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GoDaddy is cutting off Texas Right to Life’s abortion ‘whistleblowing’ website

grecy 5y ago
Good. This whole episode is inexcusable, and it's about time "big tech" made a stand and stopped participating in activities that are morally vile. I will continue to be a paying customer of GoDaddy as a result.
- andrew_ 5y ago
  In college I was asked the following question by a Sociology professor, and it always hits home when these battles of opposing moralities arise: How would you explain to a Nihilist that your morals are superior to the morals of those you consider reprehensible?
  - lostgame 5y ago
    This is phenomenal food for thought. The kind of comment I come to HN for. This made me think; thanks. :)
  - hirako2000 5y ago
    The pre requisite would be to explain that hierarchies of values exist. If you get there, you are no longer facing a nihilist, hence you can focus on arguing the superiority of your moral value.
    - andrew_ 5y ago
      I disagree you'd no.longer be facing a Nihilist. You might get them to consider the merit of a viewpoint versus another, but they still wouldn't really care about any viewpoint presented. A dyed in the wool Nihilist would only provide objective judgement, but adopt no position.
      - hirako2000 5y ago
        "Explaining" wouldn't magically turn a lot of nihilists I agree. A dyed in the wool as you said would not even listen to an explanation, she would hear it, and camp on their no position. There is something contradictory about nihilists, only their view is valid. The view that no view other than theirs is better than any other, and even if some obviously are, they are meaningless anyway. Unless it impacts them as individuals of course. I'm not arguing that a discussion with an entrenched Nihilist has much chance to have value, but since I'm not a Nihilist I see value in that discussion, even when it was a lost cause.
  - runarberg 5y ago
    I don’t know why, but I hate that question (at least in this context). It seems like it is shifting the question of ethics into some sort of meta-ethics. I wonder if you professor was used to formulate an ethical argument, but I personally find it very hard. This might be a good advice in competitive debate, but when you are facing a real argument in the real world where somebody is claiming to be a moral superior I don’t know if this is a helpful advice. E.g. I have no idea how to explain to a nihilist that murdering humans is worse then killing animals for meat. Is that even possible?
  - andrew_ 5y ago
    I'm legitimately glad to see this is making so many uncomfortable - that's a base component of robust discussion, delving into the uncomfortable. If you're down voting, please share the reasons why to further discussion.
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    I wouldn't. Arguing with a Nihilist is like arguing with a flat earther - they are so disconnected from reality it doesn't make sense.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  What's inexcusable is for a business entity to apply discrimination on moral grounds. Ideally, politicians should also stay away from the moral debate. We've seen what this can lead to. Reality here is that godaddy gave an unreasonably small time window for a site shutdown, simply because of their fear of the backslash from the public causing PR damage hence revenue loss.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    Which would be fine, except ya know not, serving cakes to gay people. The problem is certain groups want to have their cake and eat it too. There is no consistency.
    - meowster 5y ago
      The baker offered to serve his cakes to gay people, he just didn't want to be compelled to create a cake he didn't like.
      - ericmay 5y ago
        GoDaddy offered to serve websites to Texans, they just didn't want to be compelled to serve a website they didn't like.
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    > What's inexcusable is for a business entity to apply discrimination on moral grounds. Should a business be "moral less" and allow all behavior? The idea that we should embrace cold, profit-only business entities is much more reprehensible to me.
    - jaldhar 5y ago
      Yes, related to their area of business. What is “cold” about making profits to you? Personally, the locus of morality is my religious/ethnic community. Businesses should focus on making money so they can pay people who can use that money to be moral in their own communities.
- koheripbal 5y ago
  I suspect you will sing a different tune the day "big tech" takes a moral position you disagree with.
  - arglebarglegar 5y ago
    to be clear, the position here is “turn in a woman for cash because she exercised bodily autonomy” this isn’t really slippery slope, there are so many red flags here
    - lghh 5y ago
      This isn't a slippery slope because it's the bottom of the slope we slid down.
  - lghh 5y ago
    I'm going to somewhat sarcastically link to a dril tweet here. https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en For those that don't want to go to twitter: `the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"` I don't want to add a ton of exposition to this, but I also don't want this to be a reddit-level comment where I just link to something and bounce so I will add that clearly someone doing something because it is moral and just like hampering the collection of abortion bounties is better than someone doing something immoral and unjust like hampering access to abortions. It isn't about what I agree and disagree with, it's about what's actually right and wrong.
    - junon 5y ago
      In prehistoric days, killing another man to protect your own food was "right". The Aztecs had no problem sacrificing people, and many sought it out (it's theorized) given that it guaranteed you a place next to the sun and thus in paradise, eternally drunk. Extremists even today believe in a paradise-after-death if they sacrifice themselves for god. To a lesser extent, self-flagellation (whipping oneself for religious purposes) is still prevalent in many cultures and sects of e.g. Christianity/Catholocism today. "Right" and "wrong" change over time, and with culture. Thus they are subjective - there is no objective "right" and "wrong". In this sense, your last sentence relates two identical things - what you might agree with and disagree with are your own perception of "right" and "wrong". It's a somewhat flawed and (in my opinion) dangerous way of thinking about social interaction and morality. --- E: Because I know this will be mis-interpreted, let me be clear: the website in question is, in my opinion, abhorrent - but I think it's dangerous to celebrate a large company taking it down on the grounds of morality. I understand it was taken down as it specifically violated a pre-existing clause in their ToS which makes it make sense in this case. But to say that this is a great thing and we should do this for people that are "wrong" is beginning down a path that nobody really wants.
yawaworht1978 5y ago
"After users threatened to boycott the internet domain service GoDaddy " So the change of mind was not proactive.
- gjs278 5y ago
  they should have already been boycotting godaddy
- rsynnott 5y ago
  That likely lead their risk/policy people to go “wait, we’re hosting WHAT?!” This wouldn’t necessarily have been something they’d know about up front. The group presumably didn’t write them an email on signing up saying “yeah, we’ll be violating your ToS”.
  - skohan 5y ago
    I mean I would be surprised if there are many humans at all vetting domains registered on godaddy. It's probably a mainly automated process with some smoke testing, and automated scanning for illegal content - if that.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  The real question is: how many users do I need to get involved and threatening to leave their service to DoS an arbitrary site?
stemc43 5y ago
Freedom of speech immediately forgotten when money is at stake. no worries - there is a parallel economy rising from this leftist takeover. sites like gab are growing like there is no tomorrow.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  You know, perhaps there are more ways you could conceive of freedoms at stake here than just the narrow freedom of speech issue you’re flagging.
- ohgodplsno 5y ago
  When you actively call for harm (civil suit + the danger that is getting an "illegal" abortion), don't be surprised when people kick you out. That's not a leftist takeover, that's a holy-shit-even-the-1800s-were-more-progressive-for-women takeover.
  - jaldhar 5y ago
    Abortion actively causes harm to unborn children. What this shows is that harm reduction (the principal moral foundation for “leftists”, “progressives” etc. according to Jonathan Haidt) is inadequate as the sole foundation for an ethic.
    - ohgodplsno 5y ago
      There is no unborn child. It's not even a thinking mass of cells. A fetus is not a life. What this shows is that conservatives do not give a single shit about harm, but this is about their own little morals and ethic allows them to justify a miserable existence for a woman and a child because you, as a man who is never going to be in a situation where your only choices are either getting an abortion in secret or being sued for doing do, thought that you could control their bodies.
      - jaldhar 5y ago
        This is a fascinating comment to me as a window into the unexamined assumptions of a liberal mind. (Well, I don't know your politics but I think its safe to say this is typical of what American liberals think.) > There is no unborn child. It's not even a thinking mass of cells. A fetus is not a life. The fetus would grow into a life if it were not for the violent intervention of an abortion. Is the future relevant to a system of ethics? Take for example the debate over universal pre-k. What harm is there right now if a toddler in the ghetto doesn't learn their ABCs until a few years later. Or is it the proponents think it will lead to problems later on in life. > What this shows is that conservatives do not give a single shit about harm Maybe a single shit but harm/care is only one of several moral foundations. Read your Haidt. Or atleast this excerpt from the wikipedia page on moral foundations theory: "Researchers have found that people's sensitivities to the five/six moral foundations correlate with their political ideologies. Using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, Haidt and Graham found that libertarians are most sensitive to the proposed Liberty foundation, liberals are most sensitive to the Care and Fairness foundations, while conservatives are equally sensitive to all five/six foundations." Incidently, another of Haidts' findings is that conservatives are much better at understanding why liberals are liberal than liberals are at understanding why conservatives are conservative. > this is about their own little morals and ethic Well duh! morals and ethics are by definition the principles that drive a person to act. > allows them to justify a miserable existence for a woman and a child From the childs point of view (what child is that btw? I thought a fetus wasn't one.) not existing at all seems to be as miserable as possible. But a better question might be is there no reason to oppose abortion except a desire to cause misery. > because you, as a man who is never going to be in a situation where your only choices are either getting an abortion in secret or being sued for doing do I'm never going to be a loser drug addict who got his neck stepped on by the police. Can I say nothing in support of George Floyd? In general, can one only express a moral opinion on subjects one has direct experience of? > thought that you could control their bodies. This is about a law. Law is an instrument by which human societies control the bodies of women and men. Law is also how those societies can discuss when to control and how much but control is what is going on. As I write this, there is this group of strangers called "doctors" who are attempting to control my body by covering my face and sticking me with needles. Can you think of a non-nefarious reason why they might be doing this?
sokoloff 5y ago
I find it morally agreeable in the small but am worried about the larger implications. Other than my agreeing with the moral position in this case, how is this different than a baker not making a cake for some particular customer? We can’t reasonably be making “this type of refusal to do business is okay, but that one is not” based on moral agreements of individuals, especially when it comes to utility and infrastructure providers (which arguably bakers of cakes are not).
- prezjordan 5y ago
  If by "some particular customer" you mean a protected group, we've already figured out this distinction in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group#United_States
  - Dma54rhs 5y ago
    Protected class is purely social construct.
    - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
      Society is purely a social construct. The fact that some things exist solely because we collectively agree they do doesn't make them less real. I still can pay my rent using money. I need a passport to enter another country. You will have issue with the authorities if you discriminate a protected group.
      - Dma54rhs 5y ago
        There's nothing stopping considering pro lifers or whatever they want to be called to include in that list, hell why not even under religion. Just some judge has to stamp it.
        emodendroket 5y ago
        If this is your view quit worrying about precedent at all, given that it is no less a social construct.
simion314 5y ago
Illegal abortions and snitching on your neighbors remind me about communist Romania (my country), though I was young at that time I heard enough stories about weird abortion attempts(like putting furniture on your belly) and there are amny stories about people reading their security files and finding out that someone they trusted was snitching on them.
- telesilla 5y ago
  One of the most well-written films about abortion that highlights the ordeal is, not surprisingly given your comment, Romanian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Months,_3_Weeks_and_2_Days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Months,_3_Weeks_and_2_Days
  - GrayShade 5y ago
    That policy is sometimes discussed in the Western media, e.g. https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-28/half-million-kids-survived-romanias-slaughterhouses-souls-now-they-want-justice https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-28/half-million-kids-sur... or https://medium.com/dose/what-we-can-learn-from-romanias-complete-abortion-ban-fb9fcacc9cb3 https://medium.com/dose/what-we-can-learn-from-romanias-comp....
