THUS, BREAKING UP their network is the chief strategic goal. It is the least intrusive option that remains effective. It’s why people like
Fong-Jones and Lorelei chose the targets they did. If you add speedbumps—friction—to those seeking to access a site like Kiwi Farms, you make it much harder to source the crowd. You make it harder to draw enough people in the vile hope that one among their number will be deranged enough to go the extra mile in attacking the target in more direct ways. Such networks radicalize their members, ratcheting up their emotions and furnishing them with justifications for their abuse and more besides.
Breaking up the network does not eliminate the problem, but it does ameliorate it. The harder you make it to crowdsource,
the likelier it is that a particular harassment campaign will fizzle out. Kiwi Farms remains able to do harm, but it would be a mistake to suggest that its endurance on the internet means its victims have failed to hobble them. They’re weaker than they once were, there are fewer foot soldiers to recruit from, it’s harder for the fly-by-night harassers to access the site conveniently. When you winnow such extremists down to their most devoted adherents, they remain a threat, but they lack the manpower to effect harm the way they once did.