[HN Gopher] FSE meets the FBI
___________________________________________________________________
FSE meets the FBI
Author : 1337p337
Score : 382 points
Date : 2025-06-09 01:59 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.freespeechextremist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.freespeechextremist.com)
| roenxi wrote:
| There is really quite a lot to like about this post:
|
| 1) Gentleman is doing citizen science figuring out a small part
| of the FBI's intelligence gathering/spying apparatus.
|
| 2) Random Fediverse drama tidbits.
|
| 3) Interesting sysadmin tactics for small server operators.
|
| 4) This torswats fellow sounds like a piece of work and gets
| arrested which adds an interesting subplot.
|
| 5) Seems like quite an intelligent writer, I just like the style.
|
| 5 stars. Well worth reading.
| gosub100 wrote:
| notice the incorrect conclusion he makes. the fbi emails him
| asking for info about a user, with a screenshot that includes a
| threat of violence. FSE guy jumps to the conclusion that it's
| just innocent braggadocio (despite the fact that another CEO
| was murdered just 6 months ago). jump to end of article: guy
| has _already_ committed countless acts of violence (by proxy).
|
| I'm glad that FSE guy engaged with the feds, but it shows
| dangerous bias when he sees a screenshot of a threat and
| immediately assumes that can't be a violent individual.
| lmm wrote:
| Anyone _could_ be violent, but that screenshot is total
| weaksauce. Is it even the same guy or just someone random
| blowing off steam?
| roenxi wrote:
| You doubt the seriousness of the Witch King of Angmar? The
| Pale King? The man leads a dark host of fell origin! He
| wears a ring of Power! His threats are clearly entirely
| credible, it is only a small step from posting on the
| Fediverse to a siege of the White City and the deaths of a
| multitude.
|
| Yeah. For the life of me I don't see how someone could see
| a credible threat in that post. The man could actually
| murder Fink the same day and the post still wouldn't be
| evidence of a credible threat; it is just too silly. At
| best it is evidence he is deranged in addition to the
| trolling it turned out to be in this case.
| gosub100 wrote:
| this remark about the threat is _incredibly_ presumptuous:
|
| "it was also clearly absurd, an obvious joke, not a
| credible threat."
| lmm wrote:
| That is a completely accurate description of that
| screenshot IMO. Even if the guy who posted it _was_
| making phone calls to get thugs to beat people up and
| hoping they 'd take it further, that post is still
| clearly absurd, an obvious joke, not a credible threat.
| This is "96% of serial killers have used bread" stuff.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| But it was never a joke! It was a guy basically running
| harassment enterprise, including swatting people and
| other false flag style crimes.
|
| He wasn't being silly or lampooning anything or creating
| satire, he was trying to make conversation worse. That's
| not a joke.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| The problem is entirely that you cannot tell a baseless
| threat from a real one from just the forum post.
|
| Just like for credit card fraud, you can only improve your
| heuristics so far. At some point, you either treat every
| single possible as real for investigative purposes, or you
| accept that you find a threat, ignored it, and people die
| as a result.
|
| Plenty of real world crazy terrorist bullshit had a
| pointless online threat component!
|
| More importantly, depending on the threat, it's probably a
| crime itself. Bomb threats are criminal even if it's clear
| that it wasn't a _realistic_ threat.
|
| So no, that screenshot is not "total weaksauce", for law
| enforcement. Hell, even here, that screenshot was
| demonstrably from a guy running a criminal enterprise!
