There is a lot of strawmanning when it comes to free speech. Virtually no one claims the 1st Amendment guarantees people a platform or that it applies to corporations. Yet, I see people clarifying that constantly...when no one is saying otherwise. Free speech as an American ideal, that's all people are really saying.
Anyhow, Joyent has every right to shut down their hosting services to anyone they feel...and no one really says otherwise on that point either. The sticking point is, are we headed down the right path on this issue? Are we setting the right precedent, because while we all likely agree that things like Daily Stormer and Gab are platforms for truly hateful people...are we emboldening them by driving them underground?
Likewise, as cloud providers beginning to show too much discretion over content? Let's take it outside of politics and into copyright. What if AWS hosted a new video streaming service, and some corporation XYZ claimed a (false) copyright violation. Amazon has a large contract with corporation XYZ because of Prime Video and kicks the video services off of AWS with short notice. Would that be acceptable, essentially putting that company out of business? Sure, it would legally not be a problem but would it be a moral problem?
Back to politics. Let's say GCS hosted DailyCaller or something, and employees internally find out and force it off because they find it as morally outrageous as the pentagon contract. It sounds crazy, but it could totally get to that point.
That seems like a bit of a leap from where we are now, but with cloud providers starting to show more and more discretion of what they host, I don't rule out that we could slip our way to things like that happening. It also seems increasingly likely that the more politicized the major players become, the more likely political disagreements could effectively ruin alternative platforms.
Gab might rightfully deserve being kicked off, but we do need to tread carefully on what type of precedent we are setting going forward as things like this become normalized.
If you want to host something really controversial, but not illegal on the internet, do as the largest adult websites/content providers have done, and become your own ISP. Put your own gear in colo at some major IX points, get an ASN and IP space, hire some network engineers who know bgp, etc. Buy transit from like 5 different top ranked (by CAIDA ASRANK) transit providers, and set up peering.
This is a great deal more resilient than relying on any one hosting provider.
Exactly. It's _because_ the right to free speech doesn't apply outside of government that we need to diligently support it. If we foster a culture of protectionism, we'll erode our culture of free speech to the point where only the majority opinion is allowed, and the majority is quite often wrong.
I choose to not engage with sites like gab and voat, but I also vehemently defend their right to exist. Hosting providers, payment processors shouldn't discriminate except on the basis of the customer's ability to pay or illegal use of the platform. That doesn't mean they should be forced to serve those they don't agree with, but we as a culture should avoid companies that discriminate.
I saw posts in favor of PayPal's choice to refuse service to Gab, and honestly the whole thing made me want to use PayPal _less_. I don't appreciate censorship at all, though I respect people's right to censor.
>Are we setting the right precedent, because while we all likely agree that things like Daily Stormer and Gab are platforms for truly hateful people...are we emboldening them by driving them underground?
Yes. No.
I don't find the slippery slope argument compelling. As a society we can decide what is and isn't within the realm of reasonable debate and discourse. Whatever the lines are, the discussion of racial supremacy and systematic oppression and elimination of others seems like something we should all be able to agree is outside the bounds.
I have been following the issue of Internet polarization since 2014 [1], and I propose two different ways to mediate the situation on a societal level:
- Have a neutral platform to facilitate discourse and mutual understanding. This is hard as it requires a largely informed populace.
- Complete segregation of groups having different opinions. This proves to be also hard because of incidents like this.
What if, instead of either of these, we made it clear as a society that advocating violence against or the elimination of a class of people is unacceptable and we gave no venue for that conversation whatsoever?
It can’t honestly be news to you that companies don’t exist in a vacuum, right? No decision by a company is going to be made in the absence of consideration for the broader reality in which they exist and seek to do business. To use a hyperbolic example, if Amazon considered having a “kick a puppy, get a discount” sale, the reaction of their shareholders, employees, and customers all factor in.
Gab is in the same category as The Daily Stormer. It's not courageous to hide behind free speech absolutism to protect content that invites others to violence. That's being too weak to engage in making the hard choices of what you will support with your efforts. It's the exact opposite of being principled.
