
The Daily Stormer, Online Speech, and Internet Registrars - walterbell
https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2017/08/daily-stormer-online-speech-and-internet-registrars
======
remarkEon
I used to think it was fairly easy to identify who was/is a "Nazi" or Nazi
sympathizers (The Daily Stormer obviously passed the smell test). What I'm
concerned about is that the scope of who's included in that group seems to be
expanding. Immediately after Chancellorsville plenty of Liberal pundits, on
and off Twitter, explicitly stated there was no difference between Republicans
and the NRA and Nazis, which is of course a ludicrous statement. But people
don't think it's ludicrous anymore. It seems a reasonable expectation at this
point that this expansion will continue, because anyone who doesn't
sufficiently condemn/signal their agreement with policing speech in this
manner might find themselves branded a "Nazi sympathizer". Is this where we're
headed? I sincerely hope not, because it's going to lead to a frightening
trend of self-censorship. This is a sign of a seriously unhealthy political
culture.

~~~
Red_Tarsius
That's exactly were the USA is headed. The vocal minority wants the civil war
to happen. They want to affirm their own epic narrative
([https://sivers.org/drama](https://sivers.org/drama)). David defeats Goliath,
_for the common good_.

A lot of young people can't get a hold of their identity, so they grab on to
their gender, race, being liberal, whatever. They make a virtue out of
anything they already are. Then the journalists exploit the collective search
for meaning by selling outrage and a scapegoat. Some people _need_ the
"nazis": their identity depends on it.

~~~
api
Isn't that also what the Nazi alt-right people are doing: grabbing a
radicalized ready made identity off the shelf because they don't know who they
are?

I see a ton of this today. Maybe it's the social media version of the couch
potato. This is what it looks like when people lose themselves in social
media.

~~~
zimpenfish
> This is what it looks like when people lose themselves in social media.

No, this is what it looks like when you have a racist country that doesn't
address its institutional racism for decades combined with a racist political
party that panders and dogwhistles to them for (at least 5, more like 20)
years combined with broken ideas about free speech.

~~~
leereeves
The Democratic vice-mayor of Charlottesville has publicly said he hates white
people. Racism goes both ways and some people in both parties are guilty of
it.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>The Democratic vice-mayor of Charlottesville has publicly said he hates white
people.

Ok. How many white people have been beaten by police under his vile, racist
vice-regime?

Oh. Zero, you say?

How many white people have had guns pointed at them by Black Panthers under
his vile, racist vice-regime?

Oh. Zero, you say?

Then I think there's a difference. One side says mean things on Twitter, the
other side infiltrates police departments and burns down churches.

~~~
leereeves
Zero, I did not say.

According to the ACLU and ABC, police allowed the violence at the march to
happen.

> [ACLU Tweet:] Clash between protesters and counter protesters. Police says
> "We'll not intervene until given command to do so."

> Video replayed over the weekend on cable news and social media appears to
> show long brawls between protesters and counter-protesters that went
> uninterrupted by police.

[http://abcnews.go.com/US/police-face-criticism-eruptions-
vio...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/police-face-criticism-eruptions-violence-
charlottesville/story?id=49192837)

------
nullifidian
To me this is not that different from state censorship I experience in Russia.

I would argue that the internet is the primary medium for exercizing one's
free speech today. The technological change made printed medium outdated. If
you are not on the interent, you will not be heard. If the the government
decided to configure the crucial internet infrastructure (domain name
resolution) in a way that private companies can censor speech(registrars and
verisign), then it's effectively a violation of the first amendment. Because
what this ammounts to is government saying that the medium of public
protesting or sharing printed material is protected, but the medium of
electronic communication is not, because we decided to privatize it. It's like
saying you can't protest here because we decided to privatize all the public
squares and paved roads, their owners don't want to see you, and the fist
amendment does not protect you there, you can protest on a dirt road in the
forest(TOR etc) where no one sees you.

I feel very uneasy about these events, because it's a precedent. Censorship of
the interent in Russia began with pedophile histeria in the media to justify
the laws, and now it's used to censor opposition supporting media. Considering
the changing tastes of upcoming college graduates in the US, in terms of
interpretation of what constitues free speech and what doesn't, the political
censorship could become intstituionalized in the US through "TOS violations".
And through this censorial normalcy could eventually pave way to the end of
the current absolutist legal interpretation of the first amendment. Which
would be very bad IMO.

