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Australian ISPs blocking 8chan, 4chan, Liveleak, Zerohedge, Voat, et al for hosting Christchurch attack video
- Thread starter lint2015
- Start date
So slippery slope.
The mechanisms already exist for an authoritarian government to clamp down on all forms of communication it doesn't like, or alternatively use them for surveillance.
Saying "hey, maybe we should block this shit that is literally poisoning our discourse and radicalizing our youth" and forming a regulating body that has already done the same with TV and radio doesn't mean we give them permission to censor everything without transparency or oversight.
It's weird how even sensible, liberal folks suddenly turn into gubment=tyranny libertarians as soon as regulating the internet is brought up. I understand that even supposedly liberal democracies have fucked up in this regard many times in the past, but the solution is changing the government, not opposing regulation in any form.
It's not a slippery slope when the OP involves banning websites that should not be getting blocked at an ISP level. Liveleak, irrespective of any unsavoury graphic content it hosts should not be getting ISP banned. Zerohedge doesn't seem fit for an ISP ban either.
4chan and 8chan are going to be the ones that will really test whether or not someone caves into their principles. Moreso 8chan.
The block is prefaced with "temporary", which should be yet again another inquiry into what powers are used to do this? Can anything now be temporarily blocked whenever the Government feels its the right thing to do?
Looks like the Australian Government is no stranger to the inch forward to control the internet
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/goog...nment-for-rushing-site-block-expansion-515838
Maybe with some more "stronger powers" Australia can copy the incoming UK porn pass, which is sure to be a success.
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Not sure how I feel about ISPs blocking access to sites. Sure for now it's to keep people from visiting horrible sites, but how long until other much less horrible sites start getting blocked on whatever grounds the ISP wants?
Corporate companies have historically abused the idea of "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" so I'm hoping this isn't the start to something much worse.
Corporate companies have historically abused the idea of "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" so I'm hoping this isn't the start to something much worse.
As is frequently noted, there is a lot of hyperbole that surrounds these sites. 8chan does not actually host illegal material. I'm not saying that people don't post it and/or condone it. But they certainly don't allow it.
I am mildly more concerned about liveleak. While I don't exactly frequent the site, it does have journalistic value, especially re: Ukraine.
Images like this commonly summed up the argument for NN.
Net Neutrality is Vital to the LGBTQ Community
America is kinda special because there are regions where you only have access to a single ISP, and if that ISP decides they don't want you accessing content of a particular sociopolitical nature, you're shit out of luck. Australia has a lot more freedom in that regard, and that's why the lack of neutrality has historically ruffled few feathers. Not to mention that Australian ISPs have historically been very reluctant to block things unless they're absolutely legally required to.
People are afraid, and scared people can easily be persuaded to accept things. Sometimes those things are not in their interests, but are rather in the interests of government bodies or corporations.
For example, currently a lot of people on ERA oppose Australians being forced to implant backdoors without informing their employers. How long will that last? How long before people's kneejerk desire to stop the terrorists, stop the alt-right, and save the children drives them to abandon all semblance of privacy, of freedom, of transparency?
Firefox recently introduced Firefox Send, a free encrypted file transfer service. How long before people demand that ISPs block it because people could, and probably are, using it to transfer copies of the Christchurch killer's manifesto or his livestream? How long before any and all forms of private communication are seen as unacceptable? How long before people start demanding ISPs blacklist TOR? You know, go full Middle Eastern Dictatorship?
Not so long ago, people were complaining about the troubling implications of Youtube's rampant algorithm-driven censorship purging completely legitimate content. Now you have people wanting every single major site to implement content filters because they're scared and uncertain. They feel powerless, and are willing to embrace any solution that makes the scary stuff go away.
When Devotion upset Chinese interests, the game was essentially purged from the Chinese internet. The game was, from the Chinese viewpoint, hate speech. It seems to me that a lot of people are quite happy to see similar infrastructure built into the previously "free" internet. If Disney doesn't want people watching a video, an increasing number of people seemingly want Disney to have the power to snap their grubby little fingers as every ISP across the globe blocks any site that refuses to purge the content. Of course, they don't think of their stance in such terms. They think that things they want to watch, truths they want exposed to the world -- these things will never end up in the crosshairs. There's an almost childlike innocence to the notion that scared people will always be able to make the right call. If someone posts footage of Israeli soldiers killing civilians, should everyone be required to take the video down, with anyone who refuses blacklisted by ISPs that are sympathetic to Israeli interests?
