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Kiwi Farms has been removed from the Internet Archive

submitted by danso+(OP) on 2022-09-06 21:18:41 | 125 points 227 comments
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5. kelchm+u1[view] [source] 2022-09-06 21:26:59
>>danso+(OP)
Wikipedia link for some background — I hadn’t heard of this before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms

10. danso+i2[view] [source] 2022-09-06 21:31:40
>>danso+(OP)
Tangential question: When the Wayback machine retroactively excludes a site's content – e.g. a site owner adds a robots.txt that specifies exclusion — the data isn't deleted, right? Just flagged to prevent being found in search again. In other words, if exclusion of KF turns out to be an unnecessary or unwanted (or if researchers want to study the KF data in the future), it's just flipping the flag, right?

Here's an example of a site that was retroactively excluded by webmaster request, but was later (forced?) to remain in the searchable archive:

http://blog.archive.org/2018/04/24/addressing-recent-claims-...

edit: to answer my own question, seems like retroactive exclusion has, at least since 2007, not been interpreted to be a mandate for actual data removal:

https://archive.org/post/133690/robotstxt-only-gives-tempora...

> Hello, I want all old content from immortal ia.com REMOVED permanently from The Wayback Machine. So I read the exclusion policy, placed up a robots.txt file and requested the Alexa bot go to my website. Then checking The Wayback Machine, I got a notice that the site was blocked by the robots.txt file. But after I removed the robots.txt file, the archived pages reappeared. Is there a way to permanently purge all old pages of a website so that they will NEVER reappear in The Wayback Machine? Am I obligated to keep the robots.txt file in place forever?

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18. jbuhbj+v3[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-06 21:37:59
>>klyrs+k2
This comparison summons the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

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20. danso+h4[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-06 21:41:51
>>morale+A1
A few years ago, they realized it would be in the public archival interest to ignore robots.txt for gov/mil sites, and then possibly more types of sites. They have long had a manual process for submitting takedown requests by email; here's someone on reddit who claimed to have successfully gotten a page (presumably not under their control) removed from the archive [1]

[0] https://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-sea...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/eut3na/can_i_get_p...

30. philip+I8[view] [source] 2022-09-06 22:08:25
>>danso+(OP)
The owner's statements: https://t.me/s/kiwifarms
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32. chomp+P9[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-06 22:15:23
>>smolde+S4
The same Epik that turned down 8chan? https://www.epik.com/blog/epik-draws-line-on-acceptable-use....

At the end of the day, businesses gotta eat. They're not a charity or a benevolent public force. If your user generated content impacts their bottom line, you're gonna get kicked to the curb.

>The endgame for all of these so-called 'abusive platforms' is retreating to I2P/Tor, or another internet-adjacent network

I'm pretty positive Cloudflare and IA do not care about a moral crusade to stop Kiwifarms, and would not care if they went to Tor. Both CDNs are primarily concerned about business risk with hosting content and calls to action that could be found illegal.

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36. smolde+Ic[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-06 22:40:40
>>chomp+P9
> The same Epik that turned down 8chan?

Epik hosted 8chan in the interim after Cloudflare dropped them. This cause Epik's hosting provider to drop them, and since Epik doesn't own their datacenters they had to abide by their hardware provider's decision: https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/5/20754943/8chan-epik-offlin...

I'll still eat some crow, though; I forgot the entire business was owned by Rob Monster (a veritable idiot by most definitions of the word), and I completely forgot that they even provided hosting in the first place.

> I'm pretty positive Cloudflare and IA do not care about a moral crusade to stop Kiwifarms, and would not care if they went to Tor.

I'm certain they don't. That's the problem, though; this moral panic response to KiwiFarms has achieved nothing. Cloudflare knows that this is a zero-sum game, but they bent anyways. As businesses, their choices make plenty of sense. I disagree with businesses all the time though (check the comment history), and frankly I think Cloudflare made the wrong decision here. In my opinion, their actions here will be more destructive to queer populations in the long-run.

39. hnburn+Dj[view] [source] 2022-09-06 23:34:39
>>danso+(OP)
Well I guess there is now limited ways for someone to evaluate for themselves on whether KF was posting horrific content without significant moderation. Guess we at least have Taylor Lorenz to tell us exactly what is going on here in a full and unbiased way.

Someone here at HN at least posted this link which told more of the story than I have seen anywhere else. Also search the HN archives (for now at least it seems) for interesting discussions on KF prior to these latest events.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32720162

Sorry but this feels like book burning to me.

46. 345235+jy[view] [source] 2022-09-07 01:45:22
>>danso+(OP)
They're going after other archive sites as well, apparently: https://twitter.com/mpetch/status/1567259704652623872
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63. badRNG+QF1[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 12:36:51
>>jimmyd+5D1
They have a reputation for targeting people to intensely harass into suicide, with Byuu being a notable victim in the HN/CS sphere.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27657610

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64. badRNG+aI1[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 12:53:21
>>hnburn+Dj
It feels deeply disingenuous to claim that all KF is doing is "cataloging someone's online life" while refusing to talk about constant SWAT-ing, the cheering of their victims committing suicide, and the constant IRL harassment they organize against their victims.

