Inciting Violence vs Freedom of Speech

https://blog.namecheap.com/inciting-violence-vs-freedom-speech/

by ted0 • 9 years ago

58 107 9 years ago

blog.namecheap.com

jstanley3• 9 years ago

So was it hosted on Namecheap or were they just the domain registrar?

If they were just the domain registrar I think this is a dangerous precedent. If anything, it is just going to cause people to sympathise with the Daily Stormer, which is presumably the opposite of the intended effect.

EDIT: For anyone who wants to read their site, I think this is it: (onion.casa is a Tor gateway) https://dstormer6em3i4km.onion.casa/

From having a browse around, the site appears to be basically a joke. It's pretty distasteful but I personally don't think it warrants being taken down.

gruez2• 9 years ago

probably the former, since the article says "hosting", and the current whois information says it's still registered with google.

jstanley3• 9 years ago

The article does say "hosting", but also says it used to be hosted with "Google Domains" and "a Russian Registrar", which makes no sense.

geofft7• 9 years ago

If anything, it is just going to cause people to sympathise with the Daily Stormer

I think that people who are willing to sympathize with neo-Nazis because a domain registrar refused to process their registration should be considered as just a subset of "Nazi sympathizers," and their views treated accordingly.

From having a browse around, the site appears to be basically a joke. It's pretty distasteful but I personally don't think it warrants being taken down.

The site certainly presents itself as a joke to avoid substantive criticism or engagement with the viewpoints it's promoting from detractors. But, say, altright.com takes them seriously, and lists them alongside clearly-not-joking Neo-Nazi organization Identity Evropa:

https://altright.com/2017/08/05/the-unite-the-right-rally-is...

The Daily Stormer has been promoting the event heavily and it looks like they are going to bring a lot of young new cadres to the rally. Identity Evropa will be there as well as several Southern Nationalist groups. There will be no Alt-Lite co-rally, it will be just us, the proverbial and literal White Guard out there defending the statue of General Lee. This is a good development. They are quickly becoming irrelevant and losing their street presence as we continue to grow and take up space.

No one knows how many of us will show up there just yet. A conservative estimate would put us at about 500, although if the Daily Stormer book clubs, frog twitter, and affiliated groups come through, we can top 1000.

They mention themselves that 4chan was the place where ironic appreciation of Hitler grew into earnest appreciation of Hitler:

https://dstormer6em3i4km.onion.casa/a-normies-guide-to-the-a...

Anti-Semitic and racist jokes had been a key feature of /b/, but on /pol/ the sentiments behind the jokes slowly became serious, as people realized they were based on fact. /pol/ became a haven for virulent anti-Semites and aggressive racists, and tone of the Alt-Right is drawn directly from these roots on 4chan.

On 4chan, the Jewish problem was analyzed by news junkies and history buffs, feminism was deconstructred by sexually frustrated young men, and race was considered based on the actual data on the issue. The rehabilitation of Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP largely took place on 4chan.

[...] This made promoting the right-wing agenda not only meaningful, but also extremely fun. The Alt-Right carries with it that spirit of fun.

So, sure, maybe they are a distasteful joke. They are also earnestly advocating Hitler's ideology and Nazi ideology by name. The joke is a front, to push the Overton window far enough in their direction that the non-joking version of their ideology becomes tenable.

jack92• 9 years ago

I think that people who are willing to sympathize with neo-Nazis because a domain registrar refused to process their registration should be considered as just a subset of "Nazi sympathizers," and their views treated accordingly.

And there it is. If you disagree with me, you're a Nazi (subset). Predictable.

xaa7• 9 years ago

I would sympathize with them on this issue. This is actually the second time this week I have been called a Nazi sympathizer essentially for believing everyone, including Nazis, should be able to air their views in such a way that interested people can hear them. (i.e., they don't have the right to spam everyone, but they shouldn't be blacklisted from businesses otherwise open to everyone just because of the content of their speech).

Being unironically called a "Nazi sympathizer" is by far the most chilling thing to me that has happened of all the political events that have occurred in the last few years. It is also sad that I have to add a disclaimer that I have voted Democrat in the last decade of elections, am not a bigot, etc, etc, (not that someone using this sort of language would believe me).

Do people who say these sorts of things not realize the massive irony of accusing people who defend basic rights of a generally detested group of being "Nazi sympathizers"?

heartbreak2• 9 years ago

It wasn't a joke when the editor was in Charlottesville last weekend. He speaks on camera in the Vice video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P54sP0Nlngg

MichaelGG2• 9 years ago

Vice... Read their description, they toss in "two police officers dead" as as if somehow that was related to the events.

