
Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post. - voidr
http://vpsexperience.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/digital-ocean-threatened-to-shut-down-my-blog-if-i-didnt-remove-or-edit-a-blog-post/
======
macspoofing
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.

~~~
jasonlotito
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.

~~~
macspoofing
>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
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
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.

------
petercooper
The real issue here is whether Digital Ocean should be enforcing a term in
their ToS to prevent users from using their network in various socially
negative ways. As a liberal-ish European, I think they should, but I
appreciate this stance doesn't necessarily play well in the US.

Nonetheless, taking quotes from an informal chat room and turning them into a
biased, borderline libelous blog post isn't cool. It's immaterial whether
Collins told the author they didn't care about the post or not. If Collins
made an official complaint as per the ToS, the post in question -
[http://vpsexperience.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/googler-
speaks...](http://vpsexperience.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/googler-speaks-out-
on-manny-cardenas-and-second-class-citizens-at-the-plex/) \- strikes me as
defamatory and embarrassing enough to legitimately fall under term 2.8.. so
the real question has nothing to do with the complaint but more is term 2.8 a
good idea or not?

~~~
Argorak
Thats interesting. As a liberalish European, I think DigitalOcean shouldn't be
allowed to police their content, just as ISPs shouldn't be allowed to block
websites at their whim. Thats clearly in the realm of courts and lawyers.
DigitalOcean can cancel the contract once others found the blog post to be
defamatory.

~~~
lvh
Perhaps the two of you are only disagreeing on what "liberal" means; it tends
to mean something quite different in Europe than in the US :)

~~~
Shish2k
Looking in the dictionary, I see liberal as "willing to respect or accept
behaviour or opinions different from one's own", which is what I (as a
European) had always thought -- what does it mean in America?

~~~
tommorris
Politically left-wing.

Increasingly these days, it seems to be a term for anyone who doesn't give
credence to the theory that global warming is a hoax made up by Satan so
Barack Obama can marry his secret Kenyan gay lover.

------
josephlord
I'm not sure how valid this view is but I feel that the lower level (as in
closer to infrastructure) the service provided the higher level the threshold
for editorial interference should be. Against this feeling DO massively
overstepped the mark here and have massively put me off using them.

I'm not saying that they should never have control; at least spamming, illegal
content and DOS attacks need to be dealt with but requesting editorial changes
to blog posts just feels off the chart.

Edit: Typos and clarifying that lower level referred to infrastructure.

~~~
Joeboy
> the lower level (as in closer to infrastructure) the service provided the
> higher level the threshold for editorial interference should be

That was my instinct too, but I see no real reason why we should expect that
to be the case. We've grown up with the idea that servers are generally
managed by reasonably "legit" entities. Now that it's trivial to sign up for a
VPS, we probably have to expect providers to pay more attention to what goes
on on their machines. This is thought provoking, for me anyway.

------
voidr
So Digital Ocean could freely decide if a content is harassing without any
legal court order or something?

So if I decide to use their service(which I was considering btw) should I
worry about wether or not they will deem my content inappropriate?

So if I want to have a site where I would have users who can say/post whatever
they want(freedom of speech and all that human right stuff) I can't host it on
DO, because somebody might just send a bogus email to them and they would act
on it?

~~~
rsynnott
> So Digital Ocean could freely decide if a content is harassing without any
> legal court order or something?

Their TOS presumably allow this, as do the TOSes of most hosts, but this seems
like a pretty bizarre use of discretionary terms, and would definitely put a
lot of people off using it for anything much.

~~~
voidr
It's perfectly fine for a TOS to allow a service provider to comply with the
law. The problem is when they have their own highly ambiguous laws and lack a
proper system to resolve violations.

~~~
untothebreach
I don't think what they are doing is the right thing to do, but they are
perfectly within their right to enforce their TOS. If a person does not like
that, they should use a different VPS provider.

------
nbevans
Solution: Stop using a 2-bit cloud provider.