~~~
tim333
Meh. The site's up again already on a .ru domain
[https://dailystormer.ru/a-tale-of-true-friendship-trump-
call...](https://dailystormer.ru/a-tale-of-true-friendship-trump-called-putin-
to-get-us-a-new-domain/)

It's not being censored, it's just reputable companies don't want to deal with
them. Fair enough I say.

~~~
kombucha2
Aaaand its gone...

------
21
ACLU position on this is also interesting. They actually fought in court for
the permit for the rally.

"The First Amendment is a critical part of our democracy, and it protects
vile, hateful, and ignorant speech. For this reason, the ACLU of Virginia
defended the white supremacists’ right to march. But we will not be silent in
the face of white supremacy. Those who do stand silent enable it. That
includes our president."

[https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-charlottesville-
vio...](https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-charlottesville-violence-and-
demonstrations)

~~~
mc32
That's an interesting position. And I understand it. It's not easy. But it
exposes the discomfort they have with defending the first amendment.

It's like saying you support the right to an attorney but since someone is a
murderer you hope the State Appointed defense attorney is a lackey or they
don't appoint any.

~~~
21
I also wondered a long time about why would an attorney defend someone which
clearly seems to be a criminal.

My understanding of this is that if someone is an obvious criminal, it will be
easy to prove in court, so the attorney will not change the outcome.

~~~
pfranz
John Adams volunteered to represent British soldiers accused of killing
civilians[1]. He made some good arguments about fairness. Even if they're
guilty of crimes, it's still not fair to abuse them, pile on more charges, or
take shortcuts when gathering facts. They also still need to be sentenced
fairly.

For example, if the guy who ran over and killed the woman in Charlottesville
didn't get fair representation or trial, both sides could rightfully argue
"the system is rigged."

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams#Counsel_for_the_Bri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams#Counsel_for_the_British:_Boston_Massacre)

~~~
ThrustVectoring
This is the fundamental essence of classic liberalism. Specifically, the meta-
level things like strongly preferring that the system is working well over all
situations rather than getting the correct result in any particular one. Also,
avoiding even the appearance of impropriety, which causes more damage than
getting things wrong.

It's also the key insight of rule utilitarianism over act utilitarianism.

------
JCzynski
>But few really oppose the basic predicate of these removals: that private
companies can and should be arbiters of permissible speech on their platforms.

I am proud to count myself among those few. Social media is the modern public
square and must be treated as such.

~~~
onion2k
You're interpreting the first amendment as "Congress shall make no law [...]
abridging the freedom of speech _on the speakers chosen platform_." I rather
like the idea that the New Yorker rejecting my work could be considered a
violation of my rights.

~~~
wutbrodo
Why is this canard such a common response in discussions like these?

The only explanation I've come up with so far is that the people saying stuff
like this are profoundly stupid, and I really hate it when my only explanation
of a POV is that facile and self-serving. I don't mean to pick on you in
particular but I'm hoping you can explain this to me and try to steelman this
common refrain.

Free speech as a concept (or a spectrum) exists independently of its
codification in our Constitution. It's not something the founders accidentally
wrote down and now we're stuck with it: they did it for a reason that some
people (myself and the parent comment included) find compelling in contexts
other than simply "when the Constitution forces us to".

It's fine to disagree with its relevance to specific contexts, but what on
earth compels you to think that "The Constitution doesn't force us to!" is a
remotely relevant response to "I think free speech is a good idea in this
context"?

