8chan Is Vile, But Free Speech Doctrine Is Clear
Why the courts don't see online manifestos as incitements to violence.
Parts of the internet are vile, but that doesn’t make them illegal.
Photographer: Andrew Brookes/Cultura RFAfter the El Paso shooter posted a manifesto on the anonymous message board 8chan, the network provider, Cloudflare, suspended the site’s account, taking it offline — at least for now. Whether you applaud or oppose the action, it raises a fundamental problem for the future of free speech: Should there be some place on the Internet where even the most repellent, vile discussion is allowed? Or would we be better off collectively if we hounded such speech wherever it crops up, driving it ultimately to the dark web, and attacking it even there in the hopes of eliminating it altogether?
The case of 8chan seems to provide the basis for the strongest possible case that some speech just shouldn’t be allowed to appear on the Internet. In posting his manifesto there, the El Paso shooter was following in the footsteps of the Christchurch, New Zealand shooter, and the shooter at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. 8chan was founded specifically to host speech that was too extreme to appear on other message boards, including 4chan, which until 8chan came along was thought to be at the extreme end of permissive policy. Since its founding, 8chan has become home to speech that is extremist along a range of dimensions, including most of the usual suspects: racism, sexism, homophobia, paranoid conspiracy theory, and the like.