[634636346]

It will be interesting to see how this affects "toxic," deplatformed, and to some degree debanked (at least from PayPal and CC processors) entities, like the KiwiFarms. While this page is somewhat vague about the private/public status of the Fed: https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm

it seems pretty well established that federally chartered corporations, like the USPS and Amtrak (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebron_v._National_Railroad_Pa...), are bound by the first amendment, so theoretically the Fed should be as well.

That means the usual "it's a private corporation!" defense of corporate censorship is probably off the table.

[tombert]

I think KiwiFarms is a cesspool and I think Null in particular is an extremely crappy human, but despite that I disagreed with the credit card processors pulling them, because they really did have a near-monopoly for online payments, meaning that this could be considered stifling of free speech.

However, I think I'll have less of an issue for it if there's the government-backed means in which to send them money; at that point I think the "it's a private company!" defense would actually apply to the credit card companies.

[ZoomerCretin]

This is a dramatic whitewashing of KiwiFarms. KiwiFarms was not deplatformed for wrongthink or because people disagreed with their ideas. They were deplatformed for coordinating harassment campaigns that resulted in at least three confirmed suicides. That is not protected speech.

[docmars]

Any speech could be attributed to the N-number of suicides we unfortunately see happening. This is not a good argument for censorship or punitive actions against individuals or entities whose speech was followed by a suicide with dubious / unproven connections to that speech.

If any speech is to be considered targeted harassment, then let the courts decide that in a defamation (or otherwise) case to determine damages and reconciliation of those damages.

Private entities should not be allowed to limit their business services to customers they suspect are behaving in a way they disapprove of, especially since these customers are not asking for tailored services such as cakes and custom websites. Payment providers are the backbone of a functioning economy, and problematic speech should never be the reason why they deny service.

[tjpnz]

One of those "confirmed" suicides occurred in Japan and the individual was also a US citizen. The US State Department doesn't list any suicides when it was said to have happened (June 2021 - there was one prior to that in May and another in February 2022). Reporting the death of a foreign national to their respective embassy is mandatory in Japan.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-tra...

[kalleboo]

Japanese statistics show 6 US citizen deaths in June 2021 https://cache.treehouse.systems/media_attachments/files/110/...

The state department is just missing data.

[tjpnz]

Do you have an original source for this and is there a breakdown by cause? US State Department data only accounts for non-natural causes - namely suicides and accidents.

[jyrkesh]

I assume you're talking about near (fka byuu)? Heartbreaking...such an unbelievably intelligent and insightful person.

I had the pleasure of getting a couple direct replies from them once on an obscure subreddit under my own realname account. That turned into a few DMs, and despite the fact that I was publicly working on tech completely antithetical to their technical views, they were so gracious and thoughtful and engaged...it was truly humbling.

I have my own thoughts on KF too...I wish the individuals responsible for their targeted and direct harassment had been held accountable. But I'll try to preserve some tact in their memory and leave it at that.

[yanderekko]

The nexus between KF harassment and the suicides in two of the three cases is extremely tenuous ("KF had a thread X disliked" -> "X committed suicide" -> "KF induced X's suicide") and in the third the evidence that a suicide occurred to begin with is lacking.

I'm sure many, many more suicides could be linked more strongly to any of the major social media platforms.

In any case, the reasons for deplatforming have always been more diverse. CloudFlare dropped KF for representing some sort of imminent and ongoing threat to human life which you'd think a good-faith review of would indicate was misguided (and thus their service should be restored.) KF has not been able to establish relationships with other hosts not because literally everyone finds them repugnant, but because entering into a public relationship with any company immediately makes that company a target for a hate campaign, and even "free speech" hosts and such have found the cost-benefit math unfavorable.

[qingcharles]

You're right in this scenario, and people need to understand the First Amendment doesn't protect "criminal" speech.

OTOH, plenty of sites have been canceled simply due to their fucked-up viewpoints that are protected speech.