~~~
onion2k
_Free speech as a concept (or a spectrum) exists independently of its
codification in our Constitution._

Free speech exists as a concept, but _protected_ free speech doesn't. You
can't have protected free speech without the laws that protect it. The point I
made slightly flippantly is about the extent of the protection. Most people
interpret the law as protecting the right to speak, not the right to speak _on
a specific platform_.

As with all things this is best explained with an XKCD reference:
[https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

~~~
didgeoridoo
Laws don't define right and wrong.

If we didn't have laws against murder, would murder not still be wrong?

Just because the government is prevented from creating laws that infringe on
free speech, that doesn't mean that individual infringement on free speech is
morally permissible.

~~~
dragonwriter
The problem is you are casting individual _exercise_ of free speech by
delining to amplify speech they don't approve of as “infringement on free
speech”.

Free speech certainly includes the right to try to convince people to amplify
your speech. It generally does not include an _entitlement_ to have them do it
for you without you having to convince them.

------
Khaine
Sigh. We went through this 70 years ago with literal nazis, are we going to
have to live through it again, this time from the far left? Didn't they learn
this poem in school?

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was
not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was
not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

To be clear, I don't agree with what nazi's say, but like voltaire I support
their right to be able to say it.

~~~
Delmania
> To be clear, I don't agree with what nazi's say, but like voltaire I support
> their right to be able to say it.

Here, read this: [https://qz.com/1053957/charlottesville-neo-nazis-and-the-
cas...](https://qz.com/1053957/charlottesville-neo-nazis-and-the-case-against-
free-speech-for-fascists/?mc_cid=70d578520a&mc_eid=9deaabec7d)

I do not support the Nazi's right to say what they want. Nazism resulted in
the murder of 30 million people. It engulfed much of the Western world in a
war that ravaged nations and killed millions. It calls for ethnic cleansing
and racial oppression. It is literally the opposite of the liberal democracy
the United States is based on. It runs counter to the principles of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and it does not promote freedom,
equality, and justice for all. Much of the same can be lodged against the
people who support the Confederacy.

I'm for dissent and speaking out. I do think, however, there is speech, which
while is not libel and slander, crosses a line that should not be tolerated in
a free and just society. Slippery slopes, intolerance, etc. A good litmus test
is to ask if your speech calls for the killing or enslavement of those who are
different than you. Considering we waged 2 wars over Nazism and the
Confederacy, I'd say those ideas fall into that category.

~~~
splintercell
I think you (and that article) completely missed the point behind the idea of
free speech.

The fundamental idea behind speech is that it is a reflection of our mind and
our reasoning. It is NOT the same thing as the actual 'reason' in our mind. By
restricting speech, you do not 'change' anything of real significance.

If you force a man to only look in a mirror which shows a distorted view of
his body, then not only he will be unable to do anything about his body,
whenever he would want to do something about his body, he would go in the
wrong direction.

When someone says 'gas all kikes', it isn't that by him not expressing that
thought, you have permanently altered his reasoning. He is expressing that
idea (assuming he meant it seriously, and not in 4chany way), out of the
feeling of hatred and anger in his mind.

Similarly, when someone hears 'gas all kikes', and he thinks 'damn right', it
isn't that without him hearing that vile statement from the first person,
somehow the feelings in his mind won't really arise.

Now what about a more reasoned structured argument made by the first person,
instead of just some call, for instance systematically blaming a certain group
of people, and presenting 'proof'?

Again, if the speech is free, then it can be tackled down by other good
people, explaining things. To every 'Mein Kampf', you can write 'Your Lies',
or something else to appeal to anyone who wants to 'truly' believe in
anything.

