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Hacktivist deletes white supremacist websites live on stage during hacker conference
(techcrunch.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
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Eh, I want to like this statement because I hate these people, but I can't in good conscious call it something it isn't. This sort of thing is the essence of debate because we have good people doing bad things to bad people and then have to justify why it's ok despite it being bad. It's justice vs righteousness, it's lawful neutral vs lawful good. The only reason why this is acceptable is because it's against people that we deem not worthy of legal protection, but as a precedent that's dangerous territory. As soon as the definition of people not worthy of legal protection changes it suddenly becomes a problem.
At it's core this person probably committed a crime, but people don't care because it's against a bad ideologue. It's like if we said it's ok to round up and execute neo-nazis, a lot of people would rejoice, but if you change that to most any other group they would cry about human rights. At the end of the day rounding up and killing anyone is a bad thing no matter who it's against.
At some point the scales will not balance well and you need to be ok with that. There is no paradox of intolerance, for example, because tolerance is itself part of a social contract that bigots broke all on their own and once that’s out the window they do not get to reap the benefits of it. Social contracts aren’t easy math but they do make sense.
This isn’t blowing up a furry website because someone thinks that’s weird. White supremacy is an incredibly dangerous ideology that has no place in whatever better society we claim to be aiming for. No one killed them for it, either. White supremacy built a website and a better person removed that website the same way one might paint over a swastika but leave the nice mural.
I agree with the sentiment, but sadly can't agree with the implementation. Laws exist in a neutral environment, you can't bypass them just because the other party is someone society disagrees with. Even if they are committing crimes you can't unilaterally exact justice against them due to vigilante laws.
This event took place in Germany, Crimical Code §§ 202a-d criminalizes unauthorized access, interception, and manipulation of data, with penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment, covering acts like phishing and data espionage. Within German law this should be a crime. Germany has laws against neo-nazis, but this would be vigilantism which Germany also prohibits.
It's a slippery slope to ignore your own laws because they support the popular narrative.
Look, I am aware of the dangers of vigilantism but I’m struggling to see why you’re so dead-set on this. There is basically no movement from those in power to actually curb these people and that’s where I start to care a whole lot less. Yes it’s still important to consider somewhere in there but hey, if the German government wasn’t doing anything about it then I guess that means they’ve passed on the opportunity.
I'm not certain on much, but what I do know is that I believe in law. I like rules and I like order. Even more so I want rules and order to apply universally. You are arguing on the side of chaos against others with the privilege of law to protect you. That's all well and good until those same standards are applied against you.
You seem be be operating under the assumption that laws themselves will always be just and equal.
Laws are supposed to be just and equal, it is a common mistake in believing that they should be equitable or that they will be implemented justly or equally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws
Sending a link with no additional context doesn't make a point. What are you trying to say with this?
What do you think laws are? Even in the best of societies they are based on that specific society’s idea of morality. They are still important and they definitely should apply universally, but when they cease to function they lose their worth. That website needed to be taken down, and not getting removed by the government left a citizen to need to bring that balance back.
You might not enjoy what it looks like, but if you truly seek balance then it’s what you’re asking for.
Slippery slope is literally a logical fallacy. You are not making a logically sound argument.
You're right, using a slippery slope argument is a type of logical fallacy, but for it to be a logical fallacy it has to preclude a result and also be implausible in it's steps.
My argument was did not preclude a result and was more a statement of fundamental change in the nature of law. If you change the application of laws from a definite system (the law applies to everyone) to a spectrum (the law applies to some people) then you are now on a slippery slope where as before you were not. As to the plausibility of the argument, we are literally seeing this effect in real time with Trump. Laws switched from being definite to being suggestions and now no one is truly certain what laws do apply and to who.
I can easily call it self defence. These people preach hate and would gladly see us dead if they were the majority. Ensuring they lack the ability to do so is defence.
As for the legality, fuck that. Direct action is always the way to go.
Nothing you are saying makes sense in the framework of legal functionality. You're basically advocating for non-gun castle doctrine in which you have the right to do whatever you want against people who you disagree with and who have the potential to do something against you. We live in a society where rules apply, when you say these things you should take a second to think how these decisions would apply if they were turned against you.
I don’t care about legal frameworks, I’m a human not a nationstate.