[orlp]

If KiwiFarms hosted/was responsible for illegal activities, then it is up to law enforcement to deal with it, not payment processors.

It is not desirable that private infrastructure companies such as Visa or MasterCard are effectively playing as judge, jury and executioner in modern society, even if (sometimes) they are happening to do the right thing.

[docmars]

Agreed, especially under the guise of boycotting ideas they don't like.

[throwaway894345]

Then prosecute them for it? Our society probably shouldn’t depend on credit card processors to maintain law and order.

[EGreg]

A counterpoint — every day tons of financial disputes are handled by banks and insurance companies. Unlike with government, no violence is involved, and things go well. Why involve governments and violence when we can avoid the bad things without violence?

[callalex]

This is a non-sequitur because the governments resolve millions to billions of disputes every day without violence as well.

[EGreg]

But without threat of violence?

What are you referring to?

[throwaway894345]

The parent is claiming a serious harassment campaign which seems functionally equivalent to violence. Both are harmful, illegal activities. Also, no one is advocating violent government intervention.

[yanderekko]

>A counterpoint — every day tons of financial disputes are handled by banks and insurance companies. Unlike with government, no violence is involved, and things go well. Why involve governments and violence when we can avoid the bad things without violence?

Good point, maybe the private financial institutions (or more!) of the country should lean into this and offer a shadow legal system whereby anyone can bring suit for any allowable reason with the ultimate threat being a sort of (nonviolent!) exile from digital society. That could surely not go wrong.

[heywhatupboys]

> They were deplatformed for coordinating harassment campaigns that resulted in at least three confirmed suicides. That is not protected speech.

and how many has reddit lead to?

Just admit that they were deplatformed because a very powerful person pulled their strings at our frigging backbones of the internet for personal favors, and got the site banned there.

[634636346]

Thankfully, the site is no longer available via clearweb, so we can just take its characterization by its harshest critics at face value, rather than having to actually read it ourselves and make up our own minds.

However, I do find it strange that the site now only being available through Tor--and thus not showing up in Google search results or being easily browsable by "normies"--seems to have been enough to assuage the people spearheading its deplatforming, since Tor should pose little of an impediment to those capable and willing enough to IRL harass and SWAT people (the purported real reason KF exists). It's almost as if their real concern is people being able to google them and find a site that comprehensively documents their bad, and perhaps illegal, behavior.

[tombert]

Well wait, maybe they gave up the deplatforming effort largely because it’s not as easy to deplatform an onion site as it is to harass web hosts on Twitter.

Also, wasn’t a big complaint with KF their doxxing? Even if I didn’t do any bad or illegal things, I don’t really want a bunch of trolls knowing my address.

[subsistence234]

But if you HAD done bad things and they WERE documented on KF, you might try even harder to get it shut down. And if you had plenty money and influential contacts, and no moral qualms, you might succeed. Only temporarily though.

[heywhatupboys]

> Thankfully, the site is no longer available via clearweb

it's a frigging gossip site. Much worse has been posed to facebook. I don't agree with ANYTHING non-court-ordered takedown of sites.

Not to mention: it was ONE person with powerful personal connections to the internet backbones that got a personal favor.

They even harassed the WIFE of the lawyer representing KiwiFarming

[sneed_today]

Actually it is available via the clearweb - https://sneed.today.

[yanderekko]

>Thankfully, the site is no longer available via clearweb

Untrue, but once enough people know this I'm sure it'll be taken out again. I'd post the link but I'd probably be jeopardizing my YC account..

[subsistence234]

That story only holds water on social media or clickbait news.

[slily]

Last I heard, at least one of those "confirmed suicides" failed to appear in government databases, which casts doubt on its legitimacy (I assume it is one of those counted as "confirmed"), and another was associated with outside harassment and falsely attributed to KF. I don't know what the third one is.