DanAndersen• 9 years ago

The domain registrar aspect of it is what is concerning about this, I think. Sites are thrown off hosts all the time, but there's generally someone out there willing to do hosting. Domain registrars are a different story, I think. Not only have they until recently not been political territory (opening up new territory for the Culture Wars is always a concerning thing IMHO), but the costs to starting up one's own domain registrar are quite high. I am legitimately curious if the choices of registrars here are because the owner of the Stormer knows he'll get publicity by being thrown off them, or because there actually aren't options for them.

A lot of the "First Amendment" vs "private companies aren't obligated to provide service" arguments could be sidestepped by the acknowledgment that we do have a history of certain companies becoming public utilities. Would it be acceptable (or even legal) for a phone company to deny phone service to Nazis? Could an electric company turn off power to the homes of KKK members because of their membership? Does the water company have a right to cut off the tap to Richard Spencer's house/offices because they don't want to quench hate's thirst? Maybe such things should or shouldn't apply to the world of the Internet, but I do wish that a lot of the arguments didn't assume that we live in some sort of anarcho-capitalist society of purely voluntary contracts.

mirimir2• 9 years ago

Not only have they until recently not been political territory ...

Sure they have. Many domains have been revoked for association with "piracy". For example, a famous hip-hop fan site, whose name I forget now. It took them years to get unblocked. But I do agree that the Culture Wars aspect is troubling.

randomdrake• 9 years ago

Can we change the link to the actual blog post from Namecheap that contains considerably more content and less advertising?

https://blog.namecheap.com/inciting-violence-vs-freedom-spee...

sctb• 9 years ago

Thank you, we've updated the link from https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/20/16170370/namecheap-host-t....

tweedledee4• 9 years ago

Posting here as well;

As someone who is facinated by what is happening I spend a decent amount of time spelunking in the dark web.

The Neo-Nazis are not that upset by this. They want to use the same tools to boycott the Zionist and Jews. It's actually one of the many things the Alt-Left and the Alt-Right agree on.

In addition we're making them into martyrs. Banning and suppression was counter productive on the original Nazis and it is counter productive here.

This should be we'll know by those who read civics. It is even codified in the book Rules For Radicals by Saul Alinsky. It makes me wonder what books Antifa are reading as they are doing all of the wrong things.

I get that it feels like we're (non nazis) are winning but we're not and this is isn't helping.

tweedledee4• 9 years ago

Can the downvoters give a reason. I like hearing from those who disagree with me.

grzm• 9 years ago

People downvote for a variety of reasons. In this case, one reason may be that you copy-pasted an earlier comment, which is generally frowned upon on HN.

drewbuschhorn5• 9 years ago

Sure, but this is political and will probably exceed the HN mandate.

There's literally nothing we can do to stop these disgusting examples of humanity. Rational discourse is predicated on the idea that your opponent isn't purposefully lying. They are.

So leaving them in the sunlight accomplishes nothing, while driving them out of the public sphere while not destroying them, at least helps us as a society set a 'this is where tolerance ends' boundary. That has to exist somewhere, and Nazism is clearly beyond that.

As for making them martyrs, they already cast themselves in that light, and their supporters already see them as that. I don't think losing a web domain will drive the common man into their arms unless they were looking for an excuse.

rhizome2• 9 years ago

Martyrdom requires sympathy. Who is sympathetic to the goals of a gang other than gang members?

seattle_spring• 9 years ago

The alt-left is not a real thing. please stop spreading this meme.

thinkingemote2• 9 years ago

Many thought that the alt-right is not a real thing either. Turns out if you label something and it sticks, it becomes real.

gaius• 9 years ago

Now I'm confused. Is Antifa mainstream Left then? I think most people would disagree. What term is more appropriate to describe them? Genuine question.

guptaneil• 9 years ago

Using the term "Alt-Left" as the opposite of "Alt-Right" only serves to normalize their position on the spectrum by dragging the mainstream "normal" further right. We should refer to them as the "alt-right" (or preferably nazis) vs the mainstream to keep "normal" where it is.

apearson• 9 years ago

Do you not agree there are extremes on both ends? Calling alt-right or anyone not directly associated with the Nazi party makes the term Nazis less significant.

lordCarbonFiber6• 9 years ago

Where you, and ever other "Free Speech" person misses the point is this isn't the government. There's no "banning and suppression" because you can still legally host your views yourself. The idea that private companies are required to distribute your speech is like implying freedom of the press means that any article you write NYT is required to print.

Turns out, most companies don't want to be associated with Nazis; shocking I know. And, as Nazis are not a protected class in the United States, it's fully within their rights not to do business with them.

