6 ms·

So, if you go to some business and shit on the floor, maybe we can ban you from the business, the roads that reach said business, ban you from public transporta

So, if you go to some business and shit on the floor, maybe we can ban you from the business, the roads that reach said business, ban you from public transportation, ban you for owning a car, bicycle, motorcycle and maybe ban you from owning property. That will show you!

ceejayoz 6y ago
It is disingenuous to conflate "banned from private companies" with "banned from public utilities". They're vastly different on a legal level.
- umvi 6y ago
  There is a strong argument that a lot of currently private companies ought to be reclassified as public utilities. Like ISPs, for example.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Nationalizing Cloudflare seems like a bigger Constitutional crisis than private organizations choosing not to do business with the Proud Boys.
    - umvi 6y ago
      I was thinking more Comcast and other ISPs. I could easily see Twitter mobs pressuring Comcast to knock a self-hosted server offline if the server is hosting something the Twitter mob doesn't like.
      - root_axis 6y ago
        Self-hosted servers are already against Comcast TOS, they tolerate them for casual use but any significant traffic is going to result in a service interruption.
        umvi 6y ago
        How does one self host their own online speech then? Whatever your answer is, that thing should not be controlled by a private company.
        root_axis 6y ago
        > How does one self host their own online speech then Pay for hosting. > that thing should not be controlled by a private company How would this be possible in a capitalist country?
        umvi 6y ago
        > Pay for hosting. And what's to stop whichever company is hosting me from dropping hosting at the first whiff of a Twitter mob? > How would this be possible in a capitalist country? So you are saying free speech on the internet is incompatible with a capitalist economy?
        root_axis 6y ago
        > And what's to stop whichever company is hosting me from dropping hosting at the first whiff of a Twitter mob? Money that you pay them for the service. This is almost always enough since that's all any of these companies actually care about. There are very rare exceptions where high-profile nazi groups have had their service contracts rescinded, but this isn't a real problem in practice. Nobody is having their service contract rescinded because their website is made up of conservatives, which is usually the implied subtext in these discussions. > So you are saying free speech on the internet is incompatible with a capitalist economy? No. I'm asking you how you envision people owning their own websites without any private companies involved, in an economy built around the concepts of corporate ownership.
        umvi 6y ago
        > Money that you pay them for the service. This is almost always enough since that's all any of these companies actually care about. "almost always" is not a guarantee of free speech. > There are very rare exceptions where high-profile nazi groups have had their service contracts rescinded, but this isn't a real problem in practice. ...yet. What is "very rare" today can become "more common" tomorrow if there aren't strong legal protections. > No. I'm asking you how you envision people owning their own websites without any private companies involved, in an economy built around the concepts of corporate ownership. IANAL, but clearly there needs to be stronger legal protections in this arena. My ISP should not be able to disconnect me from the internet on the basis of speech. They should be like a utility company. My power company can't disconnect my electricity if I use the electricity to charge batteries for a megaphone that I then use to spread hate speech. My ISP/server host should be the same. Charge me for the compute resources I use, do not attempt to disconnect my service on moral or ethical grounds. Leave that to a higher layer in the stack.
      - kitteh 6y ago
        Or ddosing a site offline. Remember that only a handful of companies today have the infrastructure to handle large attacks.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  Yes, they are vastly different on a legal level. Still, I think the parent comment's analogy is very valid. AFAIK I don't know any instances of, say, car companies refusing to sell a car to the KKK or some other neo-Nazi group, and I think a lot of people would be very uneasy if all your purchases, even from private companies, were vetted based on your political ideology. To clarify, I don't think that's what's happening in this instance (as others have noted this looks like a set of pretty standard KYC questions), but I think it's very fair to ask why we think certain company behaviors that would be pretty unacceptable in the physical world should be acceptable in the online world.
  - albedoa 6y ago
    > AFAIK I don't know any instances of, say, car companies refusing to sell a car to the KKK or some other neo-Nazi group Okay. Did you limit your research to car companies? Private businesses can and do deny service to the KKK.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    We always look at who our prospects are and if they are unethical then we will be more than happy to deny them service. It's happened a couple of times now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
glasss 6y ago
Doesn't sound too far off from sending people to jail if they break the rules of their society. Difference being that holding certain beliefs isn't illegal, at least not yet in America, so society throws in what you might consider a "civil jail". Also let's not pretend that these people's rights are getting unfairly stripped from them - they are not entitled to accessing any of these services. Further, it's not like they are banned from all these things, it's more like not letting them on stage during an open mic night - they can still browse all aspects of the internet.