Finally, irrespective of what you may think, it is not possible to
successfully curb speech, if someone writes a hateful book, it is spread in
the underground circles, credited to anonymous groups. And when people receive
that literature, the first question they ask is "hmm.. I wonder why some
people are so insistent about not wanting anyone to read this? I wonder what
evidence of wrongdoing is listed in this book against the other group. I
wonder if what this book says is right, because otherwise the rulers wouldn't
be so interested in preventing others from reading this". And I have first
hand experience of this.

If by banning intolerant you can make people tolerant, if by forcing them to
interact with others, you can make them like others, if by banning certain
kinds of speech, you can change people's minds, then go for it. But since I
know that's not possible, I am against restrictions on any kind of speech.

~~~
Delmania
I'll have to disagree with your assessment. The reason we have freedom of
speech in the United States is to prevent the government from silencing
critics. The Founder's most definitely did not have the Nazi. Much of your
argument resembles the same one used by critics of gun control, which is
essentially that banning guns won't stop criminals from getting guns. I
understand the sentiment, but I also think a society needs to draw lines
around what it will tolerate and what it won't. Nazism and the Confederacy
were harmful mindsets that killed people and tore apart nations. The only way
to kill it is by education, but that doesn't mean we should let it fester.

------
ocdtrekkie
I've been really uncomfortable with this whole thing. I get why offensive
people get booted out of communities and social networks, but I don't feel
like infrastructure/platform providers should be in the business of content
moderation.

From what I read, it was suggested that it would be hard to even figure out
what The Daily Stormer could've done 'wrong' according to Google Domains'
Terms of Service.

~~~
alanh
Please don’t downvote ocdtrekkie just because you disagree with him/her…
that’s what replies are for. Downvote comments that don’t add to the
conversation.

I’m here to say I am uncomfortable with e.g. GoDaddy censoring their users,
too. I’m uncomfortable either way.

Because I remember when another web host, BlueHost, which happens to be owned
by Mormons, decided that it could not in good conscience host (non-
pornographic) websites for lesbians, and deleted their accounts without
warning.

I’m not trying to make a false equivalency, but… should your web host decide
whether they approve of your speech? No.

OTOH, should companies profit off hate speech or Nazism? No!

It's also worth noting that “hate speech” is hard to define! SPLC is the best-
known authority here and they have absolutely fucked up and mis-categorized
non-hateful religious criticism as “hate speech”. Would you like to see
GoDaddy start deleting ex-Muslim bloggers on “hate speech” grounds?

 _Edit_ 100% not to detract from anything said previously, but it’s valid to
say that the line exists at “direct incitement of violence”

~~~
phil21
> OTOH, should companies profit off hate speech or Nazism? No!

I really hate this point. I was (am) a "webhost" and also happen to be a
staunch free speech advocate. My rule when I owned my own company was if I
didn't have a court order and the content wasn't blatantly obviously illegal
(e.g. child porn or outright specific calls for actionable violence) you
stayed on-line and I would vehemently defend that right for you. As expected,
as you gain such a reputation you tend to draw some really shitty people.

I will tell you that the "problem" customers cost far more than they ever
made, and it wasn't even close. These were customers I truly despised, but I
would actually be subsidizing their platforms due to those opposed (e.g. ddos
attacks, constant support phone calls harassing my staff, fishing expedition
warrants that needed to be fought, etc. etc.) intentionally costing me money
in an attempt to shut down their speech. I found those actions more
contemptible than the content they were opposed to - and much of it truly was
vile.

This is _not_ a profitable segment of the industry to be in, but I still feel
it's an extremely important line to _never_ cross and am saddened by the state
of telecommunications as a neutral platform/common carrier today. We've lost
so much in less than a generation.

------
Red_Tarsius
The Daily Stormer read like a parody of the alt-right. But, unlike ISIS
videos, it had zero persuasion power.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170813051230/http://dailystorm...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170813051230/http://dailystormer.com/)
If anything, it was a testament to what's wrong with the movement. Leave the
website up, for everyone to disprove and make fun of.