It's easy to say "let's all support a version of free speech that's never existed because we believe in the ideology" when these groups aren't targeting you. It's a bitter pill to swallow if you happen to be Jewish, Black, etc.

xaa7• 9 years ago

This viewpoint confuses the legal meaning of the First Amendment, which indeed only applies to the government, with its rationale.

The rationale is the theory that having a diversity of viewpoints, including some that are dangerous or repugnant, is the best approach towards a robust civil society and intellectual growth. If you disagree with something you hear or read, you can ignore it, or you can criticize it, but banning speech causes two undesirable outcomes:

1) The speech will continue anyway, but not in the public eye, where it can be criticized

2) The popularity of an idea is different from the correctness of an idea. It has happened many times that an unpopular or even heretical idea has turned out to be right.

Almost certainly these people are no Galileo. But this approach to free speech is intended to protect the Galileos of the world. It should be kept in mind that talk of revolution in the U.S. during the late 1700s would have been considered extremely dangerous and repugnant by many as well.

tweedledee4• 9 years ago

I'm not saying it's illegal to kick them off. I'm suggesting it's bad tactics and will make them stronger. I would prefer we could all go back to ignoring them. I know that that isn't going to happen but I'm trying my bit to help.

dfps4• 9 years ago

I have been following this story, and each time a corp does this, Daily Stormer, a site 99% of people would never have any interest in, is framed and reinforced as an important piece that represents all our free speech (and braoder rights).

Does anyone have a link to this site?

I heard it had moved to Russia.

drewbuschhorn5• 9 years ago

I think the Russians didn't accept the registration last I saw. If you're wanting to see what people are defending, it's all in the Internet Archive. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for roaches, but these are guys are cunning rats, so you need something stronger.

dfps4• 9 years ago

Does it really matter what the ideas of some small group (as far as I know ineffectual) thinks or writes?

How can their ideas/speech be more dangerous than limitations of speech on the web?

gt_• 9 years ago

I haven't seen it but even if it's as despicable as I imagine or worse, it's covered under the concept of the first amendment. I support the first amendment as a virtue of integrity.

If you're an American who didn't think about the scope of the first amendment until now, well, that's gotta be embarrassing.

DrJokepu• 9 years ago

Why do you think this is related to the First Amendment?

geofft7• 9 years ago

I am an American who thinks a lot about the entire scope of the First Amendment. Of course the First Amendment is not just, as written, an injunction on Congress, but also a statement of the ideals of a free society. It includes the right to freedom of assembly (by name) and association (not by name, but by clear caselaw), and Namecheap, as a private business, has the right to associate or not associate with whomever they want. A society that obligates a private business to provide business to everyone, whether by cultural norm or by Congressional law, is not a free society.

There are a couple of protected categories, as stated both by the Constitution and by society's norms. Being a neo-Nazi is not one of them.

The site's perfectly available. There are multiple links to it in the thread. No one's right to speech is being infringed.

dragonwriter5• 9 years ago

Yes, Namecheap choosing not to collaborate in spreading this speech is absolutely covered under the “concept of the first amendment”.

jstanley3• 9 years ago

Does anyone have a link to this site?

Via a Tor gateway: https://dstormer6em3i4km.onion.casa/

r721• 9 years ago

Ru-Center, a private Moscow-based domain registrar, told RFE/RL on August 17 that the company received an official letter from Roskomnadzor requesting that the company look into possibly suspending the domain Dailystormer.ru.

...

Ru-Center spokesman Yegor Timofeyev told RFE/RL in an e-mail that Roskomnadzor's letter asked the company "to look into [the] possibility of register suspension due to extremist content of this domain."
"So we decided to suspend [the] domain Dailystormer.ru," he said.

https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-neo-nazi-website-russian-domain-...

gruez2• 9 years ago

You'd think that after dumped a few times they'll switch to some shadier companies, but time and time again they're switching to well known business and getting dumped.

tedunangst• 9 years ago

Maybe that's the point?

quazeekotl• 9 years ago

This site is being run in part by weev aka Andrew Auernheimer, somebody that basicly spends all their time finding ways to stir up shit, and generate controversy.

This site has absolutely nothing to do with genuinely disseminating white power ideas, and everything to do with doing exactly what its doing right now, getting thrown off of every popular hosting service it can so it can generate more articles, and more drama. You can be positive its going to make its rounds on pretty much every hosting service there is.

