6 ms·

Hosteurope.de shut down our servers due to “political incorrectness”

107 points by lingben 11y ago

c_prompt 11y ago
Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%3A%2F%2Fvoat.co%2Fv%2Fannouncements%2Fcomments%2F146757 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%3...
pki 11y ago
So they were lying in the github repo about "based in Switzerland, no censorship policy as long as content is legal in Switzerland" when it was hosted in Germany on one of the cheapest providers all along, subject to a ton of speech restrictions in law?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- fragsworth 11y ago
  It's not necessarily a lie. "Based in" usually just means that's where they operate. The servers can be anywhere. I wouldn't fault them for assuming a modern Western country had enough freedoms to let them host their servers.
  - pki 11y ago
    It would mean they didn't do even the most basic research though, as Germany isn't the first place you would look - it's reasonably common knowledge about their ideas of free speech and how certain subjects are really touchy
danko 11y ago
For those who need the context -- when Reddit had that big bust-up last week about banning subreddits like /r/fatepeoplehate, aggrieved commenters were recommending that others migrate to voat.co. That effectively means that voat.co recently absorbed the slimy runoff of Reddit's worst element. Given that, it isn't wholly surprising that their hosting service wanted no part of them.
- x5n1 11y ago
  > Given that, it isn't wholly surprising that their hosting service wanted no part of them. It is very surprising, the hosting company should be concerned with providing hosting... not moderating content. that's the job of the government and the legal system.
  - mootothemax 11y ago
    What's the logical conclusion of that? The government forcing private companies to host content that they disagree with? You can't have it both ways.
    - higherpurpose 11y ago
      Right. Vote with your wallet, I guess. Don't buy services from hosteurope.de.
      - x5n1 11y ago
        > Vote with your wallet Usually doesn't do shit. The people voting, just like the people who are disgruntled, are usually a small minority. They have no material impact on anything other than the propaganda value of their actions.
    - nothrabannosir 11y ago
      False dichotomy. Nobody is talking about forcing anybody to do this. At least not the OP, and I didn't read it that way. The conclusion of this issue is anything but obvious. It is hairy, ambiguous, and unclear. An alternative could be: public shaming, and people taking their money elsewhere. There, no government required. I feel he is allowed to at least express disapproval...
    - x5n1 11y ago
      > What's the logical conclusion of that? Private companies should serve their shareholders. They should draft a policy saying that they don't get involved in content moderation issues as a matter of policy. That's good business and good for speech. If disgruntled people want to do something about it, they can take it up with the legal system. > Is it good business? Or is it better business to have a clear policy over what is and is not allowed, and then enforce that? It is not possible to have a clear policy when moderating content because the world is a diverse place with diverse opinions. Where would you begin? Are Muhammad cartoons banned?
adventured 11y ago
I'm curious if someone with a lot of experience hosting in (or knowledge of hosting in) various countries in Europe, would opine on which are the least restrictive when it comes to speech?
- pas 11y ago
  Always host stuff that's "problematic" opposite from where it's problematic. For example at least one European far-right site is hosted in the US. You can host US critical stuff in the US, but if you start to attract a lot of traffic and active individuals, move out of the US. (Russia?)
mootothemax 11y ago
Is it really that surprising that a hosting company doesn't want to host a site containing a tonne of hate speech? There's no amount of money Stormfront could pay me to host their vile outpourings; why should a small site hosting hate speech of every type kick up a big fuss about similar treatment?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ramy_d 11y ago
  Then don't take their money. They didn't want to host voat then that's fine. There's a way to do get out of that too. Cutting cords and stiffing clients _is_ surprising.
  - bduerst 11y ago
    Yeah it seems that the big no-no here is that they pulled the plug suddenly and without notification. That's not a good track record to have with your customers.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  Yeah that is pretty surprising actually. If I had shares in that company I would be pretty pissed they turned down a potentially big client.
- shiggerino 11y ago
  The funniest thing about Stormfront is that they run on PHP.
zajd 11y ago
Good. It's getting tiring seeing bigots, racists and assholes hide behind the veil of "free speech"
- steveeq1 11y ago
  Really? Would you rally behind an Ice Cube CD being banned over racist lyrical content?
  - zajd 11y ago
    If I thought Ice Cube was a racist asshole hiding behind "free speech" I would. Kind of like RaHoWa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahowa_(band) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahowa_(band)
    - steveeq1 11y ago
      Ice cube lyrics from song "Black Korea". Arent you going to rally against this too? Every time I want to go get a fucking brew I gotta go down to the store with the two Oriental one-penny-counting motherfuckers; They make a nigger mad enough to cause a little ruckus. Thinking every brother in the world’s out to take, So they watch every damn move that I make. They hope I don’t pull out a Gat, try to rob Their funky little store but, bitch, I got a job. So don’t follow me up and down your market Or your little chop suey ass will be a target Of a nationwide boycott. Juice with the people, that’s what the boy got. So pay respect to the black fist Or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp. And then we’ll see ya… ‘Cause you can’t turn the ghetto into black Korea.
      - zajd 11y ago
        No because I understand the difference between art and conversation.
        steveeq1 11y ago
        And RaHoWa isn't?
