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Am I the only one who sees Digital Ocean as acting ethically here? This guy is a jerk. He harassed a guy, because the guy works at Google, into giving him his

Am I the only one who sees Digital Ocean as acting ethically here? This guy is a jerk. He harassed a guy, because the guy works at Google, into giving him his opinion about a semi-controversial topic in a private forum. Then he writes a blog hit-piece in which he explicitly identifies him and disparages him for the opinion he gave! I don't know if he has a legal right to do this, but you don't just do things like that. This Googler is not a spokesperson for the company. He's not in a public forum. He's just some guy who works at Google as a developer, who gave you his opinion "off the record", and you do something like that!? He could lose his job over this if somebody at Google PR overreacts. He may have a family, a mortgage, car payments, school debts, and without any reason, you decided to just screw him over. Don't do things like that!!!! Be nice! All DigitalOcean asked him to do is to anonymize references to this Googler. This is the ethical move because this jerk didn't get the Googler's permission to have him "on the record". Depending on your jurisdiction, you are in a legal grey area anyway.

voidr 13y ago
It doesn't matter if they were ethical or not, what they did is not right. They are not law enforcement. If everybody would be allowed to enforce the law, then I would be free to shoot you in the head just because you made a negative comment about my cat, because I feel that's ethical.
- perlpimp 13y ago
  I totally concur if a group of people decides to go all out in asshattery, the worst thing is for business is to participate - they become partial which is never good when you start taking sides in this sort of thing. If you get court order to take a page down do that - probably because it is illegal. IMO the more drama the more your business is visible. For one I heard very good things about Digital Ocean - however I am very libertian minded and I think whatever people go going between themselves - they should figure it out. If things turn criminal let police deal with it.
- untothebreach 13y ago
  What 'law' are they enforcing here? They are enforcing their own TOS, which is perfectly within their right. I'm not saying this is the right thing for them to do, but he is using their service, so they have a right to enforce their TOS. He is perfectly able to move his blog post, unedited, to another VPS provider if he does not like what they are asking him to do.
  - nodata 13y ago
    Which wins, the TOS or the law?
    - untothebreach 13y ago
      "Wins?" I'm not quite sure what you mean by "winning." In this case, DO is enforcing _their_ own TOS, on content that is served from _their_ servers. That seems legit to me, whether or not I think it is the right thing for them to do. Is there a law stating that they don't have a right to do this?
      - voidr 13y ago
        > In this case, DO is enforcing _their_ own TOS, on content that is served from _their_ servers. And they are terminating a service that the OP paid with it's _own_ money. There are consumer protection laws. > Is there a law stating that they don't have a right to do this? They don't have the right to enforce the law, they are not the police, and as it turns out there are laws against slander.
    - zobzu 13y ago
      law always win of course, the TOS are always full of stuff that is unenforceable in the eyes of the law. That being said you do need to hire a lawyer to check if thats the case every time and thats spendy.
  - taf2 13y ago
    slander... the guy he was blogging about is not famous, not a public figure, talking trash, about someone by name in a public way is slander - perhaps this helps explain further: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation DO - TOS is like a slander clause
- macspoofing 13y ago
  >It doesn't matter if they were ethical or not, what they did is not right. Ethics matter to me. And they matter to many people. This guy is pure bully and I feel bad for the Googler. I'm glad DO stepped in and politely asked him to anonymize his post.
danso 13y ago
I sympathize with the Googler, in that his comments may not have been written and polished by a PR person, but they weren't at all as offensive or insensitive as the OP hyped them to be, especially given the constraints of the "meatspace". But look at what you just wrote. That complaint has been raised against Google many times, because Google's index captures not only what you say in public, but what others say about you, even if you feel that it is misleading. For example, if a news story comes out about me being implicated in a crime, and 1 week later, I'm completely exonerated...but whoever wrote the headline used poorer SEO, and fewer people cared 1 week later...Google, via algorithm, may rank the outdated story higher. There's very little recourse because, on technical grounds alone, it is tricky to do. But in a "moral" sense, once you make that move for someone, how do you argue that you don't do it for someone else in a similar situation? The Googler spoke in a place that would not legally be considered private and he is not naive about technology. Is the OP a jerk? Sure. But that's not the topic here....the topic is, would Digital Ocean have been a jerk to say "Sorry buddy, but we can't just take a blog down because you regret your comments"? IMO, No. And it's not because DO is a jerk. Anymore than Google is for not taking down clearly harmful -- but not illegal -- results. As Matt Cutts put it: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/remove-page-from-google/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/remove-page-from-google/ > *Unfortunately there’s not much I can do. The page you pointed out is not spam, and pretty much the only removals (at least in the U.S., which is what I know about) that we do