But none of this would have happened if the article author realised that
companies all over the world are doing this. In the UK there are even "zero
hour contracts". Welcome to capitalism and life not being fair :)

Other than the Googler clearly being an unsympathetic simpleton. I'd hazard a
guess that almost all other permies at Google, or any company, would be
equally as disinterested and unversed in the subject at hand. It simply
doesn't come on to the average, particularly the "well employed", person's
radar.

------
DiabloD3
This is a spoof right?

"One member of the community half-seriously (I assumed) threatened to harm me,
proposing to “Godwins law this fucker.""

"Another member of the community [...] had taken note of my browser
“fingerprint” and was now offering to share it with everyone."

So they were going to compare him to Hitler as punishment, and share with the
community information used mainly for ad targeting?

------
DanBlake
FWIW, all I ever read about on HN is how DO is constantly a disaster. Why you
would choose to host there is beyond me. Just move your blog- It takes all of
a few hours.

~~~
danpalmer
FWIW, this is one of only a few 'bad' DO incidents I've seen, among many very
positive things.

As a DO user for over a year, I can say I am mostly very happy with the
service I have received, although I hope they issue a statement about this,
apologising to the author and pledging to review their policies on this.

~~~
mark212
Same here. I've been very pleased with their service but DO is way out of line
here. Shutting down content based on a single complaint, without a court order
or any kind of injunction -- and then saying that the customer has to get a
court order from a NY court to keep it open? Exactly the opposite of what I
expect from a VPS.

------
venomsnake
Enjoy the cloud. Nothing more to be said. With the current "Waiver all rights
in the TOS and no legal protections for the customers" it is only going to get
worse.

I think that cloud services and telecoms and ISPs should be designated as
common carrier with the protections and obligations that come from that.

~~~
josephlord
How do you host content then? Don't most collocation facilities and ISPs have
their own TOS that are not that different?

~~~
venomsnake
My theory was that they shouldn't be allowed to have such TOS and be given
immunity from lawsuits about the way their services are used.

So basicly the only reasons a hosting provider should have grounds to
terminate/interfere with service are - court order/stopped payment/the way
service is used actively disrupts other customers.

We should have service "first sale doctrine" equivalent - once you have sold
the access service etc you have no say in how it is used.

~~~
josephlord
I don't disagree but don't really get the relevance of your "Enjoy the cloud…"
comment. Web hosting is something that needs some provider with terms of
service and whether "cloud" or not doesn't seem to make much difference to me.

~~~
venomsnake
I would say that the cloud is not only a mix of technologies and solutions,
but also a worldview with abusive attitude toward the catt ... consumers. In
the 90s web hosting was simple - if it is not CP and you pay your bills
anything goes. Right now everyone on the chain thinks and demands rights to
interfere with your experience. Everyone is trying to become a gatekeeper and
editorialize.

~~~
josephlord
I'm not sure it is a cloud issue I think it is creeping regulation (and PR
concern) about controversial content being hosted. The copyright lobby has
moved the bar and courts are increasingly taking actions over content posted
online (although in many cases directly against the poster rather than the
host).

There is obviously an increased risk if many layers claim the right to
interfere. E.g. SAAS operated on Heroku running on Amazon gives at least three
parties ability to interfere (or just have downtime/issues).

In this case however there was only one party Digital Ocean who operate the
data centre and provided the service so I'm not sure it matters that they are
a 'cloud' service rather than offering traditional hosting or a colocation
service. That said I think that DO got this decision badly wrong.

------
boskonyc
This clown covertly recorded (spied on) an established engineer who was
casually conversing in a well-known if niche and informal chat room. He then
decided he was justified to publish the excerpts of the covertly recorded
conversation as if they were journalistic quotes provided to a media outlet.
This is the most pathetic kind of muckraking by a would-be engineer drawing
attention to himself by attacking an established figure. Unwise, perhaps, for
Digital Ocean to TOS him like this, but certainly within their rights as a
service provider. As for the original poster, he may in turn feel violated by
DO's TOS, but the violation of privacy he committed is without question much
more severe.

------
gizzlon
Does their TOS really say you can't embarrass anyone? That seems totally
retarded, some people get embarrassed about the stupidest things.

I guess as a DO customer I should have read their TOS more carefully =/

------
MaysonL
Did Digital Ocean just lose any DMCA safe harbor status it had, by policing
client content in this way?

------
blueskin_
Don't use Digital Ocean. Every time I hear their name, it's a complete index
of WTFs.

