Debate:The Great Kiwi Farms deplatforming of 2022

This is a Debate page. Feel free to add your own spin on the story. Please keep it civil! This debate was created by Rockford the Roe.

Proposition

Since the site was (rightfully) shut off the clearnet, a few things seem to come to mind with relation on what to do about the site's content and if their current situation is good enough.

Archival

The Internet archive has added the website to its blacklisted URLs, most likely due to the doxxes the forum has provided. Some people do want to see how bad they were in their own words, but is it even worth it to preserve them if they have no value to the history of the internet? Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 06:22, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

The alternative Archive.today service is (for the time being) still maintaining snapshots of the Kiwi Farms webshite as of today. I believe that this material is of value to the history of the internet and should be preserved. Internet historians and RationalWiki editors should responsibly use this material, that is, avoid citing anything threatening to living persons. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 14:09, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Nah, I take a more sane stance. You can't trust people to be sensible ever, if your credit card information is out there, it has to be scrubbed or cancelled. There's no safety with any information online, and the value of seeing a post of someone doing it is really only helpful in establishing a legal case against them by connecting the post to them. So, best case, cops take note of the evidence, it gets erased or moved to actual evidence storage, then it's gone for good. If you want to know if someone is guilty of the crime later, best to let the press release of court cases on that stuff inform you, at least then the people involved can be left dignified. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 19:38, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I think the same as them, with the website being a doxxing forum I wouldn't be surprised if they had the kind of information that allows identity theft. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 23:53, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Regulation to Tor

As we know, Cloudflare and DDOS-Gaurd have dropped them after violent threats became very prevalent on their threads after the aftermath of Keffal's swatting. They're still operating, but it requires the Tor network to access them. Would this be enough for them to keep to themselves? Rockford the Roe ^{boop my snoot}_{praise Oscar Wilde} 06:22, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Despite the site's operators pleas to the members to stay away from the current shitfest, it seems unlikely that they will be able to avoid outside attention. Moving to tor doesn't make them invisible, and in fact may embolden the worst members of their brood to engage in more egregious behavior. Determined enemies of the site will always find a way to access their shenanigans. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 14:13, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I doubt they are doing that to hide from critics, if they wanted to do that they could always switch the forum to invite-only, or use Tor's client authorization feature, which avoids critics from entering even if they discover the password of one of the acounts, but requires more maintenance. I speculate that the main advantage for them to move to a Tor Hidden Service is exactly in the name, to hide the server's location. This allows them to use any host they want, or even connections where you can't open ports, such as home setups where you only have a CGNATted IPv4, as Tor punches through NAT. It also allows defending against de-platforming via pressuring host companies, but requires knowing what you are doing. Using software not initially designed for usage in hidden services is not trivial by any means, doing it improperly can lead to your server's real IP being discovered. And also, as we all know, OPSEC is hard. Rabbitseatcarrots (talk) 14:24, 9 September 2022 (UTC)