8Chan booted from CloudFlare -- Moves to ZeroNet

Think what you will of 8chan, it’s been a forum for good as well as bad. After being booted from CloudFlare DDOS service it was scrambling to find a home.

It’s found a temporary “emergency bunker” on ZeroNet. This will certainly drive awareness and interest in ZeroNet, which is really a pretty cool, rather uncensorable, p2p platform.

We can watch this development for a taste of the demonization and interest and joy that awaits the release and proof-of-reliability of SAFE.

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“Good and bad on both sides”. Where have I heard that before?

Aside from the fact that that is not what I said, is there a point you are making regarding the OP?

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Certainly interesting to see how this evolves now a decentralized solution gets a bit more attention. But on the other hand, tomorrow this is probably old news and hopefully the attention will go to the main problem to solve here: real, not virtual, guns.

Yes, this is the thing concerning the widespread adoption of Safe Network that troubles me the most: the possible “demonization” aspect. I am highly conflicted over this, on the one hand understanding the need for autonomy, anonymity and freedom of speech but on the other hand, concerned that MaidSafe may be unleashing a devastating weapon that can easily be used for malicious purposes. Is there any implied responsibility in there anywhere? Not saying there is. Just wondering out loud. Haven’t reconciled that in my own mind yet.

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Not sure what your point is here, but surely not that real guns, knives and rocks are the source of random violence, any more than virtual ones are.

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I know what I think of sites like 4chan and 8chan just like I know how I feel about those pushing for the lop sided status quo. Some in these groups have a clear agenda and those that get radicalized cause serious harm to society. These sites exist even without SAFE. They’ll always be able to find a home. It’s unfortunate and that’s why I think it’s pretty much unavoidable but also a good idea to pursue a solution. The scope would be vast. It’s an issue with so many facets. There are pipelines that funnel people towards radicalization and hate, conspiracy, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, one of general ignorance, complacency, and allegiance to a system which effectively churns out drones for the highest classes.

It’s all messed up and disgusting. The world needs to be disrupted in a positive way. We need to stop with the artificial scarcity and have mind sets of abundance and generosity. Work toward a common good. I’m hoping we as a community can seed this into the beginnings of this new internet before it gets drown out by the crap that arises from sites like random#chan.

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This is the source of a lot of discussion here. I think the bulk of us feel that if there is redemption to be had in the world it is on the basis of empowering individuals and groups with both more control AND responsibility for the state of the world. In my view, that’s what the SAFE Network skews towards in a very big way. Will good win out? Only if we make it so. With SAFE the playing field is a lot more level.

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I’m not worried so much about “we” as “them”.

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Ah, but then comes the question “Where does ‘we’ stop and ‘them’ begin?”

The line between self and other is an awfully fuzz line, very subject to change. An interesting line of thought, worth contemplation.

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The reason (edit: to be clear not really a valid one in my opinion) that 8Chan has been booted is the manifesto of the El Paso mass shooter that was posted there. But I assume that most here know of this main news story. In my opinion the biggest (but of course not the only) problem in this specific situation and where most of the attention should/will go to is the easy access to guns in the USA. Not radicalized forums, shooting games (which contain virtual guns :wink: ), mental health etc, which are used by some as a distriction so they can keep ignoring the main issue. See the off-topic thread here: https://forum.autonomi.community/t/discussion-on-gun-laws/28877/57?u=draw.
So therefore my point is that it could be that 8chan can move from Zeronet to something centralized again when this isn’t anymore the ‘news’ of the day and decentralized solutions have to wait a bit longer to get the necessary attention.
But I could be wrong. The manifesto could only be “the straw that broke the camel’s back” to ban 8chan.

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Such manifestos have also been posted on Twitter and Facebook. Antifa threats and violence are excused, normalized or ignored, while obvious mischaracterizations and distortions of reporting by alternative journalists, commentors, etc., are subject to banning from social media and defamation in mainstream news. The statistics on those matters are real.

The mass media sources that generate fear and division are far worse than individuals spouting their own thoughts, however true or misguided.

That is why individual control of one’s communication, both given and received, is superior to centralized control.

As I said in the OP, 8Chan is a forum for many things, both good or bad. It is a public commons. One can visit whatever parts of it one wishes. Cheers that it finds a home on ZeroNet, whether the creators of ZeroNet approve of it or not. Same will be true with SAFE, only a lot more so.

