
Does saying “Fuck You AWS” constitute offensive content? - jmdeon
http://thoughts.josephdeon.me/2020/07/02/fuck-you-aws.html
======
jquast
I made fourteen requests over sixteen days to delete my amazon.com account.

I followed up and re-submitted almost every day. Each time I was told to wait
24-48 hrs and someone would contact me to complete the process, and I would
follow up 24 hours later to repeat the process over again when nobody
contacted me.

When I finally gave up, Something like a week of 1+ hour/day chats, I deleted
all of the information I had control over (address, CC’s, etc) to “anonymize”
it at the very least. I then had a very juvenile idea to change my preferred
first name to “FUCK” and lastname to “AMAZON” and made one last request.

Customer support deleted my account within the hour, no multi-step process, no
“customer support specialist will contact you in 24-48hrs”, just an immediate
deletion. Finally!!!

I’ve also learned a good lesson — delete any new online account after you
create it, before conducting business. if it isn’t easy to do, then don’t use
the service. Otherwise, create another. Most sites are just a button, or a
chat request, but Amazon was very ridiculous, (equal to airbnb, which required
me to send a photograph of myself and my DL, and then replied to say I have to
wait another 90 days and do it again?!)

~~~
oliwarner
I think what we've learned is that if you start a new support ticket about the
same thing, the old one gets ignored.

------
CivBase
All content is "objectionable" depending on the audience. We just have to
trust our new Amazon overlords.

I like AWS and the general concept of cloud computing, but I'm extremely
concerned about how difficult it appears to be to transition from one solution
to another. As someone working on an AWS app, I'm worried about the possible
day where my employer announces that we're moving everything to Azure or some
other platform.

The lack of compatibility between cloud computing platforms makes it difficult
to switch when issues like this come up. I suspect in most cases, it's just
more economical to stick with the current provider and hope you aren't
impacted in the future. Because of that, I doubt providers like Amazon see
much immediate impact from things like this.

~~~
simple_phrases
These are the reasons that I refuse to build any of my projects on some cloud
provider's special snowflake solutions.

~~~
tlrobinson
You mean this? [https://aws.amazon.com/solutionspace/financial-
services/solu...](https://aws.amazon.com/solutionspace/financial-
services/solutions/snowflake-data-warehouse/)

~~~
simple_phrases
Haha, no I didn't mean that service in particular. I was using 'special
snowflake solution' as a derogatory term for the branded and managed services
that cloud providers sell.

~~~
tlrobinson
Sorry, I should have made it clear I was joking :)

~~~
simple_phrases
I figured but you never know. Sarcasm doesn't translate well over the
internet.

------
jascii
"If this post gets removed then I know I have not fully achieved my ownership
goal and it might be time to just host on a pi."

If the post does not get removed you do NOT know that you have fully achieved
ownership. The simple fact that that clause exists means you do not have full
ownership.

Hosting on a pi might not make much difference as most ISP's have similar
clauses in their EUP's.

The only way to come close to "full ownership" I can think of would be by
either owning the entire stack to the reader or maybe some encrypted p2p
system. Does anyone have any practical suggestions?

~~~
pmiller2
Leaving aside whether the clause itself is objectionable, since when does
"full ownership" mean you can do whatever you want? Am I allowed to drive my
car on public roads without a license?

~~~
mirimir
No, but you can drive unlicensed vehicles -- even vehicles that could _never_
be licensed -- on private land.

~~~
golem14
Sure, but the equivalent would be to host your content on a Raspberry Pi that
is not connected to the internet. What would be the point ?

~~~
mirimir
True. But you could host on a Pi via Tor, as an onion site.

~~~
golem14
I don't understand the premise. Why would one expect to be able to interact
with the world without any consequences ? That makes little sense,
philosophically, at least to me.

Even hosting via Tor can have consequences, if the government has enough
incentive.

However, practically speaking, I think the OP would probably be fine posting
on AWS, as others have remarked.