for legal reasons are if a court orders us. We typically say that if person A doesn’t like a webpage B, only removing page B out of Google’s search results doesn’t do any good because webpage B is still there (e.g. it can be found by going to it directly or through other search engines). In that sense, the presence of that page in Google’s index is just reflecting the fact that the page exists on the wider web....There you have it. People usually aren’t happy to hear that reply, but I hope they can understand the reasoning behind it. So if you're talking about ethics, what DO did here, IMO, crossed a line, because now it sets a very low bar for what is privacy and what is defamation. If the OP quoted the Googler correctly...and the Googler offered his opinion knowing that it was being read...he may not like how his comments were interpreted or published, but he doesn't have legal recourse. For the record, "off the record" has no real legal standing. It's a term reporters use to set the boundaries with their sources...if they break it, then it's unlikely sources will talk to those reporters again. In this case, of course, the Googler can exercise that right to not speak to the OP again. But it really shouldn't be up to DO to intervene on his behalf in such a ham-fisted way.
josephlord 13y ago
All DigitalOcean asked him to do was to give them editorial control over his blog. That isn't a small thing to me. At a quick glance it looks like a public forum (which has a bearing on how I view the ethics of the situation although even if it was private I don't think DO should act). When you are asked a question about your employer in public you are speaking for them and if you say something dumb that your company doesn't like that is your action and responsibility not someone who reports it. When I worked for a large company I used to speak (and particularly write online) very carefully except when truly in private. I also don't see any reference to anything being "off the record" so I don't see why you assume it wasn't "on the record". Would I write that article like that? No. Do I think DO should claim editorial control over it? Hell no. Maybe DO could request the blog owner provide contact details (I can't see any on the current site) so that legal action could be brought directly against them as the publisher rather than against DO. Not offering such may be reasonable grounds to have DO demand editorial changes or cease service.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  > All DigitalOcean asked him to do was to give them editorial control over his blog. That isn't a small thing to me. A nitpick. They didn't ask for editorial control; they asked for observance of the Terms of Service, with the option on their side to discontinue service. Nothing in the ToS gives DigitalOcean any right to editorial control and nothing in their communications says "give us control". It's a binary proposition. Stick to the agreement, or the agreement is off.
  - imdsm 13y ago
    I disagree. It seems to me that they wanted editorial control via proxy. "You change this for me or I'll delete your droplet." The thing in this which really irks me is that the staff were neither co-operative nor reasonable. If you're a paying customer, the least they could do is put the complaint into a state of investigation whilst they looked into the claim. Instant ultimatum seems a bit steep. I use Digital Ocean and like the service, but I really disagree with how they've handled this. I'm sure I won't be the only one moving providers this weekend.
jasonlotito 13y ago
That's a small minded way to look at this. Consider for a moment that now Digital Ocean has just signaled that you can't reliably host anything on DO for more than just technical reasons. Post something someone doesn't like, despite it being true? It can be removed. Let that sink in, because your comment is calling out the OP for being a jerk. You are making claims, legal claims, such as "he harassed a guy" as if they he was already guilty of the crime of harassment.
- heavymark 13y ago
  I fear the same. Post anything that DO doesn't like or one of their friends do not like they can take you down. If DO wants to censor honest publications whether legal by their TOS or not then their future customers need to be aware of this as I for one would have never thought it was possible unless doing something illegal with a website.
- macspoofing 13y ago
  >Post something someone doesn't like, despite it being true? It can be removed. Which service would allow you to just post anything you like?
  - jasonlotito 13y ago
    Outside of things like child porn and other blatantly illegal things, there are lots of hosting providers that allow you to post things others may not like. Basically, it's as if Amazon threatened someone's account on AWS because someone posted an article about something Jeff Bezos actually said.
    - macspoofing 13y ago
      I've used this example above, but requesting he remove identifying information from the post is a prudent and reasonable request. Reddit, for example, had major issues with vigilante groups forming after some inflammatory posting which also named some private individuals. More often than not, it led to innocent people being harassed. I've just re-read the original post, and it's a total personal attack against a private individual for no good reason. What's he trying to do? Embarrass him? Get him fired? Why target some random Google employee for a semi-controversial opinion. What's his motivation?! >Basically, it's as if Amazon threatened someone's account on AWS because someone posted an article about something Jeff Bezos actually said. Jeff Bezos is the founder, CEO and the public face of one of the biggest corporations in the world. This Googler is not Jeff Bezos. He's just a developer, one of thousands at Google. There is a difference here.
leephillips 13y ago
