5 ms·

I think there is a distinction as far as the nature of the boycott, though it's not a clear line. Declining to buy from or work for a company is pretty much al

I think there is a distinction as far as the nature of the boycott, though it's not a clear line. Declining to buy from or work for a company is pretty much always justifiable. Refusing to provide customer-specific services/work (a rental crane, management consulting, etc.) is a more impactful move, but it's still basically a refusal to engage with the target, either by providing a limited resource or by being enabling their specific actions Refusing them non-scarce, non-specific transactions (e.g. buying lumber) is more extreme, and can become worrying in markets with little competition. Refusing content-agnostic services is the most extreme and hardest to justify action. These are things that don't connect to the nature of their boycott target, and which many people rely on continuous access to, so even when alternatives exist being forced to switch is actively damaging. We've seen it with DDoS protection, payment processing, and DNS support, but it becomes more vividly alarming if we imagine denying electricity or highway access to an unpopular business. This is why even as Cloudflare decided to shut down Stormfront, they publicly worried that it was a dangerous path to go down. Finally, I think the situation with payment processors is actually much worse than with DDoS protection, partway to providers of vital services like water and electricity. PayPal is not necessary for survival, but access to money essentially is. And the usual rationale of "you can't force us to deal with anyone else, go open a competitor" is compromised by the extremely tight regulation of payment processors. If PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard decide to shut someone down, there aren't many alternatives. And when we get into tightly-regulated businesses taking government-friendly actions that wouldn't be legal to demand directly (like blocking payments to Wikileaks), the situation gets even murkier...

magduf 7y ago
>but it becomes more vividly alarming if we imagine denying electricity or highway access to an unpopular business. This is why even as Cloudflare decided to shut down Stormfront, they publicly worried that it was a dangerous path to go down. I can understand their worry, but I think they did the right thing. If I owned a hosting service, I wouldn't provide services to people like that either. I don't want to be known as "the hosting company for neo-Nazis". If a service is so important that no one should be denied it, no matter how repulsive they are, then I think it's government's job to ensure those people receive that service. No one can really deny highway access to unpopular businesses; highways are owned and operated by the government. Electricity is a little different, because it's usually privately-owned but heavily regulated because it's a local monopoly in many places, so I imagine most regulations would forbid them from supplying power to unpopular customers. Internet hosting service, however, is not government-owned, nor a utility or monopoly in any way. There's countless providers all over the planet. Or you can just set up your own; you don't really have to host your website on a hosting service. People used to run their own webservers all the time. Physical internet access (your neighborhood ISP), however, is much more akin to the electric utility.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that I think Cloudflare was wrong. And given that they did the thing while worrying about the consequences, they clearly figured it was the right thing to do also. As far as the basic elements of life - utilities and travel access - it's good that they're effectively guaranteed neutrality by governments. Given that living without running water and power is illegal in much of the US, it's obviously not reasonable for the providers to cut people off at will. Hosting is certainly not any kind of right. Cloudflare's position is a bit different, because without DDoS protection an unpopular site will be permanently inaccessible - it's not just "go do it yourself" but "people who dislike you will effectively shut this down". Even there, though, you could plausibly find another provider or make an attempt to do it yourself. Internet access via ISPs is far more fundamental, which is why I don't mind Cloudflare's action but have serious objections to UK-style mandates that ISPs block certain content. I suppose my larger question is where the bounds lie on speech as a practical right. It's easy to say "we're not stopping your speech, just your ability to put up your own website". And in reality, hateful content similar to what Cloudflare targeted shows up on all sorts of other blogs, forums, etc. But "you can't have a site" is tantamount to "you can only say this if you find another private party willing to leave it on their site". When we look at physical equivalents, saying "you can publish these thoughts if a mainstream paper will take them, but you're not allowed to print zines" would obviously be illegal, so I'd object to government-ordered shutdowns. But "somebody took all your free zines out of the box and burned them" is probably fair game between private entities, and is a closer analogue to "no DDoS protection". Even more broadly than that, I think we have a pressing unsolved issue of private actions which are implicitly government-ordered. (This doesn't apply to the Cloudflare thing.) This was a big issue in the 1930/40s, with press and radio content being "managed" via the threat of IRS and antitrust investigations, but it was never actually resolved - practical changes just obviated the issue. Between TV consolidation, "safe harbor" laws, online payment processors, and large tech companies with strong government ties, that concern seems to be rising again.
  - magduf 7y ago
    >But "you can't have a site" is tantamount to "you can only say this if you find another private party willing to leave it on their site". This isn't really true though. Sure, not being able to find any hosting on the internet would mean no internet presence, but no one is stopping you from making a big sign and standing on a street corner, or using your PC and laser printer to print out a bunch of pamphlets full of your views. This is exactly what people did before the invention of electronic communications, and it worked. There's nothing in the 1A about free speech being easy or convenient or global in reach, just that the government can't pass a law abridging it.