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| The FSE guy is telling a story from 2023. I'd have reached
| the same conclusion back then also.
| Peacefulz wrote:
| I personally think that the fact that violent people exist
| shouldn't diminish our values regarding privacy and/or
| anonymity. I don't think you should accommodate messages such
| as the one WitchKing shared...but I think if you value
| privacy, your priority should be removing the user and the
| content, and not appealing to the Feds. Don't make it a safe
| space for either party, because neither of them are on your
| side.
| kriro wrote:
| I agree, fantastic writeup with a nice amount of technical
| detail sprinkled in. This would work really well as a talk at
| something like the Chaos Communication Congress.
| slt2021 wrote:
| sorry to be this person, but can anyone TLDR this for me?
| indigodaddy wrote:
| You don't want to traverse that domain, or?
| tough wrote:
| he could always archive.is first
| morleytj wrote:
| The article technically does have a TLDR in the second
| paragraph, though not directly labelled.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Third paragraph.
| Xevion wrote:
| No, the _second_ paragraph contains the TL;DR (summary)
| being referenced.
|
| The word TLDR appears in the third paragraph, but the
| summary it refers to is in the second paragraph, starting
| with the words "To summarize, ..."
|
| https://blog.freespeechextremist.com/blog/fse-vs-
| fbi.html#:~...
| fisherjeff wrote:
| Actually, I think if you set your referrer to boardreader.com
| and reload the page, the host might serve you a summary
| itake wrote:
| this covers the highlights:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44221205
| busymom0 wrote:
| tldr from 2nd para of article:
|
| > To summarize, the FBI pays some shady companies to scrape
| data, the data is scanned for keywords (yep, just like
| CARNIVORE). Links and content are then fed into Facebook,
| organized by topic based on the keywords. Some rudimentary
| analysis is performed (sentiment analysis at least, but as
| friendly as Microsoft is with the feds, and as LLMs have gotten
| popular, the influence of machines has probably expanded) and
| perused by agents, using some FBI internal interface.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| That's not the real kicker, though. You at least have to
| _also_ skip to the end and read the last couple paragraphs.
| gosub100 wrote:
| fbi contacts a guy who runs a free speech website asks who a
| particular shitposter is. free-speech guy hates the fbi but
| complies anyway (as best as he can), later finds out shitposter
| (who finally got arrested) was an actual commit-violence-
| against-you terrorist.
| FilosofumRex wrote:
| FSE {free speech extremists}, why would one have to be an
| extremist in country where free speech is enshrined in its
| Constitutional Law.
| steamrolled wrote:
| "Extremist" is just a pejorative variant of "radical". I assume
| they're using it tongue-in-cheek.
|
| When it comes to speech, it's really not hard to imagine
| positions that would have been controversial at any point in
| the history of the US. That doesn't mean you can't hold them,
| but others don't need to agree, and that's how you end up with
| labels of this sort.
| simoncion wrote:
| Aside from the bit about "frontiers", Article 19 of the UN
| Universal Declaration of Human Rights is pretty
| straightforward:
|
| > Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and
| expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
| without interference and to seek, receive and impart
| information and ideas through any media and regardless of
| frontiers.
|
| As is the First Amendment to the US Constitution:
|
| > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
| religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
| abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
| right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
| the Government for a redress of grievances.
|
| I can't speak for Pete. However, given that the expressed
| position of influential portions of the US government (as
| well as many of my peers and acquaintances) runs counter to
| the letter and the spirit of Article 19 and the spirit (if
| not the letter) of the First Amendment, I consider _myself_
| to be a free speech extremist.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Because there are inumerable forms of banned speech. Because
| freedom of speech is in reality a very narrow construct. See
| Hustler Magazine v. Falwell 1998.... or just watch the last
| few scenes of the movie.
|
| https://youtu.be/gh30mLyNQM0
| erikerikson wrote:
| A feature of extremists is that they tend to support one cause
| over all others. They see no room for compromise or balancing
| of concerns. A breathing extremist may prioritize breathing
| over eating food and drinking water which are also important
| for survival.
|
| While, from an immediacy standpoint, breathing is the higher
| priority, if you prioritize breathing continuously to the
| exclusion of drinking and eating, you will have problems on the
| 3-5 day and 8-21 day horizons.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The courts have held that the rights in the constitution have
| limits. Generally, anyone operating outside of the limits would
| be called an extremist when someone disagrees with them.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| To elaborate, in the context of the article, the author is
| not so much of an extremist that they condone certain illegal
| speech by pedophiles.
