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The Internet

8chan Goes Dark After Hardware Provider Discontinues Service (theverge.com) 627

Posted by msmash from the end-of-road dept.
Internet hate forum 8chan has gone dark after web services company Voxility banned the site -- and also banned 8chan's new host Epik, which had been leasing web space from it. From a report: Epik began working with 8chan over the weekend after web services giant Cloudflare cut off service, following the latest of at least three mass shootings linked to 8chan. But Stanford researcher Alex Stamos noted that Epik seemed to lease servers from Voxility, and when Voxility discovered the content, it cut ties with Epik almost immediately. "As soon as we were notified of the content that Epik was hosting, we made the decision to totally ban them," Voxility business development VP Maria Sirbu told The Verge. Sirbu said it was unlikely that Voxility would work with Epik again. "This is the second situation we've had with the reseller and this is not tolerable," she said.
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8chan Goes Dark After Hardware Provider Discontinues Service

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  • Yes, 8chan has the freedom to post whatever awful content they want; that is part of free speech. However nobody has to guarantee them a way to post it. Similarly you can stand on the street corner and shout out almost anything you want, but you don't have the right to force people to listen to you.

    I don't support silencing 8chan, even when they host terrible vile things. However I do support the companies making their own decisions on what other companies to do business with. If nobody wants to sell hosting to 8chan, that is perfectly fine.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, this isn't a left/right issue.

      I support people's right to say hate speech, acceptance speech, communist ideology, capitalist ideology, etc. I also support the right of individual companies not to be forced to store and propagate any content they disagree with.

    • It's a business decision (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The providers don't want the backlash from hosting such content, so they decided to pull it offline. It's a business decision, based on an assessment that they'd lose more money by continuing to host such sites than by just pulling the plug. If only Slashdot would make the business decision to eliminate some of the hate speech and APK spam here, this site would improve and Slashdot would probably make more money from increased traffic.

    • I do. As it turns out, that kind of speech becomes a cyclone of hate, and exasperates mental illness.

      Turns out, humans natural tendency to not spout of crazy shit when around of humans is a good stop gap. The internet removes that and we are seeing completely unprecedented impacts.
      The internet is presenting human being with challenge at a scale never even conceived of 50 years ago.
      While people like this have always existed, keeping them in small pockets reduced impact.

      • Re:Slashdot wants us to pity 8chan (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @02:46PM (#59045812) Homepage

        I was just talking to a friend about this the other day. The Internet is a double-edged sword when it comes to communications. One the positive side, it can bring people together with similar interests. If I like a certain anime show, I might be the only person in my town that likes it. Pre-Internet, I'd have nobody to discuss this with. With the Internet, I have hundreds or even thousands of other people to talk with about this.

        Unfortunately, the downside is that people can "bond" about negative interests as well. If my interest was "killing everyone in Group X" then pre-Internet my interest would likely not have found many people to talk about this with. Any attempts to do so would find me shunned and likely arrested. With the Internet, though, I could find a group of hundreds with similar views who might encourage me to "take action."

        Furthermore, there's both a "wide reach" and a bubbling effect. I can talk to people with backgrounds and viewpoints vastly different than those in my town - expanding my view on matters. Alternatively, I can only listen to those who agree with me - retreating into a bubble of agreement and blocking out any alternative views.

        Sadly, there's no way to get rid of the negative "getting people together" aspect of the Internet without also getting rid of the positive aspect. And there's no way to enforce the "wide reach" and stop the bubbling effect. It's just how the Internet and human communications work.

      • I do. As it turns out, that kind of speech becomes a cyclone of hate, and exasperates mental illness.

        I think you meant "exacerbates" ?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by JoeyDot ( 5981942 )
      That's not an equivalent comparison. No one forces people to go to 8chan. I'm not actually sure that I've ever been. A more apt example is being banned from the street by whoever it is that owns the streets.

      We do have private streets, small streets where this might be acceptable but at large it's not acceptable, there needs to be neutrality law. Currently what we have is the equivalent of a small consortium that owns most of the roads being able to come together and ban whoever they like for whatever rea

      • Re:Slashdot wants us to pity 8chan (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @05:01PM (#59046908)

        Take out the bits where it's planning a shooting and it's benign political commentary.

