[elcamino44]

I think it’s interesting that so many people see the danger in a Twitter “mob” effectively running Kiwifarms off the public, visible internet, without recognising that Kiwifarms themselves were a mob, with the precise goal of running people (including the recently targeted streamer) off the public visible internet too. The tactics were different, but the goal is effectively the same.

The key differences are Kiwifarms is targeting individuals personally. And that they’re doing it kind of randomly, for the lulz. Whereas their main opponents here are targeting a company/community, and acting in self-defence.

I know who I think is more worthy of protection.

[rowanG077]

It's not about who is more worthy of protection. And viewing it that way is incredibly dangerous. It's about what cost you are willing to pay for that protection.

Ex: we have a pretty clear innocent until proven guilty justice system. This means there will always be people who are guilty who will not be punished. We can make that less likely by just throwing every suspect into jail. This protects the general public better then the current system. But most will agree that the cost of this is too high. So we don't do it. That doesn't mean we don't want the protect the public from criminals.

The people who are against cloudflare banning kiwifarms aren't debating for who to protect. They are debating about the cost of that protection.

[cywick]

> Ex: we have a pretty clear innocent until proven guilty justice system.

The high bar of "innocent until proven guilty" (and "beyond a reasonable doubt") only applies to criminal cases, though, and not to civil ones. The present situation is much more analogous to a civil case where you have to weigh the interests of two parties (i.e., Kiwifarms and their victims) against each other.

[koheripbal]

Even civil cases require material preponderance of evidence.

Online mobs need only confirmation bias.

[rowanG077]

It was an example to show it's way too simplistic to view the situation as only "kiwifarms bad". The example cannot be mapped to the situation as you are trying to do. And it wasn't intented as an analogy.

Besides the two parties are not kiwifarms and their victims. The people who are against it make arguments about free speech and whether platforms should be responsible for the content hosted on them. If it was as simple as just kiwifarms vs the victims it would be an open and shut case.

[ceejayoz]

> They are debating about the cost of that protection.

Sure, but the parent post is asking you to also consider the cost of not acting.

[rowanG077]

That's obvious and I'd hoped my example with the justice system illustrated that.

[phantom_of_cato]

> without recognising that Kiwifarms themselves were a mob

That's seems like a false equivalence to me. They don't have nearly as much as power and influence as the Twitter mobs. Which entire major websites do you think the KF "mob" can get off the internet by political/social pressure?

Also, if there's no avoiding the existence of mobs in the current political climate, it's better to allow all sides to have their own.

> I know who I think is more worthy of protection.

People with backing from almost all social major institutions, corporations, and academia?

[crayboff]

Who do you think has more power? A group of anonymous internet "trolls" attacking and harassing an individual or the individual who can't do anything to stop it?

Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences.

[throwawayacc2]

> Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences.

Whenever I see this line, all I can think is this is the exact same reasoning used by racists and homophobes and religious fanatics in the past. Maybe it’s legal for you to be gay now, but we don’t want to welcome you in our community. Maybe it’s legal for black people to buy houses in our neighbourhoods now that doesn’t mean we have to be welcoming. Maybe we can’t kill you know for being an atheist but we’ll banish you from the community.

The reason modern societies are functionally republics ( I am counting constitutional monarchies here as well ) and not direct democracies is to protect against this very phenomenon of changing societal whims.

If you subscribe to this line of thinking, remember one thing. Societal normal are constantly changing. Just as acceptance of homosexuality waxed and waned across time, just as acceptance of foreigners waxed and waned, so to it will in the future. There will come one day, maybe in our life time, maybe far into the future, when all your values will be turned upside down and it will be people like you who will find themselves persecuted. And when that happens, just tell to yourself “Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences”

[tga_d]

Kiwi farms is not being persecuted for holding an identity, it's being held accountable for actions taken against innocent people. Nobody reasonable thinks, e.g., "persons who engage in abusive behavior" should be a protected class shielded from all repercussions.

[throwawayacc2]

The homosexuals are not being persecuted for holding an identity, they are being held accountable for actions taken against public decency and innocent children. Nobody reasonable thinks, eg, “persons who engage in degenerate behaviour” should be a protected class shielded from all repercussions.

- A homophobe cca 1954

[tga_d]

So, just to be clear here: the position that you're arguing is that there are literally no actions anyone can take that should have social repercussions to them?

[phantom_of_cato]

> A group of anonymous internet "trolls" attacking and harassing an individual or the individual who can't do anything to stop it?

The comparison isn't to the people who are being harassed randomly. It's between two "mobs", the Twitter one and the KF one.

> Freedom of speech may protect against government consequences but it doesn't protect against social consequences.

The legal concept doesn't, but the ideal (and the social norm) does.

[Teever]

But isn't that a catch-22? If the twitter mob wasn't successful in getting KF kicked off, than KF would have been more powerful than the twitter mob?