The question is “Can we trust individuals to make their own decisions about what to consume, publish and think?” We never really will ever have the choice to do otherwise, really, so let’s embrace the truth and enable it.

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And according to the 8chan owner, the manifesto was copy pasted from Instagram to 8chan by someone else then the mass shooter.
Edit: discussion about this on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/cmpmfk/8chan_owner_jim_watkins_says_the_el_paso/

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Exactly, so more likely pasted on 8Chan to demonize and get it banned because of topics that certain powers don’t want discussed or made known.

EDIT; Conspiratorial thinking? Sure. History is rife with almost nothing but conspiracies of one kind or another. Why should the present be different?

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It’s not even that 8chan has done good or bad. It’s a freedom of speech website so it’s all neither here nor there.

What I take from this and other developments over the past couple years is that the longer we take as this war of sorts happens more opportunities are flying past us.

There are battles happening left and right constantly and I foresee a lot of this culminating around the 2020 US election. In fact most of this is a lead up to that.

If I had the resources hint hint @maidsafe I’d be making a list of all of these types of websites, publishers, journalists and content producers and I’d be making contact, staying in contact, opening a dialogue and creating relationships with these folks so that eventually when Beta happens you can invite them over. Or when the time is right for them. That’s all that has happened in this situation.

Some of these folks are being squeezed right now and struggling to keep their heads above water. SAFE could be a life raft.

I hope I’m wrong but if SAFE doesn’t release in the next 6+ months its missing a golden opportunity that will never happen again. And the risk is that these other netBworks grow in power and popularity and the content producers with their millions of fans move to these other networks.

I’d hate for a situation where SAFE is ready to be released only for most of these content sites to have already moved to other networks of platforms…

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On one hand, I agree. On another, the need to fly is just beginning to be felt from multiple sides by the general public. It is less critical that it be soon as that it be right. @dirvine and the crew feel the heat and will deliver ASAP. The ripeness of timing is sure to be Ordained by “Dirvine.” :rofl:

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You’re a poet and you didn’t know it.

The current web will never go away. Instead the web will just be fractured and layered. We want as much traffic in our portion of the new web as possible and while you might not agree with me. You don’t have to. The facts are the facts. 8chan is now hosted elsewhere. Same as Gab etc. That might end up being a good thing, who knows… But one thing is for sure they’re not switching to SAFE anytime soon…

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I’m not so sure that’s true. Most civilized societies have laws about inciting riots, for example, and rightfully so. It’s not wrong to try and prevent someone from yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater is it, or should that be tolerated - just some examples of when free speech crosses the line to criminal behavior. My concern is that Safe Network might easily become an “enabler” for such activities and, so, the question for me is not “does the good outweigh the bad” but “should the bad be enabled and supported?” Perhaps AI will be the saving grace one day that will ensure a benevolent network will thrive.

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Ya that’s the way I come at this. I am 99.99% sure sickos (I had something more expletive here but ironically got censored for swearing lmao) like child porn distributors will find the SAFE network a safe haven. But then there is the “well criminals use cars to rob banks so should we ban cars?” argument. I think what it comes down to is the question of are most people driving around on their way to commit a crime. We can’t really stop the bad, but I just hope we can create enough good that it is an acceptable cost.

Ya if there are ways to mitigate the bad we should do that still. Like I am not saying DPR was bad but they did manage to catch him. Even with darkwebs and SAFE networks humans can slip up and all it takes is once to blow your cover. So go after the bad actors still, just don’t let them spoil the whole party for everyone else.

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I agree most with fergish on the discussion here. You will notice in these types of situations, manifestos are only problematic if they are placed on sites that aren’t mainstream. The below article and the 8chan site owner claim the manifesto was originally uploaded to instagram, and then uploaded to 8chan by someone other than the original poster. It was similar with the New Zealand livestream. It was broadcast on facebook but it was only other non-mainstream sites which were vilified for holding a copy of facebook’s stream. I think these sites are generally filthy, grungy unrestricted information depots, which you can get a lot of information out of if you’re willing to sift through piles of crap, sorry to get graphic there. There are no doubt a lot of intelligent people that post there, and a lot of crazies and assholes.

On the origin of the manifesto:

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