I think it's unconstructive to command people to get out of a business because the line they draw on how disgusting and hateful content can be before they'll disallow it on their platform is different from the line (or lack thereof) that you'd draw. I also think it's probably purposeful disingenuous to frame that distinction as a righteous free speech decision where anybody who doesn't agree with your interpretation is not courageous.
Nothing prevents Gab from finding harbor with any company that will have them, but nothing legally compels any company or person to provide that harbor.
This is exactly the same as if I told you to get off my porch.
You may as well stop using the internet entirely, there simply isn't anyone in this business that is the type of defender of free speech you're talking about. And if there was, toxic elements would gather there and then they'd most likely have other companies they depend on cut them off somewhere down the line.
The US standard for what is legally free speech is absurdly low. Why should companies hold themselves to it? Why should they force themselves to support organizations that promote the wholesale elimination of other classes of people?
Do you believe a baker should have the right to refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, if the baker has a deeply-held religious belief that same-sex relationships are sinful? If the baker turns out to have that legal right, would you argue that baker should nonetheless not exercise that right?
Asking because people in these kinds of threads often seem to get suspiciously selective about when and why they decide to argue for stripping the right of free association -- and disassociation -- from others.
Usually when people make these statements, they don't actually mean it.
If Gab were strictly a child porn site, would it be okay if Joyent stopped serving them? If yes, then your absolutist statement isn't actually what you mean and it's just a question of where to draw the line. If not (which has yet to have been the case when someone initially stated such a trivial statement), then I disagree with you and maybe there's some interesting discussion to be had.
The irony of a bunch of Rand worshipping free market libertarians being outraged and indignant when another private business no longer wants to take their money.
I am find Rand an invaluable philosophical resource. While I wouldn't count myself an Objectivist, I certainly find more correct with Objectivism than not.
From this perspective, a few observations. Joyent should be able to do business with whomever they want, period. So long as they don't commit fraud or infringe on the rights of others in so doing, then they are within their rights AND within their moral prerogative to not do business with Gab. Note also that there is no moral obligation of Joyent to give Gab a platform and they're not doing so is not censorship: Gab's right to free speech cannot rightfully compromise Joyent's right to speech or association. The only way Joyent would be in the wrong here is if they represented to Gab that their business was acceptable/welcome and they did so with fore-knowledge of that business; and even then they'd only be in the wrong due to the short notice of termination given and the resulting damage to Gab's business, not because of the change of heart. To suggest that those that think like me might think otherwise is to speak without the requisite education to comment or is simple intellectual dishonesty.
Regardless the degree to which you hate Rand and those that think like me, the ridiculous and ill-informed hyperbole that your message contains is unwarranted and leads to the very state of affairs in which we find ourselves. It doesn't matter toward which "team" you express unmitigated hate, it only matters that you and those that shout disparagements (regardless of which side they sit) advocate acting on raw emotion rather than reason... indulging in hate over disagreement and debate. The facts, the truth, and the legitimate back-and-forth of competing ideas tested by reason seems to matter not once that's done. It may play well to the home team, but it does nothing to advance the discussion in the more general sense.
FWIW, I don’t think classifying white supremacists as free market libertarians is accurate. There is a decidedly collectivist bent in white nationalism that is at odds with the individualistic nature of libertarianism.
Gab hosts many, many, white supremacists. It has become a dumping ground for every social network's rejects...the people who've been booted from Twitter, reddit, etc (platforms that have been criticized for being slow to remove hate speech and incitement to violence, etc.) have congregated on Gab.
This isn't a free speech issue, it is an issue of whether Joyent wants to have responsibility for spreading that kind of thing. They don't, so they aren't. They gave Gab time to sort out alternatives, even though the kinds of things Gab hosts conflict with Joyent's terms of service. I think Joyent is well within their rights to tell'em to kick rocks and go spread their shit somewhere else.
We're talking about more than just saying things here.
