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Comment by jdp23 | Hacker News Reader

Dave's argument against even a partial boycott:

1) he probably would have done the same thing as Amazon 2) Amazon's got competition so it's not that big a deal if they don't stand up for free speech 3) he depends on Amazon a lot 4) last time he boycotted Amazon (over one-click), some other open tech advocats didn't so he felt his stand was pointless

Given all that, he suggests that now isn't the right time to take "a principled stand" by boycotting

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In my opinion one the critical issues is that AWS doesn't require a relationship to start hosting. I know amzn mentioned that and it might sound like a lame justification to you, but I think it's pretty reasonable.

Almost any competing service (besides app engine) in this space would have required a signed contract and contact with an account rep. How many of these [US based] hosting providers would agree to a contract with wikileaks given that distributing classified US documents on US servers by a US business is likely a crime?

I'd expect very few. At the very maximum, something like 1 in 10. But we're not calling for boycotts of rackspace, right? The only reason amzn is taking heat for this decision is that they turned them down a few days after the service switched instead of a few days before. Otherwise folks might as well be boycotting most of the industry.

Isn't the right to choose who to do business with at least close to the same level as the right to free speech? I've refused to sign a contract with a guy simply because he was a dick, with no other concrete reason. Surely amzn had more cause than this.

Also, I think a lot of people are overestimating their own likely actions in this case. If the white house and senate staffers are calling you all day asking/telling you to do something how sure are you that you'd be manning up and taking a stand on it? Hell, how many of you would stand up to a Jobs/Schmidt/Zuckerberg call?

Maybe my facts are wrong - if so please feel free to point me in the right direction; but I thought it was pretty firmly established that while leaking classified material was certainly illegal distributing it after the leak was not. Distributors of leaked material are protected - otherwise the New York Times, Washington Post etc would all be participating in illegal activities.

AFAIK the only point of ambiguity with respect to wikileak's legal status is the fact that they "encourage" people to commit illegal activities.

I think you are probably right, or at least I am willing to admit that you sound like you know better than I do. I had the impression that there was a distinction being drawn between distributing the documents themselves, and disseminating the information contained within - and that was why you never saw the full documents in the papers and only abstracts. I can't find any evidence of that being true, though, now that I've looked.

Ya, I'm certainly no expert either - this is just based upon what I've read. I think it falls under the same class of protection as the Pentagon Papers did. What Ellsberg did was illegal - but the New York Times wasn't prosecuted for publishing the information. However the New York Times did only publish excerpts like you're saying and not the full documents so maybe there is something to what you're saying? The full documents were not made public until Mike Gravel published them in the proceedings of the Senate using an interesting legal loophole.

Nasty!

To start with your #1, what I actually said (and meant) was: "I'm not sure I wouldn't have done exactly what they did"

And the rest of your list is just as bad.

So if you need to mis-state what someone says to "prove" them wrong, then you don't really believe in what you believe in.

Which is, btw, what?

Are you boycotting Amazon?

If so, what are you giving up?

Why "nasty"? Seems like a decent summary.

Anyway, I just bought a bunch of books from abebooks.com rather than amazon.com. Save a pile of money :o) but (I assume) they will not be new and shiny :(

abebooks is owned by amazon.

Really?! Aw crap. Thanks.

What I believe is that free speech is important, and when companies wave a big red flag that they don't value it, there need to be some consequences.

As for what i'm giving up ... on a personal level, I haven't shopped at Amazon for quite a while (because of one-click patent, privacy issues, and their support for DRM). I had been considering of publishing something on CreateSpace and now will have to find some other options. I give up convenience, time, and occasionally some money. Then again I get to support independent book stores and sometimes buy directly from publishers who value free speech and privacy, so for me it's a big win.

Professionally, I'll use somebody else for future projects. Obviously, this'll give up the "one-stop shopping" for high quality services and some best-in-class options. On the other hand, at this point it seems extremely risky to me to host anything that involves potentially-controversial content on Amazon, so I don't really see a lot of options there.

I do agree that when you're deeply tied into the Amazon environment it's not an overnight change to get out of it. Still, I don't see that as an argument for not taking any action.

  > On the other hand, at this point it seems extremely risky
  > to me to host anything that involves potentially-controversial
  > content on Amazon, so I don't really see a lot of options there.

Everything that you host is potentially-controversial?

Imagine that the Bradley Manning Support Network decided to use my previous startup Qworky ("meetings that don't suck") and that Lieberman or some other politician criticized us for it. What would Amazon do?

For that matter, Qworky's first public usage, early this year, was with the Get FISA Right activist group about strategies to fight the PATRIOT Act. We all know what side Lieberman's on there ...

"I'm not sure I wouldn't have done exactly what they did"

Maybe I'm having trouble parsing the double negative, but doesn't that mean what OP said it means? If not, what does it mean instead?

It means he possibly would have done what they did, not probably.

If so, that strikes me as difference without distinction.

"I might have done the same thing" and "I'd probably have done the same thing", in practical conversation, end up being sliced at the difference between 49% probability and 51%, right?

I read it as about 1% in this case.

Well, that would be stated as "I probably would not," wouldn't it? You can say, at that point, with certitude, that most of the money is on not doing as Amazon did.

Fair enough. When I blog about it I'll just quote his language directly.

Neither you or I know what Amazon knows -- that's what I meant. Neither side is telling the whole story. That's what you would have gotten if you had bothered to ask instead of telling me what I meant.

"Amazon's got competition so it's not that big a deal if they don't stand up for free speech"

Not what he said. He said that Amazon isn't a government body, but a business, so they're not supposed to "stand up for free speech". He mentioned competition to explain that Amazon is not a monopoly, wherein different rules might apply (if they were legitimately the only way to get things hosted, it would be a much bigger deal if they choose not to host you.)

Here's an excerpt of what he said:

"There are plenty of choices for web hosting besides Amazon. And because they charge money for their services, they guarantee that there will always be. If Twitter had shut them off, that would be serious, because their pricing model, and lack of federation, more or less cuts off competition. There it would be really chilling. Here, not even slightly chilling."

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