        ....you think "We need to fight a race war because the dark-skinned people are out-breeding whites, and those sub-humans aren't worthy" is benign political commentary?

        'Cause that's the entire thesis, not a minor tidbit you can remove.

        It's very important for me to be able to see things and judge for myself

        Why do you believe you are actually seeing the real thing? It's not like you have any evidence that the manifesto you read is actually from that guy....other than media reports and anonymous Internet posts telling you it was.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by kqs ( 1038910 )

        A more apt example is being banned from the street by whoever it is that owns the streets.

        I have no idea what this even means, but I have two anecdotes:

        1) I bought my current house from the guy who built it in 1976 and lived there for almost 30 years. He had planned on building a ~80ft long driveway to a parking lot in a neighboring development. The owners of the development declined this, so my driveway is now about 500ft long to the next nearest street. So, I guess the owners of the parking lot banned him?

        2) My wife has a brick-and-mortar business. She is limited in how she can put tables

    • Re:Slashdot wants us to pity 8chan (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @01:52PM (#59045272)
      By "Slashdot," are you referring to the editorial staff, the users submitting the stories, or the comments? Not really sure who you mean.

      The conflict here is that while at least a good number of people support free speech generally, the same people also support freedom of association generally. 8ch should have a right to exist and businesses should have the right not to associate with them. The problem is that 8ch cannot exist in its current form without the businesses that have deplatformed it.

      The existence of denial of service attacks is the flaw in the system that leads to this conflict to begin with. If you host a website and someone wants it offline, they can take it offline pretty easily. That forces you to rely on hosts with denial of service protections like CloudFlare. If the companies running those services don't want to do business with you, you're fucked. You might be able to scrape together enough funding to make your own similar service... or you would be, if the payment processors also weren't refusing to do business with you!

      I think sites like 8ch that enable a space for discussion of topics that are generally considered unacceptable do have value. Sometimes speech that is unacceptable is still true and can effect societal change. The origins of the civil rights movement are a great example of this, ironically. It's just not possible to host that kind of site in today's internet without relying on businesses that inevitably won't want to associate. Maybe the government should host some kind of free speech platform so there's no (or less) reliance on businesses?

      • Re:Slashdot wants us to pity 8chan (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @02:04PM (#59045402)

        8ch should have a right to exist and businesses should have the right not to associate with them. The problem is that 8ch cannot exist in its current form without the businesses that have deplatformed it.

        Why should 8ch have a right to exist? They have a right that their existance should not be legally banned, but if everybody has voluntarily come to the conclusion that they won't do business with it, well, that's 8ch's problem.

        • Ideally, people deciding not to do business with a site shouldn't threaten the site's existence to begin with. It's just that at present, things like DDoS protection are more or less mandatory if you're hosting a sufficiently popular or controversial website. This is a design flaw inherent to the way the internet works. I don't know that there's an alternative, but if there was, this debate would kind of just evaporate since 8ch would be able to just host themselves without relying on service providers like

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Yes, 8chan has the freedom to post whatever awful content they want; that is part of free speech. However nobody has to guarantee them a way to post it. Similarly you can stand on the street corner and shout out almost anything you want, but you don't have the right to force people to listen to you.

      I don't support silencing 8chan, even when they host terrible vile things. However I do support the companies making their own decisions on what other companies to do business with. If nobody wants to sell hosting to 8chan, that is perfectly fine.

      I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] is the appropriate response. The thing that made 8chan's reputation was hosting intolerant people. You can't tolerate speech that will stop tolerating other speech because at some point it will win. (It's also related to the original form of Godwin's Law.)

    • However nobody has to guarantee them a way to post it.

      Agreed. However, they should be guaranteed the ability to post themselves - if they need to... you know, like in a fucking public forum (which those privately-owned-and-controlled sites are effectively serving as.

      What happened to "I disagree with you but am willing to die to fight for your right to say it" ???