What alternative are you suggesting, that we just roll over and let these kinds of assholes ruin lives with impunity?

"Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power."

[account42]

We don't need to let either mob kick anyone off from the internet.

[elcamino44]

Okay, but how do you propose the victims of Kiwifarms protect themselves from being kicked off the internet?

And remember we’re not talking about their physical ability to connect to the internet (after all, no one has deprived Kiwifarms of that), we’re talking about their ability to access their audience and use their current identity.

[Teever]

What would you do if Kiwifarms came after you?

[dcow]

Ignore them. If they did something illegal then sue them.

[Teever]

Can you describe the process to sue an anonymous person in another country after they have swatted you?

[ranger_danger]

you couldn't be more wrong

[cowtools]

I don't think the goal of KF is to de-platform individuals, but merely to discredit them by publishing demeaning information and rumors about them. So they are categorically different: one side is pro-free-speech, and the other side is pro-censorship.

"Doxxing" doesn't restrict someone else's free speech. It just discourages them from conducting speech under their public identity.

If you ask me, what they ought to do is "counter-dox" the KiwiForum users and give them a taste of their own medicine.

[sealeck]

> "Doxxing" doesn't restrict someone else's free speech. It just discourages them from conducting speech under their public identity.

That is restricting their ability to speak freely - now they have to hide their identity for fear of physical violence!!!

[byyll]

I've seen people make the argument "free speech does not mean free from consequences". This seems to be the same case here. Free speech does not mean free from the consequence of "doxxing"

[sealeck]

This argument is patently ridiculous - according to this logic everyone has "free speech" in that they are able to express themselves even if they are attacked for it with physical violence.

[tsol]

So the free exchange of information is dangerous-- why stop here? There's a lot more protecting we can do

[sealeck]

Of course exchanging information can be dangerous - e.g. when people decide to run coordinated harrassment campaigns - it can also be a wonderful, magnificent thing (e.g. distributing academic knowledge freely) but it's not all good.

[elcamino44]

> "Doxxing" doesn't restrict someone else's free speech. It just discourages them from conducting speech under their public identity.

Isn’t this the exact same thing? Discouraging someone from conducting speech under their public identity is taking away their audience and community. It’s not removing their ability to speak, but it’s hard to see how it’s not restricting their free speech.

And in the exact same way, no one has removed the ability to speak of any KiwiFarms member (or indeed of their community as a whole). It’s simply been made harder for them to conduct their speech under their current public identity.

[BizarroLand]

They published the home address of the family of a trans child and their members physically showed up in person to harass and intimidate that family for years for the crime of existing.

https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/x76vck/...

[phatfish]

> So they are categorically different: one side is pro-free-speech, and the other side is pro-censorship.

The "free speech" angle is an obvious smoke screen for bullying. Their "doxing" is in typical bully style, a whole forum against one person they take a dislike to.

Most normal people don't want to play that game, or even have the resources to do it.

[philosopher1234]

Oh no you can’t post hate on the internet, that’s clearly just as bad as causing someone to commit suicide.

[cowtools]

KF is certainly quite hateful, racist, spiteful, etc. I just don't like when arguments devolve into unplugging each other the internet.

[sealeck]

If you're using the internet to try and threaten and intimidate people then yes, people will try to unplug you from it.

[cowtools]

You could conceivably regard almost any comment as "threatening and intimidating".

On a larger, more serious scale, almost every world power uses the internet to distribute propaganda with the effect of "threatening and intimidating" other nations. There is some degree of "threatening and intimidating" in almost every discussion of politics.

The US Gov might consider Wikileaks to be "threatening and intimidating". Ukraine "threatens and intimidates" Russia and vice versa. Corporations "threaten and intimidate" their workers, while unions "threaten and intimidate" corporations.

I don't think that's a justified basis to atomize the entire internet, but I do think that is a basis for partisan censorship

On a small scale, none of this matters because it is just internet gossip between a few deranged individuals. But this is creating a precedent for internet censorship at large.

[sealeck]

> You could conceivably regard almost any comment as "threatening and intimidating"

Of course, but I think a threat to kill someone with a bomb is unambiguously threatening and intimidating whereas "I think this person's ideology is terrible and disagree with it" is not.

> The US Gov might consider Wikileaks to be "threatening and intimidating". Ukraine "threatens and intimidates" Russia and vice versa. Corporations "threaten and intimidate" their workers, while unions "threaten and intimidate" corporations.

You're kind of lumping in a bunch of separate concerns - a war between Russia and Ukraine is not the same as a forum of neo Nazis and neither are whistleblowing or labour relations disputes. Could you explain why you think they're related (as I can't personally see how they are)?

[elcamino44]

But if someone comes at you wanting to unplug you from the internet (in every meaningful sense), what possible recourse do you have? These are trolls, they don’t go away just because you ask nicely or try to ignore them.