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Comment by techrat | Hacker News Reader

Ah yes, the mythical "rights of the might" that overrule peoples' rights depending on who feels their rights are more important.

Why should anyone should suffer consequences for threats of harm online? You agree that someone should be allowed to threaten, harass, intimidate and harm someone else through speech online?

Freedom of speech has never meant freedom from consequences of said speech.

As far as I see it, Epik's hack is a consequence of the speech they allow. No need for government, constitution and laws to see the cause and effect here.

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Harassment and threats of violence are illegal. You can pursue criminal charges. You can't go burn down someone's house or kick them.

> As far as I see it, Epik's hack is a consequence of the speech they allow.

That's a scary logic and it's the kind of logic that harms societies. Most violent leaders have used this style of justification for their actions.

We can not fight uncivility with uncivility. Doing so only makes the situation worse.

> Harassment and threats of violence are illegal.

And Epik continued to host sites that were taken offline specifically for those reasons.

That's your cognitive dissonance.

I appreciate that you find it scary but that is to a large extent what it's like where the rubber meets the road. Pejorative political labels do get tossed around too easily, but there are are also honest-to-goodness violent neo-nazis and other fascists that go far beyond shitposting into planning and carrying out violent acts. Sadly, some of those people infiltrate law enforcement or the military. They're not hiding around every corner, but there are quite a lot of them and they are not all like the clowns that get themselves arrested in really obvious ways.

Moral panics cause more harm than good.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

Never thought I'd see the day where calling out a webhost known for giving shelter to white supremacist shooter manifestos and doxxing murder lists for atomwaffen would fall under 'moral panic.'

That's a scary logic and it's the kind of logic that harms societies. Most violent leaders have used this style of justification for their actions.

We can not fight uncivility with uncivility. Doing so only makes the situation worse.

Sounds like moral panic to me. Do you not think neo-nazis are real or something? Serious question.

> We can not fight uncivility with uncivility.

Paradox of Tolerance.

https://i.imgur.com/ve1VDvK_d.webp?maxwidth=760&fidelity=gra...

> Doing so only makes the situation worse.

“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

So you are in defense of cyber-criminals in gaining unauthorised access to breaching someone else's internet business then? Such activity is illegal and those affected can report this and involve the authorities to track them down.

It is now worse since innocent users are involved in this leak.

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