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Rackspace did the right thing. This is not a free speech issue since there are more articulate ways of expressing your dislike of some belief system without des

Rackspace did the right thing. This is not a free speech issue since there are more articulate ways of expressing your dislike of some belief system without desecrating objects that a certain group considers valuable.

tptacek 16y ago
No, it's not a "free speech issue" because you have no right under the Constitution to post whatever you'd like on Rackspace's private property, and the contract you enter into to post anything there specifically enjoins you from posting "harassing" or "hate" speech. Sorry to be pedantic, but people have weird ideas about what the 1st Amendment actually means. "Congress shall make no law" does not mean "Rackspace shall make no rule".
- rbanffy 16y ago
  In other words, you have no free speech on the internet because all the routers, wires, servers, links, modems are the property of their owners and they are free to censor whatever you post as long as they have sufficiently ambiguous clauses on their contracts that may or may not involve you as a part. How far can you bend your constitution before it breaks?
  - tptacek 16y ago
    I demand the immediate use of your HN account to make fun of your understanding how how our Constitution works. Free speech.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      You have your own HN account and I will do nothing to prevent you from poking fun of whatever you want.
  - ax0n 16y ago
    You aren't contractually bound when you use bizarre routers and wires, but your ISP probably holds you to a similar agreement. Also, you can do whatever you want until you get shut down, but a court of law will see it from the contract side. You can feel free to say whatever you want using your own resources, but if you're using someone else's and they don't like what you're doing, then tough shit.
  - NateLawson 16y ago
    You have a good point that a private monopoly can ultimately limit public rights like free speech. If there's no alternative provider that is willing to host hate speech, you can't broadcast it in that form. I can think of three ways to provide for that: 1. Public servers, possibly sponsored by the govt 2. Regulation of Internet access run by private companies 3. Waiting for private competition to create such a space The first one worked well in the early days of the Internet. There were lots of rules against commercial use of publicly-funded computers but little content regulation. Despite what some may think about the govt, it has lost most times it has attempted to limit free speech. Regulation sort of works for railroads and telecom lines. Bell gets a monopoly on wiring but they have to provide access to disabled people, can't do discriminatory pricing, etc. The last one is least likely to succeed. I don't know of any private US company that advertises themselves as "no takedown unless required by court order". It seems there is little profit advantage in marginalized speech compared to the cost of defending against attacks on it. While it's good to see Ipredator and BayImg providing services with this kind of guarantee, the fact that such an effort only seems possible in Sweden should give us pause.
    - devicenull 16y ago
      https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ is one I can think of.
  - TWAndrews 16y ago
    Well, yes. One of the great things about the internet is that its regulation, as compared to other industries is relatively light. The flip side of that is that the government has little or no legal basis to ensure that people have a platform from which to speak.
- greenlblue 16y ago
  As good citizens of a country Rackspace personnel also abide by certain rules and one of those is abiding by the laws of the land. The US constitution is pretty explicit about limiting expression and free speech so I can see how it could be argued that this is a free speech issue but that was not the point I was making.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    "When operating a communications service, you must provide equal access to all views" is not one of the laws of the land. It isn't even a law that governs network television stations, and they run on spectrum borrowed from the people.
