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Notes -
Kiwifarms, again
From the telegram, kiwifarms is back up at kiwifarms.top - in addition to the onion address. Their new IP seems to be from orcatech/vanwatech, who host 8kun - 8kun had trouble during the jan 6th hearings.
In a featured post, Josh is locking the threads of keffals and associates, and asking people to leave them alone for the moment. User responses range from "well, that sucks" to "yes, sir" to "probably the best move at the moment". Probably partially cope, but none of them want the farms to go down every two days.
Yesterday a discussion about this pitted "blocking some keffals posts strategically" vs "that's giving into the leviathan, never flinch, it's what they want". Ignoring the political violence detour, josh's probably making the right choice - and probably should've done something like it days ago. I'd still prefer lighter (very strict wordfilter? banning doxxing/anything implying violence or doxxing but allowing any other posts?) restrictions a week ago to banning the thread outright a week ago ... but if that wouldn't have worked, temporarily lock the thread outright might've saved the rest of the site.
kiwifarms has also now been removed from the internet archive according to keffals (https://twitter.com/keffals/status/1567259373671522307)
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Speaking purely in abstract and putting morality aside for a moment, the correct strategic move in all-out war (and the move the 4chan of old would've taken) would be to utterly destroy keffals under a barrage of pizza, dildos and boxes of printer paper, as an example to all. But it seems there isn't the stomach for such things anymore, even on the farms. Has even the sharper side of the internet softened over time, or was this something you could only get away with before authorities learned about the internet? Or before everything was so centralised? Why would that have happened then but not now?
I believe the person in question has already been Swatted once, moved to a hotel for safety but was quickly located and pizza spammed. (Claims, etc)
So yeah, war never changes.
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kiwifarms doesn't carry out actions in the real world (gayops) or at least they are not organized on their board so this would not be in character for them.
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Kiwifarms has posted extremely convincing evidence of Keffals being at best a dangerous person for children but much more likely a paedophile. And it had no effect at all.
I can't imagine a tactic of burying them under annoyances would help much at all
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Kiwifarms isn't the "sharper side of the Internet". Keffals is.
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Even in the “good old days”, incidents like that were relatively rare.
Modern cancel culture is, on average, far more vicious and with far more lasting impacts on people’s lives, compared to what the old internet used to dish out.
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What makes you think it will not happen? Most chan ops were performed on IRC rather than /pol/ and I am certain that is still in play here.
When was the last time anything like that happened?
2014?
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Twitter happened. Twitter is a tool that enables mass mobilization of the Extremely Online far beyond the dreams of any late-00s /b/tard, and simultaneously gives those keyboard warriors a direct line to many of the powers that be, including those running a lot of the infrastructure of the Internet. So, yeah, centralization, both of communication platforms and of Internet infrastructure. (4chan was literally run out of a server in moot's basement until he sold it IIRC.)
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Even from a strategic viewpoint it might not be such a good idea. It might turn away sympathizers and support the narrative of Kiwi Farms as a harassment website.
I was reading comments on slashdot today, the most upmodded comments characterized kiwifarms as an organized terrorism website where nazis coordinate violence against innocent minorities and any response calling out this characterization was buried into the negatives and modded as "flamebait", "trolling", etc.
What kiwifarms actually is and does has precisely zero impact on the narrative. When people can lie and then forcibly silence dissent, reality ceases to matter.
Why do you and those like you bother, then? It does look like there are people who aren't convinced by trumped-up accusations who would be convinced by a real malicious act. Or are you tribally aligned enough to treat any real flags from Kiwifarms's side as false flags?
Why do I even bother? That's a good question, I struggle with it every day, regardless of what you mean by "those like you".
I can't help but come to the realization that it's not about convincing anyone and it never was, if there is no referee and you're the only one playing by the rules, the only thing that's going to happen is that you'll lose every single time and your values will die with your loss anyway. So why the hell do I even bother? Leftists declared a culture war long ago and they've been very much treating is as such, why do I bother pretending that it's not a war and that there are rules and principles involved at all?
Those who also think they're the only ones playing by the rules.
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I think there's still plenty of people on the fence or on their side, who don't buy into the narrative, but they can still be turned away, and I think having more people on your side is a help regardless of the situation. I probably wouldn't personally be that bothered by any trolling ops, but it would make me a lot more hesitant to even bring the site up here and defend it, and I couldn't really defend it to my more reasonable friends either in that scenario.
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Controlling the narrative is important, but is not the only thing. I can still go to Josh's Telegram and get his side of the story with receipts. (Who knows how long that will last?)
