AT&T blocks img.4chan.org

[Truthordeal]

Thought, my argument was that since AT&T is a private enterprise, it should be allowed to decide what content it has to host on its servers, not necessarily what service it provides. Not that there's much of a service difference between an Internet with /b/ and /r3k/ and an Internet without.

Now, sure, a pre-notice would have been nice, and I'm sure we would've resolved this argument long before now if that's what they had done. I think we can find common ground on that. But as long as they didn't violate their contract by doing so, they're within their rights. Unless someone here has an AT&T Internet service contract on hand, we'll never really know the terms of their service. For all we know, it could have a clause specifically for situations like this.

Zeality, I support the notion of net neutrality when it comes to the medium of information exchange. Which is why despite the fact that I hate Shirley Phelps and the Aryan Brotherhood and their beliefs, I'll still support their right to host a website and spout whatever nonsense they choose. In fact, to jump back on my TV argument, when asked a question about letting Al-Jazzera being allowed to host its content on American television, I said to let them do it. If Disney starts showing beheadings and anti-Western rantings on their network, let the ratings and public opinion tell them how to conduct themselves, not some invisible entity that determines wrong and right.

In this case it was AT&T that made that decision, because a) It was probably unprofitable with the DDoS attacks, as Thought mentioned below, and 2) just about everything else about those two boards. In the same way, Disney is allowed to not show Al-Jazeera ads, and Fox is allowed to not show one particular episode of Family Guy that they find distasteful. There was probably more of a violation in contract between Fox and Seth McFarlane than there was AT&T and its customers.

Not to sound like a smart-alleck here, but does this mean I can sue Cartoon Network for breach of contract? Because I was pretty sure I signed on for a cartoon channel rather than a "Watch Live 12 Year Olds Run Around and Do Stupid Crap" channel. Classic bait and switch there, huh?

4chan, needless to say, doesn't even provide this in terms of an information exchange. If you want to find out what a man looks like after being crushed by a tank, or what a distended anus looks like, then its perfect for you. Even if you find that to be beneficial, I doubt net neutrality will take a hit over two boards on 4chan being blocked by one ISP.

[Thought]

Thought, my argument was that since AT&T is a private enterprise, it should be allowed to decide what content it has to host on its servers, not necessarily what service it provides. Not that there's much of a service difference between an Internet with /b/ and /r3k/ and an Internet without.

Ah, sorry, I missed that. Though, that is a strange topic to bring up since as far as I can tell, 4chan is not hosted on any AT&T server, nor did AT&T's action remove the content from its servers, nor in any way effect 4chan itself except insofar as it prevented individuals from accessing it.

There is a huge difference between an Internet with /b/ and /r9k/ and an internet without them. One is a totally free internet, and another is a restricted one. To offer a comparison, this is a larger difference than say restricting access to /b/, /r9k/, and cnn.com and just restricting access to /b/ and /r9k/. The step from none to some is always the most significant step.

EDIT: Fixed per Tact's comments.

[x_XTacTX_x]

Don't mean to play the Devil's Advocate, but it's /r9k/, guys. Not /r3k/.

[ZaichikArky]

Oh undoubtedly. But to suggest the large numbers of pedophiles and crazy people in general are going to stop trolling /b/ to thrash down society as a whole is a bit of a stretch.  As to the bomb threat, I can only recall two: the football bomb scare (DON'T MESS WITH FOOTBALL) and some dumbass kid making pipe bombs to blow up at his school. The dumbass kid, as I recall, was a real threat, but if you'll also recall, it was the denizens of /b/ themselves who reported him to his local police or the school or some such. The death threats are iffy, but if you're actually one who has perused /b/ for several years you tend to realize one thing: /b/tards love their shock value. Then again, I have never  taken anything on /b/ remotely seriously.

This is a good point. I see the term "domestic terrorism" being thrown around here and there, but I'd like to understand the logic in calling Anonymous domestic terrorists. From what I understand most of their crime involves harassment and nothing violent. As for the pedophilia thing, it really could be anywhere. The reason it ends up on 4chan so much is because it is a completely unmoderated place... If you open up something like that, you  really should expect the worst of the internet. Now whether I think 4chan should be moderated or not, I would say no.

