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The posts in question are frankly pretty awful, but this does kind of put the lie to the idea that if you don't like FaceGoogleBook's censorship you can just se
by makomk 8y ago
The posts in question are frankly pretty awful, but this does kind of put the lie to the idea that if you don't like FaceGoogleBook's censorship you can just set up your own website.
- smt88 8y agoThere are literally thousands of hosts other than Azure. Worst-case scenario, they could run their own servers or use a colocation service.
- zokier 8y ago"Worst-case scenario" for them would be datacenters and colo providers refusing them service. They have ToS too, as does their network providers.
- lainga 8y agoWell, they kind of shot themselves in the foot by leaving big social media platforms... for a big server hosting platform. If they wanted to go Henry David Thoreau on the corporate internet, why didn't they buy physical equipment?
- SteveNuts 8y agoNo matter where they end up hosting they'll most likely be breaking some ToS of either their colo or ISP.
- Someguywhatever 8y agoIt's ToS violations all the way down
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- awakeasleep 8y agoIn your scenario, are the datacenters and ISPs immune to political pressure?
- dragonwriter 8y agoWell, if we had net neutrality, the ISPs would be legally mandated to be content neutral; you can, of course, run your own data center. EDIT: It may not be cheap, but the “free” in free press is libre, not gratis.
- lainga 8y agoMaybe not, but there are a much more diverse set of ISPs in different countries than there are cloud-hosting providers. We know that some of them are looser with what they will or won't enforce as long as you keep paying them. Can you imagine all those spammers from Bulgarian ISPs hosting their C&C servers on Azure? I'm not saying there's a bulletproof-safe way for Gab, or any other site for that matter, to host - what if Trump slips Comcast $20 and a caramel tomorrow and tells them to bucket CNN traffic? - but there are certain choices which are obviously more risky than others.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y agoWell you can host your own website on your own server. Of course, I do wonder how far this goes. What happens if the DNS server refuses to host the IP lookup? Host your own DNS server? What if the browsers refuse to allow access to the site? Build your own browser? What if ISPs refuse to transfer the data over the wire? Make your own internet? People have defended that this vs. Net Neutrality (at least the extent of the ability of an ISP to control what goes over its wires) as having a core difference, but it feels to me they are closer than people realize and the standards set by one can influence the other.
- cm2187 8y agoAnd like for everything else, first a precedent is created with an indefensible case of terrorism/pedophilia/neo-nazism, then the rule gets progressively applied more broadly.
- gamblor956 8y agoOr, in the real world, cases like these actually reinforce the applicability of legal rights. Because in the real world, judges are able to protect the rights of pedophiles and neo-nazis while also upholding the laws against child pornography and hate crimes. In fact, a fair number of modern legal rights were established in cases involving fairly heinous defendants. For example: in recent decades, a lot of non-political free speech cases involve pornography or hate speech. [Note: terrorism is different because nationality matters. Domestic terrorists get the benefit of their constitutional rights, foreign terrorists do not, especially if said foreigners have renounced the citizenship (and thus protections) of another state. This is why Guantanamo was legally defensible, if morally reprehensible.]
- DanAndersen 8y agoThe main difference we are seeing in this new world of large tech companies is that the role of the "judge" is diminished. Groups figure out the fine lines on which to make judgment, but only as a matter of internal company policy, behind closed doors, which none of us get to have a say in or even read the guidelines. When a judge sentences you to prison, you know pretty well exactly what sentence of which law was the one that did it. When deplatformed from these private-but-ever-growing services, vague "ToS violations" is the best you get. Very easy for "rule of law" to become "rule of man."
- bearcobra 8y agoThe continued existence of Stormfront seems like a pretty strong rebuttal.
- fooey 8y agothey keep getting kicked off all the tlds even .ru revoked their domain
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- NTDF9 8y agoWould you be ok is an islamic terrorist group threatens the west using Microsoft's services?
- superioritycplx 8y agoISIS is pretty much running unchecked on twitter.