| jchw wrote:
| Aside from the obvious (it is clearly somewhat tongue-in-cheek,
| especially given the author's sense of humor) the truth is that
| the U.S. still has some unsettled business regarding what
| counts as protected speech. The past few decades have seen a
| lot of debate and legal back-and-forth regarding what to do
| with lolicon and shotacon illustrations, which FSE also
| addresses in another linked post[1]. (Not sure if any other
| remnants of obscenity law still exist: I'm sure they do, they
| just don't seem to come up very often online.) In any case, it
| seems like their fediverse server runs on the idea that if it's
| legally protected speech it should generally be allowed, or at
| least not disallowed on the basis that it's gross or something
| like that. Personally, I can get behind the spirit even if I'm
| not sure I'm in to go along for the ride. I definitely lean in
| that general direction. (The counter example would be, well,
| basically every other fediverse instance. They get pretty long
| on the rules and instance block lists.)
|
| [1]: https://blog.freespeechextremist.com/blog/the-loli-
| question....
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| > The past few decades have seen a lot of debate and legal
| back-and-forth regarding what to do with lolicon and shotacon
| illustrations
|
| wild that of all the examples you could choose to bring up,
| _this_ is the one. not saying the conversation doesn 't need
| to happen, but i think there are a lot more concrete examples
| that affect many more people that come to mind first.
|
| for GP, there are a lot of other contested ideas around what
| constitutes free/protected speech in america that aren't
| related to pedophilia - much of it revolves around political
| speech, especially with Citizens United (the supreme court
| case that effectively declared monetary support for political
| causes to be considered "free speech"). conversely, ground-up
| economic speech (such as BDS) is often stifled (even calling
| for boycotts etc under the BDS framework is not considered
| protected speech in some places).
| jchw wrote:
| As far as protected speech as it relates to the Internet
| and American law though, I don't think I've really seen
| anything that has been debated quite as much, and not only
| that, it actually seems to have picked up considerable heat
| over time rather than quieting down. It first came around
| (at least in any way that I noticed it) with the Chris
| Handley case in 2008 and has become a serious point of
| debate online especially with younger people.
|
| Citizen's United isn't even really about free expression
| IMO, and I personally don't think people are all that split
| on it anyways, I think it's just a case where the people
| and the establishment disagree. BDS I'm simply not familiar
| with.
|
| It does seem that there are new mounting challenges to free
| expression _right now_ , but they're relatively new and
| it's unclear if they will stick around yet.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| > Citizen's United isn't even really about free
| expression IMO
|
| unfortunately, it _is_ about free expression in the
| opinion of the supreme court:
|
| 'the Court found that laws restricting the political
| spending of corporations and unions are inconsistent with
| the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S.
| Constitution.' [0]
|
| BDS is a topical instance of a bottom-up movement
| recommending boycotting, divestment and sanctions against
| organizations that are considered to materially support
| the israelli government. naturally, you can imagine this
| attracts strong opinions from many sides. in some cases,
| states/municipalities have deemed this to be unprotected
| speech. [1]
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_an
| d_Sancti...
| jchw wrote:
| Oh that is a good point, I _have_ heard of some free
| expression debate going on around the Israel /Palestine
| conflict lately.
|
| I think the reason those don't come to mind is because
| even though they really do regard the interpretation of
| free speech law, they don't _actually_ feel like they 're
| about expression. When it comes to the Israel/Palestine
| conflict though, _even the opinion_ that it isn 't really
| about free expression might be controversial, so clearly
| it is.
| lmm wrote:
| You're asking that on a story specifically describing how the
| FBI is either avoiding or directly violating the constitutional
| restrictions they are supposed to follow?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I'm sorry, how did the FBI violate anyone's First Amendment
| rights here? Where in this story did they take down content?
| Where did they compel speech or silence or association?
|
| LMAO you do not have a first amendment right to not be
| investigated for making threats in public, even if those
| threats are baseless! You do not have a right to baselessly
| threaten people!
| immibis wrote:
| Because the US has very unfree speech, despite what someone
| wrote on a piece of paper in 17-whatever year.