[Exodus]

Oh undoubtedly. But to suggest the large numbers of pedophiles and crazy people in general are going to stop trolling /b/ to thrash down society as a whole is a bit of a stretch.  As to the bomb threat, I can only recall two: the football bomb scare (DON'T MESS WITH FOOTBALL) and some dumbass kid making pipe bombs to blow up at his school. The dumbass kid, as I recall, was a real threat, but if you'll also recall, it was the denizens of /b/ themselves who reported him to his local police or the school or some such. The death threats are iffy, but if you're actually one who has perused /b/ for several years you tend to realize one thing: /b/tards love their shock value. Then again, I have never  taken anything on /b/ remotely seriously.

This is a good point. I see the term "domestic terrorism" being thrown around here and there, but I'd like to understand the logic in calling Anonymous domestic terrorists. From what I understand most of their crime involves harassment and nothing violent. As for the pedophilia thing, it really could be anywhere. The reason it ends up on 4chan so much is because it is a completely unmoderated place... If you open up something like that, you  really should expect the worst of the internet. Now whether I think 4chan should be moderated or not, I would say no.

4chan DOES in fact have a moderation team. The problem is that /b/ has an extremely high post count per day, making it virtually impossible to keep the board clean.

[ZaichikArky]

^ So what exactly do they moderate? 0_o

[Lord J Esq]

If crimes are committed on 4chan, that is a problem for law enforcement to deal with. AT&T is not a law enforcement agency.

Crime prevention and lawful behavior are both civic obligations. All citizens and companies are responsible. The better we live up to that, the less intrusive our government will have to be in regulating our lives--which is why I was surprised that you made such a comment.

This really has nothing to do with law enforcement. The key here is that /b/ is a hotbed for the coordination of activities that are illegal or will become illegal once the legal system finally figures out this whole "Internet" thing. Refusing to serve up a malicious website is very different than refusing to serve up a website that is merely ugly or offensive.

I see the term "domestic terrorism" being thrown around here and there, but I'd like to understand the logic in calling Anonymous domestic terrorists. From what I understand most of their crime involves harassment and nothing violent.

Admittedly, "terrorism" is a very charged word in the aftermath of the Bush administration, since they used it to describe pretty much everything they didn't like. In that regard they did an even greater disservice to the American public by making us skeptical of the whole concept of terrorism, when in fact terrorism really is one of the greatest threats to social stability in this century. That's hard to miss in other countries, from Thailand to Sudan, but even in the United States there are the ingredients for terrorism. Don't be misled by the word "domestic." Domestic terrorism is simply terrorism perpetrated here in the United States, by American citizens. The classic modern U.S. example is the Oklahoma City bombings of 1995. It's terrorism like any other sort; the only difference is that it directly infers a tension point in the government's social policy or a failure in its intelligence apparatus.

I don't think there is a single legal definition for terrorism, which exposes the question of what is and isn't terrorism to additional ambiguity, especially among those of us who don't have legal expertise in the subject. When I said that /b/ is a place for domestic terrorists in the making, I based that assessment upon these criteria:

1) The community has become a safe haven for the coordination of illegal or unlawful activity. The lack of moderation or other content controls effectively means that the owner, moot, condones this. (And, if you ask me, he will eventually be confronted with the ultimatum to either censor the board or face charges.)

2) The community has become large enough to present a real hazard to public safety in ways that individuals or smaller groups cannot. /b/ is essentially a movement, with all the power to effect change that comes with it.

3) The community's large numbers and anti-authority attitude has led its members to feel they would be safe acting outside the law. Indeed, they style themselves "Anonymous," a clear indication that they think they are free to commit actions that they would not commit as individuals.

4) The community has demonstrated strong tendencies toward harassment, retribution, and coercion.

5) The community has actually committed numerous numerous cyber attacks on other websites and individuals, and individuals have expanded their criminal behavior on a smaller basis to real-world activities.

None of these alone, in my mind, constitutes "terrorism," but all of them put together makes it irrefutable in my mind: The large numbers of people involved, the coordinating ability, the extralegal mentality, and the willingness to harass and abuse others. That's terrorism. At least, to me. More specifically, I see /b/ as a breeding ground for terrorism, which is different than describing it as a community of terrorists. Much of the community is just regular folks; but there are enough bad eggs around, whose terroristic impulses are awakened or activated by participation in /b/, that I see /b/ itself as the greater problem and not its malicious members.

[Radical_Dreamer]

If crimes are committed on 4chan, that is a problem for law enforcement to deal with. AT&T is not a law enforcement agency.

Crime prevention and lawful behavior are both civic obligations. All citizens and companies are responsible. The better we live up to that, the less intrusive our government will have to be in regulating our lives--which is why I was surprised that you made such a comment.

