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GoDaddy Boots AR15.com
- andrew_ 6y agoGet ready for a wild ride. The actions of this week are going to have cascading, emboldening effect across tech. The article shared earlier this week [1] that received attention here gives me pause and genuine concern that these actions by these companies results in greater conflict. [1] https://www.livescience.com/22109-cycles-violence-2020.html https://www.livescience.com/22109-cycles-violence-2020.html
- kristofferR 6y agoI don't find that article/research convincing at all. Correlation, not causation etc. There are much better arguments for why current events/actions may cause unintentional side effects and blowback than "it happens every 50 years".
- andrew_ 6y agoYou may (or may not) find the original discussion interesting, in which some users delve further into the details https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25712080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25712080
- trianglem 6y ago4chan needs to go sooner rather than later
- yurielt 6y agowhy should the last bastion of actual free speech be gone? Specially since there isnt but one particular board that is the cause of most of the conmotion. If you hate the liberty of those that disagree with you just say it instead of hiding behind vague threats about place you dont know anything about.
- dmead 6y agoi'm sorry, are you suggesting that we don't have free speech without 4chan?
- salawat 6y agoYour free speech is not what others call free speech, hate to tell ya.
- yurielt 6y agoA narrow definition of free speech and freedom of speech, is self defeating. Eh hate to tell ya.
- nine_k 6y agoTry saying something heavily against the current discourse, worse yet, in a way that the current discourse sees as unacceptable. For clarity, avoid any calls to violence. How many places would not deplatform you, suspend you, or at least downvote you into oblivion? Not many. Anonymous boards are some of such places. Even if you think that some people are patently wrong on the Internet, dangerously and irredeemably wrong, it's more useful to be aware that such people exist, than to hide this fact from yourself in order to have a quieter sleep. Freedom is, by definition, also freedom for those you disagree with, despise, even hate. If either side forces their (doubtlessly, virtuous and well-founded) views on the other (doubtlessly, misinformed and stubborn), I have a hard time calling it freedom. It's a standard ideological oppression.
- sofixa 6y agoCheck out the paradox of tolerance and Goebbels's thoughts on the matter: https://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/goebbels-on-the-reichstag/ https://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/goebbels-on-the-reichst...
- nine_k 6y agoThis is a good quotation. One thing is just speaking, another, speaking and voting in a parliament. OTOH I like the idea that every new Parliament member should bring an idea which is currently illegal, and work on integrating it into the legal framework. Thus is how all change (to the bad and to the good the same) occurs in a peaceful way. It's interesting to note how many now-mainstream ideas were fringe 30 years ago, and outright scandalous 100-150 years ago: universal suffrage, social security, gay marriage, legal marijuana, etc.
- devmunchies 6y agohydra[1]. if you remove 4chan I guarantee you well get 3 in its place. [1]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hydra-Greek-mythology https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hydra-Greek-mythology
- edgineer 6y agoThere are already many smaller chans, with varied attending demographics. I think this is referred to as "the webring." 4chan would sure be a shame to see go, though.
- klodolph 6y agoWhy do you say that? What do you mean by that? If you take an online community down, the people that made up that community will not all end up in the same place, they won’t bring the entire culture of that community with them, and some of them won’t make the jump. Maybe you end up with three new chans, but you end up with three smaller, more fractured chans. Organization and relationships will evaporate because people won’t have alternate ways of recognizing or reaching their friends, may not use the same handles, may not end up on the same sites, etc. Site administrators will get worn out and tired of dealing with it, and may run out of money to keep the site up. I’m not saying that you should take down 4chan, just saying that if 4chan did disappear, it would leave a big hole that would take a long time to fill again. That, and any new chans would have a hard time claiming to be THE chan. There are already like twenty active “chan” sites or more. Besides 2channel and 4chan, the other sites don’t have much credibility or “pull”.
- devmunchies 6y agoI think 4chan is different. It has a unique user base with a lot of internet history. If you take it down it will create a new energy in the free speech movement that will gain incredible momentum. 4chan is definitely functioning as a containment site right now. It hasn't changed in years, so a replacement would likely be more innovative.