|
| In general, the US ranks pretty low on most freedom metrics,
| except for the freedom to kill with a gun. In general, the more
| your country has to tell you you're free, the less free you
| actually are.
|
| Many other countries explicitly do not have free speech in
| their constitution, but something more narrow, like freedom of
| opinion. In those countries, what rights the constitution says
| you get, and what rights you actually get, tend to be more
| closely in alignment.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Could you elaborate how the U.S. doesn't have free speech?
| noworriesnate wrote:
| It's illegal to call for boycotting Israel in many US
| states [1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
| aydyn wrote:
| Which countries in your opinion does have free speech?
| FilosofumRex wrote:
| Freedom of noise might be more descriptive than freedom of
| speech, in so far as the Western democracies are concerned.
|
| In the US unlimited money has unlimited political power, so
| free speech, is irrelevant to power distribution, although
| it might have some academic or personal value for some.
| blu3h4t wrote:
| I read it as fsf meets the fbi :D
| tough wrote:
| i also was expecting some russian action initially
| anton-c wrote:
| Glancing too quickly...
|
| "SBF is already in jail tho right... er, oh"
| TheonlyJem wrote:
| That was a lot
| Reventlov wrote:
| >I'd like to also thank fediblock for never fact-checking
| anything ever, giving the false impression that things that FSE
| has never permitted were allowed.
|
| Proceeds to link to a website whose source code is hosted by
| kiwifarms. If you are blocked, that's because most of us don't
| want to interact with the "free speech" crowd, that's pretty much
| it.
| aydyn wrote:
| That sounds like a non sequitur to the statement you are
| replying to. What does blocking or disliking someone have to do
| with fact checking?
| Reventlov wrote:
| Actually, what does being blocked by half the fediverse has
| to do with fact checking ? Nothing, but that's the angle the
| author of this story chose.
| aydyn wrote:
| No it is not.
| kstrauser wrote:
| The non sequitur was implying that the list was related to
| why those instances blocked this one, as though everyone
| blindly followed the fediblock recommendation. I didn't. I've
| never, not once, taken fediblock's advice without following
| up personally to verify their claims.
|
| I blocked this instance when their user called me the n-word
| and the instance moderators didn't act on my report. I didn't
| block them due to fediblock, but because of negative
| interactions that I was personally involved with. And yet my
| server shows up on that list, as though it were related to
| fediblock.
| underyx wrote:
| Great read. I have a tiny, inconsequential, possibly wrong
| correction. You had assumed that the "Negative" word on the
| internal search engine screenshot was sentiment analysis. I think
| it was instead a button to report the post in the internal system
| as a "negative" result as in, not actually matching the search
| they were trying to do. Sentiment analysis doesn't seem like it
| would be very useful in this scenario.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I disagree. The icon of "Negative" is of a red human head. Who
| would choose that icon for "False positive"? IMO it makes more
| sense as "Negative sentiment"
| DoctorOW wrote:
| > _I 'd like to also thank fediblock for never fact-checking
| anything ever_
|
| Nitpicking time: The link in the blog post just goes to a list of
| instances that have chosen to defederate. The reason it's not
| going to any sort of official Fediblock list is because Fediblock
| was shut down years ago. The author of Fediblock expressed the
| specific intention of not being definitive in any way and for
| people to thoroughly cross reference listed instances' standards
| with their own. My intuition tells me that the author wanted to
| link to the entry of Fediblock, and failing to find it,
| substituted that link for its nearest equivalent without fact-
| checking anything ever.
| busterarm wrote:
| Fediblock was shutdown in September of '23 and this article is
| full of timestamps on these events showing they happened before
| the shutdown.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I run a medium sized Mastodon server. I blocked them because
| one of their users called me the n-word, I reported them to
| their admin, and nothing happened. It had zero to do with
| fediblock or any other communal mechanism. Their users acted
| like assholes, their admins did nothing about it, so I decided
| I didn't want to talk to them anymore.
|
| The notion of FSE whining about being blocked by some cabal is
| hilarious to me. No, they're garden variety trolls that are
| capable of annoying others directly. There's no grand
| conspiracy required to make a bunch of people disconnect from
| them.
