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.
FilosofumRex · 1h 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.
This is a good point. If one word has a definition, why would another entirely unrelated action be illegal?
Like they say a “mallard” is a type of “duck” but you can be arrested for jacking off in a Wendy’s? How does that make sense guys?
FilosofumRex · 1h 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 · 41m 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.
erikerikson · 1h 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.
giantg2 · 1h 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 · 58m 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.
slt2021 · 2h ago
sorry to be this person, but can anyone TLDR this for me?
fisherjeff · 1h 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 · 47m ago
That's not the real kicker, though. You at least have to also skip to the end and read the last couple paragraphs.
peepeepoopoo133 · 20m ago
Has HN gone back to caring about free speech again? Are we finally healing?
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.
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...
Like they say a “mallard” is a type of “duck” but you can be arrested for jacking off in a Wendy’s? How does that make sense guys?
[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.
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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44221205
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#:~...
> 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.