saintx 11y ago
Freedom to assemble doesn't guarantee access to private venues. Contrary to intuition, all spaces on the Internet are private spaces.
- ramy_d 11y ago
  That's not the issue.
  - wvenable 11y ago
    Free speech does not guarantee you a soap box to stand on. If nobody anywhere is willing to give you a soap box that's your problem. Now there is an argument to be made that speech isn't truly free if you have nowhere to say it. However even with the laudable goal of ensuring all speech as a home somewhere, that still would not obligate any private person or organization to supporting it. There is no public unowned property on the Internet. If you downvote this comment it probably means you disagree with the sentiment but still choose to suppress this speech to express that disagreement.
seivan 11y ago
It's very unfortunate and reminds me of http://paulgraham.com/say.html http://paulgraham.com/say.html
tetrep 11y ago
Regardless of how the hosting provider feels about the content they're hosting, it's very unprofessional to terminate a contract so absolutely with no warning. They could have easily given the site a few days, if not weeks, to migrate to another service, but they instead chose to immediately kill not just the hosts of voat.co but all of the hosts under the account, which included an entirely unrelated blog with scientific papers. I find it scary that so many commenters find this to be a natural course of action for a hosting provider to take. A hosting provider caring about what I host, other than whether or not it's legal, is just as absurd as my ISP caring about what packets I send (once again, other than the legality of them). While a hosting provider's role isn't nearly as "utility" as an ISP, it's certainly close and I would be appalled if the majority of hosting providers actually took stances like this. A minority is to be expected, no different than a book publisher only publishing Christian books, but if the average book publisher was expected to publish only Christian books, I would be quite frightened.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  What's unprofessional is to break your hosting provider's ToS, which you knew ahead of time.
  - lingben 11y ago
    Can you please cite hosteurope.de's ToS where it says that their clients content must be "politically correct" and that "politically incorrect" content will result in an immediate revocation of the account?
  - sergiotapia 11y ago
    One mans morality is another's joke. Hint: shariah law, etc.
- rndn 11y ago
  (3) The Client may not infringe statutory prohibitions, moral standards or the rights of third parties (copyright law, trademark law, rights to the name and data protection law etc.) through his use of his website or the banners that appear on the website. […] In the event of any infringement of one of the aforementioned obligations, the Provider shall be entitled to suspend the provision of his services with immediate effect or to block access to the Client’s information. https://www.hosteurope.de/download/General_Terms_and_Conditions_of_Business_of_HE_english.pdf https://www.hosteurope.de/download/General_Terms_and_Conditi... IANAL, but this may count as moral standards of third parties.
thaumaturgy 11y ago
Hah. In that thread they have a comment near the top complaining about "censorship and outrage culture", and then on their home page they have a popular thread recommending that they all contact hosteurope.de's customers (https://voat.co/v/whatever/comments/146949 https://voat.co/v/whatever/comments/146949).
geofft 11y ago
The thing I've found completely baffling about the apparent Voat exodus (although not from any Reddit communities I'm a part of, as it happens) is that nobody knows what the organizational structure or credibility of Voat is, and nobody even reliably knows who's behind the site. The most that you can find is the GitHub source, which says it's "based in Switzerland, no censorship policy as long as content is legal in Switzerland". This may or may not be true. This was certainly not usefully true, if there's a German host with censorship powers. The user agreement (https://voat.co/help/useragreement https://voat.co/help/useragreement) calls itself "a legal agreement between you and us", with no definition of "us". It also has a DMCA response policy, which strikes me as odd for a Switzerland-based company (but maybe this is normal?). The about page (https://voat.co/about https://voat.co/about) claims it's a project from two Swedish college students. Even assuming that this is true, this isn't such a best-case scenario: we've seen many examples of sites (4chan, Reddit, etc.) where the founders were in high school or college and were at least somewhat in favor of unrestricted speech, but as their sites grew, and as they themselves grew, they've changed their minds. (Incidentally, parts of the brain that regulate appropriate social behavior, like the prefrontal cortex, only fully develop by age 25.) Even if everything Voat says about themselves is true, we should worry that in a couple of years they'll grow a conscience too.
- bluecalm 11y ago
  I think it's more frustration with Reddit and looking for a place with less group-think and censorship than confidence in Voat. There aren't many alternatives to Reddit so people are trying w/e look like it could become one.
- arfliw 11y ago
  I don't believe his identity is public but unless Atko has been spinning an elaborate lie, plenty is known about him and Voat. He's a Swedish student who went to college in Switzerland and this was a side project that blew up on him, not unlike how Facebook started. He just graduated from college, went on vacation with his family and is now headed back to Switzerland to run this like a real company. I agree that the best case scenario for Voat is to inevitably do exactly what reddit is doing now, whether he realizes it or not. That's how it works. Right now Voat is amazing. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
OBAMA_THE_NOOB 11y ago
You stupid shmendricks! Hosteurope is a German hosting company. And we Germans have only very limited freedom of speech here!
davidgerard 11y ago
Hosteurope notes that this claim was completely false: https://archive.is/TqQDn https://archive.is/TqQDn It appears to have been a lie from Voat to solicit funds.