| qualeed wrote:
| > _The notion of FSE whining about being blocked by some
| cabal is hilarious to me._
|
| Are they whining about being blocked? I didn't catch it in
| the article, but maybe I missed it?
|
| The only thing I saw was kind of the opposite of whining: _"
| FSE being fedi's equivalent of a dive bar, I understand
| people on "gated community" instances not wanting to deal
| with it"_
|
| They seem totally fine & understanding if people want to
| block them. They just don't want the block reason to be a lie
| (e.g. saying they allow loli stuff when they don't).
| Presumably, you saying they are a bunch of assholes as your
| reason for blocking them would be completely accepted by
| them.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Yes. They say:
|
| > I'd like to also thank fediblock for never fact-checking
| anything ever
|
| and link to a list of all instances who have blocked them
| for any reason whatsoever. My instance is on that list, as
| though I blocked them because of fediblock. In reality,
| it's impossible for them to know why someone blocked them
| without doing a survey or something.
| qualeed wrote:
| > _I 'd like to also thank fediblock for never fact-
| checking anything ever_
|
| The rest of the sentence is important to the meaning of
| the sentence, though...?
|
| _" giving the false impression that things that FSE has
| never permitted were allowed._" with a link to a claim
| that they allow loli.
|
| (For what it is worth, I've blocked them as well, but I
| still didn't read this paragraph as them "whining about a
| cabal")
| kstrauser wrote:
| Maybe, but they're still linking to my server (and a
| bunch of others) as evidence that they're widely blocked
| due to fediblock, and not because of individual servers
| blocking them for bad behavior. I personally couldn't
| care less what fediblock said about them. It was nothing
| whatsoever to do with why I blocked them.
| qualeed wrote:
| > _as evidence that they're widely blocked due to
| fediblock_
|
| It seems like you're laser-focused on the fact that they
| link to fediblock instead of the actual words of the
| sentence.
|
| Their complaint is not about being blocked, they make
| that clear in the part of the sentence you decided not to
| quote. They apparently just don't want the reason in the
| "Reason" column to be a lie.
|
| It's probably a good bet to just read the whole sentence
| they wrote.
|
| " _I understand people on "gated community" instances not
| wanting to deal with it [...] but I would prefer if they
| did not lie about their reasons or about me personally._"
|
| They (seemingly) just don't want pedos thinking it's okay
| to post on there. Which is a good thing. So, if you're
| filling out a reason, just put "massive assholes" or
| whatever instead something untruthful.
| blueflow wrote:
| There is the popular belief that shunning people or groups of
| people like this will lead to _their_ exclusion from society,
| not yours.
| kstrauser wrote:
| If you can't shun someone for their direct misbehavior,
| then why _can_ you decide not to mute someone?
|
| Note that I never told you that you're not allowed to talk
| to them. I just said they're not allowed to harass me or my
| users anymore. You can still hang out with them all you
| like.
| blueflow wrote:
| I was unable to settle on the Fediverse as i did not find
| an instance from where i could follow and interact with
| all the people that i know. My social circles are rather
| "diverse" and people like you are apparently working hard
| to not allow that.
|
| I guess _your_ users were okay with you setting blocks?
| kstrauser wrote:
| Yes and no. I'm working hard to keep people who act
| horribly out of my corner of the fediverse. I've never
| blocked someone for having different political opinions
| from my own, for example, but I've blocked plenty of
| people, even those who mostly share my opinions, because
| they were behaving like jerks. I'm doing nothing
| whatsoever to keep you from talking to them.
|
| Hang out with anyone you want to, and I'll do the same.
| And yes, my users are specifically OK with it. Our
| moderation actions are public, we put them to a vote when
| there's some question about the right thing to do, and
| I've blogged a lot about the details of it all. Users
| tend to join and stay with my instance because they agree
| with my moderation actions, not in spite of them.
