The headline is offensively misleading. A boycott, or severance of commercial relationship, is not censorship. It's people using commerce to express their values, which is also a form of free speech. Unlike true censorship, which comes from the government, both parties are free to seek other partners in promoting their products or messages. Lütke's attempt to paint this as a defense of free speech is disingenuous, and his attempt to portray anyone who disagrees as a censor is downright dishonest.
[edit: "refuses to censor" seems to be a local modification to the original headline, which is definitely supposed to be against the rules]
> Lütke's attempt to paint this as a defense of free speech is disingenuous
Is it?
"To kick off a merchant is to censor ideas and interfere with the free exchange of products at the core of commerce. When we kick off a merchant, we’re asserting our own moral code as the superior one. But who gets to define that moral code? Where would it begin and end? Who gets to decide what can be sold and what can’t? If we start blocking out voices, we would fall short of our goals as a company to make commerce better for everyone. Instead, we would have a biased and diminished platform."
That's not censorship, and as such is not "consistent with the position of the ACLU". In fact the ACLU has supported boycotts, which is what it would be.
Refusing to voluntarily engage in commerce is hardly censorship. All this post is saying is "We're totally fine with neo-Nazis, so long as we make some money from them."
A principled boycott is not censorship, it is further free expression. Shame on shopify for abandoning principles in favor of profit.
I support their views on free speech, but as a matter of conscience, principle, and (more cynically) optics, they should donate all proceeds they make off of Breitbart or neo-nazi orders to civil liberties/rights organisations like the ACLU (which they mention in their post).
Should Apple donate the profits of every Macbook sold to neo-Nazis? How do you identify them?
Don't censor people and play into their victim complex. Treat them the exact same way you would anyone else and if you can't convince them through argument that they are wrong then you have nothing to stand on.
I find it odd that this needs to be either a post or something the community talks about. It'd be like an article titled "Local gas station provides gas to Nazis"
Why of course they do. A secular, open society means you can have whatever opinion you like, as long as it is peaceful, and you can participate just like anyone else. How else would you want it?
Modern activists seem quite odd to me. In the states, at least, you have the right for free and open political support to seek redress for your grievances. That is, something's not right about society or the government, so you use persuasion to argue your case to the rest of us.
But that's not what's happening. Instead it looks a lot more like economic warfare. Person A, B, and C are wrong. They must be punished. There's not the usual outreach of persuading others that we've traditionally had. It's much more about being in the right club.
Being a Nazi is a priori violent. They have declared an intent to commit genocide by subscribing to that ideology. They ought to be excluded from society at every turn, because their goal is the destruction of our society and the mass murder of our peers.
If they want to prove it's about principles over profit, they could donate profits from the Breitbart account to the ACLU. Until they do that, they are allowed to work with whomever they like, but they can't take the moral high ground.
Hacker news users were all up in arms when US financial giants VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, the Bank of America and Western Union engaged in a banking blockade against WikiLeaks. The argument was that these companies should be neutral in their dealings.
I actually agree with you that Freedom of Speech does not compel any 3rd party to provide a platform for that speech. Shopify is perfectly within it's rights to deny a platform for anyone it chooses. However, I feel that's a race to the bottom. You have to be comfortable with companies discriminating against organizations you agree with as well.
No, freedom of speech refers to the -ability- to speak freely. The _1st amendment_ refers to the government. If, after speaking out against abuses by your employer, you find yourself fired and blackballed from any decent job due to corporate collusion, your freedom of speech is harmed, even though the government never got involved.
As a comment on the post notes, Shopify already "censors" certain viewpoints. From their TOS:
"We may, but have no obligation to, remove Store Content and Accounts containing content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property or these Terms of Service."
So they're actually saying "We don't find Breitbart violating the moral code as set in our TOS". This is not about free speech.
The decision to continue to work with Breitbart aside, this post shows the failure of civics education in this country.
> Products are a form of speech, and free speech must be fiercely protected, even if we disagree with some of the voices.
The right to free speech that's protected in our constitution refers to speech being protected from the government. Nowhere in our constitution does it state that other individuals and businesses need to support the speech of others. It's a common misunderstanding of the first amendment. You could argue that by not censoring speech you find distasteful, you're adhering to the principles of the first amendment that people should be able to say whatever they choose without reprisal. But you could just as easily argue that in refusing to support speech you find harmful to this country, you're exercising your own constitutionally-protected right to freedom of expression. The important point is that the first amendment protects both Breitbart and anyone refusing to work with Breitbart from government punishment or silencing of that speech. And, in what might be more relevant to Shopify, the first amendment also protects anyone who wishes to advocate for a boycott of Shopify.
