4 ms·

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it was because of bad user-contributed content. This problem happens a lot with reddit competitors whose selling point

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it was because of bad user-contributed content. This problem happens a lot with reddit competitors whose selling point is they don't "censor" (e.g. Voat). What happens is the people who are so extreme they got banned from reddit end up on your platform, and these people are generally pretty terrible. Next thing you know you're hosting a predominantly far right racist discussion forum and your hosting provider wants nothing to do with you.

thu2111 6y ago
It's because these firms are controlled by people who wish to wipe out any opposition to their agenda. Calling anything they delete racist or sexist is simply a smear tactic. In this case Heroku didn't even bother with that: as the article states, no reason for the sudden termination was given, which appears to violate their own ToS. Opening the front page of Ruqqus shows a lot of content actually objecting to racism, for instance, this post: https://ruqqus.com/post/31lq/their-goal https://ruqqus.com/post/31lq/their-goal which highlights and objects to a tweet that says: "Why should there be a place for white people in our better world? As long as white people are around, they will continue to make our better world impossible. BIPOCS are the ones who are in this together. White people are not welcome or needed." This kind of racist rhetoric is rampant and easily found on places like Twitter or Reddit. Scrolling through the content on the Ruqqus front page I didn't see any racism. I did see a lot of angry posts about BLM-linked violence and anti-white racism, but that's the sort of thing people are theoretically meant to be angry about, isn't it?
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  The first comment on that link is literally "I'm not really sure how much more whites need to figure out their genocide is in progress." If you're trying to make the argument that this is somehow objecting to racism, then you've simultaneously managed to shoot yourself in both feet. This is literally bog standard Neo-Nazi white supremacist conspiracy theory propaganda that you've linked to. If anything it proves why Heroku wants nothing to do with this site.
ecmascript 6y ago
Maybe, most likely true. But either way I think it's pretty noteworthy that a big hosting provider like Heroku can't give them a heads up. I don't agree with most stuff that is being posted there, but the same goes with Reddit or Twitter. It is true that there are a lot of communities there that came there because they were banned from Reddit but that doesn't really make all of the communities bad even if there is a lot of shitty stuff up voted to the front page. This can happen with any app even if it's more unlikely.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  I've been enough on the insides of these kind of decisions in the past to know that it's very much lawyer and PR-driven, and that the right thing to do from those perspectives is to terminate the relationship as quickly as possible. If you give lots of lead time then you're just creating a festering sore for yourself and giving the other party time to mobilize against you. It's better for it to be a fait accompli with minimal notice given, so that the other party immediately focuses on moving on rather than trying to mobilize to reverse the decision. It's definitely not good for the company caught on the receiving end of such a decision, of course, but the hosting company is optimizing for themselves, as all companies are inherently selfish. And given how much racist garbage Ruqqus is hosting, I don't think Heroku cares too much about any hardship incurred.

thu2111 6y ago

It's because these firms are controlled by people who wish to wipe out any opposition to their agenda. Calling anything they delete racist or sexist is simply a smear tactic. In this case Heroku didn't even bother with that: as the article states, no reason for the sudden termination was given, which appears to violate their own ToS. Opening the front page of Ruqqus shows a lot of content actually objecting to racism, for instance, this post: https://ruqqus.com/post/31lq/their-goal https://ruqqus.com/post/31lq/their-goal which highlights and objects to a tweet that says: "Why should there be a place for white people in our better world? As long as white people are around, they will continue to make our better world impossible. BIPOCS are the ones who are in this together. White people are not welcome or needed." This kind of racist rhetoric is rampant and easily found on places like Twitter or Reddit. Scrolling through the content on the Ruqqus front page I didn't see any racism. I did see a lot of angry posts about BLM-linked violence and anti-white racism, but that's the sort of thing people are theoretically meant to be angry about, isn't it?

CydeWeys 6y ago
The first comment on that link is literally "I'm not really sure how much more whites need to figure out their genocide is in progress." If you're trying to make the argument that this is somehow objecting to racism, then you've simultaneously managed to shoot yourself in both feet. This is literally bog standard Neo-Nazi white supremacist conspiracy theory propaganda that you've linked to. If anything it proves why Heroku wants nothing to do with this site.

ecmascript 6y ago

Maybe, most likely true. But either way I think it's pretty noteworthy that a big hosting provider like Heroku can't give them a heads up. I don't agree with most stuff that is being posted there, but the same goes with Reddit or Twitter. It is true that there are a lot of communities there that came there because they were banned from Reddit but that doesn't really make all of the communities bad even if there is a lot of shitty stuff up voted to the front page. This can happen with any app even if it's more unlikely.

CydeWeys 6y ago
I've been enough on the insides of these kind of decisions in the past to know that it's very much lawyer and PR-driven, and that the right thing to do from those perspectives is to terminate the relationship as quickly as possible. If you give lots of lead time then you're just creating a festering sore for yourself and giving the other party time to mobilize against you. It's better for it to be a fait accompli with minimal notice given, so that the other party immediately focuses on moving on rather than trying to mobilize to reverse the decision. It's definitely not good for the company caught on the receiving end of such a decision, of course, but the hosting company is optimizing for themselves, as all companies are inherently selfish. And given how much racist garbage Ruqqus is hosting, I don't think Heroku cares too much about any hardship incurred.