Gab.com Booted from Hosting Provider Due to User Account
twitter.comThere 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.
You say it's a straw man, but for example literally two top-level comments down from yours (as of right now at least) is this [1]:
> If you're not a courageous and principled defender of free speech, you should get out of the cloud business.
Where does that mention the 1st Amendment or a guarantee of the 1st Amendment when it doesn't relate to government? It doesn't. When people say "free speech" don't assume they are only talking about the 1st Amendment. Free speech is a civic ideal, not just a government one.
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.
In the end it's just going to lead people to using the "dark web" more and more. Making for it to be harder to monitor. It also doesn't help that registrars are pulling the plug as well, because you can't truly be your own registrar.
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.
It's not the only American ideal.> Gab might rightfully deserve being kicked off, but > Free speech as an American ideal, that's > all people are really saying.Oh yeah - the non-American ideal of punching people who disagree with you about foreign policy?
That's what you call them? Well then, who needs police? There's no criminals, just "people who disagree with you over domestic policy" /s> people who disagree with you about foreign policyMore seriously, the friction here is over which behaviors are beyond the pale. Personally, I would feel uncomfortable describing Nazi sympathizers as holding "different views." It's in the same bucket, for me, as people who torture small animals. That's not just a "different view" to me, it's "beyond the pale."
I would not like to meet someone for whom nothing at all is beyond the pale. Even libertarians will do some hand-waving to support state restrictions on rape, murder, etc. Their hand-waving is not so different from mine regarding free speech.
1. Isn’t viewing someone as “beyond the pale” such that they deserve summary punishment and/or execution dehumanizing? How is that different than the guy who tortured small animals because he views them as objects and not living things?
2. Even those libertarians would give murderers and rapists benefit of a court of law where they can explain themselves. Consider this video: https://youtu.be/NUqytjlHNIM
Somehow I have found myself arguing for violence, which wasn't so much my original intent. I mainly wanted to remind the OP it's an American value to oppose demagogues and authoritarians. The clip I linked is from a film which is one of the best-selling and most critically successful pieces of Americana. My main point isn't that one should go around attacking people, as much as it is that Americans had strong feelings about Nazi sympathizers.> Even those libertarians would give murderers and rapists benefit of a court of law where they can explain themselves.
Yes. It's a matter of recursion. The Weimar court that imprisoned Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch gave him five years. The maximum sentence he was eligible for: life. From what I understand of the history, he charmed the court. If the court had been less tolerant, they would have spared 6 millions Jews, 20 million Russians, and many others.> Isn’t viewing someone as “beyond the pale” such that they deserve summary punishment and/or execution dehumanizing?Everyone on the left quotes Karl Popper these days, but it's worth noting that he only condoned intolerance against the intolerant in cases where it was the last resort. So if there's a movement gaining real popularity that threatens to replace your government with a dictatorship, it's a problem. If it's a few harmless cranks, society can ignore them.
Well, a guy who tortures a bear in the process of preventing it from attacking a campsite... not a big problem. However, I actually was thinking with that example... how much obligation do we have to give a talking stick to a movement that condones torture for fun.> How is that different than the guy who tortured small animals because he views them as objects and not living things?Thank you very much for your candor and honest engagement. You made me feel better about America's future.
>The clip I linked is from a film which is one of the best-selling and most critically successful pieces of Americana.
This is true, but I would like to take issue with this scene in particular. The guy might not have been a Nazi sympathizer - he might have thought that the Soviet Union was far worse, and it was better not to have intervened.
>If the court had been less tolerant, they would have spared 6 millions Jews, 20 million Russians, and many others.
Yes, and the Soviet Union had already murdered 3-8 million people in the Ukraine famines before the war started. It's not easy to make moral calculations in foreign policy.
>how much obligation do we have to give a talking stick to a movement that condones torture for fun
There's no doubt that's disgusting, but I would put it to you in a different way: wouldn't you rather the "movement" be given the right to speak so that they can expose themselves as lunatics to the public? Violent (or peaceful) suppression magnifies the amount of potential sympathy they could gather in the public eye.
Who can precisely define the line between "beyond the pale" and "normal speech"? If you can't put it in words that can be written down and made law, then it's merely a matter of subjective opinion. Human history has taught us that suppression is used against all kinds of minorities, virtuous and otherwise. It's best to avoid it altogether, for fear of endangering human liberty.
