8 ms·

I buy this argument as the law currently stands, but this is also such a moral double standard (Colorado bakery for instance). Also, how far do we go with this

I buy this argument as the law currently stands, but this is also such a moral double standard (Colorado bakery for instance). Also, how far do we go with this reasoning? Stripe and PayPal refuse service so they're supposed to "Go build their own" (it costs billions to create a new service like stripe or PayPal that can compare). AWS shut you down? Build your own data center... (Again, costs millions or billions). What if next Intel or AMD decides to not sell you processors? Go build your own fab and develop your own hardware? What if the silicon miners won't sell you silicon, are you now supposed to go build your own mine? The issue isn't that companies have a right to do it, it's that there are no viables alternatives to these large duopolies, and that "creating your own" is not an alternative. What happens if the party in power next decides to attack religious organizations who congregate during that pandemic with the same type of concerted de-platforming? What if it's people who advocate against raising taxes who are next as deemed "morally corrupt"? It's not hard to imagine this type of anti competitive, semi-concerted effort to de platform a new company being targeted at other things in the future. We need laws to catch up to our modern society and either break up the monopolies or put a lot more protections around the types of discrimination that are illegal, which should include political affiliation (this is law in California for employment discrimination so it's not that far fetched of an idea).

kayodelycaon 6y ago
For the article in question, they are banning someone who blatantly committed criminal acts against the state. Literally an attempt by the president to overthrow the government. Treason is a crime that's enforceable with a death penalty.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  For someone with such deep knowledge of the law you surely must know that a person can be considered a criminal only after being convicted by a court. So in this case the punishment was carried out based on allegations only.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    They weren't criminal punishments. They were enforcements of ToS agreements. There's no need for an arrest, a conviction, or even a crime for them to ban users who violate ToS agreements. And, it being their own ToS, they don't need a court or any 3rd party to render judgment: they are the arbiter and interpreter of their own ToS and the enforcement actions taken.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
      Yeah yeah those ToS, the new founding document of the United States of America. One little warning from someone living in a real fascist state (Russia). It wasn't always a fascist state, but when it began to morph into one, censorship what what they started with. Of course, it was legal, because it was all private companies, rightfully executing their liberty to not show anyone they don't like... The rich irony, of course, is that regular fascist masses that support government are brainwashed to think, they it is the marginalized opposition who are fascists.
      - ineedasername 6y ago
        So the government should instead step in and decide what companies can and can't do with their own services & infrastructure? That sounds a lot more fascist to me than a company saying, up front, "Here's the rules for using our service. Violate them and you can take your business elsewhere." And considering the ToS citations were I service of a potentially criminal act, fascism doesn't enter the picture: This is as much about these companies' own legal liability if they allow their platform to facilitate potential criminal activity even though it's against their own rules.
        Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
        > Violate them and you can take your business elsewhere. Here, I fixed it for you: Violate them, and if you are not someone whose political views we support, you can take your business elsewhere.
- j8hn 6y ago
  Can you substantiate your claims?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
darkwizard42 6y ago
Actually I think you might have the Colorado case misrepresented here. The baker was ruled in favor due to objecting based on his religious beliefs. Part of this was that he was okay with baking a cake for the gay couple but NOT one that had certain messaging that would violate his faith. [1] If the baker had altogether refused to bake a cake for the gay couple, it would have been discrimination on a protected class. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/masterpiece-colorado-gay-marriage-cake-supreme-court/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/masterpiece-colorado...
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The baker was ruled in favor due to objecting based on his religious beliefs. No, he was ruled in favor of because the US Supreme Court found anti-religious animus in the enforcement process leading to the State ruling against him. > Part of this was that he was okay with baking a cake for the gay couple but NOT one that had certain messaging that would violate his faith. No, it wasn't. The decision specifically notes that he objected to being required to make cakes for same sex weddings entirely, on both free speech and free exercise of religion grounds [0], not that he was willing to do so dependent on messaging, so any such willingness he might have had was not a basis of the decision. Instead, the Court found animus toward Phillips’ religious views by the state commission that found against him, both expressed in the process and evidenced through difference in how Phillips was treated vs. other bakers in similar cases before the same Commission, which mean that whether or not the law could otherwise have been enforced against him, the specific government act had an impermissible purpose, requiring it to be struck down. [1] Note: All quotes from Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. ___ (2018) [0] “Phillips raised two constitutional claims before the ALJ. He first asserted that applying CADA in a way that would require him to create a cake for a same-sex wedding would violate his First Amendment right to free speech by compelling him to exercise his artistic talents to express a message with which he disagreed. [...] Phillips also contended that requiring him to create cakes for same-sex weddings would violate his right to the free exercise of religion, also protected by the First Amendment.” [1] “The official expressions of hostility to religion in some of the commissioners’ comments—comments that were not disavowed at the Commission or by the State at any point in the proceedings that led to affirmance of the order—were inconsistent with what the Free Exercise Clause requires. The Commission’s disparate consideration of Phillips’ case compared to the cases of the other bakers suggests the same. For these reasons, the order must be set aside.”
ineedasername 6y ago
I don't see how it's anti competetive. The free market advocates on HN would say that other people will create other companies and gain the market share current companies have turned down. Or that existing niche companies will find an expanded market serving them. It's also important to note that companies aren't cutting ties with Trump because of his political ideology, they're cutting ties with him because there's a strong argument he broke the law, and they don't want to be in the awkward position of facilitating that, especially as it could open them to their own legal liability.
- imperio59 6y ago
  We could say there is a strong argument Joe Biden and his family broke the law, and indeed there's a criminal investigation into Hunter and associates. However not only did all the big tech companies not withdraw support for Biden or prevent his campaign from using their apps, they doubled down and censored the story so most voters would not hear of it before the elections. Again, big double standards at play here from a moral sense. The larger issue here is that the internet really isn't so decentralized as it used to be. There's like 10-20 major companies that control the majority of services people use, or the underlying infrastructure that powers the whole internet. This goes against the original design of the internet which meant it to be fully decentralized so no single entity or small set of entities could prevent the flow of information. We should try to go back in that direction, either through competition and free markets or by enforcing it via existing or new regulations to prevent situations like this from ever happening again.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    The Hunter Biden conspiracy has been debunked dozens of times over. That’s why the companies haven’t withdrawn support for his family. Trump, OTOH, has pushed the boundaries of acceptable his entire presidency, and has almost certainly broken the law in the process many time.
    - thrwawy12345 6y ago
      Do you happen to have a link or other source to this debunking?
nobody9999 6y ago
>What happens if the party in power next decides to attack religious organizations who congregate during that pandemic with the same type of concerted de-platforming? I didn't realize that Stripe's actions were due to a government order. Probably because they weren't. You're conflating a private organization's decisions with government action. If the government were to attempt do as you suggest, the courts would slap them down hard.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  It has happened before and recently too, so it wouldn't be exactly be shocking. Sneaked in with other stuff, they told the banks to fuck with sellers of Tobacco, Porn and Drug paraphernalia. > Operation Choke Point was a 2013 initiative of the United States Department of Justice[1] which investigated banks in the United States and the business they did with firearm dealers, payday lenders, and other companies believed to be at a high risk for fraud and money laundering. > This operation, disclosed in an August 2013 Wall Street Journal story,[2] was officially ended in August 2017,[3] and the FDIC settled multiple lawsuits by promising to Congress additional training for its examiners and to cease issuing "informal" and "unwritten suggestions" to banks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    I said: >If the government were to attempt do as you suggest, the courts would slap them down hard. The issues around Operation Choke Point[0] that you linked to were investigated by Congress and the Department of Justice and, as I said, smacked down hard. The above isn't analogous to the current situation, but the result was exactly as I said it would be. Thanks for making my point for me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
    - nullc 6y ago
      Some elements of Operation Choke point were shut down hard, others never even got enough due process to see their day in court. We recently made the prime actors of one of these initiatives the vice president. ( https://reason.com/2019/08/26/secret-memos-show-the-government-has-been-lying-about-backpage/ https://reason.com/2019/08/26/secret-memos-show-the-governme... )