I dislike that site and the general behavior of its users too, obviously, but during that time when it was in the spotlight I saw plenty of evidence of egregious behavior and blatant lies from people campaigning to censor them, and much of it seemed to work. It's not hard to see how debanking could affect less "problematic" organizations or individuals through censorship campaigns (or government interference) regardless of your feelings about KF itself.

[jojobas]

This is a bullshit take. Kiwifarms always remind users to stay away from gossip subjects. The fact that some people disregard that is the equivalent of someone reading a tabloid or "Elon Musk jet tracker" and harasses celebrities mentioned there.

Also if you do what's likely to cause a KF article documenting your antics, you can be sure 4chan/8chan/countless discord channels will have a go at you as well, and those are typically not so restrained.

But sure pin it where you want.

[nonethewiser]

Sticks and stones

[clove]

This is misinformation.

KiwiFarms was not deplatformed for harassment campaigns* or suicides**; they were deplatformed due to coordinated harassment campaigns against the companies on which the site relied.

*There were no such things. Users were aggressively reprimanded and banned for suggesting and engaging in "poop-touching," respectively.

**See the other child comment to your post.*

[tick_tock_tick]

Hopefully it resolves it. I don't want to live in a society where Mastercard or Visa defines if your business is "moral" enough to operate.

Then you have Obama with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point trying to circumvent the Congress and the Judiciary.

[cempaka]

Isn't it the case that you still have to have a relationship with a bank to have an account to transfer into or out of via FedNow in the first place? In that case I don't think this would change the picture at all. It's not the intention to help the unbanked pariahs, that's for sure.

[634636346]

There are still almost 5k banks in the US. Unlike Zelle, if this opens to all of them, all you need is one bank.

[mattwilsonn888]

One low quality bank?

Bank gets bailed out? That's a dire sign for the fundamental value of the dollar to regular people if this is a regular practice.

Bank gets bought up? Well we don't really have 5k banks anymore do we?

[astrange]

> Bank gets bailed out? That's a dire sign for the fundamental value of the dollar to regular people if this is a regular practice.

"Our insurance system works" is not a bad sign for your financial system.

[evantbyrne]

I presume the system uses bank account and routing numbers? So besides concerns with sharing that information with the public, concerned citizens will figure out who they bank with, and will most likely be able to easily pressure the bank to drop them.

Certain things should be difficult to accomplish in a functional society anyways, and administering a profitable hate group is one of those things. If not bankrupted by their lack of credit card access, they'll eventually run into legal troubles from the damage they cause to innocent people.

[cempaka]

> they'll eventually run into legal troubles from the damage they cause to innocent people

Which is how this sort of thing ought to be handled, in stark contrast to "Chrystia Freeland sends an email to the heads of major banks to get troublemakers debanked with zero transparency or due process."

[evantbyrne]

Like the person I was responding to said, there are thousands of banks. If not a single one wants to do business with this organization, that's not a first amendment issue and you don't need to lose sleep over it. Being so unpopular that nobody with a shred of decency will do business with them is not a rights issue.

[pas]

maybe. maybe not. it's definitely not this simple. those thousands of banks likely share back office software, many fraud prevention vendors, background check provider.

and yes, sure kiwi farms can simply accept checks or whatever. it doesn't change the simple truth, that there are many things the current economic system doesn't provide despite extant demand and profit opportunity. transactions cost are too damn high.

[cempaka]

Every one of those thousands of banks is dependent on remaining in the government's good graces. Canada doesn't have thousands of banks (a setup we'll almost certainly move closer to as the regional banks face ongoing problems), but in the case where an official at Freeland's level said, "jump," they all said "how high?" It's very similar to how censorship, including of many true propositions, was enforced on social media during the COVID/vaccines hysteria. In that case people are also arguing it's "not a first amendment issue" and not having unqualified success in the courts. But your notion that any of this comes as a result of grassroots popular demands is largely a fantasy.

[docmars]

>concerned citizens will figure out who they bank with, and will most likely be able to easily pressure the bank to drop them

This should be difficult to accomplish in a functional society.

