6 ms·

Private companies in the US can discriminate or otherwise choose who they want as customers except if the criteria is a protected class. Currently, political re

by booi 5y ago

Private companies in the US can discriminate or otherwise choose who they want as customers except if the criteria is a protected class. Currently, political reasons are not protected so Godaddy would be within its rights to deny service.

elmerfud 5y ago
Private companies can discriminate against non-protected classes and you are correct political reasons or position on abortion is not a protected class. The problem is in allowing this behavior to continue by companies unchecked eventually the law will come in and start assigning new protected classes. People have forgotten their history and why certain attributes have become protected classes for which discrimination is not allowed. This was not done due to some moral altruism by the laws and courts. These were assigned protective class status because private companies began to exclude people and eventually all or most private companies in an area started excluding people of a certain race or gender etc... This results in people not being able to participate in society. While they remain free people and the businesses have their freedom to choose it is not real freedom when you cannot participate in the society that you are part of. This is why we now have enforced protected classes. When we do not stand up as reasonable people and participate in the process to indicate the companies we do not want them to be the moral arbiters of our lives we are effectively letting them determine who can participate in the online society and who cannot. The idea that just because of company can do something does not mean it should and does not mean that we should allow it. If we get to the point that we have to make laws to protect someone's race or sex or now what's coming is political affiliation or opinion then we as a society have failed in our duty to each other. Creating a new law and codifying the fact that people should be allowed to participate in society even with opinions that we do not like should cause everyone to take a hard look in the mirror and realize they are the problem. Whatever happened to the idea that I do not agree with what you say but I will defend your right to say it.
- minikites 5y ago
  >started excluding people of a certain race or gender Race and gender is about something you are, political opinions are not something you are.
  - elmerfud 5y ago
    Among the protected classes is religion. That is not something that you are that is something that you choose. The point being that when we start excluding people from participating in the society based on things we do not like ,be they opinions that we can change or be they features about who we are, we place ourselves in a bad position as a society.
    - krapp 5y ago
      No one is being excluded from society by virtue of their website not being hosted by Godaddy. Hosting services are a dime a dozen, and some of them exist specifically for "Conservative" content like this.
      - elmerfud 5y ago
        Not now and not yet, but why wait until something becomes a problem before it's addressed? This is very short term thinking of look only one step ahead instead of viewing where this path will take us. I have no love for these anti-abortion people but I also see that this idea of companies controlling the content of the online community will eventually lead to the suppression of things I do care about.
        krapp 5y ago
        >Not now and not yet, but why wait until something becomes a problem before it's addressed? Because the proposed solution - having government take control of speech on the internet and replacing free speech and association rights with compelled speech on the grounds that being able to choose with whom you do business and under what terms is too dangerous to allow - is even worse for society than the problem. Were the problem to exist. Which it doesn't.
- papito 5y ago
  You do not have the choice to be Asian. You do have the choice to be an asshole.
codeecan 5y ago
Not true for companies protected under Section 230, in order to maintain their liability shield they are supposed to remain platform neutral [1]. A company should not be able to act like a publisher and determine what stays on their service and when someone sues them for libel they claim they're not a publisher and hide behind the shield. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 --- > At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
- mcphage 5y ago
  You should read this: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...
  - whatthesmack 5y ago
    Thanks for the stereotypical reply to this issue. The linked article is condescending and smug, and nobody with anything better to do will read past the first few sentences with the author's "unique" opinion on Section 230. Do you have anything reasonable that describes the position that Section 230 somehow doesn't mean what it plainly says?
    - mcphage 5y ago
      The entire purpose for Section 230 existing is to allow sites to moderate their content. That’s why it was written. So a site moderating it’s content doesn’t cause it to lose any section 230 protection. I’m not sure where you got your opinion about it, but it is clearly false. Please stop repeating such falsehoods.
  - codeecan 5y ago
    And you should understand the law, techdirt bases is "What matters is solely the content in question. If that content is created by someone else, the website hosting it cannot be sued over it.", which is only true as long as you "do not exercise significant editorial control" from Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy [1]. [1] https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/immunity-online-publishers-under-communications-decency-act https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/immunity-online-publishers-... > the court held that because Prodigy was exercising editorial control over the messages that appeared on its bulletin boards through its content guidelines and software screening program, Prodigy was more like a "publisher" than a "distributor" and therefore fully liable for all of the content on its site.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
GoDaddy has stated that it is cutting them off for a ToS violation. GoDaddy has NOT stated that it is cutting them off for political reasons.
m0zg 5y ago
Your opinion will change pretty quick once they start banning "your" side. Which they will, if you start speaking too much about the kinds of things that go against the official Uniparty narratives. Such things exist on both sides of the political spectrum, it's just that the pendulum is to the right at the moment. No reason why it couldn't swing the other way.