~~~
spiderfarmer
It's not persuasive to you (and me). But look at how many people are staunch,
almost religious, defenders of ridiculous alternative facts. A lot of people
believe what they want to believe and will only look for evidence that
supports their believes.

~~~
Freak_NL
You might want to enclose a term such as 'alternative facts' in quote marks;
without them you legitimize the concept. The use of the adverb 'ridiculous'
and the gist of your comment imply that you do not subscribe to the notion of
'alternative facts' yourself.

~~~
spiderfarmer
Learned something. Thanks.

------
zkms
I wonder when this "lawfare" (really more like TOSfare) on registrars, hosting
providers, CDNs, payment processors, and fundraising sites (like patreon) will
escalate into the use of censorship-resistant/distributed alternatives (like
bitcoin, or onion services or whatever) among people with extremist political
views (of any flavour).

~~~
1337biz
Not even a TOSfare. It's just a plain old hate mob.

------
ufmace
Well this is an interesting situation. I don't mind reading absurdly offensive
things that I disagree with, so I went looking for what happened to them.
Seems they were rejected a total of 3 times for registrars for their .com
domain, and were briefly online via a .wang domain which they claimed to have
discovered was superior, but has since been shut down also. They are currently
online via a Tor hidden site, and they still seem to have a Twitter feed, for
now. They claim to be actively searching for a new .com registrar. They also
seem to have been dropped by several other cloud services, including Zoho,
Sendgrid, and Discourse.

Obligatory disclaimer - open Nazi-ism, every bit as offensive as you think it
is. Browse at your own risk to your sanity and browser history. Thought about
posting the Tor link, but honestly, you can find it with a couple of Google
searches.

As someone else here said, I'm not so sure that defending the right of Nazis
to speak and publish websites is the hill to die on here. But this does raise
the question of who they will go after next. Exactly how offensive or outside
of the mainstream do you have to be to get 90% of registrars and cloud
services to terminate your services?

------
jim-jim-jim
It does tickle me slightly to see people with generally progressive sentiments
become flaming supporters of private property and free enterprise over the
issue of objectionable political content, smugly pointing out that free speech
doesn't apply to businesses and more likely than not linking to that stupid
xkcd comic--as though the debate being held over "free speech" were strictly a
legal one.

I don't know. Defending Nazis isn't the hill I'm going to die on, but I'm very
wary of the "let woke tech corporations root out hate" approach. ToS
violations are very malleable things and can be leveraged against other
controversial viewpoints as well. There's a communist youtuber who has had his
material taken down multiple times for making a silly song about the shooting
of Tsar Nicholas II. Making light of a 100 year-old regicide is hate speech in
Google's eyes. Reddit has likewise targeted very neutral and scholarly
attempts to document jihadist media. Free speech is not compatible with free
markets.

~~~
oh_sigh
> smugly pointing out that free speech doesn't apply to businesses

Unless it is about wedding cakes, and then the business has no right to self-
determine what they can or cannot put on the cake. I have a hard time
understanding how a bakery is a public accommodation, but an internet
registrar isn't.

~~~
jacalata
I don't think the difference there is bakery v registrar, but protected
classes v arbitrary groups. It's like at-will employment: you can be fired for
any reason _except_ these specific protected reasons (retaliation, age, race,
pregnancy, etc).

~~~
dogma1138
A Gay couple isn't a protected class under under federal law, there are 7
protected classes based on: race, color, religion, national origin, sex,
disability, and familial status. As you notice "gender" or lack there off and
sexual orientation are not defined as protected classes.

~~~
steanne
that's still being debated.

[http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/politics/doj-amicus-brief-
titl...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/politics/doj-amicus-brief-title-vii-
sexual-orientation/index.html)

~~~
dogma1138
Indeed, it also is more complicated than that since protected classes in the
US (on a federal level) are defined by multiple laws and their protection
status is not universal across all cases.

