Google says it will ban Neo-Nazi site after domain name switch

[mr moose]

11 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

The argument that internet should be a utility is nothing new.

 

 

The argument actually started when someone suggested google should be considered a utility.  I would argue that the internet itself  (network of connections from ISP's to backbone, etc) should be a utility, however the devices and services that plug into it (website hosting, banking services,  file storage, etc) should not be, they are private services that use the internet, they are not the internet itself. 

 

In this case, google is just refusing to provide services, there is nothing stopping them or another company from hiring rack space and hosting it themselves.

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Why though?  If you think domain services should be considered a utility then should TV stations be considered a utility? what about advertising companies?  the product is exactly the same, it is a platform to provide information.

Not exactly, as a domain reseller Google are selling a service to the general public and that does fit the bill for a utility.

 

Remember we're not talking about the website content here, we're talking about the business of selling web domains and entertainment networks (BBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX etc) are classed as service providers  or utilities so how is Google selling the domains for websites any different?

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Not exactly, as a domain reseller Google are selling a service to the general public and that does fit the bill for a utility.

 

Remember we're not talking about the website content here, we're talking about the business of selling web domains and entertainment networks (BBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX etc) are classed as service providers  or utilities so how is Google selling the domains for websites any different?

window cleaners sell a service to the public too.   So should they be considered a utility as well?  

 

The internet as a network is a utility in my mind, the services that you access from it are not.   Otherwise where do you stop? is neflix a utility?  what about banking?

[Mihle]

The line should be drawn where people start to encourage people to do criminal things. (killing, raping, beating someone, steal from someone......)
I think thats a clear line.

[Misanthrope]

8 hours ago, mr moose said:

Sometimes it's easier to defend freedom of speech than it is to get your hands dirty trying to draw lines in the moral sand of society. 

Harder still: changing those lines with actual arguments instead of just appealing to one's right to be wrong, so to speak.

[Master Disaster]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

window cleaners sell a service to the public too.   So should they be considered a utility as well?  

 

The internet as a network is a utility in my mind, the services that you access from it are not.   Otherwise where do you stop? is neflix a utility?  what about banking?

That's exactly what we said, think of it this way, the electricity grid is a network and companies who sell access to that grid are utility companies. The internet as a whole is the electricity grid and domain resellers are selling users access to the grid so just like ISPs, domain resellers are utility providers IMO.

 

The difference between domain resellers and things like Netflix or Internet banking is the access path, customers already pay their ISP for internet access (Internet access should be a utility IMO) and are using their already paid subscription to access Internet websites, people renting domains are doing so separate to their existing internet subscription.

[Misanthrope]

8 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

That's exactly what we said, think of it this way, the electricity grid is a network and companies who sell access to that grid are utility companies. The internet as a whole is the electricity grid and domain resellers are selling users access to the grid so just like ISPs, domain resellers are utility providers IMO.

 

The difference between domain resellers and things like Netflix or Internet banking is the access path, customers already pay their ISP for internet access (Internet access should be a utility IMO) and are using their already paid subscription to access Internet websites, people renting domains are doing so separate to their existing internet subscription.

The analogy doesn't work: The daily stormer still gets electricity: Assuming you know the IP to their new Russian host you actually can get to their website just fine. If Google was in charge of routing IPs in general and they refuse to get people that pass through their network to the daily stormer, then yes I'd be like Google cutting off electricity to a company.

 

However they still get electricity: Google just refuses to tell other customers what's the address of this business, doesn't translates IP into a useful DNS. Indexing and Domain Registration are services that you might not want to compel as a utility level. Access, absolutely. Throttling too. But DNS is a bridge too far if you ask me.

 

Next you'll be asking for fair search results on Google.com and no, that shouldn't be compelled either.

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Misanthrope said:

The analogy doesn't work: The daily stormer still gets electricity: Assuming you know the IP you actually can get to their website just fine. If Google was in charge of routing IPs in general and they refuse to get people that pass through their network to the daily stormer, then yes I'd be like Google cutting off electricity to a company.

 

However they still get electricity: Google just refuses to tell other customers what's the address of this business, doesn't translates IP into a useful DNS. Indexing and Domain Registration are services that you might not want to compel as a utility level. Access, absolutely. Throttling too. But DNS is a bridge too far if you ask me.