[1000bestlives]

Nobody on KF is innocent. You talk like someone who has a thread about them

[subsistence234]

they're not a "hate group," they're a "collecting embarrassing info on creeps" group. of course the creeps aren't happy about that, and frame it as "hate."

[salawat]

I'm sure British loyalists circa 1776 would have agreed with you.

[evantbyrne]

Nonsense comparison. We're talking about business partnerships. If everyone with a shred of decency turns your organization away, that's a great litmus test for its existence. Worry about the next revolution being banked when that becomes a real concern, not over an online troll farm that tries to convince vulnerable people to end their lives.

[polski-g]

Just like how Ellen Degeneres was deplatformed in 1997 for being undecent. Great point!

[raincom]

Yes, one doesn't have an account with a participating bank in order to receive and send payments via FedNow. It is same with Zelle; with Zelle, one sends money to an email or a phone number of an intended recipient. Both senders and receivers of Zelle need to registered with Zelle from their banking apps. USBank and Chase are notorious to close accounts who use Zelle heavily, because they see such activities as nefarious. Maybe, other banks use Zelle transaction history as another point to in order to debank people.

I don't want my banks to know who I send money to via Zelle; but they do. If banks are happy with customers writing checks to 'problematic' people, why they think that frequent Zelle activity as source of risk, as long as customers are not depositing or withdrawing cash/money orders.

[prometheus76]

The Federal Reserve is a private company with a chair that is chosen by the President of the US with advice and consent from the Senate, and serves a four-year term. There is no term limitation for this office.

The reason the US government has a national debt is because that debt is owed to the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank that loans the US government money and that sets the US monetary policy.

[phpisthebest]

>>Federal Reserve is a private company with a chair that is chosen by the President of the US with advice and consent from the Senate, and serves a four-year term

Sorry but no... You can not be a "Private Company" and have your leadership appointed by the President like any other Government Agency

The Fed is a Government Agency,

>>The reason the US government has a national debt is because that debt is owed to the Federal Reserve,

Incorrect

Some of the Debt is owned by a Federal Reserve, more recently as no one want to buy US Debt any more but....

>>which is a private bank that loans the US government money

Again FALSE....

The Federal Reserve can not Loan the US Government anything

The US Dept of Treasury issues Bonds which are sold on the Open Market, 3rd parties then Buy these Bonds, then the Fed Buys them

The Fed can not legally buy Bonds directly from the US Government. How do you think Black Rock got to be do big...

[landemva]

The Fed is a contractor with pomp and circumstance to make it appear different. Any private group charter can require their club leader to be approved by the Pres. and the Pres. may or may not play along.

[cyberax]

The Fed is the only entity in existence that can _create_ dollars out of thin air.

US Treasury is responsible for the printed paper dollars, but only the Fed can create "digital" ones.

[mattclarkdotnet]

This is a huge but common misunderstanding.

Every time a bank makes a loan, the dollars are "created out of thin air", and slowly "destroyed" as the loan is repaid.

[csense]

Parent and GP are using different definitions of "dollar."

GP is using a strict definition (only dollar-denominated liability of the Fed is a "true" dollar), parent is using a looser definition (a dollar-denominated liability of any bank is a dollar).

If you have a fractional reserve (e.g., a bank has $100M cash backing $100M deposits one day, then loans out $30M the next day), with the strict definition you still have $100M dollars ($70M controlled by the bank, $30M that was loaned out and used to purchase stuff). But with the loose definition you have $130M ($30M is still loaned out, depositors are $70M).

Essentially the depositors have made $100M of (debt) investments in the bank, and those investments are now 70% backed by cash and 30% backed by paper (mortgages or other kinds of IOU's from whoever they loaned the $30M to).

[cyberax]

That's incorrect. A bank can't give out more dollars than they receive from depositors. It can give out all kinds of paper that is _valued_ in dollars, but not the digital representation of banknotes with the pictures of dead presidents on the front.