How worldly and erudite is the public? How are they supposed to know?> so that they can expose themselves as lunatics to the public?Besides, it's not necessarily the case that there is any "correct answer." There have been societies that were extremely brutal. I read somewhere that ancient Mayans may have played soccer with human heads. I presume Mayans were generally content with that sort of society.
I happen to like the living in a liberal democracy, and I'll advocate for liberal democracy as long as there's breath in my lungs. That doesn't mean it's objectively better. It's just better to those who share my values. There are probably plenty of sound arguments for other systems under which I personally could not bear (or perhaps be allowed!) to live.
Hrm, it's not that simple. There is no one outcome when you suppress people. Sometimes they go away, never to be heard from again. Sometimes they redouble, and prevail. Often, they mutate and come back again in a more palatable form (how much more palatable, varies). I could list about half a dozen examples of this last case, if you want them.> suppression magnifies the amount of potential sympathy they could gather in the public eye.It's tempting to think of humanity in terms of a narrative. The truth is, an asteroid could smash into the earth a year from now, and none of the human events we may feel are so inevitable today would come to pass.
>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.
Since there have been large crackdowns on these sites, violence and seething has ticked up across the globe, and the "far right" has taken control of more governments (and I'm not talking about Trump, I'm talking about Europe/South America where there are open threats of violence and anti-Semitism.) I am just saying that perhaps driving these people underground where they can't be monitored is not the best approach.
I would argue that it is possible that cracking down on public platforms them gives them a platform in and of itself that once did not exist. It's similar to a Streisand effect. People become even -more- radicalized because they feel "oppressed." It sort of reminds me of how the ATF raid on Waco unwittingly played into their cult's idea of the apocalypse and has since bred people like McVeigh.
THAT is the slippery slope.
Joyent, the hosting provider, has a history of pulling the rug from under people.
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.
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.
[1] https://paradite.com/2014/11/11/internet-polarized-society/
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?
The real question is, was there external pressure applied to the hosting company or was this entirely their own decision?
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.
I’m talking about somebody forcing their hand, for instance a government agency or a particular stakeholder or a media organisation, not the normal calculus of weighing a myriad of factors to make a business decision.
What is the "external pressure" in this case?
The usual lynch mobs (which FB & Twitter allow on their platform) reported it en masse I'm guessing. This works well for getting conservatives banned on social media because their report systems are somewhat automated, but it also works for domains and email providers. I think they recently got Gab booted off Azure too.
"Lynching" is a terrible term to use for filling out an online abuse form, while there have been 11 people murdered by a white supremacist.
Yes. The victims at Tree of Life today were victims of lynching, not the platform on which the lynching was promoted.
It's frankly incredible that you decide to use the term "lynch mob" to describe people criticising platforms that are notable exactly for supporting literal lynch mobs and people encouraging actual murderers. Equally baffling is the equating of the criticism of these platforms to criticism of conservatives in general, which seems like something anybody with any respect for conservatives would want to avoid.
I don't visit Gab, but I will definitely be closing my Joyent account.
If you're not a courageous and principled defender of free speech, you should get out of the cloud business.
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.
Except that The Daily Stormer is creating their own content while Gab is just hosting others. I'm sure I could find YouTube comments equally as bad as comments on Gab.
The era of tech washing their hands of being accountable for user generated content on their platform is over. YouTube works quite hard to keep their platform safe. It's still not good enough. But I'm sure they have more people working on that problem than have ever worked on Gab.
Do you think 4chan also be moderated in this way and users purged for using abusive language? And how do I become the moderator of language? I sure would like to be the gate keeper of acceptable speech.
Their original logo was a variation of the stupid pepe frog. They’re not a neutral platform. They were built as a platform for the racist alt-right.
Gab actively cultivates a neo-Nazi userbase; see https://twitter.com/ClenchedFisk/status/1027690034718224384?...
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.
Just because you can't think of any examples of businesses not cowering to censorship, doesn't mean that there are none.
Twitter has made lots of mistakes, but they've also stood on first principles many of times when it comes to free speech. Cloudflare is another great example.
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?
The ‘US Standard’ for free speech is exactly where it should be, and applies to the government’s role in censoring citizen speech. Joyent, as a business has no obligation to support anything outside of their own policies.