~~~
nobodyshere
Find me another service that praises you for violation of their TOS. I'd be
really pleased to find at least one.

~~~
andrewfong
TOSes are what they are, but at least Rackspace's TOS doesn't prohibit acts
that "embarrass" someone.

~~~
nobodyshere
However a lawsuit against them would. And it is very logical to try and avoid
having such a lawsuit as you'd have to spend quite a few bucks on a decent
lawyer.

~~~
blueskin_
If someone sued rackspace for that, chances are they'd get ignored. They're
too big to bother with frivolous threats that would be thrown out immediately.

~~~
nobodyshere
I wouldn't say you can so easily throw away a court order.

~~~
blueskin_
You need to win in order to get one of those.

------
retube
So? DO is a private company offering a service. They're not obliged to accept
your money. Don't like them, go elsewhere.

~~~
Joeboy
I'm glad I found out what kind of service they offer before I signed up for
it, which I might have been tempted to do otherwise.

------
ashley16
This is the definition of online harassment. This guy Josh at
vpsexperience.wordpress.com sounds like a real piece of work.

------
colinbartlett
It saddens me to see this petty bullshit on the front page of Hacker News.

------
jdhendrickson
How many times is this story going to be killed and reposted?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7015191](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7015191)

I get that he is trying to get this to go viral and thereby bring attention to
his pathetic muck raking but maybe a ban for gaming the system is in order I
believe it's been submitted three times and killed or flagged each time, how
many times can you submit the same lame, self aggrandizing content?

------
comice
Digital Ocean are going through all the kinds of problems that newbies to the
ISP business go through in their early days, but DO are having to do it after
having already got enormously popular. Not a lot of fun for them I'm sure.

------
callesgg
He is a dickhead and Digital ocean might be a bit contradicting when allowing
harassment on the forum. That was however harassment towards his
alias/username not to a specific individual.

I still think digital ocean did the right thing and contacted him, And asked
him to fix the ToS breakage he committed.

------
hect0r
All DO are asking the blog author to do is to just honour the Terms of Service
that he himself agreed to. I don't see any controversy here; it is all very
simple.

Maybe, the blog author is attention-seeking and trying to manufacture outrage
by trying to cast himself as a "victim". The real victim, if there is one, is
the Googler who has had his conversations in a closed forum relayed to the
world and editorialised by someone who obviously didn't explain his true
intents. Anyway, if the blog author disagrees and doesn't feel that he wants
to honour his contract then he can just move his blog or, as DO suggest,
launch legal action and get an injunction. I suspect though he will just skulk
off and look for some other controversy to rant about.

~~~
jasonlotito
Replace DO with AWS and the Googler with Jeff Bezos, and the blog format with
the NYTimes.

~~~
Sidis
...and it wouldn't make any difference.

If the NY Times signed an agreement with AWS that stated that they couldn't do
X against anyone and, at a later date, they did X against Jeff Bezos then AWS
would be well within their rights to demand that either NYT adhere to their
agreement or leave.

