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The Washington Post Asks: Should 8chan Be Considered a Terrorist Recuiting Site? (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post:
As most of the world condemned last week's mass shooting in New Zealand, a contrary story line emerged on 8chan, the online message board where the alleged shooter had announced the attack and urged others to continue the slaughter. "Who should i kill?" one anonymous poster wrote. "I have never been this happy," wrote another. "I am ready. I want to fight...." The persistence of the talk of violence on 8chan has led some experts to call for tougher actions by the world's governments, with some saying the site increasingly looks like the jihadi forums organized by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda...
8chan's founder, Fredrick Brennan, said Jim Watkins [8chan's sole administrator] owns other Internet businesses and has built a technical fortress to guard 8chan from potential takedowns: He owns nearly every component securing the site to the backbone of the Web, including its servers, which are scattered around the world. "You can send a complaint, but no one's going to do anything. He owns the whole operation," Brennan said. "It's how he keeps people confused and guessing...." Watkins is content to lose money, Brennan said, because he sees it as a pet project: "8chan is like a boat to Jim. It doesn't matter if it makes money. He just enjoys using it...."
8chan, however, is shielded in another way: the U.S. web-services giant Cloudflare, which helps websites guard against "distributed denial of service," or DDoS, attacks that online vigilante groups have used to target 8chan in the past.
The Post reports that Brennan "worries there are no true technical solutions beyond a total redesign of the Web, focused around identification and moderation, that could undermine it as a venue for free expression." Brennan tells the Post that "The Internet as a whole is not made to be censored. It was made to be resilient. And as long as there's a contingent of people who like this content, it will never go away."
On Tuesday, 8chan posted tips on Twitter for what to do "If your ISP is blocking a website you'd like to browse" -- a tweet which is now pinned to the top of its feed.
8chan's founder, Fredrick Brennan, said Jim Watkins [8chan's sole administrator] owns other Internet businesses and has built a technical fortress to guard 8chan from potential takedowns: He owns nearly every component securing the site to the backbone of the Web, including its servers, which are scattered around the world. "You can send a complaint, but no one's going to do anything. He owns the whole operation," Brennan said. "It's how he keeps people confused and guessing...." Watkins is content to lose money, Brennan said, because he sees it as a pet project: "8chan is like a boat to Jim. It doesn't matter if it makes money. He just enjoys using it...."
8chan, however, is shielded in another way: the U.S. web-services giant Cloudflare, which helps websites guard against "distributed denial of service," or DDoS, attacks that online vigilante groups have used to target 8chan in the past.
The Post reports that Brennan "worries there are no true technical solutions beyond a total redesign of the Web, focused around identification and moderation, that could undermine it as a venue for free expression." Brennan tells the Post that "The Internet as a whole is not made to be censored. It was made to be resilient. And as long as there's a contingent of people who like this content, it will never go away."
On Tuesday, 8chan posted tips on Twitter for what to do "If your ISP is blocking a website you'd like to browse" -- a tweet which is now pinned to the top of its feed.
It's actually right-wing fauxbitarian corporanarchists who want the truth about their terrorist activities censored.
They don't want the internet to know they are a bunch of violent bigots convinced that they are somehow being oppressed by their innocent victims.
I don't think sites like 8chan and zerohedge, etc should be considered terrorist recruiting sites. It's basically just a bunch of edgelord shitposters who think it's clever to post racism, hatred, death threats, child porn and calls for violence. How are they supposed to know that actual terrorists and crazies would take them seriously and join their community?
On the other had, they should be considered a gateway drug to terrorism. ISPs and hosting services should consider carefully whether to do business with them.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It is most curious how left-leaning discussion fora are often the most restrictive. They have lengthy, yet often vague, "community standards" that are ruthlessly policed. Shadowbanning of comments and users is frequent. Deletion of content and the banning of participants is common. Only certain discussion is allowed. Moderators micromanage the discourse.
The right-leaning discussion fora, on the other hand, often see next to no moderation. Comments are left visible to all. Users aren't banned as a routine practice. Anonymity is respected, and often encouraged. The discussion participants direct the discourse.
As the years go by, it becomes more and more obvious that right-leaning communities actively practice freedom as much as is possible, while left-leaning communities are extraordinarily restrictive and openly hostile to freedom.
(I know your're just trolling, but your comment is very representative of actual leftist beliefs. So it's a good foundation for us to build some real discussion off of.)
But the Washington Post should be. Why is this garbage on /.?
PewDiePie isn't even the most mainstream-friendly entry point to the pipeline. Professional intolerant asshats like Jordan Peterson and the various casual white nationalists on Fox News are much more old-fart-friendly that PewDiePie.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Fox News is too big with the old folk, but Peterson's set him self up as a kind of father figure to a large number of disenfranchised young men.
I didn't like the guy when I first saw him but had a really, really hard time articulating why until I saw this and also this. This too.
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