GoDaddy exiles altright.com after civil rights group complaint GoDaddy has decided it will have no part in keeping a site called altright.com on the web. The site promoted white supremacist views. Civil Rights group The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Tweeted the news on Thursday, May 3, along with its complaint that the site contravenes GoDaddy’s terms of service, …
What Jediben says, below.
What if you belong to a religion (a protected designation) that has white supremacy as a faith element. You could argue that some of the white supremacists do indeed follow some warped, perverse form of Christianity. Thus making GoDaddy refusing on the grounds of religion. It's possible. GoDaddy just didn't want the label of "Site that promotes Nazis" so they found a reason - any reason to drop them.
It's sad that people have removed the part of their brain that allows them to differentiate between allowing a group that you don't agree with to express their beliefs and supporting those beliefs yourself.
some of the white supremacists do indeed follow some warped, perverse form of Christianity
If it's that warped or perverted then it ain't Christianity.. Especially as the very concept of racism is explicitly opposite to the whole reason why salvation is needed..
("All have sinned and fallen short". "In Jesus there is nether male nor female, Jew nor Greek[1[, all are one in Jesus".. And many, many more)
[1] Which was shorthand for "us and them". So can be applied to any two opposing groups.
It's just a handy corresponding example. One commercial enterprise refuses service for reasons and so does another. It's just fairly well known. I think all people should be able to refuse to service anyone for any reason even including "I just didn't fell like it"
There is no difference in your Islamic example. People should either be forced to service all people without exception or be allowed to refuse for any reason.
People should either be forced to service all people without exception
That is one of the fundamental requirements of conducting business in the UK. You *can* refuse service, but not on the basis of the severally-defined categories.
So, you can refuse to serve someone who stumbles into your shop blind drunk and swears at the staff, but not on the basis of their skin colour, sexuality or religion.
It's not rocket science.
And if you don't find that legal requirement fits your princliples then you are free to do something else.
Should Christian bakers be forced to make cakes
Well - the law says that they have to offer their service to everyone and cannot discriminate on a number of factors (sexuality being one of them).
So, as good Christians they have two choices:
1) Obey the law of the land as commanded by Jesus or
2) Decide that the law offends their conscience and so cease the activities that trasgress the law if those activities are optional (as running a cake business is).
The point being that, if they were following the letter of their Christian principles they should also refuse service to those who are not married but are living together. Or those who are rude, vain or boastful ("have nothing to do with such people.."). But, instead, they have decided that 1 aspect of human behaviour is a 'mortal sin' and refused to have anything to do with it while ignoring all the others.
In summary: "wherever possible, as long as it lies in your power, live at peace with everyone".
(Commentards might have discerned that my variey of Christianity is somewhat different from theirs.. and one of the core princliples is "do not judge others or you too will be judged - the judgements you use on others is what will be used against you" (loosely paraphrased))
Supporters of the site and/or free speech argue that activism of the sort practised by The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is a restriction on free speech. Others point out that GoDaddy is a business, not a government, so has every right to decide how its service is used. Others still say the likes of altright.com are so far beyond civil speech that they deserve censure
A very succinct summary of the different points of view.
And the validity of each argument depends on the situation. As has been frequently pointed out, 'free speech' does not allow people to say anything they like, in any situation, and not expect consequences. By all means you can shout 'Fire' in a crowded cinema, but expect to spend the rest of your life in jail for causing numerous deaths in the panic.
In this case, the second point applies. Individuals and groups have a right to decline to facilitate speech and actions they disagree with. I must admit I'm not comfortable with the decision about declining to bake a cake for a gay marriage being illegal. An unpleasant manifestation of a closed mind, perhaps, worthy of censure, and boycott of the business, but not actually illegal. Would I be acting illegally if I declined to build a new website for the alt-right, or the 'Welsh' Labour Party? Of course not. So what's the difference.
In this case this is exactly what Go-Daddy are doing. They are merely declining to facilitate alt-right. It might be different if it was a notional public monopoly, such as ICANN, refused to allow them to have a domain. But where that domain is hosted is a different matter. If necessary they can host a site on a laptop in their shed, if they can find someone to provide a fibre connection. If they have enough dosh let them set up a hosting provider exclusively for really unpleasant scum sites. That's their right, so long as they stay legal, and don't incite hatred and violence.
