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GoDaddy Expels Neo-Nazi Site Over Article On Charlottesville Victim (bbc.co.uk)
Reader Big Hairy Ian writes: Web hosting company GoDaddy has given a US neo-Nazi site 24 hours to find another provider after it disparaged a woman who died in protests in Virginia. The Daily Stormer published a piece denigrating Heather Heyer, who was killed on Saturday after a car rammed into a crowd protesting at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. GoDaddy had faced calls to remove the white supremacist site as a result. The web host said the Daily Stormer had violated its terms of service. "We informed the Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service," GoDaddy said in a statement on Twitter. Previously, some web users had called on GoDaddy to remove the site -- including women's rights campaigner Amy Siskind. Violence broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia, after white supremacists organised a controversial far-right march called "Unite the Right".
This isn't a First Amendment issue.
GoDaddy has the right to toss anyone off of their service for violating their Terms of Service.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
They have rules and any site that violates them are subject to them. Supporting violence should certainly get anyone booted.
after white supremacists organised a controversial far-right march called "Unite the Right".
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
As usual, leftists want to censor things rather than refute them. The greatest enemy to free speech in the world is leftists. If you can refute someone, speak up and do it, even if the speech is disagreeable, such as white supremacy.
It's not censorship or a violation of freedom of speech. All they did was cancel the hosting of the site. The site is free to purchase hosting services somewhere else. It's basically as if GoDaddy owned a bulletin board and someone puts a flyer on there they don't like. They are free to remove that flyer and tell the person not to post it again. Individuals (corporations, etc) are not obligated to provide you a forum for your speech, and your right to free speech does not translate into a right to be heard by others.
Personally, I never thought I'd be on GoDaddy's side on anything, but I have no problem with this.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
As usual, private enterprises want to distance themselves from objectively horrible people because it may cost them money.
As usual, objectively horrible people suddenly decide that it is "censorship" if private enterprises decide that they do not want to be associated with said objectively horrible people, and completely forget about the whole "freedom of association" thing.
Because they're the ones running down their opponents with cars...
That's irrelevant when it comes to the fact that service providers can stipulate their own conditions for providing their services and you're agreeing with them when contracting for the service.
Ezekiel 23:20
Corporations should not have opinions on social matters.
Depends. GoDaddy is legally within its rights to refuse or continue (further) service. If the site calls for and supports continued violence, GoDaddy is (at least morally) obligated to report such calls to the relevant authorities and to discontinue service. You (or whoever you intended) could sue all you wanted, but it would go approximately nowhere, and it would further invite scrutiny and monitoring from the FBI (if you're in the US), or similar.
The only (slight) worry I have over this is that such sites will start burrowing into the Dark Web, where the general public cannot see and ridicule them for what they are. I can predict without looking that many of these sites are already there. Maybe that's a good thing - keep the bastards in the dark where they belong. But then, being able to easily point to something and show others "you can see what these chuckleheads actually believe right here (link)" is a good educational tool against folks who want to spread misinformation.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Unless they're literal Nazis.
I mean, come on. They're fucking Nazis for chrissake. If your business model relies on not alienating Nazis, then there may be bigger problems than your profit/loss statement.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I have long said that, in the west, the biggest censorship issue is private company not wanting certain speec and thuis relegating offline where it can die or spread the rot unbeknown. I feel split on the issue , my anti nazi side feels happy that the daily stormer get dinged, but my anti censorship side see the clear problem here.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It's not censorship or a violation of freedom of speech. All they did was cancel the hosting of the site. The site is free to purchase hosting services somewhere else.
Are they still free to purchase hosting services within the US, though? Anti-terrorism laws apply to that kind of extremist content.
Well good thing for them Trump refuses to call them terrorists, or even mention them at all.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Out gay man here. I have defended, and will continue to defend, people like Nazis, skinheads, the KKK, or any other organization to have a platform in the public square to spew whatever hate that they want. That is their right, and it should not be abridged. It doesn't matter if it's the KKK or the Phelps church protesting at soldier's funerals. They have the right to their opinions, and that right should never be taken away.
So how exactly am I, a proud leftist progressive, hating on the first amendment? How am I wanting to curtail the KKK from protesting? I cherish the freedom granted to every single person under the Constitution, and will defend that right to the death.
Yes, and "DPRK" is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
No, you can't refuse service because of race, sex, or sexual orientation.
If I went into a bakery owned by a Cambodian ex-pat and tried to order a cake glorifying Pol Pot I'd be justifiably refused. Political views and the advocacy of violence are not protected in that setting.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
what about discrimination laws?
What about them?