    - strlen 16y ago
      To be pedantic, according to Supreme Court, states can pass laws that extend the freedom of speech onto private property; some states e.g., California do so, but they target de-facto public spaces such as shopping centres, not servers in a rack: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Robins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Ro...
  - strlen 16y ago
    > As good citizens of a country Rackspace personnel also abide by certain rules and one of those is abiding by the laws of the land. The law of the land very explicitly says "Congress shall make no law restricting..." not "Rackspace shall shut down no website".
    - greenlblue 16y ago
      This is why people make a distinction between the spirit and the letter of the law. The point is that congress represents the people and if every private citizen starts censoring everything on their property well then technically congress is not limiting or restricting anything but you are left with a society that is devoid of any free speech.
- Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
  Supposing it was New York Time, sure something quite unimaginable, but supposing this web host decides to terminate their contract and no other host in the country would provide them with a hosting service, would that be an infringement of freedom of speech? Perhaps if we view it from the perspective of the black letter of the law, that is the constitution, the highest law of that country, it might not be an infringement. However freedom of speech goes beyond the constitution, it is a principle ingrained in our society and culture. To address your differences between private and public, a newspaper of course has no obligation to give him space in their platform, nor the television, but the internet is different. The former two are selective, the internet is free for all. If private bodies are able to go around policing the kind of content that is to be found on the net, the difference between them and the government is a mere technicality.
rbanffy 16y ago
So, free speech is only allowed for adequately articulate forms of expression, as judged by Rackspace management. No. This is a free speech issue. Those who feel offended are also free to burn bibles and desecrate whatever they feel proper. As much as we disagree with the book burning festival (it is a stupid thing to do and there are much more articulate ways to express disagreement with Islam), I find freedom of speech is a much more important issue than the sensitivities of religious groups.
- mx12 16y ago
  I would disagree. They signed the contract with rackspace that said they would abide by their polices and if they violated them, they would shut down the site. Nothing is stopping the church from hosting their own website.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    Can you sign off a right your constitution gives you?
    - tptacek 16y ago
      That's a nonsense question, because the Constitution doesn't give you the right to use Rackspace's computers in the first place. Rackspace owns them, and has the understandable perception that it's their choice how they get used, not 'rbanffy's.
      - bluesnowmonkey 16y ago
        Counter-example: You own a bookstore located in a mall -- leased space. The mall's managing company says you are no longer allowed to sell Bibles. Now I'll apply your logic. "The Constitution doesn't give you the right to use that mall space in the first place. The mall owns it, and has the understandable perception that it's their choice how it gets used, not yours." Hopefully you can see that something has gone wrong, regardless of legal compliance. Freedom is neither bestowed by a piece of paper nor by men with guns or gavels. It is a cultural trait manifest in our actions. We're not free unless we live like free people. Would you call yourself a musician if you had no instrument to play? How can you claim to have free speech, if your medium of communication is removed whenever you try to say something unpopular?