107 points by lingben 11y ago

Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%3A%2F%2Fvoat.co%2Fv%2Fannouncements%2Fcomments%2F146757 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%3...

pki 11y ago

So they were lying in the github repo about "based in Switzerland, no censorship policy as long as content is legal in Switzerland" when it was hosted in Germany on one of the cheapest providers all along, subject to a ton of speech restrictions in law?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
fragsworth 11y ago
It's not necessarily a lie. "Based in" usually just means that's where they operate. The servers can be anywhere. I wouldn't fault them for assuming a modern Western country had enough freedoms to let them host their servers.
- pki 11y ago
  It would mean they didn't do even the most basic research though, as Germany isn't the first place you would look - it's reasonably common knowledge about their ideas of free speech and how certain subjects are really touchy

danko 11y ago

For those who need the context -- when Reddit had that big bust-up last week about banning subreddits like /r/fatepeoplehate, aggrieved commenters were recommending that others migrate to voat.co. That effectively means that voat.co recently absorbed the slimy runoff of Reddit's worst element. Given that, it isn't wholly surprising that their hosting service wanted no part of them.

x5n1 11y ago
> Given that, it isn't wholly surprising that their hosting service wanted no part of them. It is very surprising, the hosting company should be concerned with providing hosting... not moderating content. that's the job of the government and the legal system.
- mootothemax 11y ago
  What's the logical conclusion of that? The government forcing private companies to host content that they disagree with? You can't have it both ways.
  - higherpurpose 11y ago
    Right. Vote with your wallet, I guess. Don't buy services from hosteurope.de.
    - x5n1 11y ago
      > Vote with your wallet Usually doesn't do shit. The people voting, just like the people who are disgruntled, are usually a small minority. They have no material impact on anything other than the propaganda value of their actions.
  - nothrabannosir 11y ago
    False dichotomy. Nobody is talking about forcing anybody to do this. At least not the OP, and I didn't read it that way. The conclusion of this issue is anything but obvious. It is hairy, ambiguous, and unclear. An alternative could be: public shaming, and people taking their money elsewhere. There, no government required. I feel he is allowed to at least express disapproval...
  - x5n1 11y ago
    > What's the logical conclusion of that? Private companies should serve their shareholders. They should draft a policy saying that they don't get involved in content moderation issues as a matter of policy. That's good business and good for speech. If disgruntled people want to do something about it, they can take it up with the legal system. > Is it good business? Or is it better business to have a clear policy over what is and is not allowed, and then enforce that? It is not possible to have a clear policy when moderating content because the world is a diverse place with diverse opinions. Where would you begin? Are Muhammad cartoons banned?