They would have had a stronger argument if they talked about discrimination. Their decision shares more in common with the decisions that other businesses have made to discriminate against people by not serving them. The oft-publicized example is religious bakers that won't make wedding cakes for gay couples. The difference being that what Breitbart is doing does not make them part of a protected class.
The concept of freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction. You're of the misunderstanding that the First Amendment and the last ~300 years of judicial precedent somehow transcend this concept (QED: it doesn't).
Not once does Lütke mention the First Amendment. You did that all on your own. More to the point, he isn't wrong in what he's saying. You're having a difficult time agreeing with him because your civics education prevents you from thinking beyond what was written on a nearly 300 year old document and you probably believe that Breitbart is the next Stormfront. Perhaps you should read something more modern, like Captain America #275 pg. 20.
"Instead of imposing our own morality on the platform, we defer to the law. All products must be legal in the jurisdiction of the business."
Compare that to the terms of service:
"We may, but have no obligation to, remove Store Content and Accounts containing content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property or these Terms of Service."
If their entire policy is to defer to the law, why do they reserve the right to remove content for all these other reasons? Maybe they've changed their mind and haven't gotten around to codifying the new policy?
I took a look around their store to see if the objection was purely based on their views, or if there were offensive products. I came across a t-shirt which puts "E Pluribus Unum" inside an eagle insignia that is clearly the Nazi parteiadler minus the swastika part. I think it would be reasonable to say that this is offensive and possibly threatening, although no doubt perfectly legal in most places.
(This is not my first experience with surprise parteiadlers. I once got a free pair of sunglasses with a contact lens exam which turned out to be from BOY London, whose logo is the parteiadler minus the swastika. I exchanged them and suggested to that store that they might want to stop carrying merchandise with Nazi symbols on them. They were rather shocked to discover it. Until then, I didn't know that I had to check for Nazi symbols on stuff!)
Beyond that, I dislike this idea that picking and choosing with whom you do business is "censorship." This isn't speech, it's commerce. You're helping to fund these guys. Breitbart absolutely has the right to free speech, but they have no right to sell their wares through whatever platform they choose. If Shopify chose not to send money to these crypto-Nazis, it would not be an act of censorship. Their words would still be available to anyone who chooses to obtain them, Shopify just wouldn't be helping anymore.
I don't like Breitbart, but I believe Shopify is making the right call, for a long list of reasons.
Instead of focusing on Breitbart and giving it undue attention, we should all be listening to each other. Not listening-to-reply, but listening-to-understand.
Being liberal doesn't mean that you block everything that the other side is doing. It's also about being open and accepting to others and their views. Shopify did the right thing here.
Being liberal does not require accepting Nazis. I will defend their right to hold their views and say what they want, but they have no right to do business with a particular e-commerce site.
Milton Firedman's most famous work is Capitalism and Freedom and yet within that work, he completely rejects Hollywood blacklists (or "boycotts" if you prefer). If you consider his main point is that under communism, people are un-free, it seems odd that he would sympathize with avowed members of American communist party, who would ultimately like to bring communism to the US, and in Friedman's eyes, result in societal catastrophe. Doubly so given the power of persuasion that Hollywood writers wield. So why does he reject the ability of studio execs to simply exercise their freedom of association, and not contract with blacklisted writers?
The problem in Friedman's eyes is that this boycott reduces to collusion. And under collusion, the benfits of free market dry up: for example, in the free market you can shop your script, no matter who you are, and if your product is good, you could make a living out of it. When firms collude to establish acceptable political beleifs as a pre-condition to an economic exchange, you have reduced the economic freedom of everyone who is not wealthy enough to establish a movie studio for themselves. In effect, you have by-passed democracy ("one person, one vote") and moved to [benevolent] oligarchy ("one chairman, one vote"). As the old saying goes - you're freedom to swing your elbows ends where my nose begins, and so too with economic association. If you would starve a man until he renounced his political preferences - even if you deem them antithetical to the good of society - you're no better than Stalin.
From:
"'Freedom of speech' is the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship. It is often regarded as an integral concept in modern liberal democracy."
To:
"'Freedom of speech' is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction."
Note how retaliation and censorship might no longer be considered an attack on free speech, if done by private individuals or non-government entities. Also, free speech is apparently no longer "an integral concept in modern liberal democracy".
>implying Wikipedia is the authority on freedom of speech
None of this is censorship, because Breitbart may still sell their merchandise using other storefronts and have not been impeded from publishing their authors' work.
On November 8th, the day of the US election, the whole world got more black and white.
People in the center have been called upon to choose sides. In a way, my position
is an appeal to preserve some of the gray in the world. All solutions necessarily
have to come from the middle ground. No progress happens when ideas are censored
and everyone sorts into one of two camps. The world is a nuanced and complicated
place. Let’s accept that and use rational discourse to make the world — and commerce —
better for everyone.