11 people have been murdered by a white supremacist, and Gab is the online community for white supremacists / neonazis / anti-semites, one of whom is the murderer, whose actions have been heavily influenced by the specific culture of that community. What does the white-people stuff you allegedly saw "on twitter" have to do with that?
Based on your name alone, are you really suggesting that you could engage online in the systematic advocacy of killing against whites in America, and face no consequences?
Let's get real for a second here: gab courted neo-Nazis and became a refuge for anti-semitites and racists precisely because that was their target user base. Gab's pearl-clutching about anti-semitism is about as genuine as an arsonist's complaints about smoke. I will not miss gab, nor will I miss it's fetid assortment of wastrels. The best thing I can say about gab is that their pathetic shrieks at least made me laugh.
Oh, and "Free speech" has nothing to do with forced hosting for assorted terribles. This is one of the most persistent and irritating misinterpretations of the first amendment. "Free speech" covers the government and the government alone.
> Big tech can not stop us. The mainstream media can not stop us.
> The People will defend freedom against tyranny as they always have and always will.
> God bless you all and God bless...
These comments are kind of partisan, no? A neutral company would just say “hey, we’re going to a new service because of X, back soon!”. Let the users cry “free speech, god bless”.
I like free speech, even if I do not agree what they are saying. Although, a hosting provider could stop their service if they do not like it I suppose, although I think they should not do so unless it causes technical problems such as 100% CPU usage or stuff like that, although I am not saying they do not have the right to ban them, only that my opinion is to don't. But, you could just use a different hosting provider, I suppose. One hosting provider will not necessarily be available forever anyways.
Irregardless of what you think of Gab etc.. Unless the platform is being used for illegal activity and or it is engaging in something that breaks the law these service providers can and should be treated like the phone company. In other words the phone company does not turn off your phone because you are a nazi, racist etc.. Also, and this is an important distinction, there has been no established link between the shooters activity on Gab and what he did. IE: it does not appear that he collaborated with others on it to plan things etc. on the service... and if he had, odds are he probably also used other providers more extensively such as gmail etc..
Hosting providers policing things like this is akin to vigilante justice vs letting it go through the legal system where there is actually due process for everybody, not just the people that the mod likes.
Setting up your own hosting provider (read: servers) might be a bit of a hassle, but it's nothing compared to setting up your own telephone network. Gab is free to purchase their own servers and provide the necessary facilities.
For all of the people saying that Joyent can do this because they are a private company that statement there is a catch to this. All service providers are exempt from being sued for content on their platform under safe harbor under the argument that they were neutral platforms. If they are going to start to curate content by kicking companies like Gab.com off then it is time that a few copyright, libel test cases against these companies make their way to the courts given that it is in violation of the spirit behind safe harbor as it is stated in section 230 of the communications decency act.. It also is going beyond the "good Samaritan" definition.
The term "safe harbor" is typically used to refer to the provisions of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), not the Communications Decency Act you're discussing. OCILLA protects hosting and network providers from liability for copyright infringements committed by their customers, so long as they aren't aware of the infringement and don't directly benefit from it, and so long as they comply with the DMCA takedown process. This is, obviously, completely irrelevant to this situation.
The CDA actually does the exact opposite of what you are claiming here. It explicitly indemnifies service providers for blocking content, regardless of whether that content is constitutionally protected or not -- it reads in part:
> (2) Civil liability: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
> (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected […]
Joyent is a private company, they can choose to refuse doing business with anyone they like to, I think this was confirmed (by supreme court) a few weeks ago when some baker refused the business of a gay couple. (That decision is protected by the same first amendment that Gab claims to be protecting! Brilliant really.)
However, for everyone looking to host at Joyent: Beware they might cancel on you, too. And giving a company 2 days notice is far beyond comprehension. I wouldn't want to deal with this. I think it's really poor business standards.
No that actually was not confirmed at all by the US Supreme Court which ruled in favor of the Baker is very very very narrow technical grounds based solely on the comments/action of the Civil Rights agency that issued the fines. The 1st amendment did not factor into the case at all really.
