice role in some of the illegal activities "reported" by KF.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by charcircuit on Saturday September 03, 2022 @10:47PM (#32709265)
>private addresses

Addresses aren't private information.

Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by Spivak on Sunday September 04, 2022 @09:17AM (#32712722)
Oh yes they are, what you’re arguing is that they aren’t secret.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by charcircuit on Monday September 05, 2022 @08:06PM (#32730965)
I think you are confusing private and personal. Someone's name is personal information, but it is also public information.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by KerrAvon on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:54PM (#32707117)
This strategy will not ultimately survive contact with law enforcement. They need to stop doxxing.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by Icathian on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:38PM (#32706897)
I do think, if there was competent legal governance in this space, that's the conclusion they would have reached. I think you understand my larger point, regardless.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by hn2017 on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:18PM (#32707437)
Most libertarians here don't understand free speech in the US legal system.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by jdasdf on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:27PM (#32707546)
Yes it is.
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by spacephysics on Saturday September 03, 2022 @06:39PM (#32706902)
What is hate speech?
Re:Blocking Kiwifarms by Banana699 on Saturday September 03, 2022 @07:26PM (#32707528)
Actually, yes it is. Just because you made up a new word to describe opinions you don't like doesn't mean those opinons aren't covered by free speech.