Shopify somehow arbitrarily intermingles an "objective" point of view (deferring the moral judgment to the law) and a "normative" point of view ("We need to protect the free speech"). I think the very statement and conduct of Spotify in fact demonstrates the hypocrisy (i.e. performative contradiction): "We are liberals who do not think it is okay what Breitbart does." vs. "It is okay what they do since it is within the bounds of law"
I think they simply want to be neutral. There isn't anything inherently wrong with that. I think the average person appreciates that most of their vendors are neutral.
Imagine if your ISP or your bank took a moral stance on everything?
Do you ask the guy at the hot dog stand what his position is on trade policy? Or the folks who bag your groceries how they feel about police brutality? Do you only purchase from Amazon vendors who make it clear that they support increasing taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year? Do you only buy TVs from companies that back legalization of marijuana? Do you only make bids on eBay for products sold from countries who support human rights progress? I mean you pay taxes on those products, which support those nations.
This actually increases my desire to use Shopify, really. Not because I like Breitbart (I consider it to be drivel like most other news sites), but rather because if even they won't be booted off Shopify, it's highly unlikely that I would be. Shopify therefore looks like a very reliable and safe choice regardless of political viewpoints.
[+] [-] notacoward|9 years ago|reply
[edit: "refuses to censor" seems to be a local modification to the original headline, which is definitely supposed to be against the rules]
[+] [-] notcolin|9 years ago|reply
Is it?
"To kick off a merchant is to censor ideas and interfere with the free exchange of products at the core of commerce. When we kick off a merchant, we’re asserting our own moral code as the superior one. But who gets to define that moral code? Where would it begin and end? Who gets to decide what can be sold and what can’t? If we start blocking out voices, we would fall short of our goals as a company to make commerce better for everyone. Instead, we would have a biased and diminished platform."
[+] [-] tomp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] isleyaardvark|9 years ago|reply
https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/power-boycott?width=7...
A more accurate title would be "Shopify refuses to stop working with Breitbart".
[+] [-] diyorgasms|9 years ago|reply
A principled boycott is not censorship, it is further free expression. Shame on shopify for abandoning principles in favor of profit.
[+] [-] tomp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vaadu|9 years ago|reply
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/317248-dnc-boots-candid...
[+] [-] jszymborski|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keithwhor|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cgag|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron-lebo|9 years ago|reply
Don't censor people and play into their victim complex. Treat them the exact same way you would anyone else and if you can't convince them through argument that they are wrong then you have nothing to stand on.
[+] [-] AlexB138|9 years ago|reply
Interesting editorializing of the headline on this post.
[+] [-] paulgb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fao_|9 years ago|reply
Perhaps being supportive of people who have called for the extermination of black people and other minorities?
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|9 years ago|reply
Why of course they do. A secular, open society means you can have whatever opinion you like, as long as it is peaceful, and you can participate just like anyone else. How else would you want it?
Modern activists seem quite odd to me. In the states, at least, you have the right for free and open political support to seek redress for your grievances. That is, something's not right about society or the government, so you use persuasion to argue your case to the rest of us.
But that's not what's happening. Instead it looks a lot more like economic warfare. Person A, B, and C are wrong. They must be punished. There's not the usual outreach of persuading others that we've traditionally had. It's much more about being in the right club.
[+] [-] diyorgasms|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattieuga|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulgb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulgb|9 years ago|reply
Edit: jszymborski beat me to make this comment
[+] [-] c0da|9 years ago|reply
Freedom of speech refer's to a government's responsibility to protect freedom of speech. Private organizations are not held to that same standard.
This is why websites can choose their advertisers and why reddit can ban a subreddit.
Shopify should censor Breitbart.
[+] [-] wvenable|9 years ago|reply
I actually agree with you that Freedom of Speech does not compel any 3rd party to provide a platform for that speech. Shopify is perfectly within it's rights to deny a platform for anyone it chooses. However, I feel that's a race to the bottom. You have to be comfortable with companies discriminating against organizations you agree with as well.
[+] [-] DarkKomunalec|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yedava|9 years ago|reply
"We may, but have no obligation to, remove Store Content and Accounts containing content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property or these Terms of Service."
So they're actually saying "We don't find Breitbart violating the moral code as set in our TOS". This is not about free speech.
[+] [-] curun1r|9 years ago|reply
> Products are a form of speech, and free speech must be fiercely protected, even if we disagree with some of the voices.
The right to free speech that's protected in our constitution refers to speech being protected from the government. Nowhere in our constitution does it state that other individuals and businesses need to support the speech of others. It's a common misunderstanding of the first amendment. You could argue that by not censoring speech you find distasteful, you're adhering to the principles of the first amendment that people should be able to say whatever they choose without reprisal. But you could just as easily argue that in refusing to support speech you find harmful to this country, you're exercising your own constitutionally-protected right to freedom of expression. The important point is that the first amendment protects both Breitbart and anyone refusing to work with Breitbart from government punishment or silencing of that speech. And, in what might be more relevant to Shopify, the first amendment also protects anyone who wishes to advocate for a boycott of Shopify.