So, thumbs up to Go-Daddy (for once - not the best of hosting companies!)
@Pen-y-gors
In many ways I agree with you. But the issue is where the lines are drawn. How far right do you go to find the "alt.right". It's not even an easily defined definition. What if it eventually becomes anything right of Communism?
It should be that you can either not serve anyone you don't want to for any reason you feel like (preferred) or the law says you're not allowed to refuse service unless you would, by offering that service, break a law.
Straw man argument.
GoDaddy didn't ban them because they're alt-right, or even because they're nazi's (which they may or may not be - I don't particularly care). They were banned because they broke the GoDaddy terms of service by allowing their domain to be used for the incitement of violence. If the website for a communist lesbian kibbutz did the same thing it would get banned too - probably after receiving a helpful letter from an alt.right group.
(biffers - if they can't learn the English language I ain't gonna capitalise)
biffers now are residing on a server stuff with other far-right exiles.
Best of all, for all the 'give England back' and all that bollocks, the server is on a British Protectorate haven.
Bless, they really keep 'em coming, the dears.
Can't wait for Screechy and Porky to get out, brave ikkle soldiers, that they are, I've not had as god laugh for a while -- and my cat is being groomed to be Muslim, too!
On the one hand I think the majority part of the alt-right movement is reprehensible and I entirely agree that Go-Daddy doesn't HAVE to host them. On the other hand I find it scary that a website can be taken offline because a group of people complains about it's content and its against what is good taste (or now considered to be so). Yes, in this case taking down the site might be the right move, but will it always be? Where does a company like Go-Daddy or the group demanding the take down draw the line on what can stay up and what to take down? And how fixed is that line?
Personally I prefer content like this to stay online. So we can point and laugh, or at least keep an eye on the people that go there.
The grounds for complaint were that the website was inciting violence, breaking GoDaddy's terms of service and probably local criminal laws too (depending on where you consider "local" to be, given it's a website). That's where the line is drawn.
GoDaddy decided to opt for the nuclear option rather than issue a cease and desist + reminder of the terms of their service - and assuming their terms of service gave fair warning of this as a possible outcome, they're completely in the clear. I suspect they did this because now that it's in the public eye they don't want he reputational damage of being associated with hate-mongers, which you can hardly blame them for.
I seem to recall, from various instances of items being incorrectly priced, that the price tag is an offer to trade but there in no obligation to trade. So "I'll have this computer for 50 quid please because price tag" carries no force in law. If the vendor even feels that the prospective purchaser was rude and unhelpful then there is no obligation to trade. There are all sorts of reasons not to conclude a sale.
I do wonder, therefore, if you could refuse to take an order for a cake UNLESS the prospective customer phrased the order in a way that included a reference to something covered by anti-discrimination laws. That is, you can refuse without reason unless discriminatory terms are included in the order request, or even unless discriminatory terms are used in the refusal.
Wandering slightly back towards topic, could you refuse to bake a cake with a fiery cross and six hooded horsemen?
I can see that there is no easy answer to the GoDaddy issue. Can you be forced to trade in a way that adversley impacts your business? Activists often use a boycott to pressure a business not to deal with something they don't agree with, be it fast food, sweets, oil, animal products, whatever. I can't somehow see Harrods being forced to sell real fur because freedom.
As I understand it, the bakery could have refused service without giving a reason before they had entered into a contract. I seem to remember they accepted the order to make a cake, only to baulk later when they were told the message that needed to be piped onto it - at that point it was a breach of contract. Then when asked why they tried to justify it as religiously-inclined bigotry, which was never going to work.
In practice you can often get away with being a bigot, you just have to keep your mouth shut about it afterwards. This isn't a particularly edifying state of affairs, but that's the practical outcome.
Can't we just stop messing about here, form mobs of like minded souls instead and hunt down and lynch people we disagree with and/or don't like the look of?