 

Next you'll be asking for fair search results on Google.com and no, that shouldn't be compelled either.

Yeah, I kinda see your point there.

 

I can't think of any other situation where there are any similarities to this tbh, maybe something like a stock broker acting as a middle man between the market and his client (but even that doesn't fit exactly) so I guess this is a unique challenge and it will likely fall on people cleverer than the LTT collective to work out the complexities of the Internet.

[Biggerboot]

7 hours ago, MrDynamicMan said:

The day you make someone a martyr is the day you give them power. Now, this of us who really don't like nazis but like free speech are forced into a position where we have to defend their right to speak. 

Part of my argument is that their freedom of speech isn't being taken away.  Google is exercising a right to refuse service - they can do that because they're a business.  Those people can look for another domain registrar to express their opinion. 

[Vanderburg]

19 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

Well apparently CloudFlare remembers the war.

 

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/racist-daily-stormer-goes-down-again-as-cloudflare-drops-support/

 

CloudFlare dropped The Daily Stormer, so now the largest white supremacy site on the internet, named after a Nazi run newspaper started in 1923, is on the internet without DDOS protection...  That's like running naked through a cactus forrest

I wouldn't say CloudFlare does much for DDoS protection... They are a caching and proxy service and are deceptively insecure. All of the traffic the actual webhost receives is from CloudFlare, so when there is an actual attack and the webhost tries to filter it, they can't block IPs, because they'd only be blocking CloudFlare IPs. The only thing the host can do is add filters for specific traffic, which doesn't work if the attacker sends junk. Also, CloudFlare shows that a site is secure, with SSL, but the encryption is only between the client and CloudFlare. The client has no way of knowing if the actual website is using SSL, which means that as your personal information, credit card numbers, passwords, etc will be encrypted between the client and CloudFlare, they are wide open between CloudFlare and the website.

[bomerr]

13 hours ago, mr moose said:

And why's that?   They are not providing a utility service.

Internet is a utility. Private corporations shouldn't be allowed to determine what type of speech is acceptable for all of society. 

[Jito463]

To me, DNS registration should not be based on something that's politically or ideologically motivated.  It should be politically & ideologically agnostic, in my opinion.  I'm not saying anyone should be forced to host a server (you can setup your own server, so long as your ISP doesn't have any rules against it), but the domain name registration should not be denied simply based on ideals (apart from any aforementioned illegal/violent proclivities of the group).  DNS is an essential part of the web, and to deny it is to virtually deny access.  Hiding it - by forcing them to use their IP - doesn't hide the content, it just pushes them into the shadows where they can thrive.

[Nicnac]

People can't be serious when saying this is against net neutrality and it's "providing information". The actual fuck?! There's a difference between saying what's on your mind and being a racist asshole. What's so hard to get about that?!

[bomerr]

6 hours ago, Biggerboot said:

Part of my argument is that their freedom of speech isn't being taken away.  Google is exercising a right to refuse service - they can do that because they're a business.  Those people can look for another domain registrar to express their opinion. 

That's why we have the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which forced PRIVATE companies to not discrimination. Or OSHA which forced PRIVATE companies to enforce safety standards. Or CARB which forced PRIVATE companies to adhere to emissions regulation... and so on. The fact is business operate INSIDE the governmental framework and if we as society decide they must be regulated then they can be regulated. 

 

The question is whether Google, Twitter, Facebook and websites should be regulated. My answer is yes because these companies have gotten so large that they provide a service that we consider vital as a society. It doesn't make any sense to allow private corporations to control speech in the 21st century (and onward). 

[Biggerboot]

30 minutes ago, bomerr said:

That's why we have the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which forced PRIVATE companies to not discrimination. Or OSHA which forced PRIVATE companies to enforce safety standards. Or CARB which forced PRIVATE companies to adhere to emissions regulation... and so on. The fact is business operate INSIDE the governmental framework and if we as society decide they must be regulated then they can be regulated. 

 

The question is whether Google, Twitter, Facebook and websites should be regulated. My answer is yes because these companies have gotten so large that they provide a service that we consider vital as a society. It doesn't make any sense to allow private corporations to control speech in the 21st century (and onward). 

It's debatable whether or not Google is discriminating based on race, color, religion or national origin, which is what the Civil Rights act covers.  