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Do you feel the same about this? https://www.crimestoppersusa.org/ https://www.crimestoppersusa.org/
  - simion314 5y ago
    I can't understand what exactly this crime stoppers do, do they call police on you if you make a crime? There were 2 things in the Texas abortion thing that reminds me of my country past 1 make abortion illegal and force people in doing risky procedures 2 a system where you can't trust anyone , you could get snitched on, even false accusations that could destroy your life. So the 2 things combined did the job, individually would not have worked, and Texas has a reputation that I will not be surprised of weird things happening there.
fzeroracer 5y ago
As someone that lives in Texas, this is one of the few issues that's dire enough for me to post once more on HN. So I'll say my piece and return back to lurking: This issue (specifically the issue of the law that Texas passed) has zero place in our society. None, whatsoever. No matter if you're for or against abortion. It is a flagrant violation of our constitutional rights (including our rights to freedom of speech) because it criminalizes anything relating to 'aiding and abetting' abortions. Section 171.208 of the bill HB1515 implies that you could be drawn into a civil lawsuit for simply suggesting or posting about abortions. This site was created explicitly for that purpose: to gather information about people whom violated that section of the law so that they can be sued in court. I shouldn't need to mention the extreme chilling effect this has not only on abortions but on speech relating to abortions as well. This site (and by extension this law) I repeat can not and should not be tolerated in any way, shape or form.
- asimpletune 5y ago
  Not to mention that its legality is based off a novel mechanism of crowd sourcing enforcement. In other words roe v wade is the law of the land, so they make a law that’s clearly in violation of it, but with a novel enforcement mechanism. Now the issue is challenging this in court, which is strange and weird because of the enforcement mechanism. Put another way, let’s say California passes a law banning the purchasing of guns, but enforces that law by allowing neighbors to bring suit and shielding defendants from collecting legal fees if they prevail. You can pretty much use this technique for anything if it’s allowed. Basically it’s opening a legal Pandora’s box.
  - unclebucknasty 5y ago
    The piece I've yet to fully understand is how the state manages to absolve itself of enforcement. That is, they created the law which criminalizes it (or at least makes it some odd criminal-civil hybrid statute). They then set up a reporting system, which itself places them squarely in the process. And, following a report, they would presumably do something. I don't see how they can reasonably claim they are not involved with enforcement.
throw3849 5y ago
In France it is illegal to have DNA paternity test, even in foreign country. I expect GoDaddy to take the same actions there and in other countries!
- orwin 5y ago
  > In France it is illegal to have DNA paternity test It is not. https://www.francepaternite.com/est-il-legal-de-realiser-un-test-de-paternite-en-france/ https://www.francepaternite.com/est-il-legal-de-realiser-un-...
  - vdqtp3 5y ago
    It is illegal to get it without a court order, no?
    - orwin 5y ago
      Not really, its just that it won't be recognized as evidence nor attenuating circumstances if the man become violent and kill or disfigure his partner. It is illegal to provide the test mind you, not to ask for it. So the reason why it is illegal to provide the test is medical data protection. France is really high on this, the restrictions on processing medical data like diabetes, asthma are probably the strictest in europe - probably for historical/cultural reasons, but i'm not sure and only have circumstential evidence of this (and btw, with the americanisation/globalisation of french society, those cultural reasons will disapear). The genitical data are even more protected. And by the way, for us (or at least for people from brittany, i don't know that much people elsewhere), being a father or a grandfather is'nt a genetical thing. The man who share 1/4 of my genes with i call Warren, the one who raised my father and me i used to call grandfather (well, more endearingly than that)
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
This is the flipside of the argument people make against Facebook or Twitter censoring people on their platforms. Without the ability to decide what speech is and isn't allowed on their own systems, GoDaddy wouldn't be able to do this.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  And they shouldn't have been.
- skohan 5y ago
  Some would argue it should be up to government/democracy to decide which speech is and isn't allowed.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    If I understand what you're saying, whenever anyone allows others to use something they own, storage space, web servers, their car, etc. You want the government to be the sole arbiter of what it can and cannot be used for? So like, if you sell web hosting on servers in your basement and one of them ends up being the most popular page on the white supremacist webring, you're totally ok with the government saying you have no right to cancel that account?
    - skohan 5y ago
      No certainly not. I would say that common carrier regulation should be reserved for things which behave like utilities, especially if there are very few comparable players in the market. The precedent would be something like the railroads: if you want to move freight, your options are quite limited, and your business might live or die depending on access to the rail system, so rail providers are not allowed to pick favorites as this would give them undue influence on the economy as a whole. I think it should be fairly simple to draw a common-sense distinction between small business and the tech-giants which gate keep the internet. If you are not allowed to host your site on the server in my basement, nobody is going out of business because of that. If you cannot use AWS, GCP and Azure, there's a significant possibility your business will not be able to survive in today's market. To counter your analogy, if I am the CEO of one of the largest mobile carriers in the country, and I believe you hold unacceptable opinions, should I be able to deny you access to my network and prevent you from making phone calls?
swiley 5y ago
I’m constantly surprised when people use GoDaddy for domain registration/site hosting.
- vegetablepotpie 5y ago
  They are sketchy. I had to use them in 2011 because a club I was in decided to use them for their website. Their web portal was designed to make using your products as difficult as possible, and buying new products as easy as possible. The interface changed frequently, always in favor of making it easy to buy new products from them. They have been well marketed for years. If someone wants a website, they think goDaddy. Most people cannot deal with the concept of domain name registrars and http servers. They want a one stop shop, pay several dollars to a year, have a web site, and then forget about the whole thing.
tyingq 5y ago
Tried looking at it, but they must have the "wordfence" WAF turned up to super-paranoid settings. I did get a normal page once, but mostly I get a page telling me I'm suspicious. https://prolifewhistleblower.com/ https://prolifewhistleblower.com/
- input_sh 5y ago
  That's because it was spammed to hell in the past couple of days. I wouldn't even call it a coordinated since I've seen people asking to spam that site on Twitter, TikTok, reddit, you name it.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    Yeah, I imagine the snitch data isn't so useful now that it's spammed with fake entries.
ulucs 5y ago
So we're making it clearer and clearer that US is ruled by corporations rather than elected officials. I just hope they keep the same momentum the next time someone rallies for intervention in Middle East
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Maybe Texas ought to just host the site themselves if it means so much to them. GoDaddy, AWS and DigitalOcean have no obligation to host your site if they object to the contents of your site, that's been inside the EULA of every VPS distributor since 2005.
  - dundarious 5y ago
    I haven’t read any detailed piece on the SCOTUS decision, but I think a big part in why the law is allowed to go ahead for now is that it is: - a civil statute, not criminal - reported/enforced by private individuals/entities, not the state government I suspect the law was crafted specifically to deny the possibility for the government to operate such a site, and that this was the “one weird trick” used to get around the Roe precedent, at least for 5 of the justices. I’m not totally confident in that, so I’d appreciate learning if I’m wrong.
    - PoignardAzur 5y ago
      Well, it sure is too bad that this law meant to bypass constitutional precedent by relying on private individuals to act as DAs might be slightly hampered by other private individuals denying them the use of their platform for this purpose.
      - dundarious 5y ago
        To be clear, I’m massively against the new law. I was just explaining that my understanding is that for its proponents, a workaround such as hosting with the state government wouldn’t work because the legislators are hoist with their own petard.
  - 5y ago
fullshark 5y ago
All web services need to basically be classified as either a utility or a publisher, and be regulated accordingly. They've been in this gray area, picking and choosing to appropriately navigate the law / PR crises as they arise and clear regulations are simply required.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  You may not like them, but the regulations are very clear. None of them are utilities. There was some effort to make ISPs common carriers, but the last administration nixed it.
  - humanrebar 5y ago
    Congress could always, you know, do their jobs and actually fix the law. As to one bureaucratic choice or another, we've had enough turnover in the White House in the internet era that "the last guy broke this" doesn't really cut it. New executives can always issue new executive orders. It's just whether they want to bother or not.
    - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
      Maybe. I think the common carrier thing was done with administrative rule making, which is a whole different process. I don’t think executive orders can overrule that, but I’m not a lawyer.
orwin 5y ago
By the way, Victorian-era women were allowed to take abortion herbs whenever they wanted to (well, before quickening). https://archive.org/details/whenabortionwasc00reag_0 https://archive.org/details/whenabortionwasc00reag_0 We are more regressive in this way that people from the 19th century. Great.
- RKearney 5y ago
  And people back in the day were allowed to own slaves, yet we don’t look back on that an argue that we’ve regressed. Perhaps some day society will look back on abortions with the same disgust as we see slavery today.
  - rmorey 5y ago
    That would be because slavery is in fact bad, and reproductive healthcare is in fact good
    - RKearney 5y ago
      One could argue that ending a human life is fact bad.
      - Redoubts 5y ago
        To end, it must first begin.
        zdragnar 5y ago
        It has human DNA unique from the mother and, in this case, an independent heartbeat. To the minds of the people supporting this law, that makes it alive, with its own rights independent of the mother's. Their argument, as such, is that it isnt a matter of reproductive healthcare at all, but murder. I know of a few states that would file multiple murder charges in the case of killing a pregnant woman, for example. All the comparisons to a handmaidens tale, yelling about womens rights and reporductive health will never change their mind... No different than the accusations of Larry Elder being a white supremacist.
mabbo 5y ago
I can see the "why is this different than a wedding cake for gay couples" argument. It's a reasonable point. But I can see why it's not the same. Making a cake is a one-time interaction. Sexual orientation is similar to race in the respect of expected protections from discrimination. Apply the same wedding cake refusal for racial reasons and it's obvious this is discrimination. On the other hand, being a domain registrar means a continued involvement in the act being discussed- running this website. GoDaddy are not just selling a one time transaction, they're an active, paid participant. They're service must continue to exist for the website to work, so long as they are the registrar. And what the website is doing is not protected by law. What really decides these things though is that GoDaddy needs to answer to their shareholders. How many customers will leave if they choose not to do business with this website? How many customers will leave if they do continue to do business with this website? In the end, it always comes down to money.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Remember that in the cake baking case, the owners didn't refuse to do business with the couple. They offered to sell them any cake in the shop, or even make a custom cake that wasn't for their gay wedding. It was specifically using their creative arts to contribute to the wedding that the owner refused to do.
- plbhl 5y ago
  The Bakery doesn’t refuse to allow LGTBQ to enter their business & purchase their products, that would be impossible to defend. They will also custom make a cake for LGTBQ customers, they only refuse to make “wedding” cakes for LGTBQ. Why? If anyone has ever been married & hired a wedding cake vendor, u realize you are not simply walking into a bakery & leaving with a cake. You are hiring a vendor. Like all vendors, they participate in your wedding. There’s private, personal meetings about design & flavors. The cake vendor delivers the cake to the location & sets it up. Why would an LGTBQ couple want a vendor to participate in such a personal event who does not want to fully support their event, who isn’t excited to be involved? I don’t think there are laws that would force the bakery to participate like that. GoDaddy is certainly not providing personal services on that level, so it’s not a great analogy.
rsynnott 5y ago
Yeah, if you’re going to be soliciting personal information for vigilante harassment, I’m not sure why you’d imagine that a standard mainstream host would want to touch you. This is going to violate most hosts’ ToS.
- ramesh31 5y ago