I note that you use the example of two related entities (AWS and Jeff Bezos).
Are you implying that there is a relationship between DO and the Googler
equivalent to that between Jeff and AWS?

~~~
jasonlotito
No one is suggesting DO shouldn't enforce their ToS. Rather, it's their ToS
that is at issue. The use of AWS and NYTimes was too look at it another way.
Everything the NYTimes prints would fall afoul of the ruling from DO.

More importantly, NYTimes wouldn't agree to such a stipulation from their
provider precisely because of an issue like this. That should be a warning
sign.

As for the use of Jeff Bezos, it was because I had mentioned AWS. Replace
Bezos with anyone. It was merely the first name that popped into my head.

Here, I'll make it easy: AWS is the hosting provider, NYTimes is the site, and
a member of the NSA is mentioned in the article.

------
danso
1\. Has none of the "alpha geeks" involved ever hear of or Google the
"Streisand Effect"?

2\. Though the issue raised is one that's worth debating, what Collins said
wasn't particularly newsworthy or inflammatory and may not even disqualify him
from some day winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet the way the OP referred to
his remarks, by the time I clicked through to see the juicy details, I was
expecting something on the order of "Let them eat cake", but with racial slurs
thrown in. The purportedly shocking statements were, IMO, not terrible, give
the concise format. And yet they may have very well been given the sinister
connotations DO's alleged actions give them

~~~
techwizrd
I thought the entire article sounded like a bit of an overreaction. It sounds
like hashbrownchew (vpsexperience.wordpress.com) wrote this article with the
intent of stirring up as much controversy as possible. However, when I read
through it I was perplexed. Reading the article[1] that DO asked him to edit
did not give me much sympathy for hashbrownchew either. He refers to Collins
as "one obnoxious Googler" and then somewhat-creepily investigates (with
instructions) where Collins is lives to use for another inflammatory point.
This entire article sounds much like a hashbrownchew is a papparazzi trying to
provoke a reaction from Collins and then trying to further stir up controversy
after misrepresenting Collins gets him into trouble. I really do not see why
he didn't just edit the article to be anonymous. Whether he _has_ to edit it
or not isn't clear, but it is the polite thing to do.

1\. [http://vpsexperience.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/googler-
speaks...](http://vpsexperience.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/googler-speaks-out-
on-manny-cardenas-and-second-class-citizens-at-the-plex/)

------
donniezazen
When companies decide to get into personal matter of two unknown individuals
which could have been easily went unnoticed, DO did a disfavor of putting them
both on face of social media bringing bad words for both themselves and Travis
Collins.

------
zedpm
Given his sensationalist writing style, I'm not at all surprised to see that
it was a Gawker piece he questioned Travis Collins about. Gawker is Yellow
Journalism[1] and as such deserves no response.

The larger issue makes for interesting discussion, however. I believe he's
right that the complain ought to have been directed at the author initially,
rather than at the hosting provider. I doubt it would have accomplished
anything to complain to this individual, but it is nonetheless the correct
procedure.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism)

------
Sidis
So, let's be clear:

1\. The blogger signed up with DO and agreed to some TOS that prohibit certain
types of activities.

2\. He then, by his own admission, lurks in a chatroom.

3\. He asks a Googler a question but does not disclose what he intends to do
with it. By his own admission, he had no plans to write a piece.

4\. He takes the Googler's comments, contorts them, and constructs a poorly
written screed in which he, amongst various other calumnies against good
taste, investigates the home address of the Googler and uses that to add
dramatic effect to his hit piece.

5\. The hoster -- whose TOS he explicitly agreed with at the start -- asks him
politely to edit his piece to comply with the agreement. They seem to only
require him to remove the personal identifying information.

6\. Despite the fact that removing the name of the person would not really
diminish the albeit half-baked and poorly thought out idea that the author is
trying to get promote, he acts as though he is the one that should feel
aggrieved and outraged for removing the Googler's name.

7\. By doing so, he reveals his true intent. He isn't interested in making a
point about Google; he is interested primarily in presenting the said Googler
in a negative light and personally maligning him or inciting others to malign
him.

