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Comment by danilocampos | Hacker News Reader

It's not Rackspace's job to preserve the freedom of speech – that role belongs to congress.

The business relationship is a two way street. Fortunately for Rackspace, they're in a position where they can pick their customers.

Regardless of how you feel about burning Qurans, Rackspace has the right to recognize that one of their hosting customers is doing stupid things as a result of religion – and to decide they want no part of it. For simple liability reasons alone this may be a good idea – who knows what violence this idiocy will inspire.

If I were running a hosting company, I'd be wary of permitting religious content of any sort, much less the "my religion is better than your religion and you should get out of my country/planet" sort.

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Agreed, except that all three branches of the government have a duty to uphold the constitution, not just congress.

I do, however, think there should be entities in a "common carrier" legal position: they have no legal liability for the content they carry, and they're required to offer service to everyone. Much as AT&T is not responsible for listening to my phone calls, and would not be liable were I to communicate a bomb threat, I believe pure network providers (bandwidth + routed IP address) should be common carriers.

imo the pastor is clearly wrong in what he is doing and he is unnecessarily insulting and provoking millions of people.

That said, I'm not very comfortable with Rackspace making arbitrary decisions on what speech is permitted and what is not permitted.If I were to host a political blog, I wouldn't want to use a hosting company that can decide to take down the blog because they don't like the editorial policy.

Yeah, I kind of feel this way, too. I loathe Jones and all he stands for, but ... pulling a site goes against my own grain.

I'm not too happy with Rackspace on this one.

It's a ToS agreement for a reason.

"You may not publish, transmit or store on or via Rackspace's network and equipment any content or links to any content that Rackspace reasonably believes:

is excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence, or contains harassing content or hate speech"

I'm not arguing they're [edit] not [/edit, sigh] within their rights. I just don't like the situation, and I think their action will inflame the loony right even more.

> and I think their action will inflame the loony right even more.

Who cares? If you let yourself be guided by whether or not the fringe dwellers will get 'inflamed' you've become part of the problem.

Rackspace made the right decision in this case, good for them. I wished the hosting provider of the cos would be just as pro-active.

It's pretty clear that this church's site was inciting or had the potential to incite violence.

I think the tricky issue here is "hate speech". There are varying standards, and what metric will/do Rackspace and other hosting providers adhere to?

For example, what if a Rackspace-hosted site contained all or portions of the text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church?

Certainly the Catechism does not promote or incite physical violence. However, it contains unambiguous language regarding the immorality of homosexual acts: http://bit.ly/ccc2357

I'm not attempting to "stir the pot" and initiate an argument over this point in the teaching of the Catholic Church. But I wonder, could/would Rackspace and other hosting companies take down a site which cited this material or posted it verbatim? If not at present, are we headed toward such a day?

In general ...

At what point does a strongly stated religious or moral principle which is at complete odds with the beliefs or lifestyle of another person or group constitute hate speech? And who decides that with respect to something like web hosting, as opposed to someone preaching on a street corner out in public?

Please, no flames, I think this is a serious topic that deserves sincere and balanced treatment.

But the thing is that is religious text, and also isn't particularly inflammatory. We know that religions don't usually accept homosexuality. They're not saying to burn a couple hundred.

But really if some organisation was to round up a few hundred Bibles, post on their site that they were going to burn them and here's an invitation, bring your family and your friends, we're doing it to show how we don't like Christians, you can bet that the ISP servicing their site would likely go "uh.... yeah not so much" and also pull the plug.

If they just said they were having a meeting to talk about how they don't like Muslims, fine. You can do that. But it's a bit more drastic to burn a bunch of their holy texts which is DEFINITELY with the intent of inciting violence or hatred toward a (very LARGE) group of people.

Edit: The "very large" bit is not to say that the numbers matter in this case (I'd be just as much against doing that to any other religion or group regardless of size), but only that they are spitting in the eyes of quite a few people and that it's unfortunate.

In the case of Rackspace, when they receive complaints and start to wonder whether that religious organisations' continued business is really worth dealing with large-scale DDoS etc.

That's the beauty of life in a free society.

Jackass pastor gets to say and do stupid things.

Rackspace gets to say "do it on your own box."

You get to say, "meh, kind of lame, Rackspace."

And life goes on.

And all I'm saying is that, under this circumstance, Rackspace gets the same freedom you and the pastor have, and this is as it should be.

Very true. But it's also advantageous to a free society if you didn't get harassed just because you host some douche-bags on your network, as long as they aren't spamming or dDoS-ing someone.

I just make a mental note "never use Rackspace for anything". Problem solved.

I agree with this one, but that's just because they're an overpriced, incompetent hosting company.

Um, credo, you just said this is "clearly wrong" and "unnecessarily insulting and provoking millions of people".