  >Yeah, if you’re going to be soliciting personal information for vigilante harassment, I’m not sure why you’d imagine that a standard mainstream host would want to touch you. They are a state government attempting to enforce a law. By definition, it is not vigilante. Whether the law is agreeable or just is another question entirely; a political question.
  - dundarious 5y ago
    The website is run by a private entity, not an arm of the government.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    This isn’t the government; it’s some private organisation.
  - cududa 5y ago
    The only reason the law doesn’t violate Roe v Wade because it tasks citizens to turn people in
    - kemayo 5y ago
      For that matter, it's still entirely plausible that when someone actually sues under the law it's going to get appealed up and revoked because of Roe. I say plausible, because I'm sure the conservative majority would like to overturn Roe, but I'm not sure if this particular law is the vehicle they'd want for that. All the Supreme Court said so far was that they didn't think there was a cause of action at the moment because of how the law was structured. (Now, was that decision perhaps slightly motivated by the conservative majority and the exact topic of the law? Seems likely. I bet they'd have stayed a law that was exactly the same other than the reportable-act being handgun ownership, for instance.)
merricksb 5y ago
Also discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28408467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28408467
steve76 5y ago
What this argument is like without virtue signaling or the brainwashing from civil rights: Free the rapist. Kill the baby. What a sick society. All this because you can't control your crotch. I wish you were the one aborted. No one wants to follow you around fixing your mistakes and cleaning up after you. Send the father to war to die. Raise the child against his parents. All three of them failed at what even amoeba can do. Everyone else who had the now luxury of birth gets through the day without a problem. The world would really be nice if we did not have these discussions, as in, you weren't in it.
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  Glad someone else is willing to say it, it's sad that the Overton Window on abortion has shifted so far that what you said is unacceptable these days.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  California just passed a law that makes the phrases "virtue signaling" and "cancel culture" illegal, so anybody who reads your comment can sue you for $100K.
  - mcintyre1994 5y ago
    Genuinely curious how the Supreme Court would choose to differentiate that if it had the same enforcement mechanism and was similarly civil not criminal. I guess it wouldn't get to them because it'd have to go through a State Supreme Court first and none would pretend it was constitutional, but it's a fun hypothetical.
aeoleonn 5y ago
So... The SJW Technofascists & Qui say: - We can force you to make a wedding cake for gay people even though you religiously disagree with it - We can also take your website offline because we disagree with.
- chownie 5y ago
  No one is forced to do anything, iirc that couple never got that cake. Businesses are free to refuse service to people within protected groups, they're just risking legal action when they do. That's the trade up.
  - aklemm 5y ago
    Legal peril is the definition of not being free.
    - chownie 5y ago
      True, but it's also disingenuous to imply you're forced to do something because the alternative to that action puts you in legal peril. In the same way a factory owner is "forced" to comply with OSHA lest they be in legal peril, you cannot discriminate against a protected group without putting yourself in legal peril. Your freedom comes in the form of opting out of activities that put you in that position, if you cannot help but discriminate against those in protected groups due to your religious beliefs then you should take up a profession where that's no longer an issue for you. If aforementioned factory owner was unwilling to follow OSHA guidences due to a deeply held personal belief then I think it's a much better outcome they see punishment for that until they opt out of that profession than for us to change the law to allow it.
4soCYdibyA 5y ago
Obviously women have the right to decide whether they want to continue to be pregnant or not. Everyone has an absolute right to bodily self-determination. Obviously a fetus, like any other human at any age, has an absolute right to life. This right is not subject to the approval of the mother. It is arguably less strong than the right to life of a postnatal child due to the presumably more limited nature of the fetus's subjective experience, but if you think there is a moral difference between killing a newborn baby and killing a fetus a day before it is due, the forces that hold you in that position probably have more to do with cultural commitments than reason. Nature puts two individuals' most fundamental, absolute rights into conflict with one another. It's a tragedy. At the moment, the least worst resolution available to us is to try to find the line before which the mother's right to bodily self-determination outweighs the fetus's right to life. This is an impossible task, because it's impossible to know the subjective experience of another sentient being. Virtually everyone in the modern US responds to this situation by favoring either the mother or the fetus and discounting or outright denying the rights of the other party. I think it's time for us to move past that and seek to remove the rights conflict by developing technology that allows women to choose to end their pregnancies, without also ending the lives of their fetuses. I mostly talk to liberals, and most of them push back on this idea at first. I point out to them that replacing abortion with access to technology and services that make it possible for women to end their pregnancies without killing the fetuses inside them would take much of the wind out of the sails of the American right. I also point out that, politics aside, it would actually be morally preferable to universal access to abortion, because it would not require killing fetuses, which actually do have a right to life. Finally, I point out that liberals are unlikely to win the abortion issue in any other way. Their opponents aren't just going to get old and die. Young people choose to be pro-life all the time. This is because fetuses actually do have a right to life.
- iso1210 5y ago
  > Finally, I point out that liberals are unlikely to win the abortion issue in any other way. This isn't an issue in most countries
deleted 5y ago
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NelsonMinar 5y ago
This story is moving fast. They are currently hosted at Epik, some time hosting provider to Daily Stormer, 8chan, and Gab. https://twitter.com/MeInAPearTree/status/1434018534397460484 https://twitter.com/MeInAPearTree/status/1434018534397460484
- rvz 5y ago
  So the website still exists and now they found a different domain provider within 24 hours after being de-platformed by GoDaddy? What have these 'script-kiddies' and 'hacktivists' achieved other than making these websites more resilient and censorship resistant? What's next? complain to Google Inc, that they are using ReCAPTCHA because they don't like the website? Perhaps this means anyone can do these sort of methods to anyone else who they don't like until they become censorship resistant. Unfortunately, the website owners have not changed their minds and the site is still up and the law (which I also disagree with) is still in effect. If they were expecting a backlash, it didn't happen. This is a complete and total failure. Downvoters: So you are telling me that the website is still down then? So they didn't find a domain provider to move to? Are you telling me that they are still on GoDaddy? Is there any evidence that substantiates this? Are you really sure?
  - NelsonMinar 5y ago
    The failure started with the Texas Lege and then the Supreme Court. BTW you're misusing the terms "script-kiddies" and "hacktivists".
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - rvz 5y ago
      The website in question is still up isn't it? Despite everything that has happened, that dreadful law is still in effect and no-one's minds had been changed. It is as if nothing had happened. > BTW you're misusing the terms "script-kiddies" and "hacktivists". How exactly? Elaborate. Your claim needs to be substantiated. If you cannot elaborate further with any evidence, I can rapidly dismiss your claim as baseless. I also invite anyone else to support the parent's comment against mine. Discuss.
alkonaut 5y ago
Good. This isn’t a question of “but what about next time when it’s something you disagree with?”. This issue (and especially this particular implementation of law) even be elevated to a political issue. We should keep this on the same page as GoDaddy throwing out a terrorist organization. It’s an issue that doesn’t even have two sides to it.
- rscoots 5y ago
  (Asking as someone who thinks these laws are among the worst passed in the US in recent memory) What would you say to the charge that recruiting for terrorist organizations is actually illegal, and that the Texas laws were created legally by democratically elected officials? Surely there is some daylight between the 2.
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    Luckily I’m looking at it from the outside so I can say without flinching “if this was a functioning democracy and a functioning legal system this wouldn’t have happened”. There are certainly shades of gray all over but I also don’t think anything can be excused as morally acceptable because it’s decided democratically. > actually illegal The thing though is that abortions are now in that category too! Democratically elected officials creating laws without public support is sometimes necessary (e.g for budgetary reasons, environmental reasons or similar). Doing it in this situation isn’t that.
    - rscoots 5y ago
      Glad you've acknowledged there is a difference between this and recruiting for terrorist orgs. >I also don’t think anything can be excused as morally acceptable because it’s decided democratically. Wasn't asserted. >The thing though is that abortions are now in that category too! The website is not providing illegal abortions. Or else sadly goDaddy would probably be required by law to take it down. Anyways, I've learned from other comments that these laws are so broad that even activism supporting the right to abortion can be deemed illegal. So inadvertently you might've made a point if that proves true.
Animats 5y ago
This is bad. Israel has something like this with "kosher" phones.[1] One man determines who the ultra-orthodox are allowed to call. [1] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-how-one-ultra-orthodox-man-got-full-control-of-500-000-israelis-cellphones-1.7614553 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-how-one-ultra-o...
- iso1210 5y ago
  Funny how the people who complain the loudest about companies deciding not to associate tend to the be most rabbid free-market anti-government people. Godaddy isn't by any means a monopoly. The barrier of entry into hosting DNS is trivial. I don't see the problem.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - lanevorockz 5y ago
    So you are openly a supporter of Corporatism. The more money, the more political representation you are allowed to purchase. Congrats.
  - akudha 5y ago
    This is an interesting issue. Lets say all major hosting companies refuse to host this shitty website. Personally I will be okay with it, in this particular case. But what happens if/when the same companies refuse to host something that I support? That will make me unhappy and a hypocrite, I suppose. Not saying Godaddy is right or wrong here. Just that this is a slippery slope.
    - SiempreViernes 5y ago
      Why would it make you a hypocrite if you think "bad things shouldn't happen" and "(unrelated) good things should happen" at the same time? Maybe you meant the case where the company uses the exact same legal argument to later ban something you support? But this does not mean you must be a hypocrite, because the company might well employ it in error. Or you might have objected to already the first time it was stated because it was overly broad. Clearly hypocrisy does not follow automatically in the general case. And this is no more a slippery slope than that which you stand on whenever you do any moral judgment. The real problem that godaddy's action calls attention to is rather the arbitrary selectivness by which companies enforce their terms of service.
lanevorockz 5y ago
Nice, we can no longer run from politics. We need two services for every single political affiliation. Are you on Communist Twitter or the Capitalist one ?
almost_usual 5y ago
Who cares
w6rpv3om 5y ago
Censorship is always bad for society. This is sad!
jollybean 5y ago
To put this in context, it's helpful to flip the politics around. Imagine if GoDaddy was owned by a Trump buddy, like the 'Pillow Guy', and they were shutting down a website that helped sexually assaulted women find abortion clinics. How would one's concern about the original situation apply in that situation? I would say Section 230 is a decent bandaid solution but is the opposite of 'neutrality' and we likely need close scrutiny with respect to these things. We don't want Verizon inspecting our packets willy nilly and blocking traffic depending on who we might vote for, clearly at the 'network' level the motion for 'neutrality' is most obvious. Section 230 defines the domain "interactive computer service" , so it's not at all clear which tranches of technology fall under this. But 'hosting' and 'social networks', 'blogging + comments' are different, they are not arbitrary distinctions, and it'd be better if there were more clarity and better boundaries around what kinds of things they can 'moderate' etc.. Section 230 probably applies very well to those platforms that host and manage or publish content, like Social Networks, but maybe not so much the GoDaddy's, Amazon's and VISA's of the world.
RickJWagner 5y ago
History will find that GoDaddy is on the wrong side. Science tells us babies in the womb feel pain not long after a heartbeat. We wouldn't put up with some sicko putting electronic probes on a baby in the womb to inflict pain on it. Why would we allow someone to kill it? Think through it. A baby in the womb is a human. At some point, we have to determine when it has rights.
RickJWagner 5y ago
47 out of 50 European nations limit elective abortion prior to 15 weeks. It's high time for the US to abandon barbaric later abortions. GoDaddy's just looking for popularity points. History will not treat this decision kindly.