That is the express goal of his actions and I can not beleive nobody is calling that out.

sweep3r• 9 years ago

Nobody is calling that out because there's an interest from the media to pretend white nationalists, nazis or whatever you want to call them are more of a menace than they actually are. A part of society play the victim card; they live off that.

Of course, the writers of that article are a part of that.

mintplant2• 9 years ago

This site has absolutely nothing to do with genuinely disseminating white power ideas

I feel you're letting them off the hook too easily here. The Daily Stormer absolutely served the function of disseminating white power ideas. They had 120,000 daily visitors at one point, which reportedly included Dylan Roof for example.

darrmit• 9 years ago

Last I had heard they were picked up by a startup (BitMitigate?) on the hosting side because everyone kept dropping them.

I assume Namecheap circumvented that by terminating their registration?

Source: https://www.geekwire.com/2017/seattles-bitmitigate-now-prote...

thinkingemote2• 9 years ago

The addendum from the namecheap blog post is really chilling. It even mentions he recent EFF post criticising similar actions by others.

ve553• 9 years ago

Link to the Namecheap post: https://blog.namecheap.com/inciting-violence-vs-freedom-spee...

The Namecheap post argues in favor of revoking the domain by saying that it is inciting violence, and not just exercising free speech. As a domain registrar, there's nothing stopping you from having a policy that doesn't allow the incitement of violence.

But, I wonder: how many domains has Namecheap revoked in the name of this ideal? If you're going to have a policy of what is and what is not allowed, the reason why it will be so difficult is because you need to enforce the policy on every website equally. You cannot cherry-pick one website, cite the policy, and then forget that it exists.

Even if this policy is applied to every website, who is deciding what counts as incitement of violence? Can I make a violent post on a website, and then report them to Namecheap for inciting violence, or does it need to be a website administrator that makes it? How direct does the incitement need to be, given that the example provided in the blog post seems relatively indirect? I'm sure you can think of a myriad of other questions and inconsistencies with this, because there's so much room left to interpretation and bias, when it's obvious the reason the domain was revoked was due to political pressure.

Given the amount of companies that have dropped the website, it's starting to set a pretty bad precedent. There's plenty of equally bad content on very large websites (Reddit, 4chan, etc), and if the standard for this content becomes to wipe it from the face of the Internet at all costs, things won't be pretty.

admiralpumpkin• 9 years ago

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...

Taking down a Nazi website creates no onerous obligation to police the entirety of the web. Addressing only those sites which rise to prominence admirably moves us towards a better internet and society.

rkeene2• 9 years ago

Until you (namecheap) are sued for violence that occurred because you failed to take down a website that clearly incited violence, despite it being against your terms of service, started position, and now part behavior. This may make your defense wallet in such a case because you are could now be seen as endorsing that which you do not act against when they are violating your terms.

Of course, it's only one high-profile incident and it should be possible to successfully argue that you (namecheap) only act on this policy when information about the violation actively reaches you as a passive observer. But you are then playing from behind so it's still not as if this action carries no potential future liabilities.

aestetix• 9 years ago

https://blog.namecheap.com/we-say-no-to-sopa/

"At Namecheap, we believe having a free and open Internet is the only option that will continue the legacy of innovation and openess that stands for everything we all value in our modern society." --Namecheap CEO Richard Kendall, 2011

I'm curious what changed.

Daishiman2• 9 years ago

Content that incites hatred is not free speech.

stordoff• 9 years ago

If you're going to have a policy of what is and what is not allowed, the reason why it will be so difficult is because you need to enforce the policy on every website equally. You cannot cherry-pick one website, cite the policy, and then forget that it exists.

Is perfect enforcement necessary? Of course you need to be _consistent_, but only acting when the content becomes known to you doesn't seem wholely unworkable.

That said, I much prefer it if registrars remained neutral on content (with the possible exception of the domain itself being the problem - consider, e.g., assassinateUSPrez2018[.]com).

e: typo fix "prefer registrars remain" -> "prefer it if registrars remained"

ve553• 9 years ago

Perfect enforcement is ideal, but definitely impossible, especially based on arbitrary policy statements like 'incites violence'.

In practice they will act when content becomes known to them, but a problem with this is that it will lead to them taking down content when the Internet mobs demand it (as they will spam support tickets, emails, twitter accounts, and so on, demanding the offending website be taken down), instead of focusing on the real problems.

Just like people love getting their political enemies fired from work, now they will start to realize maybe they can do even better, and can get them wiped off of the Internet as well. Every time an attack like this is made, it will further radicalize the other side, giving them further resolve to attack back and with more strength. I just can't see this ending with anything good.

dragonwriter5• 9 years ago

But, I wonder: how many domains has Namecheap revoked in the name of this ideal? If you're going to have a policy of what is and what is not allowed, the reason why it will be so difficult is because you need to enforce the policy on every website equally. You cannot cherry-pick one website, cite the policy, and then forget that it exists.