This really has nothing to do with law enforcement. The key here is that /b/ is a hotbed for the coordination of activities that are illegal or will become illegal once the legal system finally figures out this whole "Internet" thing. Refusing to serve up a malicious website is very different than refusing to serve up a website that is merely ugly or offensive.

I agree that the more individuals and corporations are willing to step up and behave in a positive fashion, the more the government can (and should!) recede, and that a society in which decision making entities behave positively because it is beneficial is far superior to one in which they behave positively because of fear of law enforcement.

I don't, however, view corporate regulation of our lives as being necessarily superior to government regulation of our lives. AT&T took action of broad scope due to the actions of a relatively small group of bad apples. Why should law abiding individuals not be able to access 4chan, or any other site for that matter, because some amount of its members are criminals? I think it would be better to leave the site up, and let law enforcement go after those members who commit illegal acts. This way, those who commit crimes are dealt with while the other users are allowed to enjoy the legal content of the site. Assuming the law is just, isn't that a more just solution than blocking a site with legitimate users from everyone and allowing criminals to continue freely planning and committing their crimes?

[Truthordeal]

Denial-of-service attacks are considered violations of the IAB's Internet Proper Use Policy, and also violate the Acceptable Use Policies of virtually all Internet Service Providers. They also commonly constitute violations of the laws of individual nations.

Wikipedia.

In any event, in order to get DDoS attacks reported to law enforcement, it would require the ISPs to report you, and then the law enforcement agencies get to dig through your browsing history, cache etc. Are you sure you want them to have that amount of power over your personal info? It's more or less the same gripe one has against Bush the Younger's wire tapping program. Its can easily be misused as an invasion of privacy on innocent people.

Cyberlaw as it is is still fairly behind the times in actually being able to prosecute people behind these attacks. So, if AT&T wanted to make a preemptive strike, then let them. It's their bandwidth. Let public opinion be the deciding factor here.

[Lord J Esq]

I don't, however, view corporate regulation of our lives as being necessarily superior to government regulation of our lives.

I'll give you that! Definitely!

AT&T took action of broad scope due to the actions of a relatively small group of bad apples.

I disagree with you here. We're talking about a very large community, and communities are fluid places where a few movers and shakers can and will shape the mindset--or at least the reference frame--of the community as a whole. At /b/ the "scum and villainy" have become a prevailing voice. That's very serious, because it means that even if the proportion of instigators and perpetrators remains modest, their dominance influences the community as a whole. Then, the community as a whole, by virtue of its size, is sending out signals across the influence which influence people's perceptions of allowable net behavior.* If this doesn't qualify as a "big" problem, then I don't know what would. I can't name a single site on the English-speaking web that is more of a threat than 4chan. Other sites, like Fox News, are a danger because of their demagoguery and misinformation...very traditional instruments of provocation and wrongdoing. 4chan has optimized the potential of the Internet to produce one of the scariest bits of spellcraft we've seen in a while: the mob summon.

*: I mean, just look at this topic here: It ought to alarm you that I, of all people, am in stark disagreement with my traditional ideological allies and find myself in the company of the far right wing (who are against 4chan for the usual morality reasons). I'm against /b/ because I'm afraid of it; they're the sort of outfit that becomes extremely dangerous as their power and influence grows. They're bad enough today, but I see them becoming even worse unless they are checked. We may think it liberal and progressive and virtuous and just to give everyone and their dog a voice in our society, and almost always I would agree, but /b/ is the kind of dis-ease that, in forms historical, has destroyed societies. Giving them a pass in the name of liberty is self-destructive decadence of the worst kind.

I think it would be better to leave the site up, and let law enforcement go after those members who commit illegal acts. This way, those who commit crimes are dealt with while the other users are allowed to enjoy the legal content of the site.

The law isn't clear here. That's a big part of the problem. Much of what happens on the Internet is poorly regulated or completely unregulated, and even what laws are present are often poorly enforced. Given the sorry state of our Democrats in Congress, that isn't likely to change anytime soon. Until that time, there is this legal vacuum in which entities like /b/ will flourish and make serious trouble. To me, RD, the worst kind of terrorism is not the iconic stuff, like blowing up buildings, because such acts are comparatively rare. The worst kind of terrorism is the stuff that goes unnoticed by everyone but the victims, or would-be victims, because it is much more common and because it is much less likely to be resisted.