After Byuu, the emulator dev of bsnes, higan and more was harassed into suicide [1], harassment almost exclusively organized on KF, I've lost patience for weak defenses of a site that causes threats to folk's lives.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27652814

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71. badRNG+4J1[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 13:00:13
>>baud14+LI1
Yes. I provided a link you can click on, but you can also go to the Kiwi Farms Wikipedia page that catalogs victims killed and nearly killed by Kiwi Farms harassment campaigns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms

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118. joshst+zR1[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 13:43:07
>>Improb+bN1
> What I don't understand is why this is done by private corporations instead of the government. Stalking is a crime, harassment is a crime, SWAT-ing is a crime.

Because law enforcement (at least in the US) is woefully bad at their jobs and don't care. I have first-hand experience with this when I had a close friend who was being harrassed by someone local (we knew who it was) and LEO refused to lift a finger. I've talked about it multiple times before on HN [0][1][2][3] but even with this guy graduating to physical actions (keying the friend's car, following/stalking them) the police did nothing.

So if our only options are "Have the police do nothing" or "Have a private corp decide to not do business with a company anymore" then I know which one I'm picking, which one will actually help reduce harm. Even if they spin up under a new name they will lose users along the way. Deplatforming works.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32521976

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31610876

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28130488

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18925283

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121. richbe+0S1[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 13:44:34
>>jjuliu+6Q1
> You're also forgetting the countless screenshots and other documentation that exists of KF from prior controversial incidents.

Screenshots are not a trustworthy medium. Many of the articles published about Kiwi Farms contain significant factual errors and rarely cite sources for the claims they do make.

For example, the CBC recently published an article claiming that the Christchurch shooter "revealed his intentions (on Kiwi Farms) hours before carrying out the attack".

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/kiwi-farms-online-forum-1.6565...

If you read articles from 2019 it was claimed that the gunman posted on 8chan shortly before the massacre. The claim that he posted on Kiwi Farms hours before is completely new and unsubstantiated.

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131. pclmul+bU1[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 13:53:11
>>antite+MN1
Probable cause is not enough evidence to convict someone, but enough to conduct a further search to see if there is enough evidence for a conviction. See here (although this is US-focused, many other states have similar ideas): https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-rights/probable-ca...

Basically, they had the allegations and enough substantiating evidence to go to the point of looking for more evidence, but not to get all the way to an arrest/conviction. A search warrant is the next step.

EDIT: Also, the police have most likely downloaded the information, but you never know.

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141. Showal+3X1[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 14:06:38
>>hnburn+Dj
They still have an hidden service online [0], an ipv6 only mirror [1] and they are working on restoring it "as normal" [2]. In any case they stated a backup of the site will be publicly available if they give up [3].

I find interesting they took the archived copy down instead of keeping it publicly available since it was the only way to prove what kiwifarms has done instead of having as only source "trust me bro". Either way I don't think it matters since nobody actually bothered to link or prove any of their claims so I don't think it really changes much.

[0]: http://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificedz... [1]: https://kiwifarms.top [2]: https://t.me/kiwifarms/29?embed=1 [3]: https://t.me/kiwifarms/28?embed=1

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143. a_shov+iX1[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 14:07:39
>>pclmul+WJ1
She has run to one country, the United Kingdom, which surprisingly doesn't have an extradition treaty with Canada, but which is mentioned specifically as a country that will extradite to Canada on this [https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/emla-eej/bycan-parcan.ht...] Canada government website.
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151. branon+CZ1[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 14:20:08
>>yesco+rU1
> How the hell did these random twitter users manage to gain the power to pick and choose who gets to be on the internet now?

This is the part that really worries me. Random Twitter users trying to dictate what _I_ am allowed to read. And Cloudflare and the Internet Archive bends to their will! Highly embarrassing, these people should be taken at anything but face value.

Cloudflare folding is nothing new, but I really expected better of the Internet Archive.

Openly, to any outrage-politicking militant Twitter deathsquad member: you will never stop me from reading what I want to read. I wasn't aware of Kiwi Farms before your ridiculous antics but now you can bank on me reading EVERYTHING I can possibly get my hands on.

I will form my own opinions and you will have no say at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect -- good luck. You can't stop the signal.

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175. _9xrb+Xe2[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 15:29:08
>>hn9272+0Z1
They've documented various criminals, pedophiles, and rapists, such as child abuser Nick Bate:

https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/columbia-man-jailed-u...

https://archive.ph/Kmu6p

They've extensively documented actual alt-right figures such as neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, who they consider one of their "lolcows." They also followed and recorded the activity of accused rapist Christine (formerly Christopher) Weston Chandler, the original "lolcow", though several users interacted with Chris over the years in ways that may have contributed to his/her decline:

https://lawandcrime.com/crime/sonichu-creator-has-been-arres...