Although this guy is clearly a jerk, I'm crossing DO off my list of providers that I'm willing to use. I sometimes write controversial articles on my own website. These articles can make certain groups of people very angry and have elicited a range of responses up to and including me getting sued for defamation by two public figures (they lost). I have no interest in fighting with my hosting provider in addition to everything else, and don't expect to as long as I don't use their servers for anything illegal.
- andrewfong 13y ago
  > I have no interest in fighting with my hosting provider in addition to everything else This is really the issue here. The hosting provider should err on the side of its customers as opposed to random third parties. There are a lot of edge cases on what can or should be legally hosted. The hosting provider may have the legal right to take down controversial content, but it's an absolutely cowardly thing to do. The free speech-friendly approach would be to side with its customers UNTIL the third party has obtained a court order that the content be taken down, rather than insist that their own customers get a court order insisting that the content stay up.
  - macspoofing 13y ago
    >The hosting provider should err on the side of its customers as opposed to random third parties. Maybe they do. This is a fairly clear case of online harassment. The guy acted like bully and it shows in his post. All they wanted from him was to remove references to his name. This is fairly standard - for example, Reddit frowns upon identifying people in certain stories because they had issues with vigilante mobs forming.
    - andrewfong 13y ago
      As someone who spent a non-trivial part of my childhood being bullied, I wouldn't call this bullying. It seems more in line with public shaming than anything else. At any rate, bullying generally isn't illegal. Neither is naming names. In order to be legally actionable, harassment usually has to get to the point where there's some threat of violence or some pattern of behavior. As far as I can tell, there has been exactly one blog post about this guy (two if you include the post about DO) about some conversations in a chat room that's open to the public. That's not harassment. Were it otherwise, every blog that mentioned Justine Sacco should have been taken down. Reddit is a community with its own social norms. I have no issue with Reddit policing itself in a manner to create an environment welcoming to others. But DO is a service provider! They may have the legal right to do so, but I don't expect them to be making value judgments about my (lawful) expression, anymore than I expect Comcast or Gmail to.
scarmig 13y ago
All of what you said misses the point entirely. Was the original blog post stupid? Certainly. Is it irresponsible and probably harmful to a guy who did nothing wrong besides saying something maladroitly? Yes. I don't care though: all of those things are well-within the law. If DigitalOcean's TOS means that they personally police content, then I'm out.
- 27182818284 13y ago
  This is how I see it too. If Google or the guy had a problem and contacted the blog, and then Digital Ocean, then it would seem fair for Digital Ocean to maybe step in depending on rules and whatnot, but to pseudo-personally step in and ask that the person's name be made anonymous feels like nepotism at work.
gnu8 13y ago
I think you are the Googler who was harassed, based on your distorted justification for Digital Ocean's unethical behavior and the fact that you don't see it as unethical. Here's a major reason why Digital Ocean was unethical: they took unilateral action based on a complaint from some googler transmitted to a highly placed Digital Ocean executive who the googler knew personally. If that's an acceptable resolution to someone being mean to someone on the internet, then is Digital Ocean going to provide the entire world with personal access to this executive, in case one of their customers is ever mean to anyone else? No. So it's a recovery only available to privileged technocrats. This is by no means the only reason why Digital Ocean's action is unacceptable, but it deserves more consideration. Google itself is well known for being impossible to deal with unless you know someone on the inside. This googler should carefully consider whether he was really the wronged party here, or whether he is part of a larger problem.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- macspoofing 13y ago
  >I think you are the Googler who was harassed I have no connection to this Googler, to author, to Google or to DO. Believe it or not. >they took unilateral action based on a complaint from some googler transmitted to a highly placed Digital Ocean executive who the googler knew personally. They took unilateral action because they own the service, and maybe they took this action because it's quite evident what happened just by reading his post. And all they did was ask him to remove identifying information, that's it. That's a very prudent and reasonable request. Reddit, for example, had major issues with vigilante groups forming after some inflammatory posting which also named some private individuals. More often than not, it led to innocent people being harassed. I've just re-read the original post, and it's a total personal attack against a private individual for no good reason. This bully went so far as to find out where the Googler lives. The entire conspiracy theory around the fact that some DO executive may or may not know the Googler personally and that's why all this happened, is just some hand-waving speculation. I don't know anyone at DO and I don't know this Googler, and yet, I think this was the right move.
darkarmani 13y ago
> Am I the only one who sees Digital Ocean as acting ethically here? Yes. Digital Ocean is just providing his VPS. Why should they be involved at all? If i say something about Scientology are they going to kill my VPS because they happen to like Scientology? What if i criticize anti-vaccination supporters?