~~~
mirimir
> Why would one expect to be able to interact with the world without any
> consequences ?

Because you're not free if you can't do that.

> Even hosting via Tor can have consequences, if the government has enough
> incentive.

Then you can chain Tor with other anonymity networks. Such as nested VPN
chains, Orchid, or LokiNet.

Based on what I've seen, people have generally been pwned because they screwed
up, and not through fundamental compromises.

------
cft
These are rules specifically written for selective enforcement on case by case
basis.

~~~
cheez
Thats it, move on

------
pnw_hazor
Doesn't matter:

"The examples described in this Policy are not exhaustive. _We may modify this
Policy at any time_ by posting a revised version on the AWS Site. By using the
Services or accessing the AWS Site, you agree to the latest version of this
Policy."

Everyone uses AWS at the complete discretion of Amazon.

~~~
distrill
> Everyone uses AWS at the complete discretion of Amazon

Isn't this totally obvious?

What might be more interesting to note, and what the author is testing for, is
if/when these cloud providers change the rules of their discretion often or
abruptly. But of course we're all at the mercy of these private companies when
we run on their hardware.

~~~
Animats
Which is an argument for "common carrier" type regulation. Railroads once had
a similar monopoly position. They could refuse to carry items from one shipper
to favor another. In the US they have an obligation to provide "reasonable
service for a reasonable rate upon a reasonable request from a shipper".[1]
There's long history around this, and it may be time to apply it to some
Internet services.

[1]
[https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Railroads...](https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/RailroadsCommonCarrierObligation.pdf)

------
dijit
Well; speaking candidly: I once called one of our internal datacenters "trash"
(for not meeting specifications, having no local support, overloaded switches
and inconsistent hardware platforms) and I got a written warning for it.

So, yes. I would say it constitutes offensive content.

~~~
gruez
Isn't this totally unrelated? In your case it was your employer reprimanding
you for your performance on the job. In OP's case it's him acting in his own
capacity.

~~~
dijit
You're right of course, but we're treating developers (and developer spaces)
as being professional settings.

Gone are the "underground hacker" days, as Antirez put it, so I think it
applies.

------
teh_klev
I ultimately got booted off twitter for a tweet that said:

"Dear @AmazonUK AI, please kill yourself now".

This clearly wasn't aimed at a human but their Artificial Intelligence.

Attached to the tweet (to provide the tweet with some context) was a
screenshot of it recommending a whole bunch of those Hello and Chat type
B-list celeb trash gossip mags. Items I swear I have never browsed for on
Amazon, let alone a newspaper.

I was reported, possibly by @AmazonUK, or detected by Twitter's own idiot AI
for "promoting or encouraging suicide or self-harm". FFS.

Despite my attempts to appeal I gave up. It counted towards my three strikes
(one was a Frankie Boyle kinda joke about why no-one had had a pop at trump
with a gun, buggered if I can remember the other, I think I may have used the
"c" word).

Turns out I need to tailor things I say, that wouldn't be considered offensive
in a Scottish pub, to Twitter's puritanical view of the world. But it's their
shitshow and @jack can go fuck himself.

Edit: just to be clear, I've never encouraged anyone to kill themselves or
"die in a fire". The Trump tweet was clearly a bad joke and in no way could be
construed as encouraging anyone to try and assassinate the US President, nor
anyone else. The "c" word was not aimed at anyone in particular other than the
Scottish Conservative and Unionist party, who're pretty much considered fair
game in Scotland.

~~~
freehunter
So you told a support representative from Amazon (you should realize there are
humans behind these accounts) to kill themselves, suggested someone should
kill the US president, and "possibly used the 'c' word", and you're wondering
why a US-based company might be offended by that?

That's basically a list of the three most offensive things you could possibly
say in America. Of _course_ you were banned for it.

~~~
teh_klev
Unsure if _/ s_ or a smiley needs to be appended to your comment ;) I hereby
invoke Poe's Law.

