> 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.
FilosofumRex · 4h ago
As a practical matter, SCOTUS has ruled money is free speech, so why not DDOS.
Why is it legal for me to lobby to have you cut off Medicaid (work requirement), but illegal to DDOS your hospital fundraising, so they don't have enough money to treat you.
Assuming that: the use of money in order to achieve a political outcome is an abuse of power that happens to be legal (I agree to a degree).
The equivalent use of DDOS would be to influence the decision making process in a way that leads to the same outcome. And it would have to be a way of operating that is generally accepted and legal in the first place.
lelandbatey · 2h ago
I wish it were so, but the real answer is: because the law doesn't care about your technicalities, they care about what people think/feel, in particular what lawyers and judges think. And lawyers and judges feel that there is a difference between DDOSing a thing offline and politicking your way through the legal system to get a thing taken offline.
0xEF · 47m ago
The difference is the lawyers and judges do not make any money from the DDOS archiving the same goal. Really, what the law cares about is money. Greed, plain and simple. Yes, what people think/feel factor into this _only_ because when the constituency (read: supporters) are put in an emotionally agitated state, they can be manipulated to believe just about anything, which helps pass things like batshit crazy budget cuts to critical public infrastructure or fuel witch-hunts for imaginary enemies in order to build an enforcement arm.
I know plenty of lawyers that would absolutely disagree with your first sentence, "the law doesn't care about technicalities." Oh, but they do. Technicalities are their tools of exploitation.
roenxi · 5h ago
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.
underyx · 1h ago
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.
FilosofumRex · 4h ago
FSE {free speech extremists}, why would one have to be an extremist in country where free speech is enshrined in its Constitutional Law.
jchw · 3h ago
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.)
"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.
sandworm101 · 26m ago
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.
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.
giantg2 · 4h ago
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 · 4h ago
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.
erikerikson · 4h ago
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.
Reventlov · 2h ago
>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 · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
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.
TheonlyJem · 2h ago
That was a lot
blu3h4t · 3h ago
I read it as fsf meets the fbi :D
slt2021 · 5h ago
sorry to be this person, but can anyone TLDR this for me?
fisherjeff · 5h ago
Actually, I think if you set your referrer to boardreader.com and reload the page, the host might serve you a summary
> 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 · 4h ago
That's not the real kicker, though. You at least have to also skip to the end and read the last couple paragraphs.
morleytj · 5h ago
The article technically does have a TLDR in the second paragraph, though not directly labelled.
foobarbecue · 5h ago
Third paragraph.
Xevion · 4h ago
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, ..."
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.
Why is it legal for me to lobby to have you cut off Medicaid (work requirement), but illegal to DDOS your hospital fundraising, so they don't have enough money to treat you.
Different means but the same outcome... https://www.britannica.com/event/Citizens-United-v-Federal-E...
Assuming that: the use of money in order to achieve a political outcome is an abuse of power that happens to be legal (I agree to a degree).
The equivalent use of DDOS would be to influence the decision making process in a way that leads to the same outcome. And it would have to be a way of operating that is generally accepted and legal in the first place.
I know plenty of lawyers that would absolutely disagree with your first sentence, "the law doesn't care about technicalities." Oh, but they do. Technicalities are their tools of exploitation.
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.
[1]: https://blog.freespeechextremist.com/blog/the-loli-question....
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.
https://youtu.be/gh30mLyNQM0
> 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.
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.
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44221205
> 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.
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#:~...