>You'd think that, but historically this has only encouraged niche businesses to crop up catering to that crowd. Look at Epik (or Vultr) for example, businesses that exist solely to counter this kind of threat.
And Cloudflare had no problem hosting Kiwi Farms and Daily Stormer until they crossed a line. Cloudflare's history doesn't exactly paint it as bleeding-heart liberal who can't deal with 'icky feelings.' I'm sure Epik and Vultr have their lines as well, it just happens that none of their customers have crossed it yet.
>To stop KiwiFarms from existing, you need to literally silence the people using it, not just shut down their clearnet website.
Slowing them down is still a valid goal.
>Websites don't harass people, people do.
Guns don't kill people, people do. Except people with guns can kill a lot more people faster. That's why guns are a thing.
Whether or not you want to be a free speech absolutist, you have to concede that the platform and its reach matters. If it didn't, no one would be up in arms about deplatforming. Yes, it's literally and technically true that a website can't harass people, but having a platform meant to organize and facilitate harassment is a force multiplier for the people doing said embarrassment. Without the website, the people couldn't harass as well as they could with it.
And the size, reach and convenience of the network matters in that regard, just as the capacity, rate of fire and caliber of a gun matters, even if it is a person pulling the trigger.
> I'm sure Epik and Vultr have their lines as well, it just happens that none of their customers have crossed it yet.
Indeed they do, which makes me a happy customer. Knowing how inflammatory their other customers are, it brings me great comfort in knowing that their free speech is honored as much as mine. If either of them pulled a "Cloudflare moment" at the same scale, I'd probably start looking for other hosting providers.
> Slowing them down is still a valid goal.
...did we do that, though? The past 2 months have done nothing but put KiwiFarms in the spotlight. Instead of privately petitioning Cloudflare to change their policy, we drew battle lines and took to Twitter. All KiwiFarms ever wanted was attention, and we gave them more attention than they could have ever hoped for. Do people seriously think they're going to struggle to bounce back after an attack like this? Giving online organizations a platform has been a huge mistake in the past, like treating "Anonymous" as anything other than the default name for 4chan posters.
> you have to concede that the platform and its reach matters
Absolutely. That's why I'm afraid that attacking the platform now will cause it to become harder to attack. It's already increased it's reach, the recent media hubbub has ensured that everyone knows about KiwiFarms. I guess the Streisand effect is lost on modern internet users...
> Without the website, the people couldn't harass as well as they could with it.
Right. Now imagine how much worse things would get if there wasn't a website, but a Tor hidden service. Or a closed Matrix homeserver. Or an IPFS bulletin board. The sky is the limit, and I'd go as far as to argue that they were the least harmless on the surface web. Only time will tell, though.
> And the size, reach and convenience of the network matters in that regard, just as the capacity, rate of fire and caliber of a gun matters
Well... no. This is something that has been proven time and time again in America; banning certain types of guns doesn't work. Banning an AK doesn't stop someone from chopping their Glock 17 and clearing a room at half the price. Gun legislation doesn't correlate with a reduction in firearm violence. The capacity, rate of fire and caliber never mattered, just the fact that the gun existed in the first place. If we're not going to ban guns outright, what's the point in picking-and-choosing which ones are-and-aren't perceived as harmful?
Obviously it's a reductive argument, but the same thing goes for free speech. By choosing to draw the line somewhere, we're giving other people the go-ahead to draw different lines. We're giving world governments the tools they need to oppress LGBT users. We're drawing the blueprints for a new era of information suppression, and nobody seems to care since both sides have started beating the "muh terrorism" and "think of the children!" drums, respectively. And when has that ended well for internet freedom in the past?
i had ZERO clue what kiwifarms was before all this.. now that I know how much they try to keep me from seeing it, I have made it a point to look at for the forseeable future.
I do not subscribe to bullying or doxxing or anything like that, but now kiwifarms will get a fair chance at showing me what they are about, they had zero chance before, as I did not know they exist.
And Cloudflare had no problem hosting Kiwi Farms and Daily Stormer until they crossed a line. Cloudflare's history doesn't exactly paint it as bleeding-heart liberal who can't deal with 'icky feelings.' I'm sure Epik and Vultr have their lines as well, it just happens that none of their customers have crossed it yet.
>To stop KiwiFarms from existing, you need to literally silence the people using it, not just shut down their clearnet website.
Slowing them down is still a valid goal.
>Websites don't harass people, people do.
Guns don't kill people, people do. Except people with guns can kill a lot more people faster. That's why guns are a thing.
Whether or not you want to be a free speech absolutist, you have to concede that the platform and its reach matters. If it didn't, no one would be up in arms about deplatforming. Yes, it's literally and technically true that a website can't harass people, but having a platform meant to organize and facilitate harassment is a force multiplier for the people doing said embarrassment. Without the website, the people couldn't harass as well as they could with it.
And the size, reach and convenience of the network matters in that regard, just as the capacity, rate of fire and caliber of a gun matters, even if it is a person pulling the trigger.