I think they were saying, if money is free speech, and racist slurs are free speech, and anti-semitic conspiracy theories are free speech, then the quality standard for something to be free speech is low, and any mildly sympathetic individual or organization would put their own standard for free speech higher.
I think we are mostly in agreement?
The "US Standard" generally means the standard by which the people of the US value the concept of Free Speech, which extends beyond that of the 1st amendment. We the people of the US codified our position on speech in the 1st amendment of our governing document to ensure that our government would never infringe upon our most vital right as free humans.
This however does not in anyway mean we believe others including large corporations should have the right to infringe upon said rights simply because "its a business"
There are many avenues one could seek to hold Joynet and others like them that proclaim to be open to all in their advertisements then reject many they disagree with. First and foremost would be Truth in Advertisement laws, Fraud, and other legal regulations which if they were properly enforced these companies would be clearly violating
No the "US Standard" of Free Speech is not just about government censorship, that is ignorant and naive view of what Free Speech is as a concept. Free Speech is concept where by a person is free to express themselves with out fear of censorship from either government or society at large. Free Speech today is under massive attack not by government in the US (yet) but by society at large.
//Edit for the record. I do not have nor do I plan to sign up for a Gab account (or twitter Gab's competitor) this is not about Gab as a service, I honestly could not care less about Gab it is about the precedent this sets when it comes to cloud and other internet infrastructure
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I suggest you re-read that and point to where it says "society at large". The 1st Amendment is a restriction on the government, not on the people (except maybe the "peaceably" bit).
The Constitution is a document establishing and limiting government power. It has nothing to do with what I am talking about
Freedom of speech exist beyond and outside of the 1st amendment, that fact that many people believe all free speech issues are limited only to the 1st amendment and government censorship is part of the massive problem we have in society at large
> Why should they force themselves to support organizations that promote the wholesale elimination of other classes of people
Straw man arguments like this really lower the quality of discussion.
What part is a strawman? That is literally the conversation that takes place on Gab.
That conversation also takes place on Twitter and Facebook.
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.
I would argue that restrictions on child pornography are more about consent and intent and the idea that anyone under the age of majority is not considered capable of giving consent to a sexual act.
Making racist statements is not against the law in the US. Child porn is. As such they would have a legal obligation to cut them off if they were hosting child porn.
Oh please. Smoking marijuana is illegal in every part of the US but every so-called "defender of free speech" that I've met would be totally up in arms about a host shutting down a site for being involved in that.
Being in the cloud business does not have to include being in the cloud business with Nazis.
Isn't @Joyent part of Samsung ?
https://www.joyent.com/blog/samsung-acquires-joyent
This should be really interesting in days to come.
Er, why? That seems unrelated.
A private american company imposing its standards on "free speech" does not have same ring as Korean conglomerate imposing its standards on "free speech" in America.
This may be or may not an angle of attack. I am speculating it would be.
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.
Very sad.
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.
The "Gab.com banned from PayPal" post is still up. But, this post has been hidden.
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.
Sure, you don't need shared hosting, just setup your own servers. Until someone kicks you out of there server space...
Sure, you don't need shared server space, just setup your own co-location facility. Until someone decides not to give you backhaul...
Or until someone decides they won't provide you with DNS. Or DDoS protection. Or Payment gateway. Or... or... or...
The reality we are facing is that some political opinions (even relatively benign ones) aren't allowed access to the same resources as others.
Gab is benign, they started based on people getting kicked off Twitter - because you don't need Twitter, just start your own. So they did. And now they find themselves being booted around, because of virtue signalling tech companies.
> Gab is benign, they started based on people getting kicked off Twitter
Read the official twitter profile (what they write and reteweet). And then tell me again that they're not explicitly reaching for the racist fringe.
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.
This is incorrect on multiple levels.
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 […]
Yes, but the preamble tells a much different story as to the intent of the act.... There is also talk about updating the act as well which is a better solution IMHO because a lot has changed since it was written.
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.
It doesn't seem like this scenario should make you nervous unless your platform is a venue for discussing genocide.
There were many cases in which hosting companies decided to terminate accounts for whatever reason. And that's generally not a big problem, but 2 days notice on a weekend is just outright shitty behaviour. I can understand Joyent trying to cut ties to Gab, but seriously guys, give them time to migrate.
11 people died and this is where you want to make a stand?
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.