Opinion: 8chan breeds mass shooters. Can it be stopped?

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Speed bumps are pretty much the only thing that other internet companies can throw in 8chan’s way, jcahealey writes.

. That knocked 8chan and every other Epik customer offline, temporarily lowering the level of bile and vitriol in the virtual world.Nevertheless, it seems like just a matter of time before 8chan finds its way back online. That’s because there’s no shortage of companies such as Epik, whose owners haveof providing service to everyone, regardless of how ugly their views might be.

So what are the options here? The government can’t order 8chan to clean up its boards without running afoul of the 1st Amendment, which gives publishers enormous protection even when they host the manifestos written by mass killers. As Emma Llanso of the Center for Democracy and Technology put it, “There’s a lot of things that people are actually permitted by law to say that are hateful, that are spreading dissent and discord.

Nor would you get very far by pressuring advertisers to avoid 8chan, given that the site doesn’t seem to rely on them. It’s a vanity project of sorts, sustained in part by donations from users. Google has already stopped indexing 8chan’s home page, but that’s just a speed bump for anyone who knows how to use Google to search within specific sites.

In fact, speed bumps are pretty much the only thing that other internet companies can throw in 8chan’s way. And while that’s maddening in many ways, it’s probably better than the existing alternatives.The internet was designed to have no gatekeeper, which may very well be the best thing about it. Just look at how poorly companies do when they’re thrust into that role

 

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jcahealey Free speech is one thing. But rather than enabling extremist behavior see something do something. Same way the FBI finds potential ISIS members online.

jcahealey The first amendment isn't needed to protect palatable speech.

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