by John Lawrence
The creator of the website 8chan is where all the haters and white supremacists post their manifestos. Even the creator of the site who doesn't own it any more wants it taken down. It exemplifies the problem that social media is bringing to the fore which is is there a limit to free speech? Should some types of speech, namely hate speech, be banned? The US is stuck with two freedoms which are increasingly problematical: free speech and right to own a gun, any gun. These two "freedoms" should not be absolute as most societies would concur. Hate speech on social media should not be tolerated. Is this censorship? You betcha. Should ownership of an assault rifle like the AK-47 be banned? You betcha although the gun nuts would disagree. They don't want any limits on gun ownership nor do they want any limits on their free hate speech.
The US Constitution is coming up against limits which are actually destroying the country unless those limits are acknowledged and action taken. The US Constitution is reaching its limits of usefulness and should be revised like many other countries have done without creating a crisis. Gun control is essential unless the US wants to have a mass murder a day or more than one a day. Gun ownership needs to be cracked down on. There are too many angry men out there with toxic agendas. Their "cells" need to be taken down. They are as evil as Ku Klux Klan cells or any other terrorist cell or organization. The web needs to be monitored and hate sites taken down, but is Facebook doing this? Facebook can't be trusted because they are a private entity not really beholden to the government. Their objective is to make as much money as possible for their shareholders, and taking down a site eliminates all the money they would be making from that site.
TPM reported:
The founder of the site 8chan, where a shooter may have posted a racist, anti-immigrant screed before killing 20 people at a Walmart in El Paso, called for the messaging board to be shut down on Sunday.
Fredrick Brennan, who created the site in 2013, told the New York Times that the current owner of the unmoderated, often hate-filled chat site needs to shutter it.
“Shut the site down,” Brennan said. “It’s not doing the world any good. It’s a complete negative to everybody except the users that are there.”
“And you know what? It’s a negative to them, too,” he added. “They just don’t realize it.”
Investigators believe that Patrick Crusius, the suspected gunman, may be behind a hate-filled manifesto that was posted on 8chan shortly before he allegedly began shooting up the Walmart.
8chan was also where the New Zealand mosque shooter and the San Diego synagogue shooter posted their plans for violence earlier this year.
I speculate that China wouldn't hesitate to take down hate oriented websites. There's no absolute right of free speech there, and the government has the last word, not some private corporation. They wouldn't stand for it one minute, and the perpetrator of hate speech would be in jail no fooling around with protecting his or her rights. So how many hate filled websites will go up in the next election mainly targeting Democrats? Should a website which espouses "Lock Her Up" be tolerated? Be legal? There is no government censorship in America so anything goes no matter how untrue, no matter how hateful, no matter how far removed from the issues. And can anyone anywhere in the world contribute to Facebook posts. In particular who is in charge of distinguishing whether or not a Russian entity would put up an ad or a post like "Lock Her Up" or "Send Her Back" or whether it was put up by an American? Does it make any difference? Is Facebook policing this? I don't think so. So it's the wild west and anyone anywhere in the world is free to join in.