Also, the irony that it's wrong to discriminate discriminators.  I'm not trying to say it's right one way or the other, but there's certainly a grey area in the law.

[Syntaxvgm]

19 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

Well, no, and this is again where you are failing to understand the limits of your rights.  For example, you can totally be fired in any state of the United States for saying racist things in the workplace.  A restaurant can deny you service for saying those things.  Your photo at a white supremacy rally can get up on Twitter and employers can deny you jobs for it.  There is a tremendous amount of scenarios where your speech is not immune to repercussions and you would have no legal defense against these repercussions.

Well its still protected speech, those aren't government entities. I dont think hes confusing right to speech and the backlash you may face from private citizens or companies. Hes absolutely right that all speech, even advocating for the same things that a group whos members committed voilent acts, so as long as you dont make specific threats of violence or something. Hell technically I could make an ISIS fansite, so as long as I dont directly call for jihad. Not that it would actually play out like that in reality, I'd end up with me taking Jack Flowers' iron boot to the nuts. 

Anyway google private company and all that bs, I still think they shouldn't draw lines other than legal ones. And people know violence is the legal line- notice how people are calling hate speech violence lately? 

Anyway enough typing on my phone

[Misanthrope]

35 minutes ago, Syntaxvgm said:

Anyway google private company and all that bs, I still think they shouldn't draw lines other than legal ones. And people know violence is the legal line- notice hot people are calling hate speech violence? 

Anyway enough typing on my phone

You're basically talking past your own point here: If you think the law is BS then your first argument needs to be changing the law, because no lines have been drawn by Google legally by refusing service, them being a private company like you said.

 

Most of you need to discuss whenever or not some of the internet services private companies like Google provide need to be nationalized by the State since that'd be one of the only ways to compel someone to provide a service no matter what. This is no small conversation since then you're basically advocating for a Socialist Democracy in which the state controls many key industries directly and only lets private entities compete openly on ones that are not deemed of strategic importance.

 

So in the name of free speech, you're suggesting that we suppress a lot of other speech and rights and establish a completely new (To the US anyway) form of government so that Nazis can have a DNS address to their website accesible by most.

 

Most of the people making your point need to sit down and reconsider if this is truly what you want. I'd be for it but I suspect most conservative and libertarian minded people would not like this. 

[Eaglerino]

1 hour ago, Nicnac said:

People can't be serious when saying this is against net neutrality and it's "providing information". The actual fuck?! There's a difference between saying what's on your mind and being a racist asshole. What's so hard to get about that?!

That in America both are protected by the first amendment. Agreeing to terms of service changes that of course

[AshleyAshes]

I wonder how many of the Armchair Libertarians in this thread are going to make their stance clear to Google with their dollars and switch entirely over to Bing for all their websearch needs

 

...I'm going to guess 'Zero'.

[Okjoek]

People feared big government so they made it so weak that it got taken over by corporations so that they can domineer with the dollar.

[bomerr]

2 hours ago, Biggerboot said:

It's debatable whether or not Google is discriminating based on race, color, religion or national origin, which is what the Civil Rights act covers.  

Also, the irony that it's wrong to discriminate discriminators.  I'm not trying to say it's right one way or the other, but there's certainly a grey area in the law.

You aren't listening to what I am saying. I am saying that if society determines X is important then it can pass laws Y to force companies to comply. X can be anything from discrimination to health and safety to environmental protection. So if we as a society believe that Google should not be allowed to censor hate speech then we as a society can pass new laws to prevent Google from doing that. 

 

I think it'll be inevitable that these co. will eventually get regulated as utilities. Communication in the 21st century and onward is dominated by the internet and so it doesn't make sense to give private corporations the power to regulate speech.

[Biggerboot]

13 minutes ago, bomerr said:

You aren't listening to what I am saying. I am saying that if society determines X is important then it can pass laws Y to force companies to comply. X can be anything from discrimination to health and safety to environmental protection. So if we as a society believe that Google should not be allowed to censor hate speech then we as a society can pass new laws to prevent Google from doing that. 

I'm listening, passing new laws is in the cards.  I was just responding to your insinuation that the current laws are in place to reprimand a company like google for what they are doing (which is refusing service).  My opinions are cast aside in that regard.

I understand where your coming from, it's an enabling mentality if we start becoming selective of what we can censor on the internet.  

