←back to thread

Is 4chan the perfect Pirate Bay poster child to justify wider UK site-blocking?

(torrentfreak.com)
361 points gloxkiqcza | 3 comments | 24 Aug 25 16:30 UTC | HN request time: 0.487s | source
Show context
numpy-thagoras ◴[25 Aug 25 16:57 UTC] No.45015974[source]▶
This is the first time in a long time on Hacker News that I've not seen universal disapproval to this measure. People are actually arguing for it, even as a devil's advocate? What the UK has been doing is wrong, it is disenfranchising and disempowering people.

The UK is not a democratic or even liberty-focused state anymore. It's always been ruled by a crowd of people who went to privately-funded schools that cost a fortune. Half the government's politicians and staffers can trace their relations back to the same historical personage.

They aren't afraid for their kids with these laws. They're afraid that this ossified, stunted system of power that's been built over 800 years will break, and they will be out of a job with pitchfork-wielding crowds chasing them out of London.

replies(9): >>45016128 #>>45016568 #>>45017113 #>>45017132 #>>45017545 #>>45017771 #>>45017857 #>>45019957 #>>45022812 #
1. jmyeet ◴[25 Aug 25 19:15 UTC] No.45017771[source]▶
Democracies can't survive with unfettered free speech. It's called the Paradox of tolerance [1] or sometimes the Popper paradox (after Karl Popper).

I don't know if you've ever seen some of the dark corners of the Internet. This includes 4chan, Kiwi Farms and, well, arguably Twitter at this point. Twitter has really become 4chan. But I digress.

We, as a society, are fine with suppressing certain kinds of speech. We always have. We can use CSAM as an obvious counterexample to free speech absolutism. There's no way to reconcile banning that and free speech absolutism. At some point it comes down to deciding certain kinds of expression is simply unacceptable.

Now is the UK government using 4chan (etc) as a stalking horse for a wider surveillance state? Almost certainly.

We saw a similar thing when Apple wanted to scan all private messages for CSAM. They faced a completely understandable backlash and reversed course.

But we don't have to defend 4chan or Kiwi Farms to oppose a surveillance state.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

replies(3): >>45020328 #>>45020676 #>>45025189 #
2. sdwr ◴[25 Aug 25 23:13 UTC] No.45020328[source]▶
Thank you
3. alt187 ◴[26 Aug 25 00:02 UTC] No.45020676[source]▶
The Paradox of Tolerance has been first evoked in The Open Society and Its Enemies, and is just as "relevant" as the rest of the book as an handbook for human societies.

You should look into it, some time.

Besides -- If you don't tolerate intolerance, you're intolerant (of intolerance). So you shouldn't be tolerated. Right?