5 ms·

>Which, it probably goes without saying, should scare the shit out of anyone who cares about the principles of the free Internet. Service-providers giving the

by Bayart 6y ago

>Which, it probably goes without saying, should scare the shit out of anyone who cares about the principles of the free Internet. Service-providers giving the boot to « problematic » users is as far as I know as old as the Internet.

razius 6y ago
Problematic as in contrarian view?
thotsBgone 6y ago
Example?
- crisper78 6y ago
  I have about 30 examples, none of which will ever be shared on the Internet!
- cpach 6y ago
  For example, I know that Hezbollah had problems finding an ISP back in the 90s.
- d1zzy 6y ago
  When I worked at an ISP years back, if we had a DDOS attack against a customer the way we handled that was to drop all traffic incoming towards that customer's IP at our external peer level (meaning the bigger ISP we were getting most of the external Internet from). That was necessary so all of that DDOS traffic wasn't eating from the bandwidth available to all other customers that weren't being DDOS-ed. But it also meant that the DDOS-ed customer was losing all Internet access (which wasn't really much of a change considering that they were receiving a DDOS that filled all their allocated bandwidth). Repeat customers that would get DDOS too many times (cybercafes would fall into that category often) would have to either pay more to cover for the cost of the network engineers dealing with the DDOS or get the boot. From what I remember it's quite similar with many service providers, including hosting providers. Their TOS will allow them discretion to stop providing services to anyone that may negatively impact their business, it's not like there's any law that forces them to provide service to a customer.
- piyh 6y ago
  Goatse
- Bayart 6y ago
  Back when I was a kid the red-headed step children of the Internet were the warez, neo-nazi, « revolutionary » (read bomb-making), spam and snuff sites. I'm probably missing a few categories. And that's just the contentious stuff. There are things that even the most zealous free speech maniacs would have a hard time convincing themselves should be allowed even a modicum of publicity. Child porn is the most blatant one.
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    So you're literally using banning child porn to justify banning political discussion: exactly what free speech advocates predicted when censorship hit the internet.
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      Plotting the overthrow of the government isn't political speech
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- actaeon169 6y ago
  Although more complicated than just "provider bans speech", this was an interesting case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Technology_Center_v._Netcom_On-Line_Communication_Services,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Technology_Center_v.....
- simias 6y ago
  Everything to do with warez for one, even sites that didn't directly host IP-infringing content, would very often get the boot because it's a huge hassle for hosts to deal with the amount of trouble these websites generate.
gfodor 6y ago
Yes and it's always been contentious, and as the Internet integrates itself more and more into our lives, the questions about which layers of the network stack ought to follow which principles are worth continually focusing on.
- ekidd 6y ago
  I've been on the Internet since 1994, and it has always been the case that if you made a sufficiently odious pest of yourself over a long enough period of time, that someone would contact your university, employer or ISP, and you would lose your account, or at least your access to Usenet. You were always perfectly free to go find a new account elsewhere if anyone would have you. But there was always a point where if you passed far enough beyond socially acceptable behavior, your Internet provider might choose to stop doing business with you. This was especially true in the case of harassment, attacks on network infrastructure, and criminal behavior.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    Yes the "point where you passed far enough" is another way of saying there is contention, I'm not sure what your point is. If it was a zero or one state, there is no contention over it.
  - pedroma 6y ago
    This is why *chan websites have gotten so popular. Being anonymous in everything you post is refreshing. Short of posting illegal content, almost anything goes.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      "Refreshing" in the "great place to plan a coup" sense? Eventually they are going to find that there's a limit to how much violence you can incite before getting slapped down, legally or otherwise.
      - gfodor 6y ago
eplanit 6y ago
With "Problematic" being subjective, it is indeed scary.
gregmac 6y ago
It's as old as any "service" has existed, nevermind internet. If you go into a store or cafe and start shouting at the top of your lungs, the owner is free to refuse service, kick you out and/or even ban you from ever entering their store again. What's the difference between that store owner and an ISP? You're free to go to any other store that will have you, and is ok with your shouting. If it turns out there are no stores ok with it, whose problem is that? Should store owners be prohibited from refusing service to anyone, no matter what their behaviour? You can start your own store, so long as you can pay rent, have suppliers that will sell you goods, etc - but again, no one is obligated to do any of that. (I get there's protected classes that prevent discrimination based on things like age, gender, ethnicity, etc, but that's a separate issue, and tangential to their behaviour which is what we're discussing here.)
caeril 6y ago
That's not really true. The early-ish internet saw plenty of, say, communists peering with Hayek libertarians inside Exodus cages, and other such unexpected arrangements. You also had LUGs, lan parties, BBSs and IRC channels that had very diverse users, but tolerated, and even thrived on, offensive speech and trolls. The community's glue was love of the technology and the medium, with political, ethnic, or other tribal interests being anywhere from completely unimportant to secondary. Damn near every channel on 2010 EFNet or DALNet would be deemed in violation of most of 2020's TOS. To say nothing of mid-90s EFNet. Whoo-boy, the eggdrop bots logging those channels could get probably a thousand well-known, well-respected developers and network engineers working at FAANGs today fired, if someone took the time.
- gfodor 6y ago
  Not to mention many of us would be quick to identify the people in the logs as fucking crazy people, only to realize we're reading words written by our teenage selves.