| blueflow wrote:
| "behaving like a jerk" by your cultural norms and
| standards. I understand your position and wish you and
| your instance a future of diverse and fruitful
| conversations.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Well, of course we're not going to block them due to
| anyone else's standards.
|
| Thanks! We've been online for 8 years and it's been a lot
| of fun, other than dealing with moderation of bad actors.
| Like the one above who called me an n-word, for instance.
| Although that was one of the easier mod decisions we had
| to make, to be sure!
| pixl97 wrote:
| Diverse conversations are actually pretty rare in reality
| when conflicting opinions exist. The paradox of tolerance
| pretty much demands you weed out the extremists or they
| will be all that's left.
| blueflow wrote:
| The trick is not being an ass towards someone you
| disagree with. If you quote Popper on this, you failed
| that and are rationalizing your behavior because you know
| its not good.
| pixl97 wrote:
| The trick is the other person doing that too. Simply put
| a lot, if not most people don't want a rational debate
| where they discuss the many sides of an issue. They want
| to win.
|
| Take religion for example, seemingly most people that
| have one tend to believe not only they are right about it
| (if you debate it's correctness it shows your lack of
| faith), they are trying to convert you and if they fail
| you are an enemy.
| blueflow wrote:
| Nah, this approach is not good because it kinda starts
| with the frontiers already drawn.
|
| You don't even need to assert your own position, just ask
| question like "What is your intent behind saying that" or
| "Why does it have to be this specific way?" to derail
| them into some status quo. Provoke them into explaining
| their "great plan" until they tumble.
| Moomoomoo309 wrote:
| Can you think of a forum that isn't tiny that does not do
| this kind of moderation that isn't a cesspool? Your
| theory seems sound, but I don't know if I have ever seen
| it implemented such that the theory is correct.
| blueflow wrote:
| I believe HN does it pretty well.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I agree. HN has a strong moderation policy against
| trolling and other awful behavior. Forums that aren't as
| moderated as HN don't tend to last as long, or at least
| don't tend to maintain this level of civil communication.
| pixl97 wrote:
| HN weeds out/flags a massive number of topics very
| quickly. Especially political topics that lead to flame
| wars. It also weeds out the unnecessarily argumentative
| posters pretty quickly.
|
| But at the same time because of this there are some that
| say that this limits conversations and topics that can be
| discussed on HN. So, no you can't make everyone happy,
| but you can attempt to at least make the atmosphere
| pleasant.
| throwaway095775 wrote:
| > Diverse conversations are actually pretty rare in
| reality when conflicting opinions exist
|
| So are we just not supposed to debate anything ever? Just
| find a convenient excuse to ban/block/mute and move on?
|
| > The paradox of tolerance pretty much demands you weed
| out the extremists or they will be all that's left
|
| Too bad everyone has a different idea of who an
| "extremist" is, and conveniently ignores the ones on
| their side.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Sigh....
|
| Does HN have diverse opinions?
|
| Some say yes, others will say no. It depends on the
| topic.
|
| Now the moment you start acting like a jerk on HN you'll
| get a message from Dang or one of the other mods, and if
| you keep it up you'll be banned.
|
| Diverse opinions are fine. The problem is there are a lot
| of people that get way too wound up in the rightness of
| their opinion, and there are others that are just trolls
| that live on the conflict. When you start banning the
| trolls/extremists they go off and make articles like
| "Site X bans any difference of opinion because they are
| big meanies" Then other groups like free speech
| extremists show up to complain about how the site is
| authoritarian in the most annoying and offensive ways
| possible, and it's not long after that admins block
| entire topics to make the problem FOAGA.
|
| Being an admin/moderator of places where people can post
| will quickly drain you of understanding and compassion.
| The frog and the scorpion is a good fable here. You get
| tired of the scorpions asking for a ride then stabbing
| you in the back on your forums.
| RankingMember wrote:
| > "behaving like a jerk" by your cultural norms and
| standards.
|
| Calling someone the "n-word" doesn't really need a lot of
| cultural translation to be considered offensive.
| blueflow wrote:
| Its less a translation thing, but: I do not consider it
| offensive, yet i have to accommodate these sensitivities
| while the reverse is not considered.