by booi 5y ago

elmerfud 5y ago

Private companies can discriminate against non-protected classes and you are correct political reasons or position on abortion is not a protected class. The problem is in allowing this behavior to continue by companies unchecked eventually the law will come in and start assigning new protected classes. People have forgotten their history and why certain attributes have become protected classes for which discrimination is not allowed. This was not done due to some moral altruism by the laws and courts. These were assigned protective class status because private companies began to exclude people and eventually all or most private companies in an area started excluding people of a certain race or gender etc... This results in people not being able to participate in society. While they remain free people and the businesses have their freedom to choose it is not real freedom when you cannot participate in the society that you are part of. This is why we now have enforced protected classes. When we do not stand up as reasonable people and participate in the process to indicate the companies we do not want them to be the moral arbiters of our lives we are effectively letting them determine who can participate in the online society and who cannot. The idea that just because of company can do something does not mean it should and does not mean that we should allow it. If we get to the point that we have to make laws to protect someone's race or sex or now what's coming is political affiliation or opinion then we as a society have failed in our duty to each other. Creating a new law and codifying the fact that people should be allowed to participate in society even with opinions that we do not like should cause everyone to take a hard look in the mirror and realize they are the problem. Whatever happened to the idea that I do not agree with what you say but I will defend your right to say it.

minikites 5y ago
>started excluding people of a certain race or gender Race and gender is about something you are, political opinions are not something you are.
- elmerfud 5y ago
  Among the protected classes is religion. That is not something that you are that is something that you choose. The point being that when we start excluding people from participating in the society based on things we do not like ,be they opinions that we can change or be they features about who we are, we place ourselves in a bad position as a society.
  - krapp 5y ago
    No one is being excluded from society by virtue of their website not being hosted by Godaddy. Hosting services are a dime a dozen, and some of them exist specifically for "Conservative" content like this.
    - elmerfud 5y ago
      Not now and not yet, but why wait until something becomes a problem before it's addressed? This is very short term thinking of look only one step ahead instead of viewing where this path will take us. I have no love for these anti-abortion people but I also see that this idea of companies controlling the content of the online community will eventually lead to the suppression of things I do care about.
      - krapp 5y ago
        >Not now and not yet, but why wait until something becomes a problem before it's addressed? Because the proposed solution - having government take control of speech on the internet and replacing free speech and association rights with compelled speech on the grounds that being able to choose with whom you do business and under what terms is too dangerous to allow - is even worse for society than the problem. Were the problem to exist. Which it doesn't.
papito 5y ago
You do not have the choice to be Asian. You do have the choice to be an asshole.

codeecan 5y ago

Not true for companies protected under Section 230, in order to maintain their liability shield they are supposed to remain platform neutral [1]. A company should not be able to act like a publisher and determine what stays on their service and when someone sues them for libel they claim they're not a publisher and hide behind the shield. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 --- > At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

mcphage 5y ago
You should read this: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...
- whatthesmack 5y ago
  Thanks for the stereotypical reply to this issue. The linked article is condescending and smug, and nobody with anything better to do will read past the first few sentences with the author's "unique" opinion on Section 230. Do you have anything reasonable that describes the position that Section 230 somehow doesn't mean what it plainly says?
  - mcphage 5y ago
    The entire purpose for Section 230 existing is to allow sites to moderate their content. That’s why it was written. So a site moderating it’s content doesn’t cause it to lose any section 230 protection. I’m not sure where you got your opinion about it, but it is clearly false. Please stop repeating such falsehoods.
- codeecan 5y ago
  And you should understand the law, techdirt bases is "What matters is solely the content in question. If that content is created by someone else, the website hosting it cannot be sued over it.", which is only true as long as you "do not exercise significant editorial control" from Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy [1]. [1] https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/immunity-online-publishers-under-communications-decency-act https://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/immunity-online-publishers-... > the court held that because Prodigy was exercising editorial control over the messages that appeared on its bulletin boards through its content guidelines and software screening program, Prodigy was more like a "publisher" than a "distributor" and therefore fully liable for all of the content on its site.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

GoDaddy has stated that it is cutting them off for a ToS violation. GoDaddy has NOT stated that it is cutting them off for political reasons.

m0zg 5y ago

Your opinion will change pretty quick once they start banning "your" side. Which they will, if you start speaking too much about the kinds of things that go against the official Uniparty narratives. Such things exist on both sides of the political spectrum, it's just that the pendulum is to the right at the moment. No reason why it couldn't swing the other way.