All businesses are free to discriminate against people for any reason whatsoever, unless the reason is on the short list of protected classes (age, gender, religion, etc.)
A business can refuse you service just because they don't like the clothes you wear, the car you drive, your hair color, or even just because they're in a bad mood.
While I totally agree with this idea it has not always worked this way in practice, leading the right (esp the extreme right) to feel that it is "leftist" censorship. The case of the baker who refused to make a cake for a gay couple, was sued and lost shows that corporations don't always have the right to do business the way they want. As a libertarian I think GoDaddy should be able to refuse to host anyone they see fit and bakers should be able to refuse to bake cakes for whomever they don't want to. The inequity gives the appearance of favoritism for one side.
--- Tolerance is the axiomatic "virtue" of those without convictions ---
Seriously. Just shut up.
Modern liberalism, everyone.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ma...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://www.npr.org/2017/06/16/...
and then there's Youtube. I could go on an on and on.
I could give two fucks what it ment in 1921. TODAY, the Antifa are a facist violent group of fucktards that should be labeled for what they are, a terrorist organization.
Life is not for the lazy.
What's ironic is they use fascist tactics. Beat everyone that opposes your viewpoint. They've been terrorizing every conservative event since the election. This is the first time they've actually run up against anyone as despicable as themselves.
And let the equivocation begin! Oh, those poor downtrodden Neo-nazis and White Supremacists. All they want to do is expel every black person, Latino, and anyone else in their long laundry list of people they hate.
Storm Front has the right to say what it wants. It has absolutely no right to force anyone else to carry the message for them.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Really? It's what they call themselves.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DH...
You are welcome on my lawn.
...every bit of content they are part of serving.
This kind of short-term virtue signaling on the part of a corporation is going to have long-term consequences, when people use this precedent to make them responsible for every shitlord post ever made on anything they're connected to.
Next thing you know, they'll be coming after GoDaddy for comments on articles, and naughty memes.
Yes and it was the Republican Party that freed the slaves so black people should vote for them right?
If this band of losers had called themselves "The Sons of Liberty" or some other organization or movement, you'd hardly suddenly support them because Samuel Adams did something 200 years ago under a similar name. The Patriot Act should have taught you how meaningless a name is.
They have been beating people up,
Because we have idiot politicians that tell the police to not intervene. Both in Berkeley and in Charlotesville. If the cops were allowed to keep the two groups separate and put down any violence before it erupts into a mob scene we wouldn't have this shit so common.
They do. But they are also the legislature (creating rules), judiciary (determining, whether a rule is broken), and executive (acting on such determination) at once. Whether their action is sincere, or simply seeking to avoid boycotts and/or DOSing, they are wrong.
I do hate Daily Stormer with passion — since 2014, when they dismissed all of Ukraine's figures as "Jews" — if GoDaddy was Ok with them before, there is no reason to kick them out now.
Certainly not with such haste... 24 hours to move a site? Ridiculous...
The massive outrage about this is curiously selective. The "alt-right" are blamed for the violence even though they held their gathering and were attacked by the counter-protesters, who've been viciously violent before. All of the reports about the car charging into a crowd mention "melees" and "skirmishes" already occurring prior to that in passing. Oh, that's because someone died? Well, there were politically-motivated attacks with a deadly weapon before — sheer luck, that asshole merely injured his victims.
Lastly, much as the Nazist symbols and racism annoy me, they clearly have no real following and thus pose little danger. Meanwhile, the symbols of Communists and other hate-groups (like Black Lives Matter) were also on display and those, despite being far deadlier, do not seem to outrage anyone...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You clearly don't know what the word meant, ever.
Antifa has ALWAYS been violent, you can consider that a bad thing - they believe they are fighting against evil. And they were US allies in the war.
But what they are not is, in any way, subscribers to fascist ideology. Punching somebody is a far-cry from being a fascist, ESPECIALLY when you're punching fascists. Neither does censorship make you fascist. Nor even authoritarianism.
These are all things that fascists did - but they are not exclusive to fascism, not symptomatic of fascism, nor a requirement FOR fascism.
On the other hand the idea that a country or state should be dominated by a particular cuture or race - that IS a defining attribute of fascism. The original NAZIs were fascists as well. The Neo-NAZIs remain so. Richard Spencer is an absolute fascist. Dozens of people in Charlottesville were waviing signs with the fasces on it (a bunch of axes tied together) - literally the symbol of fascism and in fact, the origin of the word.
The word STILL means what it meant in 1929 and using it to mean whatever the fuck you want it to mean achieves only two things:
1) it makes YOU look like an uneducated idiot
2) It gives cover to actual fascists to continue posing a danger to the entire world.