They would have had a stronger argument if they talked about discrimination. Their decision shares more in common with the decisions that other businesses have made to discriminate against people by not serving them. The oft-publicized example is religious bakers that won't make wedding cakes for gay couples. The difference being that what Breitbart is doing does not make them part of a protected class.
[+] [-] notcolin|9 years ago|reply
Not once does Lütke mention the First Amendment. You did that all on your own. More to the point, he isn't wrong in what he's saying. You're having a difficult time agreeing with him because your civics education prevents you from thinking beyond what was written on a nearly 300 year old document and you probably believe that Breitbart is the next Stormfront. Perhaps you should read something more modern, like Captain America #275 pg. 20.
http://i.imgur.com/WCF5GVE.png
[+] [-] mikeash|9 years ago|reply
"Instead of imposing our own morality on the platform, we defer to the law. All products must be legal in the jurisdiction of the business."
Compare that to the terms of service:
"We may, but have no obligation to, remove Store Content and Accounts containing content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property or these Terms of Service."
If their entire policy is to defer to the law, why do they reserve the right to remove content for all these other reasons? Maybe they've changed their mind and haven't gotten around to codifying the new policy?
I took a look around their store to see if the objection was purely based on their views, or if there were offensive products. I came across a t-shirt which puts "E Pluribus Unum" inside an eagle insignia that is clearly the Nazi parteiadler minus the swastika part. I think it would be reasonable to say that this is offensive and possibly threatening, although no doubt perfectly legal in most places.
(This is not my first experience with surprise parteiadlers. I once got a free pair of sunglasses with a contact lens exam which turned out to be from BOY London, whose logo is the parteiadler minus the swastika. I exchanged them and suggested to that store that they might want to stop carrying merchandise with Nazi symbols on them. They were rather shocked to discover it. Until then, I didn't know that I had to check for Nazi symbols on stuff!)
Beyond that, I dislike this idea that picking and choosing with whom you do business is "censorship." This isn't speech, it's commerce. You're helping to fund these guys. Breitbart absolutely has the right to free speech, but they have no right to sell their wares through whatever platform they choose. If Shopify chose not to send money to these crypto-Nazis, it would not be an act of censorship. Their words would still be available to anyone who chooses to obtain them, Shopify just wouldn't be helping anymore.
[+] [-] yellowapple|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yock|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sctb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] steveax|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cjslep|9 years ago|reply
Instead of focusing on Breitbart and giving it undue attention, we should all be listening to each other. Not listening-to-reply, but listening-to-understand.
[+] [-] d2ncal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulgb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stillsut|9 years ago|reply
The problem in Friedman's eyes is that this boycott reduces to collusion. And under collusion, the benfits of free market dry up: for example, in the free market you can shop your script, no matter who you are, and if your product is good, you could make a living out of it. When firms collude to establish acceptable political beleifs as a pre-condition to an economic exchange, you have reduced the economic freedom of everyone who is not wealthy enough to establish a movie studio for themselves. In effect, you have by-passed democracy ("one person, one vote") and moved to [benevolent] oligarchy ("one chairman, one vote"). As the old saying goes - you're freedom to swing your elbows ends where my nose begins, and so too with economic association. If you would starve a man until he renounced his political preferences - even if you deem them antithetical to the good of society - you're no better than Stalin.
[+] [-] thedevil|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Freedom_of_speech...
From: "'Freedom of speech' is the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship. It is often regarded as an integral concept in modern liberal democracy."
To: "'Freedom of speech' is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction."
Note how retaliation and censorship might no longer be considered an attack on free speech, if done by private individuals or non-government entities. Also, free speech is apparently no longer "an integral concept in modern liberal democracy".
[+] [-] cholantesh|9 years ago|reply
None of this is censorship, because Breitbart may still sell their merchandise using other storefronts and have not been impeded from publishing their authors' work.
[+] [-] chronid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrnzc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcphage|9 years ago|reply
> When we kick off a merchant, we’re asserting our own moral code as the superior one. But who gets to define that moral code?
Well, who do you want to define your moral code? Do you want to define your own moral code, or do you want Breitbart to define your moral code?
[+] [-] wvenable|9 years ago|reply
Imagine if your ISP or your bank took a moral stance on everything?
[+] [-] andrewmcwatters|9 years ago|reply
Should _companies_ define moral code or _people?_
[+] [-] wnevets|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notcolin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yellowapple|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|9 years ago|reply
I would be very careful what I wished for.