~~~
freehunter
No. No Poe's Law, no /s, no smiley. Maybe things are different in Scotland but
in the US if you tell someone to kill themselves and say the US president
should be killed, that's about as serious an offense as I can imagine. It
doesn't even matter how you feel about the US president, you could be the most
anti-Trump person in the world but you still shouldn't expect to say someone
should kill the US president and expect that you'll have zero repercussions
for it.

~~~
teh_klev
Then I think you should read my post again. It's pretty clear none of what I
said was to be taken _literally_. If that's the case then you're suggesting
that the average US citizen's ability to perform reading comprehension is even
worse than I thought and I simply do not cannot believe that.

~~~
freehunter
It doesn't matter how you _intended_ for it to be taken. If you jokingly told
someone to kill themselves and they did actually kill themselves, would you
hide behind "they should have known I was joking"?

I read your post three times before I first commented to make sure I wasn't
misunderstanding. What you claim to have said is horribly offensive and I
can't believe you're trying to shrug it off as no big deal. Maybe it's a
cultural difference, but hopefully what you're learning is that it may be okay
to tell a human being to kill themselves in Scotland but that is not
considered acceptable in the US.

~~~
teh_klev
> If you jokingly told someone to kill themselves

I jokingly told an inanimate piece of software to kill itself, AI's are not
people, they're machines running lines of code. But I see no point continuing
to justify my "cultural" differences in the use of speech other than to say
that I've known enough US folks to know that your reaction is something of an
outlier. If this is truly how you feel, then I'd be curious to know how the US
managed to survive having George Carlin or Bill Hicks on their tellies.

~~~
freehunter
The difference is they are comedians who were commissioned to tell jokes to an
audience that is expecting to hear jokes. Meanwhile you told an Amazon
employee to kill themselves because you didn't like the output of the
technology their company offers.

Again... there are humans behind these Twitter accounts.

~~~
da39a3ee
@teh_klev explicitly addressed his comment to an AI. Perhaps you're not
familiar with it, but this is a common acronym for
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence).
Your comments are all saying the same thing and all deliberately or not
missing the point that he was explicit in that he wasn't addressing a human.
Any human that creates an account called "Amazon AI" can expect to receive
content suitable for an AI.

~~~
freehunter
They didn't create an account called "Amazon AI", they created an account
called "@AmazonUK" which is what was referenced in the original comment.
@AmazonUK has a human behind the account, not an AI.

~~~
Dylan16807
And the tweet was directed at "@AmazonUK AI". It was clearly a response to
something on the website, not anything the human did.

Would "@AmazonUK's AI" be clearer and satisfy you?

~~~
freehunter
I would prefer humans not tell other humans to kill them selves because
believe it or not some people actually do and some people really miss those
people.

~~~
Dylan16807
I agree, while noticing that such an event did not happen here.

------
SamWhited
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.

My understanding is that when interpreting the law and legal documents like a
ToS or EULA things within a list are interpreted to be related to one another.
So objectionable" doesn't literally mean anything anyone finds objectionable
ever in perpetuity throughout the universe, it means "this list is not
comprehensive, other things like the things in this list count". If you added
'saying fuck AWS' to the rest of that list would it make sense in context? The
answer is pretty clearly 'no', so that would not be covered. And before
someone says "well some people probably thing swearing is as bad as the other
things in that list", the law also frequently defines things like this in
terms of what a "reasonable" person would think. There is wiggle room, but for
things where it's easy to get general consensus, not a lot. Again, not a
lawyer, grain of salt, all that.

------
femto113
There's certainly no shortage of "fucks" already on S3, so I'm guessing AWS
doesn't give any about them.

[https://buckets.grayhatwarfare.com/results/fuck/](https://buckets.grayhatwarfare.com/results/fuck/)

------
gioscarab
I vote for pi hosting :)

------
QuinnyPig
I was wondering if they'd try something like that for
[https://www.lastweekinaws.com--it's](https://www.lastweekinaws.com--it's)
critical of them, and they've had a few angles over the years to go after it
(trademark, suspending the domain, etc).

Years into the experiment I can safely say that their tolerance for criticism
extends far beyond what I'm willing to test out, as I am not a human dumpster
goblin.

------
all_blue_chucks
Are there any hosting providers that claim the opposite? Who has a ToS that
specifically allows the items in AWS prohibits?

------
tlrobinson
This reminds me of Douglas Crockford's classic story about the JSLint license
containing a "The software shall be used for Good, not Evil" clause:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hCimLnIsDA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hCimLnIsDA)

------
copperx
The author should AB test two pages on different accounts: one insulting AWS
and the other Bezos.

------
mcs_
Half of the spam I'm receiving comes from Amazom web services.

> I am Mark Ben John Bill. from FBI unit,i have been instructed by the FBI
> Director Christopher A. Wray, to inform you that out of our thorough
> investigation lately , we found out that one of the abandoned valid Packages
> such as ATM Cards And Consignment Boxes by diplomatic agents who complained
> that the beneficiaries failed to pay for the anti terrorist clearance
> certificate to guide and show that the fund is no way related to fraud or
> drug money,with the information we have here , we found out that one of the
> funds belongs to you and it worth the sum of $10.5 million US Dollars.

So, IMO, Fuck you AWS, I'm rich now!