Some people like to say, "Oh, you're just using the slippery slope argument," but in the world of technology, the slippery slope is real. We live in a world where people signed away their privacy, the value of their identity, because tech companies offered them "free" shit. Every other week, we hear about another corporation doing something evil to poor and/or brown people. Every other week, we hear about another corporate merger. When the corporation doing evil things is owned by the same company as your ISP, and that company doesn't want your ISP letting you see things that make them look bad, do we just accept that? Do we roll over and say, "Oh, at least the children are protected from terrorist manifestos and also footage of American drone strikes on funerals."
It's one thing for privately owned websites to choose to not allow certain content on their platform. But with ISPs there is a very uncomfortable infrastructure problem. It's one thing for sites to agree that they won't do X. It's another to start blacklisting every site that won't do X. It's one thing to agree to join the Coalition of the Willing and invade Iraq. It's another to blacklist France because they won't join.
Wrapping up net neutrality with the rightful banning of sites hosting content that incites violence is so twisted. Most countries in the world (New Zealand included) have rules on free speech that does not include speech that incites violence, which this video very VERY clearly does, so there is a very clear boundary that can be drawn between this and anything else people are afraid of. So it's hardly a slippery slope as some claim it to be, especially when these banned sites have a very clearly illustrated way out from under it.
It's part of net neutrality though; take it up with the EFF and other orgs that are fighting for it and argue against the very principal of it in the context of net neutrality.
The context comes from the American-centric nature of the site. I'll admit as an American I have a hard time thinking that I would support, say, Comcast DNS-blocking the Daily Stormer, not because Daily Stormer has a right to peddle their hate but because you can't trust these ISPs as far as you can throw them.
It's a gut thing. Forward-thinking netizens in the US have a gut reaction against ISP exercises of power even if it's for an unabashed good cause like this one.
Net neutrality proponents have also fought against web site blocking as a response to European law, Japanese law, and in fact, Australian law.
The engineers who created the internet are fundamentally against it, and while most of them are from America, they aren't all from there. This isn't an Amerian centric thing necessarily, it's also a technologist thing.
(I personally think the EFF and others are over-reaching in their opinon and I do support the concept of DNS blocking, I'm just pointing out that it's false to claim that this isn't tied to Net Neutrality)
I highly doubt any net neutrality proponent is interested in contravening the clear limitations of free speech outlined in the laws of a nation. If they are, they can stuff it.
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They support the idea of taking down web sites that break the law, or prosecuting users of the internet who break the law. They do not support the idea of DNS blocking.
And when those websites are not hosted in their jurisdiction and CAN'T take them down? Just let them continue to blatantly contravene a country's laws by providing content in opposition to them?
It's such a shallow understanding when considering the global reach of the internet, if so.
We are talking about the opinion of the very people who created the internet. I don't think their understanding is shallow.
Keep in mind I do not agree with them personally; but... most of "you" certainly did a few years ago lol. I think I was the only person on NeoGAF not adamently against SOPA/PIPA, and I had the EFF "opinion" that DNS blocking causes huge security concerns thrown in my face 100 times lol.
Australian isps have been blocking sites for a very long time. They are open about this and it has not been an issue.
I'm gonna need a citation that says they were against any and all DNS blocking as an effort to uphold local hate speech legislation.
They are against the fundamental concept of anyone messing with DNS / proxies or firewalls because of the implications of people circumventing these techniques.
While reported in the context of American law, here is a statement on them being against any cencorship on the internet for security reasons:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/internet-inventors-warn-against-sopa-and-pipa
The idea being that any sort of blacklisting encourages people to use DNS / proxies /VPNS that can't necessarily be trusted.
I personally disagree with them on this principal but different groups have made blanket statements like this numerous times; in this case signed by 83 leaders of internet tech (including numerous "creators" of underlying net techs.)
Yeah free speech is all fair and good, but there is a point where I question humanity when I see videos of corpses and people writing how much they love it.
all in the name of protected speech my man, all in the name of protected speech /s
I think Voat is supposed to be like Reddit, but less censorship. Basically where banned Reddits go(jailbait, fatpeoplehate, etc.). ZeroHedge is a Libertarian(?) market analysis blog site that decided to get into alt-right, pro-Russian, "news" reporting and conspiracies.