Good. This whole episode is inexcusable, and it's about time "big tech" made a stand and stopped participating in activities that are morally vile. I will continue to be a paying customer of GoDaddy as a result.

andrew_ 5y ago
In college I was asked the following question by a Sociology professor, and it always hits home when these battles of opposing moralities arise: How would you explain to a Nihilist that your morals are superior to the morals of those you consider reprehensible?
- lostgame 5y ago
  This is phenomenal food for thought. The kind of comment I come to HN for. This made me think; thanks. :)
- hirako2000 5y ago
  The pre requisite would be to explain that hierarchies of values exist. If you get there, you are no longer facing a nihilist, hence you can focus on arguing the superiority of your moral value.
  - andrew_ 5y ago
    I disagree you'd no.longer be facing a Nihilist. You might get them to consider the merit of a viewpoint versus another, but they still wouldn't really care about any viewpoint presented. A dyed in the wool Nihilist would only provide objective judgement, but adopt no position.
    - hirako2000 5y ago
      "Explaining" wouldn't magically turn a lot of nihilists I agree. A dyed in the wool as you said would not even listen to an explanation, she would hear it, and camp on their no position. There is something contradictory about nihilists, only their view is valid. The view that no view other than theirs is better than any other, and even if some obviously are, they are meaningless anyway. Unless it impacts them as individuals of course. I'm not arguing that a discussion with an entrenched Nihilist has much chance to have value, but since I'm not a Nihilist I see value in that discussion, even when it was a lost cause.
- runarberg 5y ago
  I don’t know why, but I hate that question (at least in this context). It seems like it is shifting the question of ethics into some sort of meta-ethics. I wonder if you professor was used to formulate an ethical argument, but I personally find it very hard. This might be a good advice in competitive debate, but when you are facing a real argument in the real world where somebody is claiming to be a moral superior I don’t know if this is a helpful advice. E.g. I have no idea how to explain to a nihilist that murdering humans is worse then killing animals for meat. Is that even possible?
- andrew_ 5y ago
  I'm legitimately glad to see this is making so many uncomfortable - that's a base component of robust discussion, delving into the uncomfortable. If you're down voting, please share the reasons why to further discussion.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  I wouldn't. Arguing with a Nihilist is like arguing with a flat earther - they are so disconnected from reality it doesn't make sense.
hirako2000 5y ago
What's inexcusable is for a business entity to apply discrimination on moral grounds. Ideally, politicians should also stay away from the moral debate. We've seen what this can lead to. Reality here is that godaddy gave an unreasonably small time window for a site shutdown, simply because of their fear of the backslash from the public causing PR damage hence revenue loss.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Which would be fine, except ya know not, serving cakes to gay people. The problem is certain groups want to have their cake and eat it too. There is no consistency.
  - meowster 5y ago
    The baker offered to serve his cakes to gay people, he just didn't want to be compelled to create a cake he didn't like.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      GoDaddy offered to serve websites to Texans, they just didn't want to be compelled to serve a website they didn't like.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  > What's inexcusable is for a business entity to apply discrimination on moral grounds. Should a business be "moral less" and allow all behavior? The idea that we should embrace cold, profit-only business entities is much more reprehensible to me.
  - jaldhar 5y ago
    Yes, related to their area of business. What is “cold” about making profits to you? Personally, the locus of morality is my religious/ethnic community. Businesses should focus on making money so they can pay people who can use that money to be moral in their own communities.
koheripbal 5y ago
I suspect you will sing a different tune the day "big tech" takes a moral position you disagree with.
- arglebarglegar 5y ago
  to be clear, the position here is “turn in a woman for cash because she exercised bodily autonomy” this isn’t really slippery slope, there are so many red flags here
  - lghh 5y ago
    This isn't a slippery slope because it's the bottom of the slope we slid down.
- lghh 5y ago
  I'm going to somewhat sarcastically link to a dril tweet here. https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en For those that don't want to go to twitter: `the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"` I don't want to add a ton of exposition to this, but I also don't want this to be a reddit-level comment where I just link to something and bounce so I will add that clearly someone doing something because it is moral and just like hampering the collection of abortion bounties is better than someone doing something immoral and unjust like hampering access to abortions. It isn't about what I agree and disagree with, it's about what's actually right and wrong.
  - junon 5y ago
    In prehistoric days, killing another man to protect your own food was "right". The Aztecs had no problem sacrificing people, and many sought it out (it's theorized) given that it guaranteed you a place next to the sun and thus in paradise, eternally drunk. Extremists even today believe in a paradise-after-death if they sacrifice themselves for god. To a lesser extent, self-flagellation (whipping oneself for religious purposes) is still prevalent in many cultures and sects of e.g. Christianity/Catholocism today. "Right" and "wrong" change over time, and with culture. Thus they are subjective - there is no objective "right" and "wrong". In this sense, your last sentence relates two identical things - what you might agree with and disagree with are your own perception of "right" and "wrong". It's a somewhat flawed and (in my opinion) dangerous way of thinking about social interaction and morality. --- E: Because I know this will be mis-interpreted, let me be clear: the website in question is, in my opinion, abhorrent - but I think it's dangerous to celebrate a large company taking it down on the grounds of morality. I understand it was taken down as it specifically violated a pre-existing clause in their ToS which makes it make sense in this case. But to say that this is a great thing and we should do this for people that are "wrong" is beginning down a path that nobody really wants.

