
Inciting Violence vs Freedom of Speech - ted0
https://blog.namecheap.com/inciting-violence-vs-freedom-speech/
======
jstanley
So was it hosted on Namecheap or were they just the domain registrar?

If they were just the domain registrar I think this is a dangerous precedent.
If anything, it is just going to cause people to sympathise with the Daily
Stormer, which is presumably the opposite of the intended effect.

EDIT: For anyone who wants to read their site, I think this is it: (onion.casa
is a Tor gateway)
[https://dstormer6em3i4km.onion.casa/](https://dstormer6em3i4km.onion.casa/)

From having a browse around, the site appears to be basically a joke. It's
pretty distasteful but I personally don't think it warrants being taken down.

~~~
geofft
> _If anything, it is just going to cause people to sympathise with the Daily
> Stormer_

I think that people who are willing to sympathize with neo-Nazis because a
domain registrar refused to process their registration should be considered as
just a subset of "Nazi sympathizers," and their views treated accordingly.

> _From having a browse around, the site appears to be basically a joke. It 's
> pretty distasteful but I personally don't think it warrants being taken
> down._

The site certainly presents itself as a joke to avoid substantive criticism or
engagement with the viewpoints it's promoting from detractors. But, say,
altright.com takes them seriously, and lists them alongside clearly-not-joking
Neo-Nazi organization Identity Evropa:

[https://altright.com/2017/08/05/the-unite-the-right-rally-
is...](https://altright.com/2017/08/05/the-unite-the-right-rally-is-going-to-
be-a-turning-point-for-white-identity-in-america/)

 _The Daily Stormer has been promoting the event heavily and it looks like
they are going to bring a lot of young new cadres to the rally. Identity
Evropa will be there as well as several Southern Nationalist groups. There
will be no Alt-Lite co-rally, it will be just us, the proverbial and literal
White Guard out there defending the statue of General Lee. This is a good
development. They are quickly becoming irrelevant and losing their street
presence as we continue to grow and take up space._

 _No one knows how many of us will show up there just yet. A conservative
estimate would put us at about 500, although if the Daily Stormer book clubs,
frog twitter, and affiliated groups come through, we can top 1000._

They mention themselves that 4chan was the place where ironic appreciation of
Hitler grew into earnest appreciation of Hitler:

[https://dstormer6em3i4km.onion.casa/a-normies-guide-to-
the-a...](https://dstormer6em3i4km.onion.casa/a-normies-guide-to-the-alt-
right/)

 _Anti-Semitic and racist jokes had been a key feature of /b/, but on /pol/
the sentiments behind the jokes slowly became serious, as people realized they
were based on fact. /pol/ became a haven for virulent anti-Semites and
aggressive racists, and tone of the Alt-Right is drawn directly from these
roots on 4chan._

 _On 4chan, the Jewish problem was analyzed by news junkies and history buffs,
feminism was deconstructred by sexually frustrated young men, and race was
considered based on the actual data on the issue. The rehabilitation of Adolf
Hitler and the NSDAP largely took place on 4chan._

 _Anti-Semitic and racist jokes had been a key feature of /b/, but on /pol/
the sentiments behind the jokes slowly became serious, as people realized they
were based on fact. /pol/ became a haven for virulent anti-Semites and
aggressive racists, and tone of the Alt-Right is drawn directly from these
roots on 4chan._

[...] _This made promoting the right-wing agenda not only meaningful, but also
extremely fun. The Alt-Right carries with it that spirit of fun._

So, sure, maybe they are a distasteful joke. They are _also_ earnestly
advocating Hitler's ideology and Nazi ideology by name. The joke is a front,
to push the Overton window far enough in their direction that the non-joking
version of their ideology becomes tenable.

~~~
xaa
I would sympathize with them on this issue. This is actually the second time
this week I have been called a Nazi sympathizer essentially for believing
everyone, including Nazis, should be able to air their views in such a way
that interested people can hear them. (i.e., they don't have the right to spam
everyone, but they shouldn't be blacklisted from businesses otherwise open to
everyone just because of the content of their speech).