adventured 11y ago

I'm curious if someone with a lot of experience hosting in (or knowledge of hosting in) various countries in Europe, would opine on which are the least restrictive when it comes to speech?

pas 11y ago
Always host stuff that's "problematic" opposite from where it's problematic. For example at least one European far-right site is hosted in the US. You can host US critical stuff in the US, but if you start to attract a lot of traffic and active individuals, move out of the US. (Russia?)

mootothemax 11y ago

Is it really that surprising that a hosting company doesn't want to host a site containing a tonne of hate speech? There's no amount of money Stormfront could pay me to host their vile outpourings; why should a small site hosting hate speech of every type kick up a big fuss about similar treatment?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ramy_d 11y ago
Then don't take their money. They didn't want to host voat then that's fine. There's a way to do get out of that too. Cutting cords and stiffing clients _is_ surprising.
- bduerst 11y ago
  Yeah it seems that the big no-no here is that they pulled the plug suddenly and without notification. That's not a good track record to have with your customers.
tomjen3 11y ago
Yeah that is pretty surprising actually. If I had shares in that company I would be pretty pissed they turned down a potentially big client.
shiggerino 11y ago
The funniest thing about Stormfront is that they run on PHP.

zajd 11y ago

Good. It's getting tiring seeing bigots, racists and assholes hide behind the veil of "free speech"

steveeq1 11y ago
Really? Would you rally behind an Ice Cube CD being banned over racist lyrical content?
- zajd 11y ago
  If I thought Ice Cube was a racist asshole hiding behind "free speech" I would. Kind of like RaHoWa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahowa_(band) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahowa_(band)
  - steveeq1 11y ago
    Ice cube lyrics from song "Black Korea". Arent you going to rally against this too? Every time I want to go get a fucking brew I gotta go down to the store with the two Oriental one-penny-counting motherfuckers; They make a nigger mad enough to cause a little ruckus. Thinking every brother in the world’s out to take, So they watch every damn move that I make. They hope I don’t pull out a Gat, try to rob Their funky little store but, bitch, I got a job. So don’t follow me up and down your market Or your little chop suey ass will be a target Of a nationwide boycott. Juice with the people, that’s what the boy got. So pay respect to the black fist Or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp. And then we’ll see ya… ‘Cause you can’t turn the ghetto into black Korea.
    - zajd 11y ago
      No because I understand the difference between art and conversation.
      - steveeq1 11y ago
        And RaHoWa isn't?

saintx 11y ago

Freedom to assemble doesn't guarantee access to private venues. Contrary to intuition, all spaces on the Internet are private spaces.

ramy_d 11y ago
That's not the issue.
- wvenable 11y ago
  Free speech does not guarantee you a soap box to stand on. If nobody anywhere is willing to give you a soap box that's your problem. Now there is an argument to be made that speech isn't truly free if you have nowhere to say it. However even with the laudable goal of ensuring all speech as a home somewhere, that still would not obligate any private person or organization to supporting it. There is no public unowned property on the Internet. If you downvote this comment it probably means you disagree with the sentiment but still choose to suppress this speech to express that disagreement.

