Comment by smokeyj
9 years ago
But what's the end game? Do service providers have to morally support those who they provide service to? Because that's how things are looking. I wish we could just pretend these sites don't exist and stop giving them free publicity and advertisement. Trump is president because he's profitable to hate. Seems like we're repeating our mistakes. The only people who win by manufacturing outrage is the media.
> Do service providers have to morally support those who they provide service to? Because that's how things are looking.
No, but there are obvious limits on what companies would like to be seen to be associating with. Cloudflare is a lot more lenient than most in this respect, but that got interpreted as 'there is no line they will not cross'. That assumption seems to not have borne fruit.
I'm reminded of the 'Slashdot will not censor posts' outrage a number of years ago because, yes, Slashdot did have that power and used it once. Of course for the absolutists that once was the sign that the end was neigh, only that's not how it played out.
> I wish we could just pretend these sites don't exist and stop giving them free publicity and advertisement. Trump is president because he's profitable to hate. Seems like we're repeating our mistakes. The only people who win by manufacturing outrage is the media.
Very astute observation, and definitely a thing to remember when looking at media output.
> No, but there are obvious limits on what companies would like to be seen to be associating with.
This was a PR stunt. If anything CF should terminate the account and not publish the hate groups name to their blog (it's even embedded in the URL for SEO bonus points. WTF!!).
> Of course for the absolutists that once was the sign that the end was neigh, only that's not how it played out.
But that's exactly how it played out for Digg. Sometimes is pays to have a spine (sorry Kevin). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controvers...
As time goes on the more I'm convinced the media is the enemy of the public. What's good for the news is not good for the people. Division is profitable. Fear earns clicks. Hate generates inbound links.
If 10 years ago a group of 1000 rallied for a stupid cause I'd never even hear about it. Now it's front and center going viral. Since I choose not to fill my brain with this garbage I'm "willfully ignorant". Somehow I don't see it that way.
> Do service providers have to morally support those who they provide service to?
Companies can be fined and executives imprisoned for say, selling weapons to terrorists. There's no magic hard line between "moral" / "amoral" in commerce; in a capitalist society consumption/sale are inherently moral concerns.