ceejayoz 6y ago

It is disingenuous to conflate "banned from private companies" with "banned from public utilities". They're vastly different on a legal level.

umvi 6y ago
There is a strong argument that a lot of currently private companies ought to be reclassified as public utilities. Like ISPs, for example.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  Nationalizing Cloudflare seems like a bigger Constitutional crisis than private organizations choosing not to do business with the Proud Boys.
  - umvi 6y ago
    I was thinking more Comcast and other ISPs. I could easily see Twitter mobs pressuring Comcast to knock a self-hosted server offline if the server is hosting something the Twitter mob doesn't like.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      Self-hosted servers are already against Comcast TOS, they tolerate them for casual use but any significant traffic is going to result in a service interruption.
      - umvi 6y ago
        How does one self host their own online speech then? Whatever your answer is, that thing should not be controlled by a private company.
        root_axis 6y ago
        > How does one self host their own online speech then Pay for hosting. > that thing should not be controlled by a private company How would this be possible in a capitalist country?
        umvi 6y ago
        > Pay for hosting. And what's to stop whichever company is hosting me from dropping hosting at the first whiff of a Twitter mob? > How would this be possible in a capitalist country? So you are saying free speech on the internet is incompatible with a capitalist economy?
        root_axis 6y ago
        > And what's to stop whichever company is hosting me from dropping hosting at the first whiff of a Twitter mob? Money that you pay them for the service. This is almost always enough since that's all any of these companies actually care about. There are very rare exceptions where high-profile nazi groups have had their service contracts rescinded, but this isn't a real problem in practice. Nobody is having their service contract rescinded because their website is made up of conservatives, which is usually the implied subtext in these discussions. > So you are saying free speech on the internet is incompatible with a capitalist economy? No. I'm asking you how you envision people owning their own websites without any private companies involved, in an economy built around the concepts of corporate ownership.
        umvi 6y ago
        > Money that you pay them for the service. This is almost always enough since that's all any of these companies actually care about. "almost always" is not a guarantee of free speech. > There are very rare exceptions where high-profile nazi groups have had their service contracts rescinded, but this isn't a real problem in practice. ...yet. What is "very rare" today can become "more common" tomorrow if there aren't strong legal protections. > No. I'm asking you how you envision people owning their own websites without any private companies involved, in an economy built around the concepts of corporate ownership. IANAL, but clearly there needs to be stronger legal protections in this arena. My ISP should not be able to disconnect me from the internet on the basis of speech. They should be like a utility company. My power company can't disconnect my electricity if I use the electricity to charge batteries for a megaphone that I then use to spread hate speech. My ISP/server host should be the same. Charge me for the compute resources I use, do not attempt to disconnect my service on moral or ethical grounds. Leave that to a higher layer in the stack.
    - kitteh 6y ago
      Or ddosing a site offline. Remember that only a handful of companies today have the infrastructure to handle large attacks.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
Yes, they are vastly different on a legal level. Still, I think the parent comment's analogy is very valid. AFAIK I don't know any instances of, say, car companies refusing to sell a car to the KKK or some other neo-Nazi group, and I think a lot of people would be very uneasy if all your purchases, even from private companies, were vetted based on your political ideology. To clarify, I don't think that's what's happening in this instance (as others have noted this looks like a set of pretty standard KYC questions), but I think it's very fair to ask why we think certain company behaviors that would be pretty unacceptable in the physical world should be acceptable in the online world.
- albedoa 6y ago
  > AFAIK I don't know any instances of, say, car companies refusing to sell a car to the KKK or some other neo-Nazi group Okay. Did you limit your research to car companies? Private businesses can and do deny service to the KKK.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  We always look at who our prospects are and if they are unethical then we will be more than happy to deny them service. It's happened a couple of times now.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

glasss 6y ago

Doesn't sound too far off from sending people to jail if they break the rules of their society. Difference being that holding certain beliefs isn't illegal, at least not yet in America, so society throws in what you might consider a "civil jail". Also let's not pretend that these people's rights are getting unfairly stripped from them - they are not entitled to accessing any of these services. Further, it's not like they are banned from all these things, it's more like not letting them on stage during an open mic night - they can still browse all aspects of the internet.