voidr 13y ago

It doesn't matter if they were ethical or not, what they did is not right. They are not law enforcement. If everybody would be allowed to enforce the law, then I would be free to shoot you in the head just because you made a negative comment about my cat, because I feel that's ethical.

perlpimp 13y ago
I totally concur if a group of people decides to go all out in asshattery, the worst thing is for business is to participate - they become partial which is never good when you start taking sides in this sort of thing. If you get court order to take a page down do that - probably because it is illegal. IMO the more drama the more your business is visible. For one I heard very good things about Digital Ocean - however I am very libertian minded and I think whatever people go going between themselves - they should figure it out. If things turn criminal let police deal with it.
untothebreach 13y ago
What 'law' are they enforcing here? They are enforcing their own TOS, which is perfectly within their right. I'm not saying this is the right thing for them to do, but he is using their service, so they have a right to enforce their TOS. He is perfectly able to move his blog post, unedited, to another VPS provider if he does not like what they are asking him to do.
- nodata 13y ago
  Which wins, the TOS or the law?
  - untothebreach 13y ago
    "Wins?" I'm not quite sure what you mean by "winning." In this case, DO is enforcing _their_ own TOS, on content that is served from _their_ servers. That seems legit to me, whether or not I think it is the right thing for them to do. Is there a law stating that they don't have a right to do this?
    - voidr 13y ago
      > In this case, DO is enforcing _their_ own TOS, on content that is served from _their_ servers. And they are terminating a service that the OP paid with it's _own_ money. There are consumer protection laws. > Is there a law stating that they don't have a right to do this? They don't have the right to enforce the law, they are not the police, and as it turns out there are laws against slander.
  - zobzu 13y ago
    law always win of course, the TOS are always full of stuff that is unenforceable in the eyes of the law. That being said you do need to hire a lawyer to check if thats the case every time and thats spendy.
- taf2 13y ago
  slander... the guy he was blogging about is not famous, not a public figure, talking trash, about someone by name in a public way is slander - perhaps this helps explain further: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation DO - TOS is like a slander clause
macspoofing 13y ago
>It doesn't matter if they were ethical or not, what they did is not right. Ethics matter to me. And they matter to many people. This guy is pure bully and I feel bad for the Googler. I'm glad DO stepped in and politely asked him to anonymize his post.

danso 13y ago

I sympathize with the Googler, in that his comments may not have been written and polished by a PR person, but they weren't at all as offensive or insensitive as the OP hyped them to be, especially given the constraints of the "meatspace". But look at what you just wrote. That complaint has been raised against Google many times, because Google's index captures not only what you say in public, but what others say about you, even if you feel that it is misleading. For example, if a news story comes out about me being implicated in a crime, and 1 week later, I'm completely exonerated...but whoever wrote the headline used poorer SEO, and fewer people cared 1 week later...Google, via algorithm, may rank the outdated story higher. There's very little recourse because, on technical grounds alone, it is tricky to do. But in a "moral" sense, once you make that move for someone, how do you argue that you don't do it for someone else in a similar situation? The Googler spoke in a place that would not legally be considered private and he is not naive about technology. Is the OP a jerk? Sure. But that's not the topic here....the topic is, would Digital Ocean have been a jerk to say "Sorry buddy, but we can't just take a blog down because you regret your comments"? IMO, No. And it's not because DO is a jerk. Anymore than Google is for not taking down clearly harmful -- but not illegal -- results. As Matt Cutts put it: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/remove-page-from-google/ http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/remove-page-from-google/ > *Unfortunately there’s not much I can do. The page you pointed out is not spam, and pretty much the only removals (at least in the U.S., which is what I know about) that we do for legal reasons are if a court orders us. We typically say that if person A doesn’t like a webpage B, only removing page B out of Google’s search results doesn’t do any good because webpage B is still there (e.g. it can be found by going to it directly or through other search engines). In that sense, the presence of that page in Google’s index is just reflecting the fact that the page exists on the wider web....There you have it. People usually aren’t happy to hear that reply, but I hope they can understand the reasoning behind it. So if you're talking about ethics, what DO did here, IMO, crossed a line, because now it sets a very low bar for what is privacy and what is defamation. If the OP quoted the Googler correctly...and the Googler offered his opinion knowing that it was being read...he may not like how his comments were interpreted or published, but he doesn't have legal recourse. For the record, "off the record" has no real legal standing. It's a term reporters use to set the boundaries with their sources...if they break it, then it's unlikely sources will talk to those reporters again. In this case, of course, the Googler can exercise that right to not speak to the OP again. But it really shouldn't be up to DO to intervene on his behalf in such a ham-fisted way.

