Comment by smoldesu
3 years ago
> The same Epik that turned down 8chan?
Epik hosted 8chan in the interim after Cloudflare dropped them. This cause Epik's hosting provider to drop them, and since Epik doesn't own their datacenters they had to abide by their hardware provider's decision: https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/5/20754943/8chan-epik-offlin...
I'll still eat some crow, though; I forgot the entire business was owned by Rob Monster (a veritable idiot by most definitions of the word), and I completely forgot that they even provided hosting in the first place.
> I'm pretty positive Cloudflare and IA do not care about a moral crusade to stop Kiwifarms, and would not care if they went to Tor.
I'm certain they don't. That's the problem, though; this moral panic response to KiwiFarms has achieved nothing. Cloudflare knows that this is a zero-sum game, but they bent anyways. As businesses, their choices make plenty of sense. I disagree with businesses all the time though (check the comment history), and frankly I think Cloudflare made the wrong decision here. In my opinion, their actions here will be more destructive to queer populations in the long-run.
How did it achieve nothing? Deplatforming has shown to be effective. The Nazi site that CF shut down is very difficult to access.
It doesn't stop Nazis from existing though (or even knowing about, visiting and supporting the site). If we do the same thing with KiwiFarms, we just make it harder to monitor and easier for serial-abusers to collaborate. The majority of KiwiFarms users simply aren't solely enabled by the website existing, either.
I simply don't believe in deplatforming, and it disappoints me to see Cloudflare shrug and cave in.
> If we do the same thing with KiwiFarms, we just make it harder to monitor and easier for serial-abusers to collaborate.
Yes because the police were doing such a great job at monitoring and responding to threats from KF. Wake up, this is such a weak argument that has no basis in reality. We hear these same tired arguments over and over that are not backed up with facts (or, you know, arrests).
> The majority of KiwiFarms users simply aren't solely enabled by the website existing, either.
Yes they are.
> I simply don't believe in deplatforming, and it disappoints me to see Cloudflare shrug and cave in.
What part do you not "believe" in? Deplatforming absolutely works. These rats might scurry to another platform/provider but each time fewer and fewer jump through all the hoops. You are letting perfect be the enemy of good.
> It doesn't stop Nazis from existing though (or even knowing about, visiting and supporting the site).
This approach is making perfect the enemy of good. There is no perfect way to solve this problem.
> If we do the same thing with KiwiFarms, we just make it harder to monitor and easier for serial-abusers to collaborate.
It's still a website, it's still accessible. That part hasn't gone away. If the contention is that launching TOR somehow means it's "harder to monitor" then I have some news for you: Lots of monitoring of darkweb stuff goes on every day.
Deplatforming is analogous to quarantining a person with an infectious disease. It works. The FBI can still monitor whatever's left of KF on Tor or Discord.
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