We live in a society where laws are made without our input or consent and are enforced on us by those who gave themselves a monopoly on violence.
Those same rules are frequently used against us to oppress us, historically taking loss of lives and illegal action to see any change in them. I do not value or respect such a system and I advocate for its destruction so that we can build better human systems based on consent and mutualism.
Yet you live in a world where laws and nation states exist. Just because you divorce yourself from these rules or think they do not apply to your beliefs does not make it so. You're commenting like a Sovereign Citizen in the US, but the laws and legal frameworks exist whether you believe in them. To a point you must frame your discussion in their context and if you do not then your opinion doesn't matter until you change that very framework.
If your argument hinges on ignoring the legal framework then you have to be Robin Hood or the Unibomber, anything less is meaningless.
And I have no problem breaking them when I see fit. I'm also commenting like an Anarchist, not a SovShit. You are commenting like a Liberal, blindly following the letter of the law as the planet is legally killed for a profit.
They can exist all they want, I do not respect them and I do not adhere to them. I live parallel to them. One does not need to be Robin Hood or the Unibomber to have meaning, that is an extremist understanding of change. One simply needs to live the life they believe to be ethical.
Functionally there is no difference
So, as long as you believe it's ethical then it's okay regardless of law and order. I hope the winds of change never turn against you such that you find the precedent reversed against you.
There is so much difference. You are clearly ignorant on the subject matter if you're making such a claim. The most striking difference is that SovCits are individualists.
That's literally the risk we all face.
Look at all the law abiding immigrants in America who are rotting in concentration camps because the one with the keys to the kingdom changed.
Ideologically there is a lot of difference between sovereign citizens and anarchists, but functionally there is not. One is delusional in their disbelief of a state while the other believes that a state shouldn't exist. At the end of the day both are opposed to the proper function of government.
No it's not, the vast majority of law abiding citizens are not at risk in any legal based county. Even if the laws of the country change, so long as you follow the laws you are at little risk. There are exceptions of course, but the majority of people do not face that risk.
Look, I'm against putting people in concentration camps but this isn't the argument we were having. If you want to use that example then immigrants who aren't committing crimes but are not in the US under legal methods are still technically criminals. I will happily agree with you that their treatment isn't right, but their status as illegal immigrants is still true. If you want to talk about legal immigrants and US citizens who have been detained or deported then that also has happened, but that is more a function of US officials breaking the law. You don't go to Russia with a vape pen and expect not to be arrested because you're an American or famous. Likewise you don't go to China and call Xi Weenie the Pooh and expect to not get fucked with.
If your argument is that a government in the world is breaking the law then it's ok for a private citizen in another country to break the law then you're truly delusional. Hey, North Korea starved a bunch of people, and Iran killed a bunch of women who didn't want to wear veils, so it's ok for a guy in my country to hack a hate group in China.
That argument is ridiculous as well.
I think this is an extension of the paradox of intolerance. Laws are never absolute, and when one side has no respect for laws and enforces only what is advantageous for them this kind of action absolutely should count as self defence. We should fully support taking away the anonymity and feeling of immunity from those who abuse the law.
It's kinda hard to claim self defense when you are launching the attack to someone in another country. If you flipped the situation around and a radical conservative hacker in Russia hacked an LGBTQ site you would immediately call that a crime. The only difference is ideological and who controls the power to determine which ideology is correct.
I feel strongly that rules and laws should be enforced equally and that you can't put them on a spectrum. Here is another example; when Democrats were found to have potentially taken top secret files, by accident or not, the party had to investigate them with the same level of conviction as they had with Trump because failing to do so undermined their own argument.
Indeed I would. But that’s because it would be someone trying to silence a group and promote intolerance. The proper equivalent scenario would instead be someone making a hack that amplified and encouraged equality and tolerance……which doesn’t happen.
Sure
And therin lies the problem. The democrats may indeed investigate and prosecute their own, see Al Franken…..but the other side has no intention of doing the same. So the law is already not being applied equally, and “the high ground” of tolerating intolerance simply backfires. That is exactly the paradox.
That's not the same and it's not even the argument lol. My argument was that you're tying whether a crime was committed based on who it was against rather than what was done and your response was if what was done is different then it isn't a crime.
