[aaronem]

Seeing as he's yet to be accused of anything except being a community-minded sysadmin with a low sense of humor, I'm not sure a mere lack of taste excuses the extremely unsympathetic media attention that's been focused on the operator of this service in the last few days.

[Nadya]

I use the provided mail service (@tfwno.gf) explicitly due to how transparent he is. Same reason why I used and donated to pomf.se before its closure (different person).

If the only people who care about users and practice active disclosure of subpoenas are people with low-brow humor, so be it, I'll continue to support them.

E:

Also a quick note there is a bit of misinformation floating around. He doesn't own many of the domains, he just runs the mailservers for them.

[s73v3r]

Nobody is accusing him of anything other than hosting some poor joke domains. However, his domain was the one that the emails threatening several school districts came from. And while I'm sure they don't think he's the culprit, his server would still have some evidence on it.

[aaronem]

Have you seen CBS's [1] and the Daily Mail's [2] hit pieces on him? Of the latter such flagrant nonsense is to be expected, but one generally doesn't expect to see CBS descend to the same level.

[1] http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/12/18/cbs-news-maine-nat... [2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3367044/Maine-colleg...

[razster]

I've pretty much assumed all large news corps are the same. Pointless to even read them anymore - finding reliable news is getting harder.

[Bud]

That wasn't from CBS, it was from a local TV station, which is quite different.

[aaronem]

It says "CBS News" at the front of the headline. If they aren't inclined to make the distinction, I don't see why they deserve the benefit of the doubt from me.

[maxerickson]

That's crediting this story as a source:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-given-email-account-infor...

If the same article were published on Abc.com, putting a credit in the headline would be similarly useful, and it would obviously be ridiculous to say that CBS was then responsible for the content of the article under the headline (in this case, it seems that CBS Radio is responsible for the content though)

[aaronem]

And? KCBS isn't an affiliate; it's owned and operated by the network. The difference in domain name is purely cosmetic; if CBS corporate weren't OK with the content of the story, the story would no longer be online, if indeed it had ever been published at all.

[Bud]

Point of order: gratuitous use of the word "nigger" is not a joke. Jokes are funny, or at least attempt to be funny. This doesn't qualify. This is something other than a joke.

[fbbbbb]

It doesn't qualify because you said so, really?

This is something else than a joke, because?

Speculation and assertion is not an argument.

If a statement is a joke is not defined whether someone finds it is funny or not, but by its intention. We don't all laught at the same jokes do we? In this case, we don't know the intention behind it, or at least our two comments didn't reveal it.

(It is so sad to see preconditioned impulsive disagreement, just because certain words are discussed from a neutral perspective)

[s73v3r]

He doesn't seem to be serious, but I don't think one could really call the domain a "joke". It's using a word who's sole connotation is as a racial slur.

And i don't see why there shouldn't be impulsive disagreement, considering how terrible the word is.

[Bud]

Words were not "discussed", here, in any way, let alone a supposedly "neutral perspective". Pay attention to detail. It counts.

[leppr]

"nigger" is never neutral (except when it comes from the mouth of black rappers but that is the exception to the rule).

[meowface]

It's shock humor. Whether you perceive it to be subjectively funny doesn't affect how others see it. You could call it childish, but it's still a joke.

[nickpsecurity]

There's a whole chunk of black comedy and hip hop that didn't get that memo. Seems to me like it's one of those things where it's funny or not depending on the audience's personal beliefs. Along with speakers skin color. Which means there's probably nothing concrete to your statement past normal biases and judgments of human groups.

[Bud]

Nope. Hip hop is not relevant here. You are not paying attention to the context. I actually have no problem with rappers and hip hip artists using the word in question.

I was making a statement of fact, which is valid no matter how many downvotes I get: this guy just named a domain "nigg.er". That's not a "joke". It doesn't meet any definition of what a joke is. It's using a word to be gratuitously offensive. It doesn't matter what his motivation was; it doesn't rise to the level of a joke. I'm not saying that because I find the word offensive, I'm saying it because simply naming something "nigger" is factually not a joke. I'm not sure what you call it, but I am sure that you don't call it a joke. :)

[nickpsecurity]

Glad you clarified your position. So, it boils down to the use of the domain in isolation. There's a type of humor that covers that depending on his intent (& only with that intent). I can't recall the name but it's contrarian, controversial, and a bit trollish. The idea is you pick a taboo word or activity to use in a way that causes no harm. Then, people rally against you over it. Then you laugh at them for their wasting time on it.

Alternatively, a form of this draws attention to how much true evil society tolerates under banner of "acceptable behavior" while they put energy into calling out harmless domain names that should get an eye roll at someone's stupidity at worst. These domain names probably received far more hate from certain people than any carcinogen-filled product or even laws that re-enforce things that hold blacks back. Some get virtually no complaints but taboos almost always do. Ya think? ;)

Note: I don't like the domain name(s) for the record. However, I think it can be a joke or a tool of activism in certain situations. I don't know if contrarian, taboo-oriented humor or calling out people's BS was the goal here.

Note 2: I forgot to add I'm big on the second paragraph's version of this kind of humor. I call out self-righteous pricks all the time with it. Includes use of "the N word" in the positive ways blacks use it. It's just too effective at finding most judgmental & often (not always) hypocritical folks. :)

[mahouse]

Most people find it funny to offend people they don't like, just deal with it.