But when Rackspace comes to the same conclusion, they're "making arbitrary decisions".

Really?

His decision is also arbitrary. I would say he doesn't have the right to take action to shut them up either.

You have the right to get on a soap-box and say whatever you want. You just don't have the right to use my business's facilities to do so. All businesses should reserve the right to refuse service, and exercise that when they feel it's warranted.

Still, everyone is at least entitled to an advanced notice from their host that they're getting shut down, to avoid any downtime.

In this case, it seemed like keeping the website offline was Rackspace's goal, not "refusing service", which is very lame.

Fully agreed. The only reason I would find that type of shut-off acceptable would be if Rackspace were getting DDOS'd to a point that was costing them significant expenses by way of bandwidth, manpower, or downtime credits to other customers. In such a case, shutting them off for causing these damages while violating Terms Of Services would definitely be warranted.

I agree with most of what you said and, as one whose business hosts websites, I'd probably do the same as Rackspace.

However, the "business relationship is a two way street" theory has some caveats. While many of us are familiar with the "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" signs in brick and mortar stores, it's not always that simple.

Take the wedding photographer who was sued (and lost) for refusing to photograph a same-sex wedding: http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/357084.aspx

Obiviously, these examples aren't entirely analogous, but given the litigious nature of American society, any time you refuse/halt service to a customer, it has to be considered. I could easily see this Quran-burning pastor suing on the grounds that he was discriminated against.

Sure, civil rights laws were enacted to ensure that discriminatory practices that are patently hateful don't enjoy legal protection.

Still, this is not that. This isn't a guy quietly practicing his faith and sharing it peacefully with others. To hear some people say it, he's honestly inciting violence. He's being willfully, dangerously provocative.

Wouldn't be surprised if he did find a lawyer to buy him a few more minutes in the spotlight. Interesting angle, and one I hadn't thought of. Ugh, dealing with people: at once the best and worst part of business.

It is discriminatory to treat someone differently because of an attribute they have which they cannot change. So, for example, I shouldn't refuse to photograph weddings of same-sex couples, or midgets, or disabled persons etc.

I could easily see this Quran-burning pastor suing on the grounds that he was discriminated against.

How could he claim that? Federal law forbids discrimination in hiring based on religion, but that doesn't mean once I hire a Muslim worker because of his ability to perform the job I have to allow him to take out a rug, kneel and pray for an hour each day while on the clock. He still has to play by my rules, which are applied equally to everyone.

Dude, the prayers last for about 5 minutes each and it only occurs 5 times a day, 2 of which are during normal working hours. I assume it's fine to let someone knock off work for 10 minutes a day. Heck, I know loads of people who spend hours "working on Facebook".

Agreed with your general point.

But I would make a stronger distinction between (1) believing that a particular religion is superior to others and (2) believing that #1 makes it acceptable to stomp all over other's religious sensibilities.

I don't think many people realise that using an internet service is like stepping onto private land. So, they then don't realise that rules on hate, copyright etc. apply to them while using the service.

I would be surprised if it was anymore than an ingenious marketing move by Rackspace. This nut job, with his gunslinger beard, has been the fastest growing piece of WORLD news this month so far. Obama, Petraeus, Clinton, The Pope, and even Angelina Jolie have shared their voice.

If I were the church's Gardener, I would've gone on the news and said the same thing too and my phone would be ringing off the hook.

People shouldn't get too angry over the burning. Sure it's a rallying cry for some of the more violent minded clerics, but it's not like they need much of an excuse to incite violence.

Sometimes sacred cows need to be eaten before people realize that religious bullshit is the root of many of the world's problems.

If I were running a hosting company, I'd be wary of permitting religious content of any sort

This makes no sense whatsoever. Obviously, you haven't thought this through, since your refusal to host (for example) an online Koran would result in death threats, protests, outrage from online teenaged suburban UMC liberal retards, etc, etc.

I'd run a terrible hosting company, so let's get that out of the way completely. :)

Under Danilo's Fictional Hosting, I'm not saying I would refuse religious content outright, I'm saying I'd be much more cautious about religious content than Marjorie's Baking Blog because religion, as a result of the all too common "I'm better than the rest of you" rule, is just a troublesome topic.

Porn is a troublesome topic too -- many hosts don't permit it. Too much exposure to Dawkins leaves me with only the most feeble of arguments against giving the same treatment to religion.

Personally, I'd think that Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi add up to a very strong argument against banning religious content. But as it's your (hypothetical) hosting company, you're obviously free to do as you wish. :-)

For the most part, the reasons that hosts don't permit Porn is that pornographers are notoriously bad at paying their bills, and the amount of fraud and theft in the online porn industry is staggering. It's also why it's nearly impossible for pornographers to get merchant accounts with credit card processors.

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