In contrast, the Fed can create actual dollars. It can just buy an asset and pay for it with money that it has just created.

[wavemode]

When a private bank makes a loan, the dollars are not created out of thin air, no. They loan out depositor's cash.

[phpisthebest]

you may have an analogy if your "Any private group charter" was established by an act of Congress, where by the Appointment of the leader was required by law to be done by the president, with the advice and consent of congress

Show me "Any private group charter" that was established by such an act of congress and i will agree with you.

[landemva]

Yes, Congress passed a bill 110 years ago to give a private group broad authorities. The third central bank of the USA.

[634636346]

>The reason the US government has a national debt is because that debt is owed to the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank that loans the US government money and that sets the US monetary policy.

I'm pretty sure every holder of US Treasuries (including me) is owed money by the US government.

[dools]

Not only that but the cash swapped for bonds is also a liability of the government, so it is just swapping one liability for another.

What we call government debt is just an operational vestige.

[prometheus76]

We are both correct.

[globalreset]

... https://www.thebalancemoney.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-de...

[yieldcrv]

public / private is a false dilemma

trusts, foundations, and a host of other entities are ‘orphaned’ entities and is essentially a third category which is more accurate for the Federal Reserve as well

The Board of Governors is a public entity with an appointment, and the rest of the entity has a rotation of members and pretty full autonomy on how it runs on the inside at the employee level

[landemva]

It's a club funded by interest rate skimming with opaque structure and reporting requirements which don't conform to typical reporting requirements. CEO of Silicon Valley Bank was on BoD of SFO branch, which failed to adequately regulate SVB.

https://www.svb.com/news/company-news/svb-financial-group-ce...

"SVB Financial Group CEO Elected to the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco"

[pas]

why do you think it was a regulatory failure? it's not the Fed's job to make sure every bank has a sane business plan and rock solid conservative riskless strategy.

its job is to make sure the entire system can take the stress of failing banks.

the FDIC did its job too.

[landemva]

It's their job.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/topics/capital...

The private club Federal Reserve branch in SFO was supposed to regulate SVB which had C-level executive on BoD of the regulator. The regulator failed to take prompt corrective action when SVB had capital inadequacy. SVB subsequently, months later, had inadequate capital to continue operating.

[pas]

> SVB had capital inadequacy

based on which criteria?

[aidenn0]

Did the Fed own significant treasuries prior to QE?

[dools]

None of what you just said is true, it’s libertarian propaganda.

[bauruine]

A less controversal site, at least on hn, may be wikileaks https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-m...

[hammock]

What is the Kiwi Farms?

[lmm]

A discussion forum similar to, say, Something Awful (or indeed HN), with a focus on mocking online misbehaviour and a reputation for unpopular political views.

[Gabriel_Martin]

“Mocking online misbehavior” is pretty generous.

[jojobas]

Pretty accurate. You make yourself a name suing a waxing salon for not waxing your balls, you get a KF thread. You harass a github project for accepting contributions from a hardcore Christian, you get a KF thread. You declare "everything is racist, everything is sexist, everything is homophobic and you need to point it all out", you get a KF thread.

[ZoomerCretin]

>with a focus on mocking online misbehaviour and a reputation for unpopular political views.

A less generous interpretation is that they coordinate harassment campaigns against transgender people and have caused at least three suicides.

[jojobas]

This interpretation is also dishonest.

One of the three suicides seems to have not happened at all (would have been reported to the US consul in Japan), two others were attributed to posts that did not comply to KF moderation standards, were created by freshly registered users and were removed much faster than similar stuff typically remains visible on Twitter of Facebook.

Thought experiment: if KF founder committed suicide, would you demand deplatforming MotherJones?

[jcadam]

Be happy that you do not know.

[LegitShady]

A toxic website where online trolls discuss other personalities, mostly online, in a toxic way.