~~~
all_blue_chucks
Why do you say this comes from AWS?

~~~
teh_klev
Likely spam originating from AWS IP addresses.

~~~
all_blue_chucks
AWS IP addresses are blacklisted by most email providers...

~~~
teh_klev
I'm not sure that's true, I've successfully dispatched SMTP mail from their
platform without it getting blocked or tagged as spam.

~~~
mcs_
To be fair, the ratio of spam received from EC2 has dropped in the last month,
something has definitely changed (or I'm not a target since then).

I'll let you know.

------
dangus
I think the author is taking the legalese too seriously and reading too far
into the phrase “otherwise objectionable.”

This is just a standard abuse TOS. Yes, “otherwise objectionable” casts a wide
net, but I think in the legal understanding of the sentence it’s supposed to
refer to “similarly egregious things that a judge would agree were in this
same relative severity of abusive content.”

A judge wouldn’t simply allow “otherwise objectionable” to mean “literally
anything.”

I would also point out that if you host abusive/illegal content on your own PC
your ISP can shut you down just the same.

~~~
IanGabes
I think the legalese should be taken seriously!

For instance, we can draw a comparison to recent controversy with social media
platforms. Do you think that social media platforms should be able to remove
any content on their platform, regardless of legality? I believe that they
can! Otherwise objectionable is hopefully that catch all.

I view the OP as a bit of a misguided test. The blog post, in all likelihood,
will remain up. The control the authour speaks of will still remain in the
cloud provider's hands.

~~~
pmiller2
If you're going to take "legalese" seriously, what you need to take seriously
is what it _means_ , which is often slightly different from what it appears to
say to a non-lawyer.

------
einpoklum
Of course it does, it mentions Amazon, and that's quite offensive.

------
atlgator
Wear that on a t-shirt at AWS Reinvent and see what happens.

------
paulpauper
Amazon is pretty lenient. You have to screw up really badly to lose your AWS
account . I have noticed this it be the case for almost all cloud-based
hosting services except of of course dropbox.

------
aronpye
Unless and until we start regulating cloud providers and social media
companies as utilities then these issues will continue to present themselves.

------
phren0logy
Is there a reason to say "Fuck You AWS" other than to cause offense? It's
certainly devoid of any meaningful criticism.

~~~
mirimir
Well, he'd want to say that _after_ they had nuked his page ;)

------
sascha_sl
No, this will not be removed. Just like "we might kick you for any reason or
without reason" is not a clause you can test-violate.

This specifically sounds like the clause you'd use to kick sites like The
Daily Stormer out that are just universally despised and put a large amount of
political pressure on whoever enables them, no matter if they're just a
"neutral transit provider" or not.