- klodolph 6y ago
- KLexpat 6y ago4chan /g/ is basically an uncensored 2003 version of Hacker news. In fact, they often discuss the same topics. I saw the 'gnome DE' article posted there last week - after it was shared with HN it got 1k+ upvotes. The 'blue boards' are probably very similar to you in terms of worldview
- trianglem 6y agoYes, nothing wrong with the “censored” version of hacker news here. There is clearly a lot of good or 4chan but it’s not worth it.
- thinkingemote 6y ago4chan is protected by LEO. It proactively reports illegal postings to LEO, shares logs proactively, responds quickly and is heavily moderated. Additionally most of the site isn't troublesome. The rules are US freedom of speech which is much more liberal than Europe and hate speech definitions so the content on the adult boards is shocking to me and some may be illegal in Europe, but it's not illegal in the US. There are worse sites but this one is the one that enters the less well informed public's consciousness ironically.
- trianglem 6y agoIt’s definitely troublesome. Racist memes may not be illegal but they are hugely damaging to a multi ethnic society.
- drak0n1c 6y agoRon Paul was locked out of his Facebook page today. https://twitter.com/ronpaul/status/1348694943905308672 https://twitter.com/ronpaul/status/1348694943905308672
- DisjointedHunt 6y agoThis is absolutely ridiculous.
- Hamuko 6y agoI thought Ron Paul was just an old crank with a shitty son, and not some radical.
- colejohnson66 6y agoWas is “just” an enthusiast forum? Or were enthusiasts discussing certain topics that could imply support for the recent events? I’m not going to trust a pro-2A website called “The Truth About Guns” to be unbiased about this topic. Given the recent events, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s part of GoDaddy’s reasoning.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y agoArfcom is/was the largest gun forum on the internet excluding Reddit. It’s not uncommon if you are searching around on their to find posts back to the early 2000s, it’s pretty much kept the same format the whole time. There are industry maintained forums, niche, antique, and tons of etc. It goes WELL beyond ar15 platform firearms. FWIW... TTAG is relatively awful and I know no gun people that trust them.
- Alupis 6y agoIt's a gun enthusiast forum, where people discuss everything from guns to politics to things that make them laugh. Just like all forums, you'll find people from all backgrounds there - even people with disagreeing political viewpoints.
- idlewords 6y agoHow is this forum's "bias" of lack thereof in any way relevant here?
- colejohnson66 6y agoBecause the article tries to make it seem like there’s “no reason” for the deplatforming. Given the events of the past few days, I’m inclined to believe the reason isn’t the subject matter of the site, but the content. I’ve never been on ar15.com, so I don’t know if that’s true or not.
- idlewords 6y agoSo you're deducing a rationale for banning a forum you know nothing about from first principles?
- j16sdiz 6y agoJust like how 911 changed airport security permanently, this is going to change the internet forever.
- dionian 6y agoYes, although there was good reason to change the way airports are policed the way they are now.
- j16sdiz 6y agoSure. But from time to time we heard people banned traveling for "reasons" like having the similar name as a criminal. False positive are unavoidable. I am not sure I want to pay that price.
- akvadrako 6y agoIt's surprising to see this expressed here without a rebuttal. The reaction to 9/11, especially the creation of the TSA, is one of the worst things that have happened in my lifetime. Most people I know generally agree. Not only is it not effective, but it's very expensive and causes lots of violations of personal rights.
- offby37years 6y agoYes, expedited the decentralised, uncensorable web by 3-5 years. Then we're back to square one with no recourse.
- ascendantlogic 6y agoWhere is the line? Do we defend free speech as violent mobs incited on false pretense attempt to overthrow the government to install their wannabe dictator back into power? If that happens do you think freedom of speech will survive? If Trump were to succeed with his coup and be put back into power do you really think the constitution survives in its current incarnation at all? Freedom of speech is one thing but when it finally translates into violent action it's a different animal.