      Bunch of cunts.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @01:03PM (#59044720)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Internet hate forum? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lgw ( 121541 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @01:04PM (#59044722) Journal

    Internet hate forum? Really? 8ch let anyone create their own forum, as long as it's legal. Sure, you'll find hate on /pol/ and /leftypol/, but the rest of the site is mostly the typical boring bland stuff that makes up most of the internet.

    Ah, well, I'm sure it will stay up on TOR, only now the FBI won't be able to get the IP addresses of "every commenter" (as per an April 2019 search warrant). So, yay?

    But, hey, I'm sure teenagers won't be attracted to the "secret, forbidden, dangerous internet sites that would shock their parents". That's just not how teens work, am I right?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

      Ah, well, I'm sure it will stay up on TOR, only now the FBI won't be able to get the IP addresses of "every commenter" (as per an April 2019 search warrant). So, yay?

      The fun part is that you people never, ever remember that the endpoint can find you [theregister.co.uk], especially after being served up a warrant or seized.

      But, hey, I'm sure teenagers won't be attracted to the "secret, forbidden, dangerous internet sites that would shock their parents"

      A lot fewer than if it was available through Chrome. Explaining why you have

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        The fun part is that you people never, ever remember that the endpoint can find you, especially after being served up a warrant or seized.

        In order to reveal someone using TOR, the FBI must seize the server, and then hack the computers of everyone who accesses the site. Certainly possible, but not likely to be approved unless most of the activity on the site is actually illegal. I suppose a nation with fewer restrictions on police could do it, though.

        A lot fewer than if it was available through Chrome. Explaining why you have TOR on your computer to your parents would be an interesting job, I think.

        I'm sure there's nothing on a teen's phone that's hidden from their parents. Perish the thought! Certainly parents who search their kids "computers" these days won't find anything.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

          In order to reveal someone using TOR, the FBI must seize the server, and then hack the computers of everyone who accesses the site. Certainly possible, but not likely to be approved unless most of the activity on the site is actually illegal.

          Warrant, and "any of the activity on the site is actually illegal," but you go on thinking otherwise [justice.gov].

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by lgw ( 121541 )

            Hacking someone's computer in order to search them with a warrant was only recently made legal. The only times it has ever been done (or, at least, gone to court where we'd hear about it) were times where the site was primarily used for illegal activity - that is, where there was probable cause that each computer that accessed the site was being used to commit a crime.

    • Re:Internet hate forum? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @02:46PM (#59045814)

      Internet hate forum? Really?

      Yes. No seriously defending it just shows you haven't actually been there. 8chan may be known for letting anyone create anything, but ultimately what it turned into was a place where the bile of the internet chose to make their home and all the sensible people moved out.

  • Finally (Score:5, Insightful)

    by religionofpeas ( 4511805 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @01:09PM (#59044786)

    Now let's wait for the sharp drop in mass shootings.

    • Now let's wait for the sharp drop in mass shootings.

      Oh thank god. And here I thought America wouldn't introduce gun laws. Finally.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      Am I the only one who skimmed this guys manifesto?? Im not sure where anyone gets he was a white supremist. He didnt rant about all races being inferior or any of that typical shit. The info was, imo, more along the ted kazinski line of blabber. He goes on about unsustainable population growth. Called illegal mexicans ‘breeders’ that will bankrupt any chance of universal healthcare, etc etc. it sounded pretty socialistic to me. What worries me more than mass shootings was the logic of it. The lo

      • Re:Finally (Score:4, Informative)

        by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @05:10PM (#59046988)

        Im not sure where anyone gets he was a white supremist. He didnt rant about all races being inferior or any of that typical shit.

        The manifesto is based around the theory of "The Great Replacement", where "evil" people, usually Jews, are importing a lot of dark-skinned people into countries that should be ruled by whites in order to replace said whites and destroy civilization.

        So, yeah, he was ranting about all races being inferior. It's not about "unsustainable population growth", it's about those terrible dark people out-breeding whites.

        What happens when a virologist buys into this whole, world is 100million overcrowded, sort of belief system? 20 million dead from a bioengineered virus is a lot scarier than 20 dead from a shooting.

        One should not learn their science from Tom Clancy-based video games.

        People need to spend less time online and find ways to have more alone/decompress time.