seivan 11y ago

It's very unfortunate and reminds me of http://paulgraham.com/say.html http://paulgraham.com/say.html

tetrep 11y ago

Regardless of how the hosting provider feels about the content they're hosting, it's very unprofessional to terminate a contract so absolutely with no warning. They could have easily given the site a few days, if not weeks, to migrate to another service, but they instead chose to immediately kill not just the hosts of voat.co but all of the hosts under the account, which included an entirely unrelated blog with scientific papers. I find it scary that so many commenters find this to be a natural course of action for a hosting provider to take. A hosting provider caring about what I host, other than whether or not it's legal, is just as absurd as my ISP caring about what packets I send (once again, other than the legality of them). While a hosting provider's role isn't nearly as "utility" as an ISP, it's certainly close and I would be appalled if the majority of hosting providers actually took stances like this. A minority is to be expected, no different than a book publisher only publishing Christian books, but if the average book publisher was expected to publish only Christian books, I would be quite frightened.

s73v3r 11y ago
What's unprofessional is to break your hosting provider's ToS, which you knew ahead of time.
- lingben 11y ago
  Can you please cite hosteurope.de's ToS where it says that their clients content must be "politically correct" and that "politically incorrect" content will result in an immediate revocation of the account?
- sergiotapia 11y ago
  One mans morality is another's joke. Hint: shariah law, etc.
rndn 11y ago
(3) The Client may not infringe statutory prohibitions, moral standards or the rights of third parties (copyright law, trademark law, rights to the name and data protection law etc.) through his use of his website or the banners that appear on the website. […] In the event of any infringement of one of the aforementioned obligations, the Provider shall be entitled to suspend the provision of his services with immediate effect or to block access to the Client’s information. https://www.hosteurope.de/download/General_Terms_and_Conditions_of_Business_of_HE_english.pdf https://www.hosteurope.de/download/General_Terms_and_Conditi... IANAL, but this may count as moral standards of third parties.

thaumaturgy 11y ago

Hah. In that thread they have a comment near the top complaining about "censorship and outrage culture", and then on their home page they have a popular thread recommending that they all contact hosteurope.de's customers (https://voat.co/v/whatever/comments/146949 https://voat.co/v/whatever/comments/146949).

geofft 11y ago

The thing I've found completely baffling about the apparent Voat exodus (although not from any Reddit communities I'm a part of, as it happens) is that nobody knows what the organizational structure or credibility of Voat is, and nobody even reliably knows who's behind the site. The most that you can find is the GitHub source, which says it's "based in Switzerland, no censorship policy as long as content is legal in Switzerland". This may or may not be true. This was certainly not usefully true, if there's a German host with censorship powers. The user agreement (https://voat.co/help/useragreement https://voat.co/help/useragreement) calls itself "a legal agreement between you and us", with no definition of "us". It also has a DMCA response policy, which strikes me as odd for a Switzerland-based company (but maybe this is normal?). The about page (https://voat.co/about https://voat.co/about) claims it's a project from two Swedish college students. Even assuming that this is true, this isn't such a best-case scenario: we've seen many examples of sites (4chan, Reddit, etc.) where the founders were in high school or college and were at least somewhat in favor of unrestricted speech, but as their sites grew, and as they themselves grew, they've changed their minds. (Incidentally, parts of the brain that regulate appropriate social behavior, like the prefrontal cortex, only fully develop by age 25.) Even if everything Voat says about themselves is true, we should worry that in a couple of years they'll grow a conscience too.

bluecalm 11y ago
I think it's more frustration with Reddit and looking for a place with less group-think and censorship than confidence in Voat. There aren't many alternatives to Reddit so people are trying w/e look like it could become one.
arfliw 11y ago
I don't believe his identity is public but unless Atko has been spinning an elaborate lie, plenty is known about him and Voat. He's a Swedish student who went to college in Switzerland and this was a side project that blew up on him, not unlike how Facebook started. He just graduated from college, went on vacation with his family and is now headed back to Switzerland to run this like a real company. I agree that the best case scenario for Voat is to inevitably do exactly what reddit is doing now, whether he realizes it or not. That's how it works. Right now Voat is amazing. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

OBAMA_THE_NOOB 11y ago

You stupid shmendricks! Hosteurope is a German hosting company. And we Germans have only very limited freedom of speech here!

davidgerard 11y ago

Hosteurope notes that this claim was completely false: https://archive.is/TqQDn https://archive.is/TqQDn It appears to have been a lie from Voat to solicit funds.