kayodelycaon 6y ago

For the article in question, they are banning someone who blatantly committed criminal acts against the state. Literally an attempt by the president to overthrow the government. Treason is a crime that's enforceable with a death penalty.

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
For someone with such deep knowledge of the law you surely must know that a person can be considered a criminal only after being convicted by a court. So in this case the punishment was carried out based on allegations only.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  They weren't criminal punishments. They were enforcements of ToS agreements. There's no need for an arrest, a conviction, or even a crime for them to ban users who violate ToS agreements. And, it being their own ToS, they don't need a court or any 3rd party to render judgment: they are the arbiter and interpreter of their own ToS and the enforcement actions taken.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    Yeah yeah those ToS, the new founding document of the United States of America. One little warning from someone living in a real fascist state (Russia). It wasn't always a fascist state, but when it began to morph into one, censorship what what they started with. Of course, it was legal, because it was all private companies, rightfully executing their liberty to not show anyone they don't like... The rich irony, of course, is that regular fascist masses that support government are brainwashed to think, they it is the marginalized opposition who are fascists.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      So the government should instead step in and decide what companies can and can't do with their own services & infrastructure? That sounds a lot more fascist to me than a company saying, up front, "Here's the rules for using our service. Violate them and you can take your business elsewhere." And considering the ToS citations were I service of a potentially criminal act, fascism doesn't enter the picture: This is as much about these companies' own legal liability if they allow their platform to facilitate potential criminal activity even though it's against their own rules.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
        > Violate them and you can take your business elsewhere. Here, I fixed it for you: Violate them, and if you are not someone whose political views we support, you can take your business elsewhere.
j8hn 6y ago
Can you substantiate your claims?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

darkwizard42 6y ago

Actually I think you might have the Colorado case misrepresented here. The baker was ruled in favor due to objecting based on his religious beliefs. Part of this was that he was okay with baking a cake for the gay couple but NOT one that had certain messaging that would violate his faith. [1] If the baker had altogether refused to bake a cake for the gay couple, it would have been discrimination on a protected class. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/masterpiece-colorado-gay-marriage-cake-supreme-court/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/politics/masterpiece-colorado...

