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After New Zealand shooting, founder of 8chan expresses regrets
Original article on 'Wall Street Journal': After New Zealand Shooting, Founder of 8chan Expresses Regrets
For those of you who, like me, can't read that article, here's a different article from newshub.co.nz that talks about it: Christchurch terror attack: 8chan founder expresses regret
few years too late on that one, fredrick. having once been possibly the only liberal 8chan user (back when he used to run the site, in fact), it has literally always had a culture which radicalizes people in a way 4chan's /pol/ could never dream of. beyond dealing with child porn and the /v/ board (which differs mildly in culture from the rest of the site because it has a mod who tries to keep things in order), a large swathe of 8chan has basically no genuine moderation and it was thus really only a matter of time before one of the people on it did something like this. /pol/ is arguably not even the actual worst board on there--and that's quite a feat for a place with such enlightening boards as /zoo/ (zoophilia) and /qanon/ (current home of the QAnon conspiracy), and former place of a number of lolicon and child porn boards--coming behind places like /baph/ (which were dedicated to large scale, extremely comprehensive dox operations). pretty much the only way this was ever not going to happen was if he was proactive and abandoned his principles--and that shit was never going to be in the cards, because his principles are the only reason the website exists.
How has any sort of law enforcement never stepped in with so many repeat offenses?
8chan isn't hosted in the US (it's based out of the philippines unless something's changed recently) and doesn't really respond to legal bullshit outside of child porn for the same reason places like 4chan and reddit generally aren't liable for what their users post, as i understand, so.
That would be the double edge sword of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which really deserves a discussion of its own.
I'm curious about this. What with all the digital goings-on and lawmakers around the world trying to gain control over the internet, I'd like a few savvy Tildeans to give the ELI5 treatment to some of these internet acts.
There are subtleties and requirements to it of course, but the summary of CDA 230 is basically "if you run a service or platform that enables users to post content, you won't be held responsible for that content". That's why, for example, if someone uploads a movie to YouTube, YouTube itself isn't immediately considered responsible for the copyright infringement.
There's also an extremely persistent myth on the internet that platforms lose this protection if they start actively moderating, but that's not true at all. Someone will say something like, "Why doesn't reddit just take down those posts/subreddits?" and someone else will say, "They can't actively take things down, or they can be held responsible for everything on the site". That's wrong, but it gets repeated constantly, so a lot of people believe it.
I’m really glad that it was you who answered this. Unmoderated communities are just a disaster in the long run. Both in quality of community and long-term economic viability of the platform.
Your prior experience at one of these large platforms, your attitude after leaving, and how you manage this community are just freakin’ awesome. I’m inspired to go increase my Tildes Patreon donation right now.
I’m suffering prior to pressing Post because that donation thing sounds shilly, but whatever, it’s what I’m doing. Go donate if you can.
Thanks for ELI5. ;)
Now I wonder why some people think moderating content on forum = responsible for what others say. I know, it's just the internet, I should really just relax, but I almost want to explore that reasoning.
That's easy.
If I, as a moderator, have the power to remove your comments, then any comment of yours which I do not remove must be my choice. If I can remove it, but I do not remove it, I must have chosen not to remove it.
Therefore, not only am I responsible for removing the invisible comments, I am also responsible for not removing the visible comments. I might not be responsible for you actually saying whatever you might say, but I am responsible for allowing it to be seen by other people.
Ergo, moderators are responsible for what is said on the websites they moderate.
Glad to see they didn't mention the shooter's name.
I don't think I've heard it yet. I have no interest in looking it up.
Unfortunately our trashy media in Australia had a field day going on and on about the shooter and barely anything on the actual event
God I hate this. There's a lot to be learned, from the tale of Herostratus.
People who do these things want publicity, they want people to talk about them and what they did. News companies play right into their plans when they obsess over them.
Obviously, we as a society don't need to try to censor information as heavily as the Greeks did in relation to Herostratus (especially since it didn't work anyways). But I do believe in the spirit of what they did. Committing to obscurity the life of a man who plotted his way to fame through infamy.
So why sit around and wait for that to happen? Just kill the site.
as the article mentions, he sold it off awhile ago, so it's not his anymore. in any case as i noted in my post, the reason the website exists is because he wanted a place for more or less absolute free speech as is the case in the US, and the only way he could have really prevented something like this from fermenting in his community would have been to abandon that principle--which he had no intentions of doing as owner, and which would have defeated the point of creating the website in the first place.
The WSJ article includes it, but he sold the site years ago and no longer has any involvement or control.
(Side note: apparently outline.com doesn't work on WSJ any more? I definitely read this exact article through it a day or two ago, so that's very recent)
It's also mentioned in the newshub.co.nz article:
FYI: @Cosmos