Even if a society of mass-delusion, truth still matters. Probably even more.
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Kowtowing hasn't exactly countermanded that narrative, though, has it? Null's played the good little boy and what's it got him? Pretty much the same place as if he hadn't.
The Catholics offer forgiveness for fealty, but the progressives never do. Per the last thread they're even still harrassing Cloudflare.
Null has directly countered one of the main dogmas of the modern internet, that you cannot name the previous identities and criminal records of trans people. Whatever else you call him, he has not "played the good little boy" just because he has not gone nuclear.
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It is easy to be brave with someone else's website.
I see this a lot with the anti-woke subreddits that are still there. The mods will announce their work to stay in line with the rules, and some user who logs in once a week to get their rage fix will say "you cowards, better to die on your feet than live on your knees" and then log out for another week.
The reddit rules suck and are stupid, but the people who built the thing are the ones to make that call.
Josh is not "all free speech all the time." If there were a specific rule to follow he would likely do it. But there are no rules. A mob has no rules.
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I really wonder how long it will be until these fights make it to the other utilities. After all, if a network provider is responsible for what flows down their tubes now, why shouldn't the power companies be similarly "held accountable" for what's done with their power?
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Even with my minimal interest in being there, I'm always happy when I see the untamed corners of the internet flourish, or at least live to fight another day. Seeing actual unfiltered human output, even if 90% of it is painfully juvenile, is a breath of fresh air. May the agrarians Down Under And To The Side stay online even in the face of perfidy and outrage haha
It should not remain online. Several communities I'm in have people with KF threads on them, and having a thread dedicated to you is a pretty poor experience. The culture of KF is sick and malicious (citation: suicide counter).
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They really shouldn't be doxing people on a public site. If they only shared dox with trusted associates thay could get their jollies without risking the wrong sort getting their hands on dox. But they've been posting it in the clear for nine years and that makes me think Null is not only ok with the consequences of public doxing, but actively encouraging it.
If there were a consistent rule on what "doxxing" meant I might agree. (Even edit, my typo some of the KF defenders weasel about the definition.)
Yesterday I thought of "posting the address enough where a pizza delivery guy can find it" is the limit. I just had the idea that it was specific enough that a third-party could find your doorstep it's too much. It was entirely coincidental that this is old-school way of harassing people.
But sometimes the "doxxing" is "here is this person's criminal record." We absolutely need some place on the internet we can discuss that.
There was no info that Kiwifarms considered off limits, was there? Any reasonable definition of dox most include 'the full set of personal information that can be had' right?
Just tell me the rule. You can even craft it right now post hoc to make sure KF violates it
Doxing: releasing personally identifiable information about an individual on the internet. An example would be someone's home address.
https://www.whitepages.com/
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If we actually go with this definition, then most of the Internet is going to die. The New York Times needs to be deleted for posting Scott's PII.
I mean - yes.
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And CNN for threatening to identify a meme maker: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/cnnblackmail
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NYT probably made the wrong call on doxing Scott, however I think there's a significant difference between an org that makes an occasional mistake versus an org which practices something as a matter of course.
Or: just because NTY doxed one guy does not mean Kiwi's use of doxing knowing full well the level of IRL harassment it tends to invite on its targets is ok.
I suppose it's not just the doxing that makes KF distasteful, but the doxing is a line they could opt not to cross and they'd have a lot more friends.
But the NYT continues to make the mistake to this day. Has their hosting provider terminated them until they delete the article?
And posting PII is pretty easy to do. NYT reports the names and cities of people every day. That is PII. Did they check on each one to make sure it is okay?
"Yeah but that information was already public" you will say, sensibly, but that is the typical KF response. In many cases they are just doing open-source reporting and find the account said their real name in public at some point. (This does not cover every thread. Some people there have access to PI databases, I think.)
If a real-life terrorist is captured and put in jail, even if he is the devil on earth, someone at some point should be able to name the crime he is in jail for, and not say "well if not this rule then probably some other one, who cares."
This is the problem with "you cannot post PII." I have suggested the rule being that you cannot publish the street address with enough specificity that a rando could walk up to their door. And I think that is a pretty objective and legible rule! (A lot of person-lookup websites violate the rule right now, but maybe that is not a big loss.)
But when I suggest that rule to people who want KF off the internet, they never seem happy to accept it. Perhaps because they want the rules vague.
Sure. I do not expect any of the many people who have had threads made about them on KF to spend a single second carrying water for them.
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They already do lock some dox info until you register an account to make isp/cdn takedown based on the doxxes harder, that's about it
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