Content warning: EFF, kiwifarms, death, harassment, libertarianism, free speech absolutism
The URL links to a mastodon thread criticising the EFF article, not the article itself.
Also Beehaw’s technology chat is awful.
I’m with HE on this one. KF is absolutely against their ToS, and if the various middle providers between HE and KF aren’t going to step in, they’re within their rights to drop that traffic.
At this level the Internet is still somewhat decentralized. KF can continue to find other hosts and ISPs that condone their horror, and said providers and peers have the right to drop them for being terrible. KF could build a datacenter, register their own ASN, negotiate peering agreements, broadcast routes, and other providers could still refuse to peer with them. I think this is good, actually.
but what about The Slippery Slope? next conservatives will be making ISPs take down vulnerable minorities! shouldn’t legislation be handling this?
The conservative folks are already attacking LGBTQ+ and any other minorities they want via legislation. Why would anyone think this is a good argument?
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Ethics aside, piracy is illegal, and most service providers include a clause that you can’t do illegal shit with their service. Even utilities providers aren’t immune to “we live in a society with, like, laws and stuff”. Taking them out of private companies’ hands won’t do anything about that.
And kiwifarms aren’t doing piracy, harming (maybe) the profit margin of some megacorp. They’re enabling and encouraging the harm of other vulnerable people, up to their deaths. If your electricty provider has an acceptable use policy that contains “don’t use the electricity we give you to hunt and kill your enemies” and you Do That, again and again, they’re within their rights (and arguably, ethically obligated) to stop you electrocuting people with the electricty they distribute.
Don’t like it? Get it changed at the right level. Lobby for the decriminalization of electrocution^W copyrighted materials distribution, or whatever. Shouting “ISPs can’t do that!!!” while people die doesn’t stop people dying.
This isn’t “Hurricane Electric haet kiwifarms”; this is KF abusing the service HE provides to the detriment of both society at large and other members of the Internet ecosystem.
I said this elsewhere alread: The EFF’s “slippery slope” argument stinks to the high heavens.
You cannot defend a website on the basis of freedom, liberties and the rule of law if said website doesn’t give a flying fluff for the rule of law, including the freedom, liberties and the rights of the people it targets mercilessly.
If KF wanted to conduct “normal business” with IPSs, then KF has the choice to conduct itself like a normal website. They make a choice no to do that, so they face the consequences of their actions and aren’t entitled to normal business procedures.
Some scattered thoughts on my end:
EFF and the people that support them will tell women, racial minorities, disabled, queer etc. to not do anything about their harasser in the name of holding up net neutrality. They will tell marginalised folk that ‘corporations are not on your side’ as if they are too stupid to realise it on their own. If you ask them what they should do instead to protect themselves they will just say it is not their job to stop harassment. If not they will tell you to report to the police (lol). Reason is that they don’t see marginalised folk as people with a stake in this that you should negotiate or listen to and they don’t see their current defense infrastructure as real, they see them as a pawn they might need to sacrifise in the long game they are playing. Innuendo Studios covers this mindset in his ‘Cost of Doing Business’ video. Text version for the hearing-impaired. Use this Tampermonkey script to remove the login popup.
Imagine a white women that is currently being abused by her husband. She calls the cops and said cops manage to handle the situation well despite the current problems. Now imagine a bunch of not-so-wise people telling the abused women in question that her method of getting herself out makes her pro-police brutality/ pro-prison industrial complex/ a racist bitch. That is the type of justice/ progress rules absolutists like EFF over here operate on.
EFF apologists also disingenuously mix the approval of individual actions with approval of the system. In this case ‘individual corporation refusing to serve kiwifarms’ to ‘corporations in general can control what is written’.
Some people in that comment thread say the banning is pointless because they can just create their own instance on Tor. However Tor is even less accessible than the mainstream internet so their libel and slander reaches less ears. Isn’t it still a victory of sorts?