josephlord 13y ago

All DigitalOcean asked him to do was to give them editorial control over his blog. That isn't a small thing to me. At a quick glance it looks like a public forum (which has a bearing on how I view the ethics of the situation although even if it was private I don't think DO should act). When you are asked a question about your employer in public you are speaking for them and if you say something dumb that your company doesn't like that is your action and responsibility not someone who reports it. When I worked for a large company I used to speak (and particularly write online) very carefully except when truly in private. I also don't see any reference to anything being "off the record" so I don't see why you assume it wasn't "on the record". Would I write that article like that? No. Do I think DO should claim editorial control over it? Hell no. Maybe DO could request the blog owner provide contact details (I can't see any on the current site) so that legal action could be brought directly against them as the publisher rather than against DO. Not offering such may be reasonable grounds to have DO demand editorial changes or cease service.

jacques_chester 13y ago
> All DigitalOcean asked him to do was to give them editorial control over his blog. That isn't a small thing to me. A nitpick. They didn't ask for editorial control; they asked for observance of the Terms of Service, with the option on their side to discontinue service. Nothing in the ToS gives DigitalOcean any right to editorial control and nothing in their communications says "give us control". It's a binary proposition. Stick to the agreement, or the agreement is off.
- imdsm 13y ago
  I disagree. It seems to me that they wanted editorial control via proxy. "You change this for me or I'll delete your droplet." The thing in this which really irks me is that the staff were neither co-operative nor reasonable. If you're a paying customer, the least they could do is put the complaint into a state of investigation whilst they looked into the claim. Instant ultimatum seems a bit steep. I use Digital Ocean and like the service, but I really disagree with how they've handled this. I'm sure I won't be the only one moving providers this weekend.

jasonlotito 13y ago

That's a small minded way to look at this. Consider for a moment that now Digital Ocean has just signaled that you can't reliably host anything on DO for more than just technical reasons. Post something someone doesn't like, despite it being true? It can be removed. Let that sink in, because your comment is calling out the OP for being a jerk. You are making claims, legal claims, such as "he harassed a guy" as if they he was already guilty of the crime of harassment.

heavymark 13y ago
I fear the same. Post anything that DO doesn't like or one of their friends do not like they can take you down. If DO wants to censor honest publications whether legal by their TOS or not then their future customers need to be aware of this as I for one would have never thought it was possible unless doing something illegal with a website.
macspoofing 13y ago
>Post something someone doesn't like, despite it being true? It can be removed. Which service would allow you to just post anything you like?
- jasonlotito 13y ago
  Outside of things like child porn and other blatantly illegal things, there are lots of hosting providers that allow you to post things others may not like. Basically, it's as if Amazon threatened someone's account on AWS because someone posted an article about something Jeff Bezos actually said.
  - macspoofing 13y ago
    I've used this example above, but requesting he remove identifying information from the post is a prudent and reasonable request. Reddit, for example, had major issues with vigilante groups forming after some inflammatory posting which also named some private individuals. More often than not, it led to innocent people being harassed. I've just re-read the original post, and it's a total personal attack against a private individual for no good reason. What's he trying to do? Embarrass him? Get him fired? Why target some random Google employee for a semi-controversial opinion. What's his motivation?! >Basically, it's as if Amazon threatened someone's account on AWS because someone posted an article about something Jeff Bezos actually said. Jeff Bezos is the founder, CEO and the public face of one of the biggest corporations in the world. This Googler is not Jeff Bezos. He's just a developer, one of thousands at Google. There is a difference here.