Please try to actually understand the law before commenting on a legal position.
partiallypro|7 years ago
Anyhow, Joyent has every right to shut down their hosting services to anyone they feel...and no one really says otherwise on that point either. The sticking point is, are we headed down the right path on this issue? Are we setting the right precedent, because while we all likely agree that things like Daily Stormer and Gab are platforms for truly hateful people...are we emboldening them by driving them underground?
Likewise, as cloud providers beginning to show too much discretion over content? Let's take it outside of politics and into copyright. What if AWS hosted a new video streaming service, and some corporation XYZ claimed a (false) copyright violation. Amazon has a large contract with corporation XYZ because of Prime Video and kicks the video services off of AWS with short notice. Would that be acceptable, essentially putting that company out of business? Sure, it would legally not be a problem but would it be a moral problem?
Back to politics. Let's say GCS hosted DailyCaller or something, and employees internally find out and force it off because they find it as morally outrageous as the pentagon contract. It sounds crazy, but it could totally get to that point.
That seems like a bit of a leap from where we are now, but with cloud providers starting to show more and more discretion of what they host, I don't rule out that we could slip our way to things like that happening. It also seems increasingly likely that the more politicized the major players become, the more likely political disagreements could effectively ruin alternative platforms.
Gab might rightfully deserve being kicked off, but we do need to tread carefully on what type of precedent we are setting going forward as things like this become normalized.
jakelazaroff|7 years ago
> If you're not a courageous and principled defender of free speech, you should get out of the cloud business.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18318895
walrus01|7 years ago
This is a great deal more resilient than relying on any one hosting provider.
beatgammit|7 years ago
I choose to not engage with sites like gab and voat, but I also vehemently defend their right to exist. Hosting providers, payment processors shouldn't discriminate except on the basis of the customer's ability to pay or illegal use of the platform. That doesn't mean they should be forced to serve those they don't agree with, but we as a culture should avoid companies that discriminate.
I saw posts in favor of PayPal's choice to refuse service to Gab, and honestly the whole thing made me want to use PayPal _less_. I don't appreciate censorship at all, though I respect people's right to censor.
charlesism|7 years ago
https://youtu.be/D4EjRzzRQLI
jbarciauskas|7 years ago
Yes. No.
I don't find the slippery slope argument compelling. As a society we can decide what is and isn't within the realm of reasonable debate and discourse. Whatever the lines are, the discussion of racial supremacy and systematic oppression and elimination of others seems like something we should all be able to agree is outside the bounds.
bmarquez|7 years ago
Here's an HN discussion of Joyent ending lifetime hosting accounts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4391669
I also knew someone who was using BingoDisk and was left hanging when it was sold to another company.
paraditedc|7 years ago
- Have a neutral platform to facilitate discourse and mutual understanding. This is hard as it requires a largely informed populace.
- Complete segregation of groups having different opinions. This proves to be also hard because of incidents like this.
[1] https://paradite.com/2014/11/11/internet-polarized-society/
jbarciauskas|7 years ago
repolfx|7 years ago
[deleted]
Tycho|7 years ago
gotocake|7 years ago
minimaxir|7 years ago
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
mychael|7 years ago
If you're not a courageous and principled defender of free speech, you should get out of the cloud business.
krschultz|7 years ago
happytoexplain|7 years ago
drivingmenuts|7 years ago
This is exactly the same as if I told you to get off my porch.
jrs95|7 years ago
jbarciauskas|7 years ago
ubernostrum|7 years ago
Asking because people in these kinds of threads often seem to get suspiciously selective about when and why they decide to argue for stripping the right of free association -- and disassociation -- from others.
cjhopman|7 years ago
If Gab were strictly a child porn site, would it be okay if Joyent stopped serving them? If yes, then your absolutist statement isn't actually what you mean and it's just a question of where to draw the line. If not (which has yet to have been the case when someone initially stated such a trivial statement), then I disagree with you and maybe there's some interesting discussion to be had.
pvg|7 years ago
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
sremani|7 years ago
https://www.joyent.com/blog/samsung-acquires-joyent
This should be really interesting in days to come.