| lovich wrote:
| There is zero real world scenarios where someone who is
| communicating in English in the modern day, call someone
| an n-word and does not mean for it to be offensive.
|
| You mean, you personally weren't the target of an insult
| and you apparently are mystified as to why any other
| people's feelings are taken into consideration
| blueflow wrote:
| s/there is/i don't know/
| watwut wrote:
| Nazi and KKK consider it proper valid word, the only one
| that actually expresses who and what they have in mind.
| Their goal is not directly to offend, just to express how
| they feel about some people.
|
| As far as they are concerned, the worst offense against
| propriety you can do is to ... call them racists. That is
| totally always unfair.
| lovich wrote:
| Do you believe that people can hold a negative opinion of
| someone else and choose not to interact with them, or
| does your world view require that people are compelled to
| interact with anyone who demands it of them?
| blueflow wrote:
| My problem is that the instance admin does the blocking
| decision for the user, based on their own cultural norms,
| not the users.
| lovich wrote:
| Caveat, I haven't used mastodon or the fed inverse and
| might be off on the details.
|
| Isn't that how the fediverse works? You sign up for an
| instance based on if you like how they admin it, and if
| you don't, you join a different instance?
|
| I'm failing to see how that is a problem for users if
| they aren't compelled to stay
| blueflow wrote:
| Yes, but the different instance has a different set of
| blocks (both outgoing and ingoing), so the problem kinda
| persists even when you change instances. You can't have
| both A and B people in your feed when they (actually
| their admins) instance-block each other on sight.
| lovich wrote:
| What exactly are you advocating for? This sounds entirely
| like the systems working as intended, it's just not
| exactly how you personally would prefer.
|
| You're using words like you're pro liberty but the
| implications of you're sentences is hyper authoritarian
| KittenInABox wrote:
| Forgive me if I am not understanding:
|
| Doesn't this mean you can just go to an instance that has
| mutual open communication with both other instances and
| then have access to both feeds? This is what happens IRL
| when I have two friend groups that don't engage, I engage
| with them both as a separate person.
| blueflow wrote:
| > go to an instance that has mutual open communication
| with both other instances
|
| How do i find these neutral instances? I tried around
| some but with unsatisfying results.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| You make one? I thought spinning up an instance is
| designed to be easy.
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's exactly correct. It's a marketplace of policies.
| If someone thinks I allow too much trash through, they'll
| go to another server. If someone thinks I block too much,
| they'll go to another server. There are thousands to
| choose from, each with its own local culture.
|
| People who've been on my server for many years implicitly
| mostly agree with my actions. If they didn't, they'd have
| migrated.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I hear variations of that logic so often and it's
| frustrating. It's impossible for me to infringe someone's
| freedom of speech on the fediverse. Someone can spin up a
| brand new server right now and start saying whatever they
| want. I can't stop them, even if I wanted to, which I
| don't. But if I blocked them _from my own server_ , some
| people are quick to complain about my "censorship", or
| whatever.
|
| No. In exercising _my_ freedom of speech to say I don't
| want to hear their trash, and I don't want them harassing
| my users. Their freedom of speech doesn't say they have
| the right to force me to listen to them.
|
| (For people following along at home: the speech I'm
| talking about here isn't a debate about appropriate
| fiscal policy, but about vile escaped-from-4chan trash.
| I'd never block someone for disagreeing with my politics.
| I'll block their ass in a heartbeat for a timeline filled
| with swastikas and death threats.)
| lovich wrote:
| Yea, with his clarification in the other comment it's
| clear that this guy is one of those types who probably
| calls himself a Libertarian while unironically advocating
| for the removal of people's right to assembly
| blueflow wrote:
| You were projecting hard in your last two comments - i
| generally do not think by constructed group identity. And
| i'm lost what parts of my wishes you consider
| authoritarian. I'm just pissed that instance admins
| install blocks that leave me unable to make my own
| decisions who i want to interact with - blocking people i
| like on my behalf.