by Bayart 6y ago

razius 6y ago

Problematic as in contrarian view?

thotsBgone 6y ago

Example?

crisper78 6y ago
I have about 30 examples, none of which will ever be shared on the Internet!
cpach 6y ago
For example, I know that Hezbollah had problems finding an ISP back in the 90s.
d1zzy 6y ago
When I worked at an ISP years back, if we had a DDOS attack against a customer the way we handled that was to drop all traffic incoming towards that customer's IP at our external peer level (meaning the bigger ISP we were getting most of the external Internet from). That was necessary so all of that DDOS traffic wasn't eating from the bandwidth available to all other customers that weren't being DDOS-ed. But it also meant that the DDOS-ed customer was losing all Internet access (which wasn't really much of a change considering that they were receiving a DDOS that filled all their allocated bandwidth). Repeat customers that would get DDOS too many times (cybercafes would fall into that category often) would have to either pay more to cover for the cost of the network engineers dealing with the DDOS or get the boot. From what I remember it's quite similar with many service providers, including hosting providers. Their TOS will allow them discretion to stop providing services to anyone that may negatively impact their business, it's not like there's any law that forces them to provide service to a customer.
piyh 6y ago
Goatse
Bayart 6y ago
Back when I was a kid the red-headed step children of the Internet were the warez, neo-nazi, « revolutionary » (read bomb-making), spam and snuff sites. I'm probably missing a few categories. And that's just the contentious stuff. There are things that even the most zealous free speech maniacs would have a hard time convincing themselves should be allowed even a modicum of publicity. Child porn is the most blatant one.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  So you're literally using banning child porn to justify banning political discussion: exactly what free speech advocates predicted when censorship hit the internet.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    Plotting the overthrow of the government isn't political speech
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
actaeon169 6y ago
Although more complicated than just "provider bans speech", this was an interesting case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Technology_Center_v._Netcom_On-Line_Communication_Services,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Technology_Center_v.....
simias 6y ago
Everything to do with warez for one, even sites that didn't directly host IP-infringing content, would very often get the boot because it's a huge hassle for hosts to deal with the amount of trouble these websites generate.

gfodor 6y ago

Yes and it's always been contentious, and as the Internet integrates itself more and more into our lives, the questions about which layers of the network stack ought to follow which principles are worth continually focusing on.

ekidd 6y ago
I've been on the Internet since 1994, and it has always been the case that if you made a sufficiently odious pest of yourself over a long enough period of time, that someone would contact your university, employer or ISP, and you would lose your account, or at least your access to Usenet. You were always perfectly free to go find a new account elsewhere if anyone would have you. But there was always a point where if you passed far enough beyond socially acceptable behavior, your Internet provider might choose to stop doing business with you. This was especially true in the case of harassment, attacks on network infrastructure, and criminal behavior.
- gfodor 6y ago
  Yes the "point where you passed far enough" is another way of saying there is contention, I'm not sure what your point is. If it was a zero or one state, there is no contention over it.
- pedroma 6y ago
  This is why *chan websites have gotten so popular. Being anonymous in everything you post is refreshing. Short of posting illegal content, almost anything goes.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    "Refreshing" in the "great place to plan a coup" sense? Eventually they are going to find that there's a limit to how much violence you can incite before getting slapped down, legally or otherwise.
    - gfodor 6y ago

eplanit 6y ago

With "Problematic" being subjective, it is indeed scary.

gregmac 6y ago

It's as old as any "service" has existed, nevermind internet. If you go into a store or cafe and start shouting at the top of your lungs, the owner is free to refuse service, kick you out and/or even ban you from ever entering their store again. What's the difference between that store owner and an ISP? You're free to go to any other store that will have you, and is ok with your shouting. If it turns out there are no stores ok with it, whose problem is that? Should store owners be prohibited from refusing service to anyone, no matter what their behaviour? You can start your own store, so long as you can pay rent, have suppliers that will sell you goods, etc - but again, no one is obligated to do any of that. (I get there's protected classes that prevent discrimination based on things like age, gender, ethnicity, etc, but that's a separate issue, and tangential to their behaviour which is what we're discussing here.)

caeril 6y ago

That's not really true. The early-ish internet saw plenty of, say, communists peering with Hayek libertarians inside Exodus cages, and other such unexpected arrangements. You also had LUGs, lan parties, BBSs and IRC channels that had very diverse users, but tolerated, and even thrived on, offensive speech and trolls. The community's glue was love of the technology and the medium, with political, ethnic, or other tribal interests being anywhere from completely unimportant to secondary. Damn near every channel on 2010 EFNet or DALNet would be deemed in violation of most of 2020's TOS. To say nothing of mid-90s EFNet. Whoo-boy, the eggdrop bots logging those channels could get probably a thousand well-known, well-respected developers and network engineers working at FAANGs today fired, if someone took the time.

gfodor 6y ago
Not to mention many of us would be quick to identify the people in the logs as fucking crazy people, only to realize we're reading words written by our teenage selves.