Edit: I think Voat had a forum "NeoFag" that was dedicated to hating Neogaf. Probably still there talking about us these days.
Speaking of Eff https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/ourt-thoughts-new-zealand-massacre
But that is more to do with platform moderating than state censorship.
But that is more to do with platform moderating than state censorship.
honestly the EFF can get fucked on this one
look at where doing nothing's gotten us. i'm tired of fearmongering that leads to doing nothing. it always leads to doing fucking nothing. i'm tired of nothing being done. if you guys are such big fans of the status quo i hope you don't have to live with the consequences. more often than not, though, you reap what you sow.
Ahhh, so yeah, intensely naive and seemingly framed entirely around an American belief of what constitutes free speech that they believe should be universally applied. Even giving them some benefit of the doubt, it was still naive to think that those who condone and tolerate hate speech would not use free speech as a cudgel and undermine all other personal freedoms in the process, rendering the world an anarchistic regime where the loudest opinion prevails.
EFF will always stick to its principles, as will many who helped create the internet. The internet has been around through many terrorist attacks and it will continue to be for the next.
Lots of people work on getting things done, hence why most countries that aren't America have one or two mass shootings and then act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre
Gun control is always the number one response to limiting the ease of access evil people in any given country have to effective mass loss of life.
no, fuck this
gun control is nice and i absolutely advocate for it, however the internet is a fucking problem and if you don't fucking see that by now there's no hope for you, and guess what, you're fucking complicit because you're defending the status quo
You are using your voice to be complicit in the state of affairs we are currently having to deal with. And you will defend that no matter how many graves we have to dig along the way.
That is such emotionally manipulative argumentation.
Putting forward an argument that I am wary of state-enforced banning/snooping of the internet is not being complicit in wanting to see graves dug. I presented you with one of the most effective ways of preventing mass shootings from the get-go, gun control.
I support illegal activity and cyber-criminal Government agencies tracking terrorism/CP/contraband and so on as well.
I never said you wanted to see graves dug. I said that you are making arguments that will lead to more of the same, even when the bodies are still warm. Whether you are aware about it or not. That's what being complicit in the status quo means. It means you don't give a shit so long as you get your precious fucking cat memes or your endless regurgitations of the 2016 democratic primaries or your six hour long flat earth documentaries.
I for one am tired of the carnage that the unregulated internet is wreaking on our lives. Something needs to change.
But you're just so #concerned about our #freespeech that any action is a bad one and we should just sit in a state of neverending fear waiting for the next person radicalized by the internet to go around shooting up the place.
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I would consider liveleak a relatively important resource in the grand scheme of things. It's graphic and gratuitous but it's still an immensely important media source for, among other things, Syria and Ukraine. Without it, you end up with obfuscated atrocities like the Gulf War.
Edit: For the record, I obviously am not advocating spreading the video. However, both archive.org/wayback and liveleak have been caught up in this ISP blocking scheme and I am not okay with either of those sites being blocked. Liveleak, incidentally, has already released a statement indicating that they will remove the video from their site when it is posted.
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I don't give a shit what you consider. If it's used for this it needs to fucking go.
A temporary ban (if we believe the use of the world temporary) at a state level for websites sharing a video is not going to stop further mass shootings. If you want to prevent terrorism from being able to use high powered weapons, it's gun control. There hasn't been a mass shooting in the UK since the 90s. I'm pretty sure it was Dunblane, which caused handguns to be banned.
I'm talking about the powers the state has to enforce bans at an ISP level. Many people will talk about this, and have done for many years, all throughout the historic terrorist attacks we have seen and will continue to see. That doesn't make myself, or anyone else using a level-headed approach to this, complicit. It's a fundamental part of the conversation when the state can just "flip a switch" and enforce a countrywide internet ban.
If you're defending the existance of sites sharing the video you can honestly get fucked mate. I don't give a shit about your wider argument when that's what it boils down to. You're inhumane.
You're trying to present an alternative panacea solution, but the problems that surround this attack and others like it have multiple facets and no panacea will appropriately address them. Had he opted for bombing the location instead, what then?
Hence, you can't look only at the means of violence to solve the problem of violence, you MUST also look at the motives, which include how they were obtained, allowed to grow and his intent at glorification of his violence through global distribution. Re-directing this to only discuss the means is what the issue with your statement is all about.
