Gab.com Booted from Hosting Provider Due to User Account

There is a lot of strawmanning when it comes to free speech. Virtually no one claims the 1st Amendment guarantees people a platform or that it applies to corporations. Yet, I see people clarifying that constantly...when no one is saying otherwise. Free speech as an American ideal, that&#x27;s all people are really saying.<p>Anyhow, Joyent has every right to shut down their hosting services to anyone they feel...and no one really says otherwise on that point either. The sticking point is, are we headed down the right path on this issue? Are we setting the right precedent, because while we all likely agree that things like Daily Stormer and Gab are platforms for truly hateful people...are we emboldening them by driving them underground?<p>Likewise, as cloud providers beginning to show too much discretion over content? Let&#x27;s take it outside of politics and into copyright. What if AWS hosted a new video streaming service, and some corporation XYZ claimed a (false) copyright violation. Amazon has a large contract with corporation XYZ because of Prime Video and kicks the video services off of AWS with short notice. Would that be acceptable, essentially putting that company out of business? Sure, it would legally not be a problem but would it be a moral problem?<p>Back to politics. Let&#x27;s say GCS hosted DailyCaller or something, and employees internally find out and force it off because they find it as morally outrageous as the pentagon contract. It sounds crazy, but it could totally get to that point.<p>That seems like a bit of a leap from where we are now, but with cloud providers starting to show more and more discretion of what they host, I don&#x27;t rule out that we could slip our way to things like that happening. It also seems increasingly likely that the more politicized the major players become, the more likely political disagreements could effectively ruin alternative platforms.<p>Gab might rightfully deserve being kicked off, but we do need to tread carefully on what type of precedent we are setting going forward as things like this become normalized.

Joyent, the hosting provider, has a history of pulling the rug from under people.<p>Here&#x27;s an HN discussion of Joyent ending lifetime hosting accounts: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=4391669" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=4391669</a><p>I also knew someone who was using BingoDisk and was left hanging when it was sold to another company.

I have been following the issue of Internet polarization since 2014 [1], and I propose two different ways to mediate the situation on a societal level:<p>- Have a neutral platform to facilitate discourse and mutual understanding. This is hard as it requires a largely informed populace.<p>- Complete segregation of groups having different opinions. This proves to be also hard because of incidents like this.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;paradite.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;11&#x2F;11&#x2F;internet-polarized-society&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;paradite.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;11&#x2F;11&#x2F;internet-polarized-society&#x2F;</a>

The real question is, was there external pressure applied to the hosting company or was this entirely their own decision?

I don&#x27;t visit Gab, but I will definitely be closing my Joyent account.<p>If you&#x27;re not a courageous and principled defender of free speech, you should get out of the cloud business.

Isn&#x27;t @Joyent part of Samsung ?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joyent.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;samsung-acquires-joyent" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joyent.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;samsung-acquires-joyent</a><p>This should be really interesting in days to come.

The irony of a bunch of Rand worshipping free market libertarians being outraged and indignant when another private business no longer wants to take their money.

The &quot;Gab.com banned from PayPal&quot; post is still up. But, this post has been hidden.

Let&#x27;s get real for a second here: gab courted neo-Nazis and became a refuge for anti-semitites and racists precisely because that was their target user base. Gab&#x27;s pearl-clutching about anti-semitism is about as genuine as an arsonist&#x27;s complaints about smoke. I will not miss gab, nor will I miss it&#x27;s fetid assortment of wastrels. The best thing I can say about gab is that their pathetic shrieks at least made me laugh.<p>Oh, and &quot;Free speech&quot; has nothing to do with forced hosting for assorted terribles. This is one of the most persistent and irritating misinterpretations of the first amendment. &quot;Free speech&quot; covers the government and the government alone.

&gt; Big tech can not stop us. The mainstream media can not stop us.<p>&gt; The People will defend freedom against tyranny as they always have and always will.<p>&gt; God bless you all and God bless...<p>These comments are kind of partisan, no? A neutral company would just say “hey, we’re going to a new service because of X, back soon!”. Let the users cry “free speech, god bless”.

I like free speech, even if I do not agree what they are saying. Although, a hosting provider could stop their service if they do not like it I suppose, although I think they should not do so unless it causes technical problems such as 100% CPU usage or stuff like that, although I am not saying they do not have the right to ban them, only that my opinion is to don&#x27;t. But, you could just use a different hosting provider, I suppose. One hosting provider will not necessarily be available forever anyways.

Irregardless of what you think of Gab etc.. Unless the platform is being used for illegal activity and or it is engaging in something that breaks the law these service providers can and should be treated like the phone company. In other words the phone company does not turn off your phone because you are a nazi, racist etc.. Also, and this is an important distinction, there has been no established link between the shooters activity on Gab and what he did. IE: it does not appear that he collaborated with others on it to plan things etc. on the service... and if he had, odds are he probably also used other providers more extensively such as gmail etc..<p>Hosting providers policing things like this is akin to vigilante justice vs letting it go through the legal system where there is actually due process for everybody, not just the people that the mod likes.

For all of the people saying that Joyent can do this because they are a private company that statement there is a catch to this. All service providers are exempt from being sued for content on their platform under safe harbor under the argument that they were neutral platforms. If they are going to start to curate content by kicking companies like Gab.com off then it is time that a few copyright, libel test cases against these companies make their way to the courts given that it is in violation of the spirit behind safe harbor as it is stated in section 230 of the communications decency act.. It also is going beyond the &quot;good Samaritan&quot; definition.

Joyent is a private company, they can choose to refuse doing business with anyone they like to, I think this was confirmed (by supreme court) a few weeks ago when some baker refused the business of a gay couple. (That decision is protected by the same first amendment that Gab claims to be protecting! Brilliant really.)<p>However, for everyone looking to host at Joyent: Beware they might cancel on you, too. And giving a company 2 days notice is far beyond comprehension. I wouldn&#x27;t want to deal with this. I think it&#x27;s really poor business standards.