yawaworht1978 5y ago

"After users threatened to boycott the internet domain service GoDaddy " So the change of mind was not proactive.

gjs278 5y ago
they should have already been boycotting godaddy
rsynnott 5y ago
That likely lead their risk/policy people to go “wait, we’re hosting WHAT?!” This wouldn’t necessarily have been something they’d know about up front. The group presumably didn’t write them an email on signing up saying “yeah, we’ll be violating your ToS”.
- skohan 5y ago
  I mean I would be surprised if there are many humans at all vetting domains registered on godaddy. It's probably a mainly automated process with some smoke testing, and automated scanning for illegal content - if that.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
The real question is: how many users do I need to get involved and threatening to leave their service to DoS an arbitrary site?

stemc43 5y ago

Freedom of speech immediately forgotten when money is at stake. no worries - there is a parallel economy rising from this leftist takeover. sites like gab are growing like there is no tomorrow.

emodendroket 5y ago
You know, perhaps there are more ways you could conceive of freedoms at stake here than just the narrow freedom of speech issue you’re flagging.
ohgodplsno 5y ago
When you actively call for harm (civil suit + the danger that is getting an "illegal" abortion), don't be surprised when people kick you out. That's not a leftist takeover, that's a holy-shit-even-the-1800s-were-more-progressive-for-women takeover.
- jaldhar 5y ago
  Abortion actively causes harm to unborn children. What this shows is that harm reduction (the principal moral foundation for “leftists”, “progressives” etc. according to Jonathan Haidt) is inadequate as the sole foundation for an ethic.
  - ohgodplsno 5y ago
    There is no unborn child. It's not even a thinking mass of cells. A fetus is not a life. What this shows is that conservatives do not give a single shit about harm, but this is about their own little morals and ethic allows them to justify a miserable existence for a woman and a child because you, as a man who is never going to be in a situation where your only choices are either getting an abortion in secret or being sued for doing do, thought that you could control their bodies.
    - jaldhar 5y ago
      This is a fascinating comment to me as a window into the unexamined assumptions of a liberal mind. (Well, I don't know your politics but I think its safe to say this is typical of what American liberals think.) > There is no unborn child. It's not even a thinking mass of cells. A fetus is not a life. The fetus would grow into a life if it were not for the violent intervention of an abortion. Is the future relevant to a system of ethics? Take for example the debate over universal pre-k. What harm is there right now if a toddler in the ghetto doesn't learn their ABCs until a few years later. Or is it the proponents think it will lead to problems later on in life. > What this shows is that conservatives do not give a single shit about harm Maybe a single shit but harm/care is only one of several moral foundations. Read your Haidt. Or atleast this excerpt from the wikipedia page on moral foundations theory: "Researchers have found that people's sensitivities to the five/six moral foundations correlate with their political ideologies. Using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, Haidt and Graham found that libertarians are most sensitive to the proposed Liberty foundation, liberals are most sensitive to the Care and Fairness foundations, while conservatives are equally sensitive to all five/six foundations." Incidently, another of Haidts' findings is that conservatives are much better at understanding why liberals are liberal than liberals are at understanding why conservatives are conservative. > this is about their own little morals and ethic Well duh! morals and ethics are by definition the principles that drive a person to act. > allows them to justify a miserable existence for a woman and a child From the childs point of view (what child is that btw? I thought a fetus wasn't one.) not existing at all seems to be as miserable as possible. But a better question might be is there no reason to oppose abortion except a desire to cause misery. > because you, as a man who is never going to be in a situation where your only choices are either getting an abortion in secret or being sued for doing do I'm never going to be a loser drug addict who got his neck stepped on by the police. Can I say nothing in support of George Floyd? In general, can one only express a moral opinion on subjects one has direct experience of? > thought that you could control their bodies. This is about a law. Law is an instrument by which human societies control the bodies of women and men. Law is also how those societies can discuss when to control and how much but control is what is going on. As I write this, there is this group of strangers called "doctors" who are attempting to control my body by covering my face and sticking me with needles. Can you think of a non-nefarious reason why they might be doing this?

