
8chan: Owner of extremist site lashes out as scrutiny intensifies - neom
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/06/8chan-owner-statement-jim-watkins
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Stevvo
4 out of the top 10 articles on the Guardian refering to 8chan as an
"extremist" or "far right" website. I don't think that is fair to the all the
weirdos and pedos... It's a broad church.

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Daishiman
It is fairly obvious that he has a forum where he is explicitly promoting
extremist speech. And that speech is far right.

The person in question openly admits to this promotion as a place for infamy,
in a completely unironic way.

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daybreak
Just looking at the title there appears to be some bias: "extremist", "lashes
out" all have negative connotations.

Is the Guardian considered to be a reliable source with regard to this topic?
The actual URL contains "8chan-owner-statement-jim-watkins" which I thought to
be more impartial.

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tareqak
To the fellow commenters who take issue with the headline: how would you
describe 8chan to someone like a parent or grandparent? If you would use
something like “Internet forum or discussion group”, then how would you
contrast it with something like reddit? What adjective(s) would you use?

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hellbanTHIS
True anarchy? If Somalia in the 90s made a website? The final stage of
civilization?

It is depressing how every experiment in Internet libertarianism ends at
Nazism.

~~~
anpe
Makes perfect sense to me. The people who are banned and removed from all
other platforms, will most likely end up migrating over to platforms that
won't ban them. Other communities really have no need for such extreme lack of
moderation, therefore the migration on their side never happens.

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frenchtoastto
Pretty clear this is a hit piece against sites that don't fit into what the
media says the internet should be used for. Why should the actions of a few
destroy what many others find as their only outlet in the "PC" world the media
things we all live in?

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atoav
Your assumption seems to be that _the actions of a few_ (which come with harsh
consequences for others) are totally unrelated to the site at hand.

I am not sure if anybody who visted 8chan before will be convinced by that
hypothesis. Other than violence in fiction and games, the discourses that take
place over there at times _do_ impact people’s lifes in a significant and
negative way.

And it really doesn’t matter if it is on the internet or not, if your
newspaper would house radical islamists discussing how to blow up the next
building, you’d be shut down within a day (and rightfully so). Why should
society treat right wing extremism any different?

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dandellion
So if part of a community engages in criminal activities the whole community
should be shut down, with no consideration that part of them might not be
doing anything wrong? Do you know who has the same reasoning? "They're all a
bunch of X, we should Y the whole place." You're doing the same, just from the
other side.

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atoav
No, if part of the community engages in criminal activity _and_ said criminal
activity is _discussed and encouraged_ in said community, then the public has
an incentive to do something about it.

Maybe the terrorist also had a membership in the local gym, but as long as
they don’t discuss shooting people at that gym the other gym members will not
have to fear a shutdown by the public.

The problem is not that a terrorist is member of some group, but that the
group is complicit in the actions that follow the communicagions within it,
just like I would be complicit as an individual if I convinced my neighbour to
hang himself.

If there is a direct legal link would remain to be seen in both cases, but
arguing that the culpit’s actions are completely unrelated to the
communications about said actions within a group is a bold claim that needs
evidence to be backed up (which you certainly seem to have).

Edit: I know that there are parts of the 8chan community which are completely
unrelated to that incident and these will see their plattform changed by the
fallout of the actions of the few. That is how it _is_. If you don’t want your
plattform to get that kind of press, make sure it is not used by terrorists to
plan their actions.