        Not everyone is an introvert.

  • I know a catchy title and heading may be important for a piece to stand out and that with the attention economy we live in standing out is more important than ever, but to explicitly call 8chan an "internet hate forum" is a bit much.

    True, they do go beyond the limits of good taste with their attitude of not moderating anything that isn't expressly illegal (i.e no incitement to violence, no child porn or doxxing), but to expressly call them an "internet hate forum" because of /pol/ is like calling reddit

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      No it is not a bit much.
      "but to expressly call them an "internet hate forum" because of /pol/ i"
      You can't really be that stupid, can you?

      • If you actually know the site, or 4chan or that matter, you'll know that /pol/ is where the white supremacists hang out and that board's generally loathed on most other boards.

        I know it's easy to jump on the bandwagon, us people are practically wired for it, but in this instance you are labelling a larger group over a smaller subsection of it. If you know anything about chan culture that isn't hopelessly out of date you'll know that /pol/ boards are rarely if ever representative of the whole site and gen

  • Free speech doesn't mean what you think it means (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    How many times do we have to explain free speech to people? All free speech guarantees is that the government will not arrest you for saying whatever it is you want to say. That's it. Nothing else. It doesn't mean that a company has to sponsor your website. It doesn't mean equal time on media. Yet people throw around the term proving they have zero idea of the concept of free speech. Stop using the term until you understand it. It's embarrassing.

  • Another one (Score:2, Interesting)

    by meerling ( 1487879 )
    Another one bites the dust...

    I've read a lot of the posts here, and I really have to marvel at the blatant ignorance of those that think companies have to allow others to use their property or services for actions the companies find repugnant and bad for business. Not to mention it also allies them with those same repulsive actions/words since they let them use their "soapbox" to do so.
    Other people have Free Speech as well, and that includes the right to remain silent. These companies are in no way removing

  • I'm sure they'll be able to get the word out (Score:3)

    by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @02:37PM (#59045730) Homepage

    You want to see speech suppressed, much more vigorously but still unsuccessfully, take a look at the history of socialist speech. From Debs in jail for 'sedition', to the University of California, not just banning socialists from renting a hall and making money from doing business with the university, but banned from stepping on campus with a soapbox to speak for free.

    Yet, here it is, advocating free university and public health insurance from the highest podiums in the land. It's not like the "suppression" ever worked.

    The Iranian revolution in the late 70's was instigated by cassette tapes of political Khomeini sermons being passed hand to hand as multi-generation copies. Russian samizdat newspapers were hand-copied and passed hand-to-hand.

    Complaints about "freedom of speech" are almost never about the actual ability to communicate to willing ears, since that is very hard to suppress indeed. They're mostly about the inability to make money with your speeches, or paper, or internet business. If Ann Coulter or Ben Shapiro thought their message so important that they would happily speak in the Quad on a soapbox for free (actual free speech, heh), I don't think anybody could or would stop them.

    Conflating the inability to make money off of politics with the inability to actually get the word out at all strikes me as an insult to people who really had trouble getting the word out at all.

    These folks often wrap themselves up in the flag; but it's a weak sunshine patriot indeed that loses heart for the Great Struggle To Save Civilization if you just take away his ability to make a buck off of it.

  • De-Platforming is old indeed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jenka ( 1295437 ) on Monday August 05, 2019 @03:01PM (#59045928)
    In the 1840s and 1850s "De-platforming" by Pro-slavery forces was usually carried out with mobs, They smashed the presses and killed the owners of abolitionist papers. This happened in places like Ohio. Local authorities usually took no action against the mobs. At least with modern "de-platforming". you get to live and still express your opinions. Free speech protections have never provided you immunity from the consequences of your speech.

  • Free speech. Yet again.

    And all the people screaming bloody murder over free speech rights. News flash: Hosting providers also have a right to free speech, same as those wanting to be hosted. Free speech includes the right to NOT SPEAK.

    So please, pack your outrage in a box and send it off to Santa, cuz no one here cares. Everything working as intended.

    Everyone gets free speech, including the right to not speak. Your free speech cannot override my free speech. Hence, 8chan can't waggle the free speech

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