sokoloff 5y ago

I find it morally agreeable in the small but am worried about the larger implications. Other than my agreeing with the moral position in this case, how is this different than a baker not making a cake for some particular customer? We can’t reasonably be making “this type of refusal to do business is okay, but that one is not” based on moral agreements of individuals, especially when it comes to utility and infrastructure providers (which arguably bakers of cakes are not).

prezjordan 5y ago
If by "some particular customer" you mean a protected group, we've already figured out this distinction in the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group#United_States
- Dma54rhs 5y ago
  Protected class is purely social construct.
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    Society is purely a social construct. The fact that some things exist solely because we collectively agree they do doesn't make them less real. I still can pay my rent using money. I need a passport to enter another country. You will have issue with the authorities if you discriminate a protected group.
    - Dma54rhs 5y ago
      There's nothing stopping considering pro lifers or whatever they want to be called to include in that list, hell why not even under religion. Just some judge has to stamp it.
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        If this is your view quit worrying about precedent at all, given that it is no less a social construct.

simion314 5y ago

Illegal abortions and snitching on your neighbors remind me about communist Romania (my country), though I was young at that time I heard enough stories about weird abortion attempts(like putting furniture on your belly) and there are amny stories about people reading their security files and finding out that someone they trusted was snitching on them.

telesilla 5y ago
One of the most well-written films about abortion that highlights the ordeal is, not surprisingly given your comment, Romanian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Months,_3_Weeks_and_2_Days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Months,_3_Weeks_and_2_Days
- GrayShade 5y ago
  That policy is sometimes discussed in the Western media, e.g. https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-28/half-million-kids-survived-romanias-slaughterhouses-souls-now-they-want-justice https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-28/half-million-kids-sur... or https://medium.com/dose/what-we-can-learn-from-romanias-complete-abortion-ban-fb9fcacc9cb3 https://medium.com/dose/what-we-can-learn-from-romanias-comp....
missedthecue 5y ago
Do you feel the same about this? https://www.crimestoppersusa.org/ https://www.crimestoppersusa.org/
- simion314 5y ago
  I can't understand what exactly this crime stoppers do, do they call police on you if you make a crime? There were 2 things in the Texas abortion thing that reminds me of my country past 1 make abortion illegal and force people in doing risky procedures 2 a system where you can't trust anyone , you could get snitched on, even false accusations that could destroy your life. So the 2 things combined did the job, individually would not have worked, and Texas has a reputation that I will not be surprised of weird things happening there.

fzeroracer 5y ago

As someone that lives in Texas, this is one of the few issues that's dire enough for me to post once more on HN. So I'll say my piece and return back to lurking: This issue (specifically the issue of the law that Texas passed) has zero place in our society. None, whatsoever. No matter if you're for or against abortion. It is a flagrant violation of our constitutional rights (including our rights to freedom of speech) because it criminalizes anything relating to 'aiding and abetting' abortions. Section 171.208 of the bill HB1515 implies that you could be drawn into a civil lawsuit for simply suggesting or posting about abortions. This site was created explicitly for that purpose: to gather information about people whom violated that section of the law so that they can be sued in court. I shouldn't need to mention the extreme chilling effect this has not only on abortions but on speech relating to abortions as well. This site (and by extension this law) I repeat can not and should not be tolerated in any way, shape or form.

asimpletune 5y ago
Not to mention that its legality is based off a novel mechanism of crowd sourcing enforcement. In other words roe v wade is the law of the land, so they make a law that’s clearly in violation of it, but with a novel enforcement mechanism. Now the issue is challenging this in court, which is strange and weird because of the enforcement mechanism. Put another way, let’s say California passes a law banning the purchasing of guns, but enforces that law by allowing neighbors to bring suit and shielding defendants from collecting legal fees if they prevail. You can pretty much use this technique for anything if it’s allowed. Basically it’s opening a legal Pandora’s box.
- unclebucknasty 5y ago
  The piece I've yet to fully understand is how the state manages to absolve itself of enforcement. That is, they created the law which criminalizes it (or at least makes it some odd criminal-civil hybrid statute). They then set up a reporting system, which itself places them squarely in the process. And, following a report, they would presumably do something. I don't see how they can reasonably claim they are not involved with enforcement.

throw3849 5y ago

In France it is illegal to have DNA paternity test, even in foreign country. I expect GoDaddy to take the same actions there and in other countries!

orwin 5y ago
> In France it is illegal to have DNA paternity test It is not. https://www.francepaternite.com/est-il-legal-de-realiser-un-test-de-paternite-en-france/ https://www.francepaternite.com/est-il-legal-de-realiser-un-...
- vdqtp3 5y ago
  It is illegal to get it without a court order, no?
  - orwin 5y ago
    Not really, its just that it won't be recognized as evidence nor attenuating circumstances if the man become violent and kill or disfigure his partner. It is illegal to provide the test mind you, not to ask for it. So the reason why it is illegal to provide the test is medical data protection. France is really high on this, the restrictions on processing medical data like diabetes, asthma are probably the strictest in europe - probably for historical/cultural reasons, but i'm not sure and only have circumstential evidence of this (and btw, with the americanisation/globalisation of french society, those cultural reasons will disapear). The genitical data are even more protected. And by the way, for us (or at least for people from brittany, i don't know that much people elsewhere), being a father or a grandfather is'nt a genetical thing. The man who share 1/4 of my genes with i call Warren, the one who raised my father and me i used to call grandfather (well, more endearingly than that)

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

This is the flipside of the argument people make against Facebook or Twitter censoring people on their platforms. Without the ability to decide what speech is and isn't allowed on their own systems, GoDaddy wouldn't be able to do this.

lostmsu 5y ago
And they shouldn't have been.
skohan 5y ago
Some would argue it should be up to government/democracy to decide which speech is and isn't allowed.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  If I understand what you're saying, whenever anyone allows others to use something they own, storage space, web servers, their car, etc. You want the government to be the sole arbiter of what it can and cannot be used for? So like, if you sell web hosting on servers in your basement and one of them ends up being the most popular page on the white supremacist webring, you're totally ok with the government saying you have no right to cancel that account?
  - skohan 5y ago
    No certainly not. I would say that common carrier regulation should be reserved for things which behave like utilities, especially if there are very few comparable players in the market. The precedent would be something like the railroads: if you want to move freight, your options are quite limited, and your business might live or die depending on access to the rail system, so rail providers are not allowed to pick favorites as this would give them undue influence on the economy as a whole. I think it should be fairly simple to draw a common-sense distinction between small business and the tech-giants which gate keep the internet. If you are not allowed to host your site on the server in my basement, nobody is going out of business because of that. If you cannot use AWS, GCP and Azure, there's a significant possibility your business will not be able to survive in today's market. To counter your analogy, if I am the CEO of one of the largest mobile carriers in the country, and I believe you hold unacceptable opinions, should I be able to deny you access to my network and prevent you from making phone calls?

swiley 5y ago

I’m constantly surprised when people use GoDaddy for domain registration/site hosting.

vegetablepotpie 5y ago
They are sketchy. I had to use them in 2011 because a club I was in decided to use them for their website. Their web portal was designed to make using your products as difficult as possible, and buying new products as easy as possible. The interface changed frequently, always in favor of making it easy to buy new products from them. They have been well marketed for years. If someone wants a website, they think goDaddy. Most people cannot deal with the concept of domain name registrars and http servers. They want a one stop shop, pay several dollars to a year, have a web site, and then forget about the whole thing.

tyingq 5y ago

Tried looking at it, but they must have the "wordfence" WAF turned up to super-paranoid settings. I did get a normal page once, but mostly I get a page telling me I'm suspicious. https://prolifewhistleblower.com/ https://prolifewhistleblower.com/

input_sh 5y ago
That's because it was spammed to hell in the past couple of days. I wouldn't even call it a coordinated since I've seen people asking to spam that site on Twitter, TikTok, reddit, you name it.
- tyingq 5y ago
  Yeah, I imagine the snitch data isn't so useful now that it's spammed with fake entries.