Being unironically called a "Nazi sympathizer" is by far the most chilling
thing to me that has happened of all the political events that have occurred
in the last few years. It is also sad that I have to add a disclaimer that I
have voted Democrat in the last decade of elections, am not a bigot, etc, etc,
(not that someone using this sort of language would believe me).

Do people who say these sorts of things not realize the massive irony of
accusing people who defend basic rights of a generally detested group of being
"Nazi sympathizers"?

~~~
geofft
I should have quoted more of the above statement:

> _If anything, it is just going to cause people to sympathise with the Daily
> Stormer, which is presumably the opposite of the intended effect._

There are two different things you can sympathize with here: the _merits_ of
the Daily Stormer's position / ideology, and their desire to have a platform.

The domain registrar is shutting them down because they don't agree with the
merits of their ideology. I am reading the criticism above as saying, "If the
domain registrar shuts them down, more people will be sympathetic to their
ideology, which is counterproductive." I think it is fair to label people
inclined to sympathy with Nazi _ideas_ as Nazi sympathizers.

I suppose it could be an argument that the domain registrar's action will
cause people to be sympathetic to the fact that they should have a domain
name, but that makes less sense to me.

~~~
xaa
> I think it is fair to label people inclined to sympathy with Nazi ideas as
> Nazi sympathizers.

OK, fair enough, but that's not what you originally said, nor is it what
people are doing when they throw that term at me. They're (sometimes
intentionally) conflating advocacy of free speech for repugnant ideas with
advocacy of those ideas themselves. But I appreciate your openness to try to
see my position.

------
ve55
Link to the Namecheap post: [https://blog.namecheap.com/inciting-violence-vs-
freedom-spee...](https://blog.namecheap.com/inciting-violence-vs-freedom-
speech/)

The Namecheap post argues in favor of revoking the domain by saying that it is
inciting violence, and not just exercising free speech. As a domain registrar,
there's nothing stopping you from having a policy that doesn't allow the
incitement of violence.

But, I wonder: how many domains has Namecheap revoked in the name of this
ideal? If you're going to have a policy of what is and what is not allowed,
the reason why it will be so difficult is because you need to enforce the
policy on every website equally. You cannot cherry-pick one website, cite the
policy, and then forget that it exists.

Even if this policy is applied to every website, who is deciding what counts
as incitement of violence? Can I make a violent post on a website, and then
report them to Namecheap for inciting violence, or does it need to be a
website administrator that makes it? How direct does the incitement need to
be, given that the example provided in the blog post seems relatively
indirect? I'm sure you can think of a myriad of other questions and
inconsistencies with this, because there's so much room left to interpretation
and bias, when it's obvious the reason the domain was revoked was due to
political pressure.

Given the amount of companies that have dropped the website, it's starting to
set a pretty bad precedent. There's plenty of equally bad content on very
large websites (Reddit, 4chan, etc), and if the standard for this content
becomes to wipe it from the face of the Internet at all costs, things won't be
pretty.

~~~
admiralpumpkin
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...

Taking down a Nazi website creates no onerous obligation to police the
entirety of the web. Addressing only those sites which rise to prominence
admirably moves us towards a better internet and society.

~~~
rkeene2
Until you (namecheap) are sued for violence that occurred because you failed
to take down a website that clearly incited violence, despite it being against
your terms of service, started position, and now part behavior. This may make
your defense wallet in such a case because you are could now be seen as
endorsing that which you do not act against when they are violating your
terms.

Of course, it's only one high-profile incident and it should be possible to
successfully argue that you (namecheap) only act on this policy when
information about the violation actively reaches you as a passive observer.
But you are then playing from behind so it's still not as if this action
carries no potential future liabilities.

~~~
ve55
Why would it (legally or not) be Namecheap's job to curate the content? What
about the server the content is hosted on, its CDN, its DNS servers, its
domain registry (not registrar), or so many other layers?

If a website that incites violence can be taken down because of a single
violence-inciting remark, then people will just post violent remarks on their
enemies websites and proceed to get them taken down. As an administrator,
whether of a domain, social network, forum, or services on other layers of the
Internet, it's unreasonable to be held responsible for every single thing done
by your users. That doesn't mean you have to let them do anything, but when a
problem occurs, the first step should not be to start taking down websites and
servers, instead of looking for a more reasonable solution.