- baby 6y agoA push to disarm the US in the middle of a home-grown terrorist threat is a good idea. I hope more will follow.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y agoI know this an echo chamber, but you are on a whole new pitch if you think this is a good idea. Keep taking away 1/2 the country’s options for civil discourse, and find yourself dealing with uncivil people.
- thebigman433 6y agoWe've already been dealing with uncivil people
- asguy 6y agoIt can get a whole lot worse.
- baby 6y agoA Gun is your option to civil discourse? Oh my...
- SV_BubbleTime 6y agoMine? No. But other people, maybe. And the more you advocate for silencing them from discourse, the louder and faster their words will become. I know you think you're isolated in the world of Facebook and California, but you have no idea what you are advocating for.
- baby 6y agoWell you might be more isolated than me if you think guns have to be legal in order to have a peaceful society, I come from Europe and that kind of thinking is just crazy for us.
- 6y ago
- meritt 6y ago(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
- darren0 6y agoGoDaddys founder does not sit on the board and has no active role in the company. https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2018/10/03/bob-parsons-to-step-down-from-godaddy-board.html https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2018/10/03/bob-pars...
- jonhohle 6y agoGoDaddy’s founder hasn’t been part of the organization for about a decade.
- V99 6y agoWhile that is probably true, Bob sold the bulk of the company years ago and is no longer involved as an employee or board member. He sells motorcycles, golf clubs, commercial real estate, and various other things now.
- yurielt 6y agoA note to most users of this site. Please disregard the statements of meritt it doesnt seem to be the first instance of him posting a vague lie, and then not answering to anyone. His initial comment wasnt made to answer to the truth (the founder of godaddy is no longer its owner or has a place on its board) his comment was made to farm points for those that like him prefer lies over the truth as long as it fits their political viewpoint.
- dang 6y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly posting inflammatory comments and then either deleting them or erasing the text. You can't do that kind of thing here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- aluminussoma 6y agoThis is still a little bit rumor so it is not clear if it was a fat finger mistake or intentional. I would like to see an official comment from GoDaddy or the site owner. I don't own guns, don't care for them, couldn't tell you the difference between an AR-14 and a AR-15, but the forums on that website did show up on Google search results quite often. There were some interesting non-gun discussions that I found via Google Search, kind of like Hacker News. If GoDaddy nixed the site for a political reason - which is still not clear - I wonder if Hacker News could ever get similar treatment in another country, in the basis that "Hackers" and "hacking" has a criminal connotation.
- yurielt 6y agoWell it is no secret that the social engineers and their acolytes have had a hold of godaddy for sometime particularly considering the most recent investments on it, so there is that.
- DisjointedHunt 6y agoSite owner has posted here saying they received notice on Jan 11 and taken down: https://www.ar15-backup.com/forums/General/OFFICIAL-STATEMENT-REGARDING-TODAY-S-EVENTS-January-11th-2020/5-2413380/ https://www.ar15-backup.com/forums/General/OFFICIAL-STATEMEN...