I'm with you--I really am--in bristling at the prospect of an ISP deciding what sites I can or cannot visit. However, 4chan is a special case and I cannot in good conscience oppose the hypothetical silencing of that website by AT&T or anyone else (although, if I am not mistaken, the original story turned out to be misreported, which would make this discussion academic). I see the threat as being that serious. The /b/ that we know today needs to cease to exist. Somebody argued upthread that if it were shut down or if access were removed, people would just go to some other site. That isn't true. Migration does happen, to an extent, but it is the potency of /b/ more so than the premise of it which is particularly dangerous. It wouldn't be a simple matter of setting up another website somewhere, because community migrations are never that perfect; they are always lossy. Thus, there would be no slippery slope fallacy (or woe to those who would try making it!) by which the censoring of other, generic websites would be justified based upon what I would like to see done to /b/.

[ZaichikArky]

I guess I disagree with you. It's interesting that you brought up the point of the Bush administration using the word "terrorism" to describe whatever they didn't like. I'm just kind of interested in what the dictionary has to say about that...

1.    the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2.    the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3.    a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

I think we're really only dealing with definition 1. See, I view terrorism as violence and IMO 4chan has done nothing violent. Sure they have harassed people before, but none of the reasons you give really qualify as terrorism. Even the sum of all the reasons don't make them out to be a threat.

[Lord J Esq]

By insisting on "violence" as an element in terrorism, I think you're being needlessly constrictive. Even the dictionary definition which you cite includes the word "threats" as a complement, and both words are very generic. What constitutes violence? Does disrupting a person's life or livelihood without physically hurting them not qualify?

I think it's worth pointing out, silly as it may be, that the word here is terrorism and not violenceism. If /b/ isn't a breeding ground for terrorism, then what is it? And how should our policy toward them differ from what it would be if they were ambiguously a terrorist organization under your definition?

[ZaichikArky]

Yes, I did notice that threats were a part of the definition. But I view it more as threats being used to carry out violence. Has 4chan ever done that? I don't know. If they ever do threaten to do something, they never really have carried it out.

If /b/ isn't a breeding ground for terrorism, then what is it? And how should our policy toward them differ from what it would be if they were ambiguously a terrorist organization under your definition?

This is a very difficult question to answer and I don't think I can answer it. Honestly, in the US there is so little domestic terrorism that nothing that I know of qualifies as a terrorist organization, especially not 4chan. Are there any organizations out there who aim to harm innocent citizens through violent means? None come to mind right now. Of course there is a list of classified terrorist organizations who do operate in the US- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_organizations, however it is a global thing and I don't consider what they do to be "domestic terrorism".

[Thought]

Refusing to serve up a malicious website is very different than refusing to serve up a website that is merely ugly or offensive.

The danger comes when an individual in society, rather than the society as a whole, deems something malicious. If the government does it in error, the citizens have a relatively direct means of recourse. For a company, consumers are left more in limbo. They can boycott the company, true, but a single individual boycotting a company is less effective than a single individual writing a letter to congress, for example.

Many governments now-a-days are designed to represent the people and so may be judged harshly if it fails to do so. Companies tend to be designed to represent their investors, not their customers.

[Lord J Esq]

I'm biased, of course, but I consider groups like Operation Rescue to have a terrorist fringe. When Dr. Tiller was murdered--a clear act of domestic terrorism, committed by an Operation Rescue member, no less--the organization's president Randall Terry came out and said he was more concerned about President Obama than the actual murder and everything it signified.

I'm deathly concerned about the right wing in America today. They're getting so far to the right, so ultra-conservative, that it's gone beyond losing touch with mainstream America. They're now openly talking about things like assassinating the president and seceding from the Union. It's mostly in jest at this point, but there's an ugly and unmistakable undercurrent of sincerity to it. We don't realize it yet on a national level, but the right is losing its grip with reality and is moving into the realm where it's becoming a lot easier to justify any action to advance their agenda. If you pay attention to the news, there're a lot of disturbing signals coming from these people. At this point the actual violence is still a fringe, but there have nevertheless been several terroristic murders in the United States this year--Dr. Tiller being one; the Holocaust museum shooter comes to mind; there was also that woman who killed her Hitler-loving husband--all of them committed by ultraconservative religious fanatics.

None of this has much to do with 4chan, but I would use it to point out that there is more terrorism and terrorism-in-the-making going on in America today than you acknowledge (or perhaps are aware of)...and much of it has not yet reached the stage of actual violence, and hopefully never will, but still qualifies uncontroversially as terrorism.

Edit: That was directed at Zaichi. Thought...don't you have anything better to do than to post just ahead of me? You've been up to it all morning...!!