They also discovered and documented Isabella Janke, allegedly the person most responsible for convincing Christine to abuse her mother, among other allegations:

https://archive.ph/3Ev0l

This truth of these allegations will likely come out at at Christine's upcoming trial, assuming enough evidence was preserved. Incidentally, Isabella's father Mike Janke has a professional relationship with Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1wio7sDDBA

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177. dragon+yf2[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 15:31:47
>>HereIG+7d2
> Doxxing is not illegal

This is true, in some jurisdictions, in the same sense that it is true that homicide is not illegal.

Doxxing with particular intent is illegal in those jurisdictions; e. g., California where Penal Code § 653.2 was adopted specifically to address harassment by doxxing.

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio....

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179. _9xrb+Hg2[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 15:37:00
>>pclmul+WJ1
If you want a real conspiracy theory, recall that original and long-running KF thread subject Christine Weston Chandler was persuaded to incestuously assault her mother by a person named Isabella Janke. Kiwi Farms uncovered Isabella's history with Christine, and extensively documented her online activities to include allegations of extortion, CASM, and animal abuse:

https://archive.ph/3Ev0l

Now consider that Isabella's father Mike Janke is a former Navy SEAL who has a professional relationship with Matthew Prince, Cloudflare CEO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1wio7sDDBA

These records have been wiped from the Internet Archive. I wonder how long they will remain on archive.ph.

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184. _9xrb+Ki2[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 15:45:57
>>badRNG+4J1
I've never seen this alleged "suicide counter" on the website, though I've only looked at it closely in the past couple weeks.

The site owner posted this rebuttal to assignment of blame for these suicides, which I find compelling. For instance, the widow of one victim decried Vice News (one source referenced in the article) for using her death to attack Kiwi Farms:

https://archive.ph/XNQYY

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188. 0cVlTe+on2[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 16:07:18
>>a_shov+p32
Following the rabbit hole leads to this wiki[0] which points to this "homebrew source"[1] which says, under Laboratory equipment -> Learn more:

"Although it is theoretically possible to make a 'low-cost' production (using only a 5mL syringe, a spinning top filter, a kitchen scale and a pressure cooker), the reproducibility and the quality will not be desired."

[0] https://diyhrt.wiki [1] https://oelabs.co/en

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196. bloaf+ux2[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 16:52:36
>>colejo+wL1
You know about the Spanish Inquisition, right? Have you heard what Catholics say about it? They say that according to their records it wasn't that bad[0] and that the numbers are deliberately inflated by anti-Catholic sentiment.

It would be great if there were some other record keeper so we could ensure the church didn't "lose" any records that made them look bad.

But I'm sure you would have stopped any 3rd party back then who was setting out to transcribe the inquisitions' trials. After all, they were just giving the church yet another platform to spread their intolerance.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jun/16/artsandhumanit...

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197. throwa+yH2[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 17:44:18
>>Showal+3X1
And as someone else said:

One can also use a Tor proxy (tor2web), there is a list here: https://gist.github.com/adulau/5caf188bb1f63263bf7ac00c4a19f...

For example, appending ".moe" to the ".onion" in that URL: https://uquusqsaaad66cvub4473csdu4uu7ahxou3zqc35fpw5d4ificed...

Which also allows it to be archived (as the mainstream archive sites don't recognise Tor hidden services): https://web.archive.org/web/20220905153904/https://uquusqsaa...

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198. andywo+6I2[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 17:46:56
>>shitlo+Ne2
Another fun fact:

Taylor's uncle is Roger Macdonald, apparently a fairly prominent operator within the internet archive:

https://archive.org/details/roger-macdonald-tv-archive

https://dicktracyonline.substack.com/p/who-is-taylor-lorenz

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200. andywo+SI2[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 17:50:50
>>peanut+Ky1
Kiwi Farms has a thread on Taylor Lorenz from WaPo, because of certain erratic behavior. Taylor got her own dirt removed from the internet archive. Taylor has been helping Clara go after Kiwi Farms.

Taylor's uncle is Roger MacDonald, founder of TV News archive:

https://archive.org/details/roger-macdonald-tv-archive

https://dicktracyonline.substack.com/p/who-is-taylor-lorenz

And of course you've already begun downvoting.

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214. Racked+zt3[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-07 20:54:10
>>Racked+Mc2
Apparently, they also banned https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz (someone commented about it before but somehow the comment was deleted....) https://web.archive.org/web/20220000000000*/https://twitter....
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226. richbe+Aq7[view] [source] [discussion] 2022-09-08 20:47:45
>>jbuhbj+AO5
> But KW's webmaster did not allow it.

From what I've seen it wasn't as straightforward as that. The operator, Null, shared the email exchange and there seems to have been less than 24 hours between Byuu's first message and his last.

Null's last message was this, after which he went to bed (apparently, idk the timezones involved in this). It doesn't seem like a "no".

> I feel like you're being genuine. There's a fear here that you're just trying to prank me to show people "look, Josh just wants money", but it's one of the small subsets of concerns at play here. > > So hear me out: Send me your resume, I'll make you a counter offer.

https://archive.ph/R1oRN

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