~~~
soneil
At this point it's turned into a game of hot potato. No-one wants the bad
press of being "the one who said yes".

They need to find a registrar whose market position is built on taking a
stance. Namecheap ain't it.

------
dfps
I have been following this story, and each time a corp does this, Daily
Stormer, a site 99% of people would never have any interest in, is framed and
reinforced as an important piece that represents all our free speech (and
braoder rights).

Does anyone have a link to this site?

I heard it had moved to Russia.

~~~
gt_
I haven't seen it but even if it's as despicable as I imagine or worse, it's
covered under the concept of the first amendment. I support the first
amendment as a virtue of integrity.

If you're an American who didn't think about the scope of the first amendment
until now, well, that's gotta be embarrassing.

~~~
geofft
I am an American who thinks a lot about the entire scope of the First
Amendment. Of course the First Amendment is not just, as written, an
injunction on Congress, but also a statement of the ideals of a free society.
It includes the right to freedom of assembly (by name) and association (not by
name, but by clear caselaw), and Namecheap, as a private business, has the
right to associate or not associate with whomever they want. A society that
obligates a private business to provide business to everyone, whether by
cultural norm or by Congressional law, is not a free society.

There are a couple of protected categories, as stated both by the Constitution
and by society's norms. Being a neo-Nazi is not one of them.

The site's perfectly available. There are multiple links to it in the thread.
No one's right to speech is being infringed.

~~~
pythonistic
This does make me wonder if it makes it impossible for those companies to be
considered "common carriers" or able to enjoy "safe harbor" laws. By acting to
censor legal (however distasteful) content, they could be considered to be
policing what their customers do (asserting a custodial role) or refusing
based on moral grounds (c.f., Indianapolis "111 Cakery") and subject to a
discrimination suit.

~~~
geofft
Yeah, the 111 Cakery case I'm kind of personally conflicted about. On the one
hand, I hope it's clear that refusing service to people because of their race
is clearly not okay, and I (personally) think it's good that our society
treats sexual orientation the same way. On the other, I know that our society
_didn 't_ treat sexual orientation the same way until recently, and that a lot
of politically-powerful groups would probably add some strange protected
classes if they could (cf. my home state of Louisiana's "Blue Lives Matter"
law). So the power to create protected classes is not one I really think
should be used lightly.

There may be no good answer other than to keep fighting for what's right and
against what's wrong and hope that the arc of the universe is bent in the
correct direction.

------
darrmit
Last I had heard they were picked up by a startup (BitMitigate?) on the
hosting side because everyone kept dropping them.

I assume Namecheap circumvented that by terminating their registration?

Source: [https://www.geekwire.com/2017/seattles-bitmitigate-now-
prote...](https://www.geekwire.com/2017/seattles-bitmitigate-now-protecting-
pro-nazi-site-daily-stormer-web-attacks/)

------
rootsudo
It worries me that so many DNS/Registaras are acting as moral warriors.

------
tweedledee
Posting here as well;

As someone who is facinated by what is happening I spend a decent amount of
time spelunking in the dark web.

The Neo-Nazis are not that upset by this. They want to use the same tools to
boycott the Zionist and Jews. It's actually one of the many things the Alt-
Left and the Alt-Right agree on.

In addition we're making them into martyrs. Banning and suppression was
counter productive on the original Nazis and it is counter productive here.

This should be we'll know by those who read civics. It is even codified in the
book Rules For Radicals by Saul Alinsky. It makes me wonder what books Antifa
are reading as they are doing all of the wrong things.

I get that it feels like we're (non nazis) are winning but we're not and this
is isn't helping.

~~~
tweedledee
Can the downvoters give a reason. I like hearing from those who disagree with
me.

~~~
drewbuschhorn
Sure, but this is political and will probably exceed the HN mandate.

There's literally nothing we can do to stop these disgusting examples of
humanity. Rational discourse is predicated on the idea that your opponent
isn't purposefully lying. They are.