ulucs 5y ago

So we're making it clearer and clearer that US is ruled by corporations rather than elected officials. I just hope they keep the same momentum the next time someone rallies for intervention in Middle East

smoldesu 5y ago
Maybe Texas ought to just host the site themselves if it means so much to them. GoDaddy, AWS and DigitalOcean have no obligation to host your site if they object to the contents of your site, that's been inside the EULA of every VPS distributor since 2005.
- dundarious 5y ago
  I haven’t read any detailed piece on the SCOTUS decision, but I think a big part in why the law is allowed to go ahead for now is that it is: - a civil statute, not criminal - reported/enforced by private individuals/entities, not the state government I suspect the law was crafted specifically to deny the possibility for the government to operate such a site, and that this was the “one weird trick” used to get around the Roe precedent, at least for 5 of the justices. I’m not totally confident in that, so I’d appreciate learning if I’m wrong.
  - PoignardAzur 5y ago
    Well, it sure is too bad that this law meant to bypass constitutional precedent by relying on private individuals to act as DAs might be slightly hampered by other private individuals denying them the use of their platform for this purpose.
    - dundarious 5y ago
      To be clear, I’m massively against the new law. I was just explaining that my understanding is that for its proponents, a workaround such as hosting with the state government wouldn’t work because the legislators are hoist with their own petard.
- 5y ago

fullshark 5y ago

All web services need to basically be classified as either a utility or a publisher, and be regulated accordingly. They've been in this gray area, picking and choosing to appropriately navigate the law / PR crises as they arise and clear regulations are simply required.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
You may not like them, but the regulations are very clear. None of them are utilities. There was some effort to make ISPs common carriers, but the last administration nixed it.
- humanrebar 5y ago
  Congress could always, you know, do their jobs and actually fix the law. As to one bureaucratic choice or another, we've had enough turnover in the White House in the internet era that "the last guy broke this" doesn't really cut it. New executives can always issue new executive orders. It's just whether they want to bother or not.
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    Maybe. I think the common carrier thing was done with administrative rule making, which is a whole different process. I don’t think executive orders can overrule that, but I’m not a lawyer.

orwin 5y ago

By the way, Victorian-era women were allowed to take abortion herbs whenever they wanted to (well, before quickening). https://archive.org/details/whenabortionwasc00reag_0 https://archive.org/details/whenabortionwasc00reag_0 We are more regressive in this way that people from the 19th century. Great.

RKearney 5y ago
And people back in the day were allowed to own slaves, yet we don’t look back on that an argue that we’ve regressed. Perhaps some day society will look back on abortions with the same disgust as we see slavery today.
- rmorey 5y ago
  That would be because slavery is in fact bad, and reproductive healthcare is in fact good
  - RKearney 5y ago
    One could argue that ending a human life is fact bad.
    - Redoubts 5y ago
      To end, it must first begin.
      - zdragnar 5y ago
        It has human DNA unique from the mother and, in this case, an independent heartbeat. To the minds of the people supporting this law, that makes it alive, with its own rights independent of the mother's. Their argument, as such, is that it isnt a matter of reproductive healthcare at all, but murder. I know of a few states that would file multiple murder charges in the case of killing a pregnant woman, for example. All the comparisons to a handmaidens tale, yelling about womens rights and reporductive health will never change their mind... No different than the accusations of Larry Elder being a white supremacist.

mabbo 5y ago

I can see the "why is this different than a wedding cake for gay couples" argument. It's a reasonable point. But I can see why it's not the same. Making a cake is a one-time interaction. Sexual orientation is similar to race in the respect of expected protections from discrimination. Apply the same wedding cake refusal for racial reasons and it's obvious this is discrimination. On the other hand, being a domain registrar means a continued involvement in the act being discussed- running this website. GoDaddy are not just selling a one time transaction, they're an active, paid participant. They're service must continue to exist for the website to work, so long as they are the registrar. And what the website is doing is not protected by law. What really decides these things though is that GoDaddy needs to answer to their shareholders. How many customers will leave if they choose not to do business with this website? How many customers will leave if they do continue to do business with this website? In the end, it always comes down to money.

missedthecue 5y ago
Remember that in the cake baking case, the owners didn't refuse to do business with the couple. They offered to sell them any cake in the shop, or even make a custom cake that wasn't for their gay wedding. It was specifically using their creative arts to contribute to the wedding that the owner refused to do.
plbhl 5y ago
The Bakery doesn’t refuse to allow LGTBQ to enter their business & purchase their products, that would be impossible to defend. They will also custom make a cake for LGTBQ customers, they only refuse to make “wedding” cakes for LGTBQ. Why? If anyone has ever been married & hired a wedding cake vendor, u realize you are not simply walking into a bakery & leaving with a cake. You are hiring a vendor. Like all vendors, they participate in your wedding. There’s private, personal meetings about design & flavors. The cake vendor delivers the cake to the location & sets it up. Why would an LGTBQ couple want a vendor to participate in such a personal event who does not want to fully support their event, who isn’t excited to be involved? I don’t think there are laws that would force the bakery to participate like that. GoDaddy is certainly not providing personal services on that level, so it’s not a great analogy.

rsynnott 5y ago

Yeah, if you’re going to be soliciting personal information for vigilante harassment, I’m not sure why you’d imagine that a standard mainstream host would want to touch you. This is going to violate most hosts’ ToS.

ramesh31 5y ago
>Yeah, if you’re going to be soliciting personal information for vigilante harassment, I’m not sure why you’d imagine that a standard mainstream host would want to touch you. They are a state government attempting to enforce a law. By definition, it is not vigilante. Whether the law is agreeable or just is another question entirely; a political question.
- dundarious 5y ago
  The website is run by a private entity, not an arm of the government.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  This isn’t the government; it’s some private organisation.
- cududa 5y ago
  The only reason the law doesn’t violate Roe v Wade because it tasks citizens to turn people in
  - kemayo 5y ago
    For that matter, it's still entirely plausible that when someone actually sues under the law it's going to get appealed up and revoked because of Roe. I say plausible, because I'm sure the conservative majority would like to overturn Roe, but I'm not sure if this particular law is the vehicle they'd want for that. All the Supreme Court said so far was that they didn't think there was a cause of action at the moment because of how the law was structured. (Now, was that decision perhaps slightly motivated by the conservative majority and the exact topic of the law? Seems likely. I bet they'd have stayed a law that was exactly the same other than the reportable-act being handgun ownership, for instance.)

merricksb 5y ago

Also discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28408467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28408467

steve76 5y ago

What this argument is like without virtue signaling or the brainwashing from civil rights: Free the rapist. Kill the baby. What a sick society. All this because you can't control your crotch. I wish you were the one aborted. No one wants to follow you around fixing your mistakes and cleaning up after you. Send the father to war to die. Raise the child against his parents. All three of them failed at what even amoeba can do. Everyone else who had the now luxury of birth gets through the day without a problem. The world would really be nice if we did not have these discussions, as in, you weren't in it.

HideousKojima 5y ago
Glad someone else is willing to say it, it's sad that the Overton Window on abortion has shifted so far that what you said is unacceptable these days.
pessimizer 5y ago
California just passed a law that makes the phrases "virtue signaling" and "cancel culture" illegal, so anybody who reads your comment can sue you for $100K.
- mcintyre1994 5y ago
  Genuinely curious how the Supreme Court would choose to differentiate that if it had the same enforcement mechanism and was similarly civil not criminal. I guess it wouldn't get to them because it'd have to go through a State Supreme Court first and none would pretend it was constitutional, but it's a fun hypothetical.

aeoleonn 5y ago

So... The SJW Technofascists & Qui say: - We can force you to make a wedding cake for gay people even though you religiously disagree with it - We can also take your website offline because we disagree with.

chownie 5y ago
No one is forced to do anything, iirc that couple never got that cake. Businesses are free to refuse service to people within protected groups, they're just risking legal action when they do. That's the trade up.
- aklemm 5y ago
  Legal peril is the definition of not being free.
  - chownie 5y ago
    True, but it's also disingenuous to imply you're forced to do something because the alternative to that action puts you in legal peril. In the same way a factory owner is "forced" to comply with OSHA lest they be in legal peril, you cannot discriminate against a protected group without putting yourself in legal peril. Your freedom comes in the form of opting out of activities that put you in that position, if you cannot help but discriminate against those in protected groups due to your religious beliefs then you should take up a profession where that's no longer an issue for you. If aforementioned factory owner was unwilling to follow OSHA guidences due to a deeply held personal belief then I think it's a much better outcome they see punishment for that until they opt out of that profession than for us to change the law to allow it.