I'd be right up for nailing a few people to some burning crosses myself - everyone who isn't me basically ('m not prejudiced, I hate you all), but if you join my side then, irrespective of your age/sex/sexuality/race/ethnicity/gender/star sign/hair type/whatever, I'll leave you until we've rid the world of all the intolerant bigots first (you can't say fairer than that now).
That whooshing sound was the point flying over your head.
The domain wasn't banned for it's views. It was banned because the site hosted on it contained content inciting violence towards others. Kind of like your post, if it wasn't obviously meant as parody. I mean, it *was* parody, wasn't it?
That 'whoosh' was the sound of satire passing overhead, yes.
Dear Lord, what hope is there in a world in which it would appear that some people can't tell the difference between a genuinely meant remark and a comment so outrageous that it couldn't be more obviously tongue-in-cheek if you painted the word "JOKE" on a brick and smashed them in the face with it?
Quick, somebody no-platform me before I say something someone thinks someone else, somewhere else, might mistakenly find offensive some time, just in case!
Avocado-toast lover! (There, that should upset a few people.)
Sometimes I despair ... really, I do
It is true that the First Amendment only applies to government. That is because it is part of the constitution, not because that is the limit of the intent of the ratifiers. The ratifiers were committed to the principle of Free Speech _in society_, not just relative to government. They knew that the government is a natural vector of oppression, so when they formed this one, they did so on the condition that a Bill of Rights be added. It is not an accident that the amendment first adopted was this one.
But government is not, by far, the only instrument that people can use of oppression. In fact, we regularly use the government to shut down oppressive behaviors by other entities. Even the government/non-government distinction is not that clear. We allow states to vary their laws, not just to test them before national application, but because people can (and do) move between states in part because the agree or disagree with the policy of government in those states. National media attention is often brought to bear on HOA restrictions for things like flags. In fact, the HOAs win these fights in the courts. They sometimes loose them in the court of public opinion.
If I have a comic strip, blog, or newsite, even one with a global following, whatever constraints that I want to demand of commenters is my business. Why? Because there are literally tens of thousands of other equivalent places people can go to express their views, and I will lose ad revenue, or at least my own voice, if they do.
But...what happens when there is a pervasive exclusion based on weak criteria? The Jim Crow laws were overturned, so that governments could not discriminate based on race, but how much difference did that make? In fact, discrimination by businesses and associations became more intense as people holding these views resented the repeals. Privatization also became a popular dodge.
Marxists theory explicitly calls for this sort of exclusionary behavior. Why should the political views of a professor of mathematics affect their job prospects? Of someone in IT? And yet expression a libertarian or conservative view will get you targeted in much of our industry.
Ever see a comedy bit where the commander asks for a volunteer to step forward & everyone except one mug takes a step backwards? That is what we are seeing as it regards free speech on the internet. The internet allows "anyone" to have a platform to express their views to an extent undrempt of by any but a few just fifty years ago. As long as you don't offend (current) liberal sensitivities. Then, you will hounded out of every forum which they control--whether you expressed said opinions in a particular forum or not.
THIS is the complaint against Monroe's comic. The "more equal" brigade is on the march, driving unhygienic views out of the public sphere. The marketplace of ideas is becoming decidedly unfree. And he defends this.
---
As for the particulars of this case, if they were calling for violence, then they were crossing the line. They need to be shut down along with Antifa & BLM. Oh, wait. Antifa & BLM are NOT being shut down, you say? Why exactly is that?
Was Der Stormer calling for violence? I've never heard that they were. And yet, they had to go to China to find a registrar. If you are completely confident that your views will remain acceptable to the constantly evolving leftist intersectionality, then good for you, I guess. I, for one, don't welcome my new overlords.
If these guys assume they are superior to various others....
Duh, it's not too hard to set up and host your own site. I did it long before there was facebook and never did join that disaster as I had my own "page" and total control over content and membership - it's a science site FYI - I have and had no interest in FB type material or politics and so on.
The point is, it's easy, only costs a little money...and any "superior" type shouldn't have an issue pulling off what those they consider inferior do all the time.
I'm reminded of Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady "Show me".
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