You may argue that familial/marital status is a protected class in the case of
the gay wedding cake, the problem is that AFIAK (IANAL) applies to housing
opportunities only.

You can argue in court that familial status extends beyond
married/divorced/single/widowed but also to the type of marriage and then
argue that the protection under title VIII of the Fair Housing Act sets a
precedence for familial status being a universal protected class(this has been
done for other protected classes in the past also).

But in either case this is a matter for the courts, until there is a ruling
not wanting to serve a gay couple isn't a crime just "abhorrent but legal".

As a liberal I would much rather see the free market take over, and before
people say well a free market didn't help to combat the discrimination against
African Americans it wasn't the lack of a free market but regulation where you
had local laws that demanded a 7 ft barrier between black and white areas in a
restaurant and many other abhorrent local laws.

A bakery that wouldn't want to serve gay customers will be at a disadvantage
in a truly free market as they lose business from people that they do not wish
to serve and people who think that behavior is abhorrent.

I would also like to point out that on some level if I were in there place I
wouldn't want to get a cake from a place that didn't want to make one but was
forced to do so. A wedding is an important event, a wedding cake as silly as
it might sound is a big part of the tradition, I would much rather take my
business somewhere else than have someone who doesn't want to make a cake to
be compelled to make one.

------
khabaal
As a person from germany and as many of you might not know, the "daily
stormer" is directly connotated to "Der Stürmer"
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_St%C3%BCrmer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_St%C3%BCrmer)].

That newspaper with its very popular antisemitic caricatures was one of the
main sources of radicalization in germany.

------
21
So, Amazon is still selling Mein Kampf.

Going by the No Platform argument mentioned a lot in this thread, or by the
right to choose how to do business, people should be putting pressure on
Amazon to stop selling it.

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mein-Kampf-Struggle-Adolf-Hitler-
eb...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mein-Kampf-Struggle-Adolf-Hitler-
ebook/dp/B01HE5UE04/)

~~~
SirLJ
Let's start by burning books we don't like and disagree with...

~~~
dang
Would you please stop using HN for ideological flamewar? It's not what this
site is for and it damages what it is for. (What it is for: gratification of
intellectual curiosity. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.))

------
libeclipse
"Abhorrent but legal". An interesting term.

I feel that most people miss out the " _legal_ " part of it, though.

------
Animats
"breitbart.com" has GoDaddy as a registrar, and Cloudflare as a cache
provider. Should they be cut off?

~~~
foxylad
A registrar or caching provider withdrawing service to a customer is
essentially sending a message, and from that perspective the action should be
covered by free speech. So I would argue that yes, if GoDaddy or Cloudflare
were offended by Breitbart, they should be able to cut them off.

Note that in this case, the provider would not be infringing on the customer's
free speech, because there are myriad other providers they can use.

~~~
dogma1138
If they were "sending a message" to a BLM or an LGBT group would you still
support their rights to do so?

If the internet existed in the 1950's and the apparent (at least as a public
face goes) vox populi would favor and crave for both self and
institutionalized censorship as much as they do now the civil rights movement
would've been dead in it's tracks.

It seems that people are busy yelling Nazi's Nazi's rather than having an
actual good look at history.

When ever ideas are being silenced much much worse things tend to follow.

~~~
foxylad
Yes I would. In fact I sided with the cake shop owners who didn't want to make
a cake for a gay couple. They should have simply taken their business
elsewhere, or made their own cake.

------
sigmar
>If we ask these small companies to take on content removal obligations, we
should not expect nuanced decision-making or robust appeal processes. We
should expect legal and important sites from across the political spectrum to
go down because someone complained about them.

This is a ridiculous statement. Domain registrars are already required (by
ICANN) to receive, investigate, and respond to abuse complaints.