This is where my opinion comes in.  I've stated in the past that, unlike a government, which sometimes you can't escape from, you can opt-out of doing business with a company.  As an admin on a discord server, I can choose to ban somebody for spreading hate messages.  That's kind of important that we're able to do that.

[Syntaxvgm]

2 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

You're basically talking past your own point here: If you think the law is BS then your first argument needs to be changing the law, because no lines have been drawn by Google legally by refusing service, them being a private company like you said.

 

NO not at all, I just wanted to throw in that yes they are a private company and can do this legally. I believe they should do only do what the law requires them to as far as removing sites. I think they should match the law and draw the line at incitement to violence, and not at speech considered hateful

 

2 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

Most of you need to discuss whenever or not some of the internet services private companies like Google provide need to be nationalized by the State since that'd be one of the only ways to compel someone to provide a service no matter what. This is no small conversation since then you're basically advocating for a Socialist Democracy in which the state controls many key industries directly and only lets private entities compete openly on ones that are not deemed of strategic importance.

 

Yah I agree. Everyone, including me, freaks out about any government control over the internet, and holds it as a valuable tool in freely speaking and organizing against government. State controlled entities providing the only means of domain names and major services (services like google provides and almost has a monopoly on) is indeed scary. That's why I want private companies to act as neutral as possible as far as the government in which they are physically located lets them. Pipe dream, yea, but I really feel it's important 

2 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

So in the name of free speech, you're suggesting that we suppress a lot of other speech and rights and establish a completely new (To the US anyway) form of government so that Nazis can have a DNS address to their website accesible by most.

......no I just want companies not to pick people don't they like and revoke the rights to their domain name. It's almost like private companies become a government of sorts there, picking and choosing who's in their corporate interests to allow to communicate with others. I really believe they shouldn't pick anyone to censor unless they could face legal consequences. The DMCA abuse has been pushed far recently because the idea that a company that allows people to communicat and share things freely on their platform are responsible for each individual's words or actions, causing companies to rather have tons of false auto takedowns to error on the side of extreme caution. I really think google knows where this whole "hate speech" thing is going, and believe they will be held accountable for the vile political speech of all of their customers, as in "X allows all domains to be registered as long as the content is legal" becomes "X allows a White Supremacists to have a domain that they bought" to "X endorses white supremacists views because they allow them to be a customer". I believe picking any side at all other than their legal obligations makes the company suffer from more public pressure to do the same in future cases, even if these are a little less clear 

2 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

Most of the people making your point need to sit down and reconsider if this is truly what you want. I'd be for it but I suspect most conservative and libertarian minded people would not like this. 

...I don't like this and I never wanted this. I want all content on the internet to be neutrally handled. Hell I even want illegal content there, fuck it. There's only so much you can do to effectively police a freely communicating network of millions before it no longer is a freely communicating network. 

 

[bomerr]

3 minutes ago, Biggerboot said:

I'm listening, passing new laws is in the cards.  I was just responding to your insinuation that the current laws are in place to reprimand a company like google for what they are doing (which is refusing service).  My opinions are cast aside in that regard.

 

First I never said.

 

3 minutes ago, Biggerboot said:

I understand where your coming from, it's an enabling mentality if we start becoming selective of what we can censor on the internet.  

This is where my opinion comes in.  I've stated in the past that, unlike a government, which sometimes you can't escape from, you can opt-out of doing business with a company.  As an admin on a discord server, I can choose to ban somebody for spreading hate messages.  That's kind of important that we're able to do that.

 

Second this is a strawman argument. I am not talking about banning someone on a discord server. I am talking about google refusing to host a website. (or google redirecting search results or removing youtube accounts, etc.... google). 

[Syntaxvgm]

4 minutes ago, bomerr said:

 I am not talking about banning someone on a discord server. I am talking about google refusing to host a website. (or google redirecting search results or removing youtube accounts, etc.... google). 

yah, don't like them? Go dark web. Or rocks with notes taped to them. /s

I think there's a difference here between how people weigh the importance of the addressable internet. I don't consider having an internet address a service. I consider it a first come first serve right- anyone should be able to buy a domain at the same price as every domain in that category (I mean yah buy and squatt and resell all yah want). 

But that is an opinion. Calm your keyboards people