You absolutely can do complaint-based rather than pro-active enforcement, and prioritize enforcement based on the volume and nature of the complaints.

rootsudo• 9 years ago

It worries me that so many DNS/Registaras are acting as moral warriors.

pfortuny• 9 years ago

Instead of denouncing them to the police and see what a judge says, they just remove them based on their "concerns".

They are lucky that their "concerns" match the current status quo. Otherwise, what would they do?

didibus• 9 years ago

Can someone more knowledgeable then me shed some light on a few issues I have?

1) Isn't it the case that the free speech amendment protects censorship only from the government, and not from anyone else, including private or public companies? If so, why do we even bring up the amendment?

2) Isn't it also the case that even from the government, hate speech is not a protected speech?

3) Do we have any evidence that protecting free speech is actually beneficial and desired? What were the reasons for the amendment? And do we have data showing it worked for what it was intended for?

4) How difficult is it to establish a guideline for what is and isn't hate speech? I mean, personally, I don't see a slipery slope. If you're suggesting to physically harm an individual or a group of individuals, I can not see how that's so hard to recognise as hate speech. If your speech holds any value, you should be able to explain it without inciting violence, unless your argument is to incite violence.

annonthrow• 9 years ago

3) It is beneficial. Back in the day, neo-nazis and holocaust deniers used to file libel laws against their critics in countries outside the US, exploiting limitations of free speech to their own advantage. UK and some other commonwealth countries do not have the protections Americans have concerning speech, so are at the mercy at these laws where the onus is on you to prove you didn't libel not the other way around. As for hate speech, if there is a demonstration here by political enemies of the current regime, the police stand there closely monitoring language they claim violates the law, arrest the speaker then 3 years later the case is thrown out of court but only after thousands in lawyer fees are paid. They also can shut down their newspapers, seize their books, whatever they want. It's an effective way to silence your critics. Another method used here was obscenity laws to shut down gay and lesbian periodicals. There was a gay book store here that had print books without porn seized at the border during import and declared obscene. The onus was on them to prove it wasn't obscene, at great financial cost. Note these books came from the US, where such limitations on expression/speech don't exist.

4) The point is not a concrete guideline, because as written above governments will just abuse this to their advantage. They can always arrest you, seize everything your own, destroy your newspaper ect ect and then years later you prove you did not violate hate speech, but you're still ruined financially and they were able to silence you for a few years. Nation states have endless resources to tie up the courts with phony hate speech cases against their detractors. Imagine if Donald Trump had access to these laws, who has a history of litigating his critics. Be careful what you wish for.

Inciting violence and making threats falls under criminal code, I don't know why you'd want additional laws to just enable the state to do even more damage. It seems much easier to just not give these people the attention seeking platform they desire by turning them into martyrs. They don't want you to rationally dispute their racist views, they want you to try and suppress them so they can 'prove' their conspiracy theories.

Daily Stormer is the far-right version of The Onion. It's extreme racist satire, with outright comedy articles about Pokemon Go, Silicon Valley groupthink, ect. It is odd the media has singled them out as the most dangerous site in the world elevating them to mainstream status from their previous fringe existence. I don't agree with recreating third-reich tabloid newspapers like they have done, but the overwhelming attacks they are receiving for just writing articles is not accomplishing what their detractors think it is, it's just making them more popular and sympathetic to the masses.

chrismcb• 9 years ago

1) first amendment basically sats the government can not censor, but a private citizen or business can. But there is account effect, one should be careful of what they censor, last it affects society as a whole. But in this case the company wants to be a proponent of free speech. 2) in the United States hate speech is protected by the first amendment. 3) I'm sure there are plenty of dissertations on the subject. But a society is not free if they don't have free speech. One way to opress a group is to withhold knowledge and information. 4)i would say it is almost impossible to establish a guideline for what is and isn't hate speech. Hate speech does not mean "incite violence"

mcbruiser32• 9 years ago

are there any antifa sites being blocked or denied service? don't they incite violence in the name of ideology?

mcbruiser32• 9 years ago

cloudfare CEO refuses to remove ISIS sites:

"CEO of CloudFlare, Matthew Prince, said that his company would not be blocking its service to websites listed, as it would mean submitting to "mob rule"." [1]

double standard much?

[1] http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/anonymous-opisis-cloudflare-refuses...

edit: typo

Inciting Violence vs Freedom of Speech

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