dragonwriter 6y ago
> The baker was ruled in favor due to objecting based on his religious beliefs. No, he was ruled in favor of because the US Supreme Court found anti-religious animus in the enforcement process leading to the State ruling against him. > Part of this was that he was okay with baking a cake for the gay couple but NOT one that had certain messaging that would violate his faith. No, it wasn't. The decision specifically notes that he objected to being required to make cakes for same sex weddings entirely, on both free speech and free exercise of religion grounds [0], not that he was willing to do so dependent on messaging, so any such willingness he might have had was not a basis of the decision. Instead, the Court found animus toward Phillips’ religious views by the state commission that found against him, both expressed in the process and evidenced through difference in how Phillips was treated vs. other bakers in similar cases before the same Commission, which mean that whether or not the law could otherwise have been enforced against him, the specific government act had an impermissible purpose, requiring it to be struck down. [1] Note: All quotes from Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. ___ (2018) [0] “Phillips raised two constitutional claims before the ALJ. He first asserted that applying CADA in a way that would require him to create a cake for a same-sex wedding would violate his First Amendment right to free speech by compelling him to exercise his artistic talents to express a message with which he disagreed. [...] Phillips also contended that requiring him to create cakes for same-sex weddings would violate his right to the free exercise of religion, also protected by the First Amendment.” [1] “The official expressions of hostility to religion in some of the commissioners’ comments—comments that were not disavowed at the Commission or by the State at any point in the proceedings that led to affirmance of the order—were inconsistent with what the Free Exercise Clause requires. The Commission’s disparate consideration of Phillips’ case compared to the cases of the other bakers suggests the same. For these reasons, the order must be set aside.”

ineedasername 6y ago

I don't see how it's anti competetive. The free market advocates on HN would say that other people will create other companies and gain the market share current companies have turned down. Or that existing niche companies will find an expanded market serving them. It's also important to note that companies aren't cutting ties with Trump because of his political ideology, they're cutting ties with him because there's a strong argument he broke the law, and they don't want to be in the awkward position of facilitating that, especially as it could open them to their own legal liability.

imperio59 6y ago
We could say there is a strong argument Joe Biden and his family broke the law, and indeed there's a criminal investigation into Hunter and associates. However not only did all the big tech companies not withdraw support for Biden or prevent his campaign from using their apps, they doubled down and censored the story so most voters would not hear of it before the elections. Again, big double standards at play here from a moral sense. The larger issue here is that the internet really isn't so decentralized as it used to be. There's like 10-20 major companies that control the majority of services people use, or the underlying infrastructure that powers the whole internet. This goes against the original design of the internet which meant it to be fully decentralized so no single entity or small set of entities could prevent the flow of information. We should try to go back in that direction, either through competition and free markets or by enforcing it via existing or new regulations to prevent situations like this from ever happening again.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  The Hunter Biden conspiracy has been debunked dozens of times over. That’s why the companies haven’t withdrawn support for his family. Trump, OTOH, has pushed the boundaries of acceptable his entire presidency, and has almost certainly broken the law in the process many time.
  - thrwawy12345 6y ago
    Do you happen to have a link or other source to this debunking?

nobody9999 6y ago

>What happens if the party in power next decides to attack religious organizations who congregate during that pandemic with the same type of concerted de-platforming? I didn't realize that Stripe's actions were due to a government order. Probably because they weren't. You're conflating a private organization's decisions with government action. If the government were to attempt do as you suggest, the courts would slap them down hard.

im3w1l 6y ago
It has happened before and recently too, so it wouldn't be exactly be shocking. Sneaked in with other stuff, they told the banks to fuck with sellers of Tobacco, Porn and Drug paraphernalia. > Operation Choke Point was a 2013 initiative of the United States Department of Justice[1] which investigated banks in the United States and the business they did with firearm dealers, payday lenders, and other companies believed to be at a high risk for fraud and money laundering. > This operation, disclosed in an August 2013 Wall Street Journal story,[2] was officially ended in August 2017,[3] and the FDIC settled multiple lawsuits by promising to Congress additional training for its examiners and to cease issuing "informal" and "unwritten suggestions" to banks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
- nobody9999 6y ago
  I said: >If the government were to attempt do as you suggest, the courts would slap them down hard. The issues around Operation Choke Point[0] that you linked to were investigated by Congress and the Department of Justice and, as I said, smacked down hard. The above isn't analogous to the current situation, but the result was exactly as I said it would be. Thanks for making my point for me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point
  - nullc 6y ago
    Some elements of Operation Choke point were shut down hard, others never even got enough due process to see their day in court. We recently made the prime actors of one of these initiatives the vice president. ( https://reason.com/2019/08/26/secret-memos-show-the-government-has-been-lying-about-backpage/ https://reason.com/2019/08/26/secret-memos-show-the-governme... )