Neither of these are good outcomes.
You may think AntiFa's violence is no longer justified, I would argue that this weekend proved otherwise - but to call them fascist is merely to prove you don't understand what fascism was or why it was evil. You associate some of the things that some fascists did with the concept and call all who do those things fascists - all you do is make the most evil people on the planet look less evil by claiming that less evil people are on par with them. By your reasoning every republican who ever banned porn is a fascist too. After all - fascists did censorship right ? Every dictator no matter if they were a communist or a far right capitalist is a fascist by your stupid definition - even though they would not agree on ANYTHING.
It's not some catch-all word that describes everybody from Pinochet to Stalin.
It describes a particular ideology - that of Musolini, Hitler and their modern incarnates. Nobody, NOBODY else qualifies. The most fascist leader in the world today is Donald Trump. He subscribes to the overwhelming majority of the fascist ideology. That and that ALONE can qualify anybody for the name. It's the name of a certain ideology - nothing else.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Don't be a part of that. Ignore them, move on and leave them behind.
Yeah, because that worked so well in Germany in the 30s.
And the Democratic Party was supporting slavery in the 19th century — and still had a KKK "Grand Wizard" among it Senators until his recent death.
Whether it is "the same" or not, it is openly violent and favors the ever-increasing government control of the means of production. Which makes them very very Fascist.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I never said it wasn't coercion. But it can only be an act of STATISM if it's the STATE doing the punching.
And NEITHER of those things is fascism.
Fascism is NOT a word that means "statism" OR coercion. Those have FUCKALL to do with what the word means
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The government is bound to allow free speech. A corporation doesn't have to put up with things they find objectionable. There are other options for those pushing hate and GoDaddy is certainly in the right here.
This is one of those very tough cases, to be honest. I believe that a website disparaging a counterproster at a nazi protest is utterly repulsive, and I didn't see the website so I don't know if they were encouraging others to do the same (the article [yes, I read it] is unclear on the exact content), but for the sake of argument let's assume the site simply discussed their twisted agenda and said lots of very mean and repulsive things, but did not make an explicit call to violence.
GoDaddy does not want to host the site. Fine. Will Twitter allow them to keep an account? I mean, they seem to turn a blind eye toward ISIS, but they too are a private company and don't have to enforce their ToS evenly. Let's assume Amazon does the same thing and disallows them to use AWS, and let's also assume Google blacklists the domain from ever showing up on a web search, because 'a corporation doesn't have to put up with things they find objectionable'.
Will their ISP disconnect their account if they set up their own web server and point their domain toward their own self-hosted web server if the ISP finds their message objectionable?
Freedom of Speech has had two interrelated issues in the information age. The first is that even free speech was far more limited when it was 'a dude on a soapbox' vs. 'another dude on a soapbox', or more specifically, printing presses and 'a dude on a horse', because the distribution model was still far more limited than what we have today. Would the first amendment have been phrased differently if it was viable to foresee this very situation at that time? I don't know.
The second issue is what I dub 'the corporate abstraction layer'. The government can't do X, but a corporation can, and the government can compel a corporation to do X, so X is done. The government gets to point to the corporation to prove they didn't do it, the corporation gets to point to the government compelling them to do it, and thus there are few repercussions to either. The government is bound to allow free speech, of which 'posting on the internet' has been included as per a number of court decisions. However, every means of exercising that right, at some point, passes through a corporation which is not required to adhere to the first amendment if they sufficiently disagree with the content.
We now find ourselves in this problematic situation. I loathe everything this group stands for and sincerely wish they would all stop. However, I do believe they have a right to place their message on the internet. GoDaddy is in a pretty bad spot right now, because they can either stand for free speech by siding with a group that is highly unpopular in the court of public opinion. For them to do so would likely result in a boycott, mass domain migration, and no shortage of bad press. For them, it would be the worst possible hill to die on, especially since it gives them a better public standing to ban them. On the other hand, they have set a precedent of banning 'sufficiently unpopular speech', which nobody cares about 'now'. 'First they came for the neonazis'...
Thus, we have found ourselves in a place where free speech is no longer a right, but a privilege granted by some combination of actuarial tables, NSLs, and the court of public opinion. As terrible and abhorrent as these protesters are, it is this very type of situation for which the first amendment must be clearly defined in the 21st century, and a platform be given equally for unpopular ideas as popular ones.
Thank you Slashdot, for allowing me to post my unpopular opinion.
Are CBS journalists fascists now too? The problem with groups that condone violence against anyone, even people limited to some smaller group or part of the population, is that eventually the definition of that group will change and the lines will blur.