tptacek 16y ago

No, it's not a "free speech issue" because you have no right under the Constitution to post whatever you'd like on Rackspace's private property, and the contract you enter into to post anything there specifically enjoins you from posting "harassing" or "hate" speech. Sorry to be pedantic, but people have weird ideas about what the 1st Amendment actually means. "Congress shall make no law" does not mean "Rackspace shall make no rule".

rbanffy 16y ago
In other words, you have no free speech on the internet because all the routers, wires, servers, links, modems are the property of their owners and they are free to censor whatever you post as long as they have sufficiently ambiguous clauses on their contracts that may or may not involve you as a part. How far can you bend your constitution before it breaks?
- tptacek 16y ago
  I demand the immediate use of your HN account to make fun of your understanding how how our Constitution works. Free speech.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    You have your own HN account and I will do nothing to prevent you from poking fun of whatever you want.
- ax0n 16y ago
  You aren't contractually bound when you use bizarre routers and wires, but your ISP probably holds you to a similar agreement. Also, you can do whatever you want until you get shut down, but a court of law will see it from the contract side. You can feel free to say whatever you want using your own resources, but if you're using someone else's and they don't like what you're doing, then tough shit.
- NateLawson 16y ago
  You have a good point that a private monopoly can ultimately limit public rights like free speech. If there's no alternative provider that is willing to host hate speech, you can't broadcast it in that form. I can think of three ways to provide for that: 1. Public servers, possibly sponsored by the govt 2. Regulation of Internet access run by private companies 3. Waiting for private competition to create such a space The first one worked well in the early days of the Internet. There were lots of rules against commercial use of publicly-funded computers but little content regulation. Despite what some may think about the govt, it has lost most times it has attempted to limit free speech. Regulation sort of works for railroads and telecom lines. Bell gets a monopoly on wiring but they have to provide access to disabled people, can't do discriminatory pricing, etc. The last one is least likely to succeed. I don't know of any private US company that advertises themselves as "no takedown unless required by court order". It seems there is little profit advantage in marginalized speech compared to the cost of defending against attacks on it. While it's good to see Ipredator and BayImg providing services with this kind of guarantee, the fact that such an effort only seems possible in Sweden should give us pause.
  - devicenull 16y ago
    https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ is one I can think of.
- TWAndrews 16y ago
  Well, yes. One of the great things about the internet is that its regulation, as compared to other industries is relatively light. The flip side of that is that the government has little or no legal basis to ensure that people have a platform from which to speak.
greenlblue 16y ago
As good citizens of a country Rackspace personnel also abide by certain rules and one of those is abiding by the laws of the land. The US constitution is pretty explicit about limiting expression and free speech so I can see how it could be argued that this is a free speech issue but that was not the point I was making.
- tptacek 16y ago
  "When operating a communications service, you must provide equal access to all views" is not one of the laws of the land. It isn't even a law that governs network television stations, and they run on spectrum borrowed from the people.
  - strlen 16y ago
    To be pedantic, according to Supreme Court, states can pass laws that extend the freedom of speech onto private property; some states e.g., California do so, but they target de-facto public spaces such as shopping centres, not servers in a rack: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Robins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Ro...
- strlen 16y ago
  > As good citizens of a country Rackspace personnel also abide by certain rules and one of those is abiding by the laws of the land. The law of the land very explicitly says "Congress shall make no law restricting..." not "Rackspace shall shut down no website".
  - greenlblue 16y ago
    This is why people make a distinction between the spirit and the letter of the law. The point is that congress represents the people and if every private citizen starts censoring everything on their property well then technically congress is not limiting or restricting anything but you are left with a society that is devoid of any free speech.
Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
Supposing it was New York Time, sure something quite unimaginable, but supposing this web host decides to terminate their contract and no other host in the country would provide them with a hosting service, would that be an infringement of freedom of speech? Perhaps if we view it from the perspective of the black letter of the law, that is the constitution, the highest law of that country, it might not be an infringement. However freedom of speech goes beyond the constitution, it is a principle ingrained in our society and culture. To address your differences between private and public, a newspaper of course has no obligation to give him space in their platform, nor the television, but the internet is different. The former two are selective, the internet is free for all. If private bodies are able to go around policing the kind of content that is to be found on the net, the difference between them and the government is a mere technicality.

rbanffy 16y ago

So, free speech is only allowed for adequately articulate forms of expression, as judged by Rackspace management. No. This is a free speech issue. Those who feel offended are also free to burn bibles and desecrate whatever they feel proper. As much as we disagree with the book burning festival (it is a stupid thing to do and there are much more articulate ways to express disagreement with Islam), I find freedom of speech is a much more important issue than the sensitivities of religious groups.

mx12 16y ago
I would disagree. They signed the contract with rackspace that said they would abide by their polices and if they violated them, they would shut down the site. Nothing is stopping the church from hosting their own website.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  Can you sign off a right your constitution gives you?
  - tptacek 16y ago
    That's a nonsense question, because the Constitution doesn't give you the right to use Rackspace's computers in the first place. Rackspace owns them, and has the understandable perception that it's their choice how they get used, not 'rbanffy's.
    - bluesnowmonkey 16y ago
      Counter-example: You own a bookstore located in a mall -- leased space. The mall's managing company says you are no longer allowed to sell Bibles. Now I'll apply your logic. "The Constitution doesn't give you the right to use that mall space in the first place. The mall owns it, and has the understandable perception that it's their choice how it gets used, not yours." Hopefully you can see that something has gone wrong, regardless of legal compliance. Freedom is neither bestowed by a piece of paper nor by men with guns or gavels. It is a cultural trait manifest in our actions. We're not free unless we live like free people. Would you call yourself a musician if you had no instrument to play? How can you claim to have free speech, if your medium of communication is removed whenever you try to say something unpopular?