So leaving them in the sunlight accomplishes nothing, while driving them out
of the public sphere while not destroying them, at least helps us as a society
set a 'this is where tolerance ends' boundary. That has to exist somewhere,
and Nazism is clearly beyond that.

As for making them martyrs, they already cast themselves in that light, and
their supporters already see them as that. I don't think losing a web domain
will drive the common man into their arms unless they were looking for an
excuse.

~~~
elmerfud
If your goal is to establish a clear societal tolerance boundary then you need
a far better understanding of history.

------
pfortuny
Instead of denouncing them to the police and see what a judge says, they just
remove them based on their "concerns".

They are lucky that their "concerns" match the current status quo. Otherwise,
what would they do?

------
didibus
Can someone more knowledgeable then me shed some light on a few issues I have?

1) Isn't it the case that the free speech amendment protects censorship only
from the government, and not from anyone else, including private or public
companies? If so, why do we even bring up the amendment?

2) Isn't it also the case that even from the government, hate speech is not a
protected speech?

3) Do we have any evidence that protecting free speech is actually beneficial
and desired? What were the reasons for the amendment? And do we have data
showing it worked for what it was intended for?

4) How difficult is it to establish a guideline for what is and isn't hate
speech? I mean, personally, I don't see a slipery slope. If you're suggesting
to physically harm an individual or a group of individuals, I can not see how
that's so hard to recognise as hate speech. If your speech holds any value,
you should be able to explain it without inciting violence, unless your
argument is to incite violence.

~~~
chrismcb
1) first amendment basically sats the government can not censor, but a private
citizen or business can. But there is account effect, one should be careful of
what they censor, last it affects society as a whole. But in this case the
company wants to be a proponent of free speech. 2) in the United States hate
speech is protected by the first amendment. 3) I'm sure there are plenty of
dissertations on the subject. But a society is not free if they don't have
free speech. One way to opress a group is to withhold knowledge and
information. 4)i would say it is almost impossible to establish a guideline
for what is and isn't hate speech. Hate speech does not mean "incite violence"

------
gruez
You'd think that after dumped a few times they'll switch to some shadier
companies, but time and time again they're switching to well known business
and getting dumped.

~~~
quazeekotl
This site is being run in part by weev aka Andrew Auernheimer, somebody that
basicly spends all their time finding ways to stir up shit, and generate
controversy.

This site has absolutely nothing to do with genuinely disseminating white
power ideas, and everything to do with doing exactly what its doing right now,
getting thrown off of every popular hosting service it can so it can generate
more articles, and more drama. You can be positive its going to make its
rounds on pretty much every hosting service there is.

That is the express goal of his actions and I can not beleive nobody is
calling that out.

~~~
mintplant
> This site has absolutely nothing to do with genuinely disseminating white
> power ideas

I feel you're letting them off the hook too easily here. The Daily Stormer
absolutely served the function of disseminating white power ideas. They had
120,000 daily visitors at one point, which reportedly included Dylan Roof for
example.

------
thinkingemote
The addendum from the namecheap blog post is really chilling. It even mentions
he recent EFF post criticising similar actions by others.

------
mcbruiser3
cloudfare CEO refuses to remove ISIS sites:

"CEO of CloudFlare, Matthew Prince, said that his company would not be
blocking its service to websites listed, as it would mean submitting to "mob
rule"." [1]

double standard much?

[1] [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/anonymous-opisis-cloudflare-
refuses...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/anonymous-opisis-cloudflare-refuses-
block-service-pro-isis-websites-1495758)

edit: typo

------
mcbruiser3
are there any antifa sites being blocked or denied service? don't they incite
violence in the name of ideology?

------
randomdrake
Can we change the link to the actual blog post from Namecheap that contains
considerably more content and less advertising?

[https://blog.namecheap.com/inciting-violence-vs-freedom-
spee...](https://blog.namecheap.com/inciting-violence-vs-freedom-speech/)

~~~
sctb
Thank you, we've updated the link from
[https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/20/16170370/namecheap-
host-t...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/20/16170370/namecheap-host-take-
down-neo-nazi-hate-site-daily-stormer).