leephillips 13y ago

Although this guy is clearly a jerk, I'm crossing DO off my list of providers that I'm willing to use. I sometimes write controversial articles on my own website. These articles can make certain groups of people very angry and have elicited a range of responses up to and including me getting sued for defamation by two public figures (they lost). I have no interest in fighting with my hosting provider in addition to everything else, and don't expect to as long as I don't use their servers for anything illegal.

andrewfong 13y ago
> I have no interest in fighting with my hosting provider in addition to everything else This is really the issue here. The hosting provider should err on the side of its customers as opposed to random third parties. There are a lot of edge cases on what can or should be legally hosted. The hosting provider may have the legal right to take down controversial content, but it's an absolutely cowardly thing to do. The free speech-friendly approach would be to side with its customers UNTIL the third party has obtained a court order that the content be taken down, rather than insist that their own customers get a court order insisting that the content stay up.
- macspoofing 13y ago
  >The hosting provider should err on the side of its customers as opposed to random third parties. Maybe they do. This is a fairly clear case of online harassment. The guy acted like bully and it shows in his post. All they wanted from him was to remove references to his name. This is fairly standard - for example, Reddit frowns upon identifying people in certain stories because they had issues with vigilante mobs forming.
  - andrewfong 13y ago
    As someone who spent a non-trivial part of my childhood being bullied, I wouldn't call this bullying. It seems more in line with public shaming than anything else. At any rate, bullying generally isn't illegal. Neither is naming names. In order to be legally actionable, harassment usually has to get to the point where there's some threat of violence or some pattern of behavior. As far as I can tell, there has been exactly one blog post about this guy (two if you include the post about DO) about some conversations in a chat room that's open to the public. That's not harassment. Were it otherwise, every blog that mentioned Justine Sacco should have been taken down. Reddit is a community with its own social norms. I have no issue with Reddit policing itself in a manner to create an environment welcoming to others. But DO is a service provider! They may have the legal right to do so, but I don't expect them to be making value judgments about my (lawful) expression, anymore than I expect Comcast or Gmail to.

scarmig 13y ago

All of what you said misses the point entirely. Was the original blog post stupid? Certainly. Is it irresponsible and probably harmful to a guy who did nothing wrong besides saying something maladroitly? Yes. I don't care though: all of those things are well-within the law. If DigitalOcean's TOS means that they personally police content, then I'm out.

27182818284 13y ago
This is how I see it too. If Google or the guy had a problem and contacted the blog, and then Digital Ocean, then it would seem fair for Digital Ocean to maybe step in depending on rules and whatnot, but to pseudo-personally step in and ask that the person's name be made anonymous feels like nepotism at work.

gnu8 13y ago

I think you are the Googler who was harassed, based on your distorted justification for Digital Ocean's unethical behavior and the fact that you don't see it as unethical. Here's a major reason why Digital Ocean was unethical: they took unilateral action based on a complaint from some googler transmitted to a highly placed Digital Ocean executive who the googler knew personally. If that's an acceptable resolution to someone being mean to someone on the internet, then is Digital Ocean going to provide the entire world with personal access to this executive, in case one of their customers is ever mean to anyone else? No. So it's a recovery only available to privileged technocrats. This is by no means the only reason why Digital Ocean's action is unacceptable, but it deserves more consideration. Google itself is well known for being impossible to deal with unless you know someone on the inside. This googler should carefully consider whether he was really the wronged party here, or whether he is part of a larger problem.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
macspoofing 13y ago
>I think you are the Googler who was harassed I have no connection to this Googler, to author, to Google or to DO. Believe it or not. >they took unilateral action based on a complaint from some googler transmitted to a highly placed Digital Ocean executive who the googler knew personally. They took unilateral action because they own the service, and maybe they took this action because it's quite evident what happened just by reading his post. And all they did was ask him to remove identifying information, that's it. That's a very prudent and reasonable request. Reddit, for example, had major issues with vigilante groups forming after some inflammatory posting which also named some private individuals. More often than not, it led to innocent people being harassed. I've just re-read the original post, and it's a total personal attack against a private individual for no good reason. This bully went so far as to find out where the Googler lives. The entire conspiracy theory around the fact that some DO executive may or may not know the Googler personally and that's why all this happened, is just some hand-waving speculation. I don't know anyone at DO and I don't know this Googler, and yet, I think this was the right move.

darkarmani 13y ago

> Am I the only one who sees Digital Ocean as acting ethically here? Yes. Digital Ocean is just providing his VPS. Why should they be involved at all? If i say something about Scientology are they going to kill my VPS because they happen to like Scientology? What if i criticize anti-vaccination supporters?