~~~
ruleabidinguser
Was that the only point of theirs that held any sway with you?

~~~
sigmar
I was just pointing out that specific statement. I've got thoughts, but no
specific perspective on the rest of the article. It definitely raises
interesting questions.

------
gadders
Reading posts by Milo et al, it seems MailChimp is also stopping service for
some people on the Right they don't like.

------
doubleshame
It is very important to distinguish something like Facebook blocking an
account / Medium taking down a blog from a domain registrar refusing to
cooperate.

You are free to create a room where only some ideologies are allowed, but it's
dangerous to play the same game with the _ability to create the rooms_.

First the domain registrars, then networks say that they don't want to peer,
and then we end up with a fragmented internet.

It is not wise to pretend that an opinion that you do not want just simply
does not exist. The extremist in the room who everybody pretends is not there,
is eventually going to do more radical things to be noticed. In the echo
chamber of extremism, there is now no moderating thought; and the world loses
empathy to understand these unpopular perspectives that still exist.

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant"

"Isolation only promotes extremism"

------
davidreiss
It is insane that we are allowing GoDaddy, Google and tech companies to be
arbiters of free speech.

As a kid, I used to associate google, yahoo and the whole of internet as a
bastion of freedom.

It is shocking to me that liberals ( a group I used to identify with until
fairly recently ) are the proponents of censorship on the internet and in
america. It is shocking to me that google, godaddy and the internet is now
synonymous with censorship and propaganda.

Not only is censorship giving daily stormer and neo-nazis more
sympathy/credibility, companies like google, godaddy and the liberal movement
is making a mockery of liberal principles.

My first philosophy course in college was with a jewish professor. We were
discussing free speech and the rights of neo-nazis/kkk/hate groups to free
speech. I clearly remember her saying that protecting the rights of neo-
nazis/kkk to free speech is the only way to ensure the rights of speech speech
for everyone. Free speech rights exist to protect "offensive" speech - whether
it be pornography, atheism or hate speech.

What has happened to the tech industry? What has happened to the liberal
movement? How did the tech community and the liberal movement get hijacked by
anti-free speech and oppressive extremists?

If conservatives are pro-censorship and now liberals are pro-censorship, what
future is there for individual rights, free speech and the liberal world
order?

------
SirLJ
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not
a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was
not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

~~~
intortus
Then we took away their easy access to propagandize hate and they stopped
coming for us.

~~~
SirLJ
And then google came for you...

~~~
intortus
If you expect other people to rally behind nazis you're going to need to
invest a lot more effort.

~~~
1337biz
Following the other poster I am really curious - are your against free speech?
If so okay, no place to argue here.

~~~
ue_
I'm against free speech in certain circumstances; free speech is idealistic,
for it assumes Bad Ideas will be shot down in fair public debate, and people
are rational. When people say things along the lines of "I don't like what you
say, but I'll defend your right to say it", they're really saying that they
don't care about the consequences that may come of that speech out of
principle. It's a very reductionist mindset.

This is a fantasy, and I think a level of control is needed to stop the
rousing of genocidal ideology propagated through rhetoric and providing its
proponents platforms to speak on.

~~~
throwaway7312
> This is a fantasy, and I think a level of control is needed to stop the
> rousing of genocidal ideology propagated through rhetoric and providing its
> proponents platforms to speak on.

The Nazis you dislike would agree with you, and tell you we need to outlaw the
speech of what they believe to be hateful open borders communists who, to
their minds, promulgate the genocide of the white race.

The world has a long history of those who push for the restriction of speech
ending up on the receiving end of restriction of speech. One good turn,
history tells us, very often deserves another.

~~~
ue_
>The Nazis you dislike would agree with you

The fact that other people would also like to censor some speech in other
circumstances is irrelevant to me.

>open borders communists who, to their minds, promulgate the genocide of the
white race.

What's in their mind is irrelevant. I'm clearly not advocating genocide, it's
not my business if they see it that way, they ought to educate themselves.
There's a clear difference between advocating that the workers of the world
unite and advocating killing Jews. As it also turns out, the Nazis would kill
Jews whether or not the workers agreed with it, you can't say the same about
any of my actions.