minimaxir|7 years ago
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
walrus01|7 years ago
sbuttgereit|7 years ago
From this perspective, a few observations. Joyent should be able to do business with whomever they want, period. So long as they don't commit fraud or infringe on the rights of others in so doing, then they are within their rights AND within their moral prerogative to not do business with Gab. Note also that there is no moral obligation of Joyent to give Gab a platform and they're not doing so is not censorship: Gab's right to free speech cannot rightfully compromise Joyent's right to speech or association. The only way Joyent would be in the wrong here is if they represented to Gab that their business was acceptable/welcome and they did so with fore-knowledge of that business; and even then they'd only be in the wrong due to the short notice of termination given and the resulting damage to Gab's business, not because of the change of heart. To suggest that those that think like me might think otherwise is to speak without the requisite education to comment or is simple intellectual dishonesty.
Regardless the degree to which you hate Rand and those that think like me, the ridiculous and ill-informed hyperbole that your message contains is unwarranted and leads to the very state of affairs in which we find ourselves. It doesn't matter toward which "team" you express unmitigated hate, it only matters that you and those that shout disparagements (regardless of which side they sit) advocate acting on raw emotion rather than reason... indulging in hate over disagreement and debate. The facts, the truth, and the legitimate back-and-forth of competing ideas tested by reason seems to matter not once that's done. It may play well to the home team, but it does nothing to advance the discussion in the more general sense.
Very sad.
toasterlovin|7 years ago
vabmit|7 years ago
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
mohammedbin|7 years ago
[deleted]
SwellJoe|7 years ago
This isn't a free speech issue, it is an issue of whether Joyent wants to have responsibility for spreading that kind of thing. They don't, so they aren't. They gave Gab time to sort out alternatives, even though the kinds of things Gab hosts conflict with Joyent's terms of service. I think Joyent is well within their rights to tell'em to kick rocks and go spread their shit somewhere else.
lgierth|7 years ago
11 people have been murdered by a white supremacist, and Gab is the online community for white supremacists / neonazis / anti-semites, one of whom is the murderer, whose actions have been heavily influenced by the specific culture of that community. What does the white-people stuff you allegedly saw "on twitter" have to do with that?
Come on, really?
krschultz|7 years ago
https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-condu...
sago|7 years ago
Based on your name alone, are you really suggesting that you could engage online in the systematic advocacy of killing against whites in America, and face no consequences?
revel|7 years ago
Oh, and "Free speech" has nothing to do with forced hosting for assorted terribles. This is one of the most persistent and irritating misinterpretations of the first amendment. "Free speech" covers the government and the government alone.
jbob2000|7 years ago
> The People will defend freedom against tyranny as they always have and always will.
> God bless you all and God bless...
These comments are kind of partisan, no? A neutral company would just say “hey, we’re going to a new service because of X, back soon!”. Let the users cry “free speech, god bless”.
zzo38computer|7 years ago
lgleason|7 years ago
Hosting providers policing things like this is akin to vigilante justice vs letting it go through the legal system where there is actually due process for everybody, not just the people that the mod likes.
daxterspeed|7 years ago
lgleason|7 years ago
duskwuff|7 years ago
The term "safe harbor" is typically used to refer to the provisions of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), not the Communications Decency Act you're discussing. OCILLA protects hosting and network providers from liability for copyright infringements committed by their customers, so long as they aren't aware of the infringement and don't directly benefit from it, and so long as they comply with the DMCA takedown process. This is, obviously, completely irrelevant to this situation.
The CDA actually does the exact opposite of what you are claiming here. It explicitly indemnifies service providers for blocking content, regardless of whether that content is constitutionally protected or not -- it reads in part:
> (2) Civil liability: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
> (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected […]
dna_polymerase|7 years ago
However, for everyone looking to host at Joyent: Beware they might cancel on you, too. And giving a company 2 days notice is far beyond comprehension. I wouldn't want to deal with this. I think it's really poor business standards.
jbarciauskas|7 years ago
syshum|7 years ago
Please try to actually understand the law before commenting on a legal position.