Or, the shorter version, the blog author is an odious and obnoxious attention-
whore and troll who is trying to build a reputation by demolishing the
reputation of an innocent engineer; and then who is so blinded by his desire
to get attention that he doesn't realise that he looks like an ignorant
jackass by whinging and whining that DO are asking him to simply adhere to the
TOS that he himself agreed to.

~~~
macspoofing
Exactly. What's this bully's motivation? Does he want this Googler to be
fired? To be disciplined at work? To apologize publicly? Or simply to
embarrass him publicly and move on to something else?

I don't know anything about DO, but it aggravates me that they are being
disparaged here when all they did was make a reasonable request.

Most services frown upon posting identifying information in certain kinds of
stories. Reddit, for example, had issues with vigilantism against innocent
people after certain inflammatory posts.

------
farginay
Freedom of press is guaranteed only to those who own one. -- A. J. Liebling

~~~
hect0r
Freedom of press and freedom of speech are complete red herrings here.

DO is a private company and they are free to agree to whatever they want in
their contracts. They don't owe anyone any obligation other than to adhere to
the agreements they form with their customers.

------
gaius
This is no different from asking someone a question, slyly videoing their
answer on your Google Glass, and uploading it to Youtube.

~~~
darkarmani
And then having your ISP drop you as a customer.

------
DanBC
DO are not unusual in having AUP/TOS that is more restrictive than the law
allows.

A number of people here are saying that they feel uncomfortable with DO's
stance, but plenty of other providers would come close to that level of
policing.

Luckily there are options if you want someone to just host stuff with tolerant
AUP/TOS.

Tldr: contracts mean stuff.

------
smazero
All a bit petty and grubby isn't it? I don't think the claims of libel or
defamation really hold much water given the evidence presented (I am not a
lawyer), but it seems to me DOs clause of avoiding embarrassment could cover
pretty much anything.

That said the tone and approach of the original poster's blog posts leave an
unpleasant taste in my mouth in that way that something can be technically
correct, whilst simultaneously feeling morally repugnant; more self
aggrandising than injustice fighting, and it's interesting how keen the
original poster is to explicitly name and shame the random dude from Google,
while remaining conveniently anonymous himself.

Bah, I feel grubby just from having commented on this.

------
dmdeller
For the sake of comparison, it seems worth mentioning a hosting provider that
takes an explicit stance in their policies against things like this happening,
to the extent that they actually named their company around the idea:
[https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/help/abuse](https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/help/abuse)

Unfortunately, NFSN's technology stack is so far behind the times that it's
hard to use them for much of anything these days. I'm not affiliated with
them, just a long time customer.

------
fuziontech
Get this off of HN. This blog doesn't deserve the publicity.

------
ommunist
Leave DO. Go to goip.com, publish whatever you want. Its Netherlands.

To those who say the guy is jerk and his blog does not deserve the publicity.
This is typical orwellian situation with some animals more equal than others.
DO hosts a lot of things and does not police them, but this one was voluntary
attempt of editorial control (censorship) and it is not acceptable from
infrastructure provider. As it seems, DO is not behaving ethically (nor does
the guy).

------
ddebernardy
It's surprising that wordpress.com leaves this petty post up. OP is likely
violating their ToS too...

~~~
rsynnott
How's that surprising? Most blogging providers (Wordpress, Blogger etc.) and
indeed large ISPs in general are pretty tolerant of things that are merely
potentially offensive to an individual, as opposed to libellous.

------
zobzu
freedom of speech much

~~~
camus2
freedom of speech protects your speech from the government , not from a
private business where you host your blog. Did they shut down his blog ? no.

------
awk23
This is basically a ploy by someone who is seeking publicity for his attack on
this other individual by taking his words out of context and altering their
meaning.

Here is a previous submission of HN of the disputed post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6984487](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6984487)

[http://www.firstlooksy.com/frustrated-googler-speaks-out-
on-...](http://www.firstlooksy.com/frustrated-googler-speaks-out-on-manny-
cardenas-second-class-citizens-at-the-plex/)

His is a repost under another date of the same bat-shit crazy "nothing" that
makes Gawker seem reasonable.

The author is an attention monger who probably has some sort of a personal
vendetta against the person he is attacking, I suggest not to take his account
of things on face value.