Except that the flaw is in the law itself. Enforcement of the law in this case is not properly established to prevent the faithless action, but the conclusion of your argument is that because the law isn't working we should abandon those laws.
I'll further argue that the Paradox of Intolerance, used in this instance, implies that if we do not tolerate intolerance we can effectively snuff it out or meaningfully prevent it and thus we do not have to tolerate intolerance at all. The sad fact is that that is not true unless you are willing to cull opposing opinions. Whether you do so within your own country or if it spreads into nation state conflicts, if you fail to tolerate intolerance you inherently move toward the assumption of violence.
That is exactly what is necessary, to snuff out intolerant voices as the one thing the tolerant must do. Opposing opinions is what they claim to be, but the intolerant hate spewers isn’t about opposing opinions at all, it’s rather “you are not entitled to your opinion”. It’s a false equivalency that allows intolerant to gain an advantage because they do not play by the same rules or definitions. The whole moving goalposts strategy for instance.
Then the outcome of that decision is inevitably war, except all of the worlds largest militaries are controlled by the intolerant countries.
You talk like a chat bot. Stop defending nazis. You're not defending the rule of law or any of that, you're just defending nazis. Don't do that. Supremacist ideology is incompatible with society as they expressly intend to destroy that society. It is always correct and right morally and ethically to remove anti-social ideologies. Legality is irrelevant.
This argument does not apply to anti-social ideologies such as white supremacy that are incompatible with society.
Yeah it does, even mass murders are due the process of law and protections under it. We don't drag murderous sociopaths into the public square and execute them without trials. You can't fight for fair and equal rights while also saying other people aren't entitled to those same rights.
Refusing to allow ideologies inherently harmful to society doesn't have anything to do with what you just said. We're having two different conversations. Also ideologies aren't intrinsic characteristics and thus can't have or be denied rights, so it's weird to make that connotation unless you just don't understand what I'm saying.
I feel like you are not understanding that the determination of which ideologies are harmful and aren't is ultimately a matter of opinion and you only support it so long as you agree with the outcome. Iran, China, North Korea, and many other countries are examples of the other side of your argument.
I'm not saying that ideologies are intrinsic characteristics, I'm saying that people have the right to believe in what they want to believe and that right to believe, regardless of what it is, is an intrinsic characteristic. Some countries might not have freedom to express those beliefs but that's literally denying rights.
It isn't a matter of opinion though. Hateful ideologies promote anti-social behavior, in the actively harmful to social order context, not the I don't like being around people context. They promote social discord which is objectively bad for social order and society at large. There are objective measures here. Not all viewpoints are equally valid, and the whole idea that they are is one of the less valid ones. You're operating under some sort of legislation=ethics and morals framework that's flawed in incredibly fundamental ways. Any ideology that violates the social contract cannot be protected by it.
And I disagree that anyone has the right to believe whatever they want. Nobody has the right to believe the earth is flat. Nobody has the right to believe in chemtrails, or any other objectively false thing. You're entitled to an informed educated opinion, not to reject objective reality and replace it with your own.
You're still not getting it.
You're talking about measured health impacts on an overall population not about ideologies. The idea that other ideologies are anti-social or harmful precludes the idea that your view of society is the correct one. That works out fine so long as you maintain the majority, but if the tides of time change against you then the very opposite would be true.
A rural community of racist white people in the US aren't anti-social or harmed by their view until that dynamic changes, such as a person of color entering the community. Objectively that community lacks diversity of experience which promotes growth and development in the community (this is referencing your discussion about objective measures), but the desire to not change is part of why we these people are called conservatives and isn't fundamentally wrong. The thing you are repeatedly missing is that calling these ideologies anti-social or undesirable and not deserving of protection under the law only is your express opinion, not an objective truth, and you only support this opinion so long as you remain part of the in crowd. If the situation were reversed your opinion on whether all ideologies deserve the protection of law would reverse as well.
It's quite the opposite, I'm declaring that legislation is not equal to ethics. Ethics function purely on an implied social contract whereas laws function on explicit statements. Laws allow people of opposing opinions to coexist and instead of relying on implied incompatible social contracts they all have equal protection under the law. This by nature is the difference between Just and Fair or Equality and Equitable.
Paradox of tolerance. It's absolutely self defense at the society level.