>The world has a long history of those who push for the restriction of speech
ending up on the receiving end of restriction of speech.

I agree, so it must be done carefully; there's no causation, merely there
might be correletaion between these two groups.

~~~
SirLJ
What exactly is the difference between the Nazis and the Commies (responsible
for the death of millions in USSR, China and across the world - death camps,
labor camps, starvation, cultural revolutions, terrorism...)

~~~
ue_
Killing has nothing to do with Communism. I don't defend those who have killed
in its name, and I don't want to do the same as them. As far as I know, Nazism
requires forceful removal or killing of people.

This is the difference.

~~~
SirLJ
Are you sure you are against the "forceful removal", this is what you said few
posts ago:

> No, because I'm not advocating harm or killing, only the potentially
> forceful removal of private property from landowners and capitalists.

~~~
ue_
I'm against forceful removal of people (as in, taking them away from their
homes simply for being who they are), not of private property.

~~~
SirLJ
wow... so sad... you are exactly the same...

------
lstroud
Free speech is not a sometime thing. Just ask 1926 Germany.

~~~
pluma
What exactly are you referring to that happened in 1926 in Germany? Maybe
you're thinking of 1930 or 1933?

------
ryanlol
This article neglects to mention that anyone can relatively easily become a
domain registrar.

It seems strange that someone would expect a registrar to defend them for the
couple of dollars per year you generally pay.

~~~
parenthephobia
> Anyone can relatively easily become a domain registrar.

Relatively easily? It isn't exactly a cheap venture: e.g. $4k+ per year to
become an ICANN registrar.

I think people shouldn't have to pay that much to exercise their free speech.

> It seems strange that someone would expect a registrar to defend them for
> the couple of dollars per year you generally pay.

I think that unless a registrar is legally compelled to unregister your domain
name, they shouldn't take it upon themselves to unregister your domain name
just because other people are offended by what you put on the web server that
your domain name resolves to.

~~~
ryanlol
>Relatively easily? It isn't exactly a cheap venture: e.g. $4k+ per year to
become an ICANN registrar.

I'd say that's relatively easy yeah, perhaps a bit much for individuals but in
the end not everyone needs to be a registrar. This is still accessible enough
that rather small groups of people can set up a domain registrar to serve
their own needs.

>I think that unless a registrar is legally compelled to unregister your
domain name, they shouldn't take it upon themselves to unregister your domain
name just because other people are offended by what you put on the web server
that your domain name resolves to. ￼

Oh, absolutely. And that's not what's happening here, registrars are simply
forcing Daily Stormer to transfer elsewhere. They're not just deleting the
domain.

------
minikites
I think this author either misunderstands the issue or is trying to pull a
fast one. They start out by reviewing net neutrality and how it affects ISPs:

>At the same time, if the people I talk to are geeky enough, they usually
support Net Neutrality. They believe that ISPs, as providers of core Internet
infrastructure, should not get to be arbiters of content. ISPs should allow
the bits to flow equally -- not suppress or favor particular messages or
sources.

And then leaps into talking about registrars and hosting:

>Two of the intermediaries that rejected the Daily Stormer, Go Daddy and
Google, were only acting as its domain registrars. They did not host the site,
they just made sure that dailystormer.com was associated with the right IP
addresses, so users typing the domain and clicking links to it would get
there.

ISPs should transmit bits neutrally but there's no reason a registrar or
hosting service needs to host those bits if they decide not to. There are
plenty of registrars and hosting services, market effects will shape behavior.
If GoDaddy doesn't want the bad publicity, they should make the decision that
suits their business. There are not that many ISPs and it's not their role to
police content for exactly the same reason the phone company isn't liable for
connecting a call that results in a bomb threat or wire fraud.