- coolspot 6y agoIn USSR you were free to write any book or newspaper opinion column. Radical, like for example criticizing the party or leaders, would have landed you in prison/on death row. More subtle creations, where criticizing is expressed via proxy of science fiction or abstract ideas would have never published, because every publisher and government censors would look at every sentence in your book as potentially having another meaning - critical of the party/leaders. That’s when you would have to go full P2P blockchain with SAMIZDAT [1], manually typing copies of your text (using many layers of carbon paper) and distributing them in underground communities of intellectuals, hand-to-hand. But if your unbaised view on USSR party/leaders/direction/methods was aligned with the party, then all newspapers, all book shelfs and book awards were yours to take. Another artifact of the USSR is a mandatory line in your CV and references - that you were never involved in any anti-USSR meetings, protests and movements. [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat
- andreskytt 6y agoThat is partially correct. You were free to write anything but GLAVLIT made sure nothing they did not liked was printed
- myWindoonn 6y agoYou've been reading too many old pulp-fiction stories about the Cold War. In the USA, if you can find a willing and gullible publisher [0], you can write a book about just about anything. The actual things that you can't publish [1] are very specific: You can publish a recipe for how to refine uranium, for example, just not in enough detail to allow anybody with a few million dollars to start their own nuclear program. But, more importantly, we live in today. "full P2P blockchain" and "underground communities of intellectuals" are word salad; if you want to publish without restrictions, Bittorrent has been around for over a decade and is generally not blockable, and Sci-Hub is an aboveground rebellion of intellectuals against the publishers. You're whining because a DNS registrar, and one of incredibly poor reputation for what it's worth, has chosen to stop hosting a violent hate group. But your own personal ability to publish, and indeed their ability to publish, has not been curtailed. Rather, their ability to use the resource of the DNS registrar to spread their hate is what has been removed, and that was a privilege to which they were not entitled under law. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_press [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_secret https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_secret
- ascendantlogic 6y agoAnyone who has ever taken a look around on AR15.com will know that more than a few threats against political figures were made on there on a pretty regular basis. I own an AR so I can say that I actually lurked there this past fall. Given what we saw on Wednesday I'm not surprised a lot of tech companies are now seeking to wash their hands of anything that can be tied back to them. Although I'm not sure how GoDaddy thought this was gonna work out for them. Maybe they figured it would repair their image across the "rest" of tech and get them more business? They're traditionally pretty scammy so I'm not really sure if/when they grew a "conscience".
- jandrewrogers 6y agoUnless something has dramatically changed in recent years (I doubt it), AR15.com is widely regarded as one of the preeminent firearm enthusiast forums on the Internet. It caters to people across the political spectrum and a wide range of niche firearm interests. IIRC, it is actually owned by industry companies, which have an interest in keeping it relatively non-political.
- ascendantlogic 6y ago> Unless something has dramatically changed in recent years (I doubt it) I can point out one thing that changed in the last 4 years, and it is our President and the atmosphere of vitriol and gaslighting he has created. Most of these companies were fine to tolerate this on their services when it was just speech, but now that speech has translated into actual violent action it's a different ballgame.
- DisjointedHunt 6y agoMate, we had Madonna giving a speech about wanting to shoot the president. A play on broadway enacting a fantasy of Trump being stabbed, Julius Caesar style by masked men. Another hollywood personality posting an image of her enacting a mock beheading, complete with blood. Don't preach about "Threats" and "Violence". If you are in tech, you are intelligent enough to use logic and not emotion.
- ralmidani 6y agoI actually support banning Trump and taking down Parler under the “clear and present danger” test, but censoring a large, diverse forum with no explanation is taking things too far. It seems “slippery slope” arguments are not always fallacious. In the context of corporate censorship, what we’re going through right now even feels less like a slope, and more like a free-fall.
- asdfsfkwqe 6y agocommunism has finally come to the United States
- gumby 6y agoironic given that the GD CEO likes to hunt exotic animals
- ARandomerDude 6y agoStop, we don't need to be confused by facts.
- ARandomerDude 6y agoGoDaddy has joined the glorious revolution, comrades. Soon the capitalist pigs will be vanquished and we will usher in a socialist utopia in the Fatherland! ...or something like that.
