- cross-posted to:
- technology
- cross-posted to:
- technology
You must log in or register to comment.
This one is a tough nut to crack, because generally I agree, but holy fucking shit we're talking about Kiwi Farms here.
There is nothing not one fucking thing that place produces that isn't a garbage fire of harassment, abuse, and violence.
Usually the EFF is spot on, but I find their argument in this case pretty weak. While I think there are better ways to handle this as well than straight censorship, like give me a break, EFF, no one is doing anything about these scumfucks. I would give one shit about such an argument if I felt there was anything that would happen to stop this, but I'm pretty fucksure it won't. If I felt like law enforcement was closing in and as was going to charge everyone involved in the site under some sort of gang-harassment law (which probably doesn't even exist), then maybe this argument would hold weight. But I don't feel like that, and I feel like the more people make weak arguments for horrendous places like this, more vulnerable people will continue to suffer Kiwi Farms abuse, harassment, and violence.
To put it even more simply: When a person uses a room in a house to engage in illegal or just terrible activity, we don’t call on the electric company to cut off the light and heat to the entire house, or the post office to stop delivering mail. We know that this will backfire in the long run. Instead, we go after the bad guys themselves and hold them accountable.
Who the fuck is actually doing that, EFF?? You're basically arguing for endless abuse from these fucks because the justice system doesn't give one fucking shit about what they're doing because the justice system doesn't generally give a fuck about vulnerable people.
That’s what must happen here. The cops and the courts should be working to protect the victims of KF and go after the perpetrators with every legal tool at their disposal. We should be giving them the resources and societal mandate to do so. Solid enforcement of existing laws is something that has been sorely lacking for harassment and abuse online, and it’s one of the reasons people turn to censorship strategies. Finally, we should enact strong data privacy laws that target, among others, the data brokers whose services help enable doxxing.
- ACAB, the cops are corrupt and you can't trust them.
- The courts are corrupt and you can't trust them.
- We're living in a hell-hole of a gerontocracy where government can't pass a fucking bill to end Daylight Savings time, and you expect them to do something about policing this when we can't even get cops to do their fucking jobs without murdering innocent citizens in the process? Get the fuck out of here, EFF, you're a joke now.
I think all of your analysis about Kiwi Farms is right. Absolute fucking cesspool that doesn’t need to exist.
I don’t think Tier 1 providers should police their content because I don’t think Tier 1 providers should police any content outside of direct government intervention (which is a different can of worms). That’s the argument here. Giving Tier 1 providers room to police this content gives them precedent to police other content and suddenly Lemmy is blocked because of some random reason.
The root issue here is net neutrality and that might be the discontent. Look at it from a phone perspective instead. Do you think the operators of the phone backbone (not individual providers like Verizon or Mint) should be able to turn off phone access to a chunk of numbers because a group of individuals are misusing those numbers? Why do you think the backbone, not the direct provider, should be able to take those actions? Should the backbone even be listening to those calls? Or should some other sector be handling that abuse, like the FTC going after VoIP robospam?
If you think the phone backbone should police people making phone calls, then you can reasonably argue another utility backbone like internet can also police. Both the EFF and I fundamentally disagree with that premise. Because we do not have net neutrality, it is easy to mask that distinction that this Tier 1 provider would not be able to do this in other utilities.
Like I said, I generally agree, but I'm also not arguing for giving Tier 1 providers those "powers."
I'm saying the argument is weak because we're not in any position for any of the real, offered solutions to be done successfully in any reasonable capacity. I'm not saying them doing that is the best thing, and it does set a bad precedent, but I'm tired of acting like there's nothing we can do because we don't have the perfect options.
The cops aren't coming after these guys, and there is no political movement to create laws to address this. Which means, in the meantime, Kiwi Farms will not stop. Real people's lives are being destroyed, and I think it kind of matters to them that we can't wait for bullshit incrementalism, mostly because its their fucking lives.
That first quote is such a weak argument too. People get kicked out of places all the time for doing illegal and terrible things. Who is this "we" that goes "after the bad guys and holds them accountable"? What does that even mean?
And while we're at it, why wouldn't there be some sort of interdiction with the post office? Are "we" not telling the government about these bad guys doing illegal and/or terrible things? Are "we" Batman or something?
As always EFF is 100% right. This is a hard but important line to draw in the sand. Laws surrounding networks should be enforced "at the edges" not in the middle. Your ISP is a router, all dozen hops between your computer and the website you are visiting are routers, their job is to route, not filter. If some internet cable routes through a country with different laws, you want them enforcing their weird laws on the wire about how you can't insult their king? Of course not.
Or better yet, as is happening in this article, you want fucking comcast (or some other isp), the company that fucks you with their monopoly power at every possible opportunity, to be the arbiter of what is acceptable content and what is not? Fuck them. Leave that to the legislative process and courts.
If what you or the website is doing is illegal in the jurisdiction it is located, let local law enforcement handle it. They can imprison you or the website operator, that is where the crime is happening, the crime is not happening because packets are flowing from one end to the other.
It's KiwiFarms what we are talking about. Just fuck them. They deserve to be censored, and I almost never say this.
We fully support criminal and civil liability for those who abuse and harass others.
But...
For years the police, courts, and legislature have done jack shit to stop this. So in conclusion...
EFF