4soCYdibyA 5y ago

Obviously women have the right to decide whether they want to continue to be pregnant or not. Everyone has an absolute right to bodily self-determination. Obviously a fetus, like any other human at any age, has an absolute right to life. This right is not subject to the approval of the mother. It is arguably less strong than the right to life of a postnatal child due to the presumably more limited nature of the fetus's subjective experience, but if you think there is a moral difference between killing a newborn baby and killing a fetus a day before it is due, the forces that hold you in that position probably have more to do with cultural commitments than reason. Nature puts two individuals' most fundamental, absolute rights into conflict with one another. It's a tragedy. At the moment, the least worst resolution available to us is to try to find the line before which the mother's right to bodily self-determination outweighs the fetus's right to life. This is an impossible task, because it's impossible to know the subjective experience of another sentient being. Virtually everyone in the modern US responds to this situation by favoring either the mother or the fetus and discounting or outright denying the rights of the other party. I think it's time for us to move past that and seek to remove the rights conflict by developing technology that allows women to choose to end their pregnancies, without also ending the lives of their fetuses. I mostly talk to liberals, and most of them push back on this idea at first. I point out to them that replacing abortion with access to technology and services that make it possible for women to end their pregnancies without killing the fetuses inside them would take much of the wind out of the sails of the American right. I also point out that, politics aside, it would actually be morally preferable to universal access to abortion, because it would not require killing fetuses, which actually do have a right to life. Finally, I point out that liberals are unlikely to win the abortion issue in any other way. Their opponents aren't just going to get old and die. Young people choose to be pro-life all the time. This is because fetuses actually do have a right to life.

iso1210 5y ago
> Finally, I point out that liberals are unlikely to win the abortion issue in any other way. This isn't an issue in most countries

deleted 5y ago

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NelsonMinar 5y ago

This story is moving fast. They are currently hosted at Epik, some time hosting provider to Daily Stormer, 8chan, and Gab. https://twitter.com/MeInAPearTree/status/1434018534397460484 https://twitter.com/MeInAPearTree/status/1434018534397460484

rvz 5y ago
So the website still exists and now they found a different domain provider within 24 hours after being de-platformed by GoDaddy? What have these 'script-kiddies' and 'hacktivists' achieved other than making these websites more resilient and censorship resistant? What's next? complain to Google Inc, that they are using ReCAPTCHA because they don't like the website? Perhaps this means anyone can do these sort of methods to anyone else who they don't like until they become censorship resistant. Unfortunately, the website owners have not changed their minds and the site is still up and the law (which I also disagree with) is still in effect. If they were expecting a backlash, it didn't happen. This is a complete and total failure. Downvoters: So you are telling me that the website is still down then? So they didn't find a domain provider to move to? Are you telling me that they are still on GoDaddy? Is there any evidence that substantiates this? Are you really sure?
- NelsonMinar 5y ago
  The failure started with the Texas Lege and then the Supreme Court. BTW you're misusing the terms "script-kiddies" and "hacktivists".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - rvz 5y ago
    The website in question is still up isn't it? Despite everything that has happened, that dreadful law is still in effect and no-one's minds had been changed. It is as if nothing had happened. > BTW you're misusing the terms "script-kiddies" and "hacktivists". How exactly? Elaborate. Your claim needs to be substantiated. If you cannot elaborate further with any evidence, I can rapidly dismiss your claim as baseless. I also invite anyone else to support the parent's comment against mine. Discuss.

alkonaut 5y ago

Good. This isn’t a question of “but what about next time when it’s something you disagree with?”. This issue (and especially this particular implementation of law) even be elevated to a political issue. We should keep this on the same page as GoDaddy throwing out a terrorist organization. It’s an issue that doesn’t even have two sides to it.

rscoots 5y ago
(Asking as someone who thinks these laws are among the worst passed in the US in recent memory) What would you say to the charge that recruiting for terrorist organizations is actually illegal, and that the Texas laws were created legally by democratically elected officials? Surely there is some daylight between the 2.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Luckily I’m looking at it from the outside so I can say without flinching “if this was a functioning democracy and a functioning legal system this wouldn’t have happened”. There are certainly shades of gray all over but I also don’t think anything can be excused as morally acceptable because it’s decided democratically. > actually illegal The thing though is that abortions are now in that category too! Democratically elected officials creating laws without public support is sometimes necessary (e.g for budgetary reasons, environmental reasons or similar). Doing it in this situation isn’t that.
  - rscoots 5y ago
    Glad you've acknowledged there is a difference between this and recruiting for terrorist orgs. >I also don’t think anything can be excused as morally acceptable because it’s decided democratically. Wasn't asserted. >The thing though is that abortions are now in that category too! The website is not providing illegal abortions. Or else sadly goDaddy would probably be required by law to take it down. Anyways, I've learned from other comments that these laws are so broad that even activism supporting the right to abortion can be deemed illegal. So inadvertently you might've made a point if that proves true.

Animats 5y ago

This is bad. Israel has something like this with "kosher" phones.[1] One man determines who the ultra-orthodox are allowed to call. [1] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-how-one-ultra-orthodox-man-got-full-control-of-500-000-israelis-cellphones-1.7614553 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-how-one-ultra-o...

iso1210 5y ago
Funny how the people who complain the loudest about companies deciding not to associate tend to the be most rabbid free-market anti-government people. Godaddy isn't by any means a monopoly. The barrier of entry into hosting DNS is trivial. I don't see the problem.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lanevorockz 5y ago
  So you are openly a supporter of Corporatism. The more money, the more political representation you are allowed to purchase. Congrats.
- akudha 5y ago
  This is an interesting issue. Lets say all major hosting companies refuse to host this shitty website. Personally I will be okay with it, in this particular case. But what happens if/when the same companies refuse to host something that I support? That will make me unhappy and a hypocrite, I suppose. Not saying Godaddy is right or wrong here. Just that this is a slippery slope.
  - SiempreViernes 5y ago
    Why would it make you a hypocrite if you think "bad things shouldn't happen" and "(unrelated) good things should happen" at the same time? Maybe you meant the case where the company uses the exact same legal argument to later ban something you support? But this does not mean you must be a hypocrite, because the company might well employ it in error. Or you might have objected to already the first time it was stated because it was overly broad. Clearly hypocrisy does not follow automatically in the general case. And this is no more a slippery slope than that which you stand on whenever you do any moral judgment. The real problem that godaddy's action calls attention to is rather the arbitrary selectivness by which companies enforce their terms of service.

lanevorockz 5y ago

Nice, we can no longer run from politics. We need two services for every single political affiliation. Are you on Communist Twitter or the Capitalist one ?

almost_usual 5y ago

Who cares

w6rpv3om 5y ago

Censorship is always bad for society. This is sad!

jollybean 5y ago

To put this in context, it's helpful to flip the politics around. Imagine if GoDaddy was owned by a Trump buddy, like the 'Pillow Guy', and they were shutting down a website that helped sexually assaulted women find abortion clinics. How would one's concern about the original situation apply in that situation? I would say Section 230 is a decent bandaid solution but is the opposite of 'neutrality' and we likely need close scrutiny with respect to these things. We don't want Verizon inspecting our packets willy nilly and blocking traffic depending on who we might vote for, clearly at the 'network' level the motion for 'neutrality' is most obvious. Section 230 defines the domain "interactive computer service" , so it's not at all clear which tranches of technology fall under this. But 'hosting' and 'social networks', 'blogging + comments' are different, they are not arbitrary distinctions, and it'd be better if there were more clarity and better boundaries around what kinds of things they can 'moderate' etc.. Section 230 probably applies very well to those platforms that host and manage or publish content, like Social Networks, but maybe not so much the GoDaddy's, Amazon's and VISA's of the world.

RickJWagner 5y ago

History will find that GoDaddy is on the wrong side. Science tells us babies in the womb feel pain not long after a heartbeat. We wouldn't put up with some sicko putting electronic probes on a baby in the womb to inflict pain on it. Why would we allow someone to kill it? Think through it. A baby in the womb is a human. At some point, we have to determine when it has rights.

RickJWagner 5y ago

47 out of 50 European nations limit elective abortion prior to 15 weeks. It's high time for the US to abandon barbaric later abortions. GoDaddy's just looking for popularity points. History will not treat this decision kindly.