magduf 7y ago

>but it becomes more vividly alarming if we imagine denying electricity or highway access to an unpopular business. This is why even as Cloudflare decided to shut down Stormfront, they publicly worried that it was a dangerous path to go down. I can understand their worry, but I think they did the right thing. If I owned a hosting service, I wouldn't provide services to people like that either. I don't want to be known as "the hosting company for neo-Nazis". If a service is so important that no one should be denied it, no matter how repulsive they are, then I think it's government's job to ensure those people receive that service. No one can really deny highway access to unpopular businesses; highways are owned and operated by the government. Electricity is a little different, because it's usually privately-owned but heavily regulated because it's a local monopoly in many places, so I imagine most regulations would forbid them from supplying power to unpopular customers. Internet hosting service, however, is not government-owned, nor a utility or monopoly in any way. There's countless providers all over the planet. Or you can just set up your own; you don't really have to host your website on a hosting service. People used to run their own webservers all the time. Physical internet access (your neighborhood ISP), however, is much more akin to the electric utility.

Bartweiss 7y ago
Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that I think Cloudflare was wrong. And given that they did the thing while worrying about the consequences, they clearly figured it was the right thing to do also. As far as the basic elements of life - utilities and travel access - it's good that they're effectively guaranteed neutrality by governments. Given that living without running water and power is illegal in much of the US, it's obviously not reasonable for the providers to cut people off at will. Hosting is certainly not any kind of right. Cloudflare's position is a bit different, because without DDoS protection an unpopular site will be permanently inaccessible - it's not just "go do it yourself" but "people who dislike you will effectively shut this down". Even there, though, you could plausibly find another provider or make an attempt to do it yourself. Internet access via ISPs is far more fundamental, which is why I don't mind Cloudflare's action but have serious objections to UK-style mandates that ISPs block certain content. I suppose my larger question is where the bounds lie on speech as a practical right. It's easy to say "we're not stopping your speech, just your ability to put up your own website". And in reality, hateful content similar to what Cloudflare targeted shows up on all sorts of other blogs, forums, etc. But "you can't have a site" is tantamount to "you can only say this if you find another private party willing to leave it on their site". When we look at physical equivalents, saying "you can publish these thoughts if a mainstream paper will take them, but you're not allowed to print zines" would obviously be illegal, so I'd object to government-ordered shutdowns. But "somebody took all your free zines out of the box and burned them" is probably fair game between private entities, and is a closer analogue to "no DDoS protection". Even more broadly than that, I think we have a pressing unsolved issue of private actions which are implicitly government-ordered. (This doesn't apply to the Cloudflare thing.) This was a big issue in the 1930/40s, with press and radio content being "managed" via the threat of IRS and antitrust investigations, but it was never actually resolved - practical changes just obviated the issue. Between TV consolidation, "safe harbor" laws, online payment processors, and large tech companies with strong government ties, that concern seems to be rising again.
- magduf 7y ago
  >But "you can't have a site" is tantamount to "you can only say this if you find another private party willing to leave it on their site". This isn't really true though. Sure, not being able to find any hosting on the internet would mean no internet presence, but no one is stopping you from making a big sign and standing on a street corner, or using your PC and laser printer to print out a bunch of pamphlets full of your views. This is exactly what people did before the invention of electronic communications, and it worked. There's nothing in the 1A about free speech being easy or convenient or global in reach, just that the government can't pass a law abridging it.