By: Philip | 03-26-2019 | Studio
Photo credit: Aleksandr Gerasimov | Dreamstime.com

There is Never a Good Time or Reason to Eliminate Free Speech

Jim Watkins, owner of 8chan (parent site to The Goldwater) recently released a statement about the terrorist activity that occurred this month in Christchurch, New Zealand. Contrary to popular belief, the people who make up 8chan and The Goldwater do not cheer on terrorism. We are not virulent racists. We do not seek violent and bloody civil war. Sadly, that does seem to be the aim of the Christchurch shooter and unfortunately, most of the mainstream media seems to be doing exactly as he predicted in his manifesto. He aimed to create chaos.

Statement Regarding The Atrocity in New Zealand



After the Christchurch terrorist attack, Forbes rather casually hinted that maybe 8chan should be stripped of Cloudflare protection. This happened to the Daily Stormer shortly after the Charlottesville debacle of Unite the Right. Washington Post claimed 8chan "looks like a terrorist recruiting site." Both Australian and NZ ISPS have blocked 4chan and 8chan "to limit the spread of terror attack video" despite the video in question having been live-streamed through Facebook. Meanwhile, 8chan's response to smears that our site is a home for illegal activities, was explicated at the official 8ch.net Twitter profile: "Newsflash: you don’t stay online as a clearnet website if you allow illegal activity. 8chan is no exception."





What's next? Will we hold Google liable every time someone researches information related how to make drugs, commit suicide or kill someone? There must be a line drawn somewhere, but do we simply exonerate the users and only hold platforms guilty?

Once again as per Washington Post, the live stream of the massacre wasn't reporting until 29 minutes after the stream began. YouTube told WaPo that "a new copy [of the attack video] was being uploaded every second."

YouTube, as we've mentioned previously, has been implicated in aiding pedophiles as they exploit children and share videos of said child exploitation. The story was a blip on the radar and disappeared even though under 5% of instances of child exploitation were ever dealt with because of the incredible backlog of child endangerment flags and complaints. Although arguably they're aiding and abetting child exploitation, do you hear anyone arguing to get rid of YouTube altogether? Of course not.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had the following to say:

“We cannot simply sit back and accept that these platforms just exist and what is said is not the responsibility of the place where they are published. They are the publisher, not just the postman. There cannot be a case of all profit, no responsibility.”

Meanwhile, it was Facebook that the video was streamed from and Facebook and YouTube it was shared to after the fact. No one is holding them culpable here. If you check the Department of Justice's Project Safe Childhood, Facebook-owned WhatsApp shows up consistently, several times a month in fact. That's right, Facebook and Facebook-owned apps are regularly implicated in child exploitation and YouTube and their advertisers profit off of the misery of exploited children, but for whatever reason, it's conspiracy theories and politics that are considered the real danger facing the modern age.

Attack On The Chans? Rangebans, Hit Pieces And DDoS Attacks

There will always be evil people with evil intentions, no amount of Orwellian intervention and invasion of privacy will prevent this. Uprooting any free speech based platforms for "safety's sake" will not make the world that much safer especially when we compare the benefit with the cost to our civil liberties.

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7 Comment/s
Wendy No. 93973 2019-03-27 : 10:00

Even though they have blocked 4 8 chan they will still be exsposed

tab No. 93985 2019-04-03 : 02:33

THE CHRISTCHURCH SHOOTING WAS NOT AN ACT OF TERRORISM. IT WAS SELF DEFENSE AGAINST AN INVADING ARMY OF MUSLIM NUTS WHO WERE USING THE MOSQUE AS A JIHADI RECRUITMENT CENTER. ISLAM MUST BE WIPED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

Sword of Truth No. 93990 2019-04-03 : 21:19

Eliminate freedom to arm the populace.

Eliminate freedom of speech.. Impose norms of speech.

Eliminate freedom of thought instill group think.

Welcome to the Subjugation of mankind.

Keithnichols566 No. 94003 2019-04-08 : 14:10

We are embarking on a VERY slippery slope when we allow censorship of ANY kind. To blame one person for anothers wrong doing is insane and dangerous.

Kenneth Colakovic No. 94004 2019-04-08 : 14:54

"they hate us because of our freedoms" "some are more equal than others" Animal Farm book George Orwell to find out who rules over you find out who you are not allowed to critisize

You'll Censor This, Faggot No. 94015 2019-04-10 : 21:27

bullshit@you not eliminating free speech. deleting comments is 75% of what you do at The Turdwater. for exampke, Diana is ahorse-toothed former prostitute, you and James are both homosexuals, and Jim is a tax-evading pedophile. if you truly support free speech, my comment will remain posted, but you DON'T support free speech, so you'll delete it. by the way, nice biceps.

REPORTED, not REPORTING No. 94016 2019-04-10 : 21:32

"the live stream of the massacre wasn't reporting until 29 minutes after the stream began." Philip, do you ever PROOFREAD, you pencil-armed geek?

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