|
| Typical scenario is that someone gives me their fedi
| ident and i can't follow them because either my instance
| blocked theirs or theirs blocked mine.
|
| Ideally i'd have a tool that knows all fedi blocks, where
| i can specify the people i want to follow and it tells me
| on what instance i need to register to be able to do
| that.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| Couldn't you just spin up your own instance that only
| consists of yourself in that case? I'm not being
| facetious I'm genuinely baffled as I thought this kind of
| custom plug-and-do-yourself-if-you-dont-like-it is
| fundamental to how fediverse works and is considered a
| "perk" of it.
| blueflow wrote:
| Uh. That would actually solve the problem, but at the
| cost of having to operate that setup. I saw many people
| who self-hosted their instance but it seemed rather
| stressful dealing with some technical aspects, so
| initially didn't consider it.
|
| Currently researching managed fedi hosting...
| thwarted wrote:
| > _That would actually solve the problem, but that the
| cost of having to operate that setup._
|
| So you expect someone else to incur that cost and not
| exercise control over how their resources are used, so
| you can use it for free/low effort?
| blueflow wrote:
| Valid concern... but my conclusion from that is that the
| Fediverse is just a bunch of personal lawns you'd better
| stay away from.
| os2warpman wrote:
| >Their users acted like assholes, their admins did nothing
| about it, so I decided I didn't want to talk to them anymore.
|
| It has been my experience that the more vocal someone is
| about free speech rights the more likely it is that they are
| only vocal because they want to use those rights as a shield
| against criticism of their bigoted, annoying, or anti-social
| behavior and they want to criticize people for distancing
| themselves from the bigotry.
|
| To them free speech is mandatory listening-- to them, no
| matter what.
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's been my observation. "Freedom to... say _what_
| exactly? "
|
| I'm A-OK with people saying constructive, civil things I
| disagree with. I might reply with my disagreement but
| that's OK. We're talking! I have zero patience with someone
| jumping in with trolling, harassment, or other abuse.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Freedom to... say what exactly?
|
| What's the difference between this and saying "Criminals
| want trials with defence lawyers, so people who want
| trials with defence lawyers are criminals"?
| norir wrote:
| There is a well known effect that goes by many names that
| anything taken to its extreme becomes its opposite.
| hello_computer wrote:
| are there any good open-source porn-detector models out there? if
| i ran an image board in 2025, that would be job #1, since it's
| really just a weapon, and we don't speak or print with our
| genitals--well, most of us anyway...
| perching_aix wrote:
| I really liked how the story starts with not wanting to introduce
| captcha because it hurts real users, then continues to spend the
| next 80% of it covering how open registrations and the public
| timeline were down for however long, extremely negatively
| impacting users.
|
| Still, fun read though. Also made me definitively realize I can't
| imagine myself hosting a community space for others online.
| mkfs wrote:
| > Pedophiles were showing up on FSE.
|
| That seems to be a problem with the Fediverse in general. And
| admittedly, Discord.
| saintfire wrote:
| Or really anywhere that you can upload a picture and don't tie
| your real name to.
| j-krieger wrote:
| Or Signal. Or Telegram.
| axus wrote:
| FBI paying a front group (BoardReader?) to collect open source
| intelligence isn't too weird, doesn't sound like a crime. And I'm
| happy the FBI spent resources going after "swatting".
|
| I'd really like to know how the front group are controlling
| Facebook servers to collect data.
| norswap wrote:
| Wasn't there a better technical way to block the scraper? Like
| blocking IPs/domains at ingress instead of serving requests?
| Probably you do still pay for request traffic though...
|
| Isn't there a market for anti-DDOS third-party services for API
| endpoints (Cloudflare etc) -- through probably for "Free Speech
| Extremist" that wouldn't be suitable solution, and there are
| charges too (though presumably when facing a situation like this
| you actually save money).
| progval wrote:
| > So, I tell the server to drop traffic from the IPs that were
| scraping. Problem solved! Then immediately I start seeing a
| large number of attempts from different IPs. Residential IPs in
| the US: they're buying residential proxies.
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