There's a difference between my approval of or wish to see the video (I don't want to see it, haven't seen it and think it is unfortunate it is being circled), with the necessary discussion around the mechanisms the state can have to censor the population in an instant simply by saying "we felt this was appropriate".
Other people will explore those conversations if you don't want to, any debate on state censorship will host a lot of voices/opinions, up to you if you just want to tell everyone to get fucked who might think slightly differently than you.
This is the same tired anti-gun control argument about stabbings in the UK trotted out by Trump and his ilk. The reality is that even in your hypothetical, there's far, far more people who can shoot a gun than have the means and knowledge to create and deploy an IED capable of killing that many people.
Honestly, as a person living in Christchurch, a mere 30 minute walk away from the attacks, anyone defending the hosting of this video is fucking disgusting. There are so many shitheels in this thread being absolutely inhumane. I don't care if you're "overly concerned about state censorship". Take a step back and look at what you're doing. You mealy mouthed pieces of shit care so much about "free speech" that you don't care about the serious damage that the unregulated internet is having on our world. You two-faced "allies" balk at the idea of anything happening to the precious internet. Anything at all. Even to 8chan, a fucking pedophile ring. "Free speech" is NOTHING more than an excuse for you.
Defending this, using ANY argument, should be grounds for a fucking automatic ban. As a forum we're better than this. We should be better. We can be better.
If I get banned for this post, and I hope I don't because what I'm saying is correct, my closing argument is that nobody should hold their values so tightly that they lose any sense of basic humanity.
Defending this, using ANY argument, should be grounds for a fucking automatic ban. As a forum we're better than this. We should be better. We can be better.
If I get banned for this post, and I hope I don't because what I'm saying is correct, my closing argument is that nobody should hold their values so tightly that they lose any sense of basic humanity.
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We don't give a shit what you consider? I guess? I that a good response? I like how you think you are arguing with some tech-Utopians or right wing edge lords.
ISPs should ban child exploitation and other forms of clearly directfully harmful content, but that is really as far as they should go. Political opinions have to be protected, journalism, leaked videos from whistle-blowers and yes videos captured from live-streams by mass murderers. No matter how stupid or vile. They will (and are) using the tools we give them to turn it around on left causes. I understand (and often support) individual websites like Youtube removing this type of content, but an ISP? Come on now.
User banned (3 days): aggressive personal attacks against other members
I have zero patience or tolerance for fearmongering in service of seeing sites like this continue to exist.
You boiled down sharing a video of a mass murder to a mere "political opinion". You are worth less than dirt.
Gun control goes a long way to end violence and I wholeheartedly agree to using it as a first step, but it cannot and will not permanently solve the problem at hand. I'm a holistic solutions kind of man, so I'm not interested in saying "gun control is the answer" and then putting the issue to bed, like the poster I responded to seems to want to. Besides that, New Zealand already responded with gun control legislation in the wake of the attack, which is entirely appropriate. But it will never address what motivated him to take the gun in his hand in the first place, which absolutely must be. Some of us aren't willing to wait for the next non-gun attack for that discussion to be had.
I wholeheartedly reject the insinuation you were trying to make.
I didn't say it permanently solves the problem, I stated the most effective way to prevent terrorists from being able to carry out a mass shooting is gun control. This is undeniable. Because the UK is an island, it's incredibly difficult to smuggle in guns and the proof is there for all to see that even although we've had terrorist attacks since the 90s, I really don't think there has been a single mass shooting.
From what I can see in the news, New Zealand is already moving on stricter gun laws. That will be the best move to get high powered weapons out of the hands of evil people.
Radicalization, whether it be offline or online is the huge social issue alongside the practical question of "how are people arming themselves?". Tackling social and societal issues are far harder and more challenging than gun control.
It's very difficult to simply arrest/lock people up for what is in their heads, before they commit any actions or make a clear enough transgression. Hence why many (future) terrorists end up on watch lists but are still ultimately free people in the society they are in (until they try to act).
I know how challenging all of this is, and how painful it is if someone does end up acting out, but this specific topic caters to the actions of a single Government when it comes to state censorship of websites that can currently be visited pretty much everywhere else in the world. Comes across more as an emotional reaction, which is understandable, rather than anything longterm or practical around stopping terrorism.
Plus as I've tried to carefully and respectfully argue above, any use of state censorship over the internet is going to be spoken about. I don't think anyone in here is doing that with bad motives or in bad faith.