- KingMachiavelli 6y agoI really hate censorship from institutions and providers where it would be better if they were naive and impartial. Essentially, if the behavior of one customer does not impact another customer (directly) then the service/business should stay out of the matter. Twitter and Facebook have to sell ads to make a profit which means keeping their platforms 'ad-friendly' and they are also designing everything about the site from the colors to the user experience. So it makes sense for them to moderate or even restrict content to even an arbitrary degree. However, dumb service providers like GoDaddy and AWS make a profit and are designed around providing (generic mostly) services. When they step in to moderate content beyond what is necessary for legal purposes, it really undermines the whole institution of free speech. I think that in the case of GoDaddy is especially worrisome since DNS ought to be a impartial service and not an adjudicator of morality. At least AWS is 99% commodity and not a top down institution like DNS. Personally, although I don't need to use it, I prefer nearlyfreespeech.net [1] for my domain name and minor hosting needs. Nearlyfreespech.net (NFSN) offers hosting/DNS for anything that is legal in the US (maybe some exceptions [2]). And NFSN offers no-frills DNS & hosting management as well as the best account security I have seen from any site. The prices are reasonable and very simple. [1] https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/help/abuse#offensive https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/help/abuse#offensive [2] Looks like the ToS includes any ToS that NFSN has to adhere to as well so it's possible that an upstream domain registrar could exert pressure on NFSN... not sure how likely that is. https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/help/abuse#offensive https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/help/abuse#offensive
- klodolph 6y agoPresumably this is a PR move for GoDaddy. If you are doing business with anybody you are political and making political decisions. Profit and politics are intimately connected, it’s just a bit more obvious in the ad industry.
- rcoveson 6y ago> I really hate censorship from institutions and providers where it would be better if they were naive and impartial. Situations where the company doing the proactive banning is practically invisible are downright concerning. It's gotten to the point where B2B corporations go out of their way to signal their willingness to evict unsavory customers. It's like if not only Chick-fil-A, but companies like Sysco closed on Sundays to signal their devout Christianity. Nobody asked them to, and probably most people didn't think about whether or not they worked on Sundays at all. Chick-fil-A is like social media companies, who have their logo constantly in the public eye. Sysco is like domain registrars. Most people don't know they exist, and yet they go the extra mile (in this hypothetical) to show their devotion to the cause. If it gets as far as landlords, things are going to get really crazy really fast.
- newacct583 6y agoIs there a better source on this? This is an oddball site writing a linkbait article about one tweet. No statement from GoDaddy seems to have been solicited. And the site... is up? What are we actually discussing here? Edit: crawling around there's some evidence that they had to get it cleaned up fast, c.f. this thread: https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/POLICY-CHANGE-FOR-ARFCOM-Please-Read-and-Comment/5-2412040/ https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/POLICY-CHANGE-FOR-ARFCOM... Note that there's reference to a politics forum which doesn't seem to be there currently. My guess is that they did indeed have a bunch of unsavory stuff, but managed to convince their registrar they had it under control. Their (presumably new) rules are quite clear that violent discussion isn't allowed. And while folks seem to be griping about that the site seems to be complying. This is, IMHO, the way moderation is supposed to work.
- Triv888 6y agoThey switched provider, apparently.
- Animats 6y agoThey've moved to Amazon and are back up. They also have a backup at "ar15-backup.com". It's all ads, anyway. Mostly for rifle bling.
- new_guy 6y agoI had a site deplatformed by them a while back. Rivals from another site signed up, posted objectionable content, used firebug to inflate their views and shares etc. took screenshots. Reported their own content and got our domain dropped! Not very cool but a valuable lesson, not least of which is never ever use GoDaddy.
- akvadrako 6y agoIn this case specifically, the market can work. All informed ops people know GoDaddy is trash; this is just a little more evidence for the pile. There are lots of other options so just forget about them and move on.
- lostmsu 6y agoIMHO, this is the point, where the line should have been drawn. DNS is an essential Internet service, and responding 123.45.67.8 to "ar15.com?" is in no way an advertisement. IMHO, GoDaddy crossed the line here, and should be punished. Personally, I am already not using GoDaddy because they are terrible, but now I will actively discourage others from doing so.
- julianmarq 6y agoUp until this point, I thought that when you bought a domain from a registrar, the domain was yours (since you can transfer it, after all), but now I'm not sure, and the article is not clear. How could godaddy "boot" someone? Isn't the domain theirs?
- colejohnson66 6y agoIf they use GoDaddy’s name servers, it’s possible GoDaddy could stop resolving the website. It’s even easier if GoDaddy was hosting the site as well.
- Triv888 6y agoWe need Internet 4.0 to go mainstream ...
- cosmiccatnap 6y agoxkcd.com/1357/