Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

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Famspear
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Famspear »

Jeffrey wrote:
There is no such thing as a general constitutional right not to have other individuals "interfere" with your speech or expression.
Gotta disagree, the government has an obligation to protect speech from interference such as assault and threats of violence and it's done daily in this country. Cops regularly provide security for marches and political demonstrations, to protect that speech from interference from other individuals.

I would agree with you guys ten or twenty years ago but nowadays internet access is more of a utility as Famspear implied. Try filling out job applications without an e-mail for example. The "fairness doctrine" case also applies here given that the internet is a government subsidized and government regulated platform. Plus the right to " impart information and ideas through any media" is already recognized in Article 19 of the UN declaration of human rights, even if it's a private entity doing it, it's still a violation of Stormfront's human rights to do this.

Not to mention that the basis of the denial of service is arbitrary here, there's no intellectually consistent way of justifying denying Stormfront a forum that wouldn't equally apply to dozens of other political groups.

And more broadly, the strict literalist interpretation of the first amendment misses the point. It's not a principle that's limited to government, it's a broader concept that is central to american life that allows republicans and democrats and whatever else to live in the same neighborhood without descending into sectarian violence. Protecting the "free flow of ideas" isn't just a government responsibility, it's a public responsibility of citizens.
I understand that you disagree, but you're incorrect as a matter of law.

The example of cops providing security for marches and political demonstrations is not an example of a First Amendment Constitutional right to free speech with respect to protection from interference from other individuals. It's an example of cops doing their job to maintain order.

Whether a particular benefit is considered a utility or not might be determinative in deciding whether an individual has some sort of limited statutory or regulatory right to access to that benefit -- but such a right, if any, is not a constitutional right.

The "fairness doctrine" (whatever that may be) to which you refer is not the Fairness Doctrine to which I was referring which was something that existed in statutory, regulatory or case law with respect to TV and radio broadcasting some years ago. There is no such legal doctrine (that I know of) with respect to the internet.

The fact that the right to "impart information and ideas through any media" might be recognized in Article 19 of the UN declaration of human rights, even if it's a private entity doing it, does not create a legal Constitutional right under the law of the United States. And, no, I seriously doubt that it is a violation of Stormfront's "human rights" under the UN declaration for a private internet provider to refuse to sell web space to Stormfront.

And, no, the strict literalist interpretation of the First Amendment does not miss the point. And, yes, free speech IS a principle limited to freedom from interference by the government.

I agree that protecting the free flow of ideas might be some sort of amorphous "public responsibility" or "moral" duty that burdens all of us as private individuals, but that is not the same thing as a LEGAL obligation -- and from the standpoint of the "speaker," it's definitely not the same as a constitutional right.

In the United States, legal obligations and rights, whether from the U.S. Constitution, from common law, from statutes, from treaties and other international law, from regulations, or from the case law arising from judicial interpretations of all these, do not arise merely because of a common sense of fairness. Law is objectively knowable. Law can be studied and learned. Law as it exists is not always a matter of what we believe it should be.
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Famspear
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Famspear »

Another couple of points:

First: In our discussion of First Amendment rights, we haven't addressed the details of the fifty state constitutions. Perhaps there is something in one or more state constitutions that embodies what Jeffrey is saying. I haven't studied all fifty state constitutions.

Second: Of course, people who are peacefully marching in a lawful demonstration generally have a common law right not to be violently attacked by other individuals. That is a legal right enforceable directly against those other individuals -- such as, in the form of the right to obtain court judgments for monetary damages for physical injuries, and so on. (See my example above regarding the guy who punches a speaker because he disagrees with what the speaker is saying.) That's not a constitutional right, but a common law right is a type of legal right.

Groups such as Stormfront have the same legal rights as everyone else.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Famspear »

Oh, by the way: In Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, the United States Supreme Court concluded that the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G. A. Res. 217A (III), U. N. Doc. A/810 (1948), “does not of its own force impose obligations as a matter of international law.” Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692, 734 (2004).
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by morrand »

Famspear wrote:Whether a particular benefit is considered a utility or not might be determinative in deciding whether an individual has some sort of limited statutory or regulatory right to access to that benefit -- but such a right, if any, is not a constitutional right.

...

I agree that protecting the free flow of ideas might be some sort of amorphous "public responsibility" or "moral" duty that burdens all of us as private individuals, but that is not the same thing as a LEGAL obligation -- and from the standpoint of the "speaker," it's definitely not the same as a constitutional right.
For a clear illustration of this, see the front pages of your telephone direct...oh, wait, they don't make those anymore. OK, since I never throw anything away, see the front pages of my 2013 telephone directory:
Warning: It is a violation of Illinois law to use your telephone, or knowingly allow your telephone to be used, for the purpose of placing indecent, threatening, or harassing calls.
That language had been inserted into the front of just about every telephone directory in the United States since well before the telephone network was generally deregulated. In other words, that stern warning is left over from the days in which telephone service was squarely a utility. In most places, I'm pretty sure this (or something like it) is still the law in most places. I'm not aware of (nor, in fairness, have I researched whether) those laws having been successfully challenged. I doubt it. There are limits even where common carriers are concerned.

Which reminds me: there is also (as so many sovcits never tire of mentioning) a Constitutional right of free travel between the States. But get on an airplane and begin screaming about how Bernoulli's principles are a nefarious plot by the Zionist banking cabal, and see whether you make it to Pittsburgh or not. Travel may be a right, but travel by common carriage is not, at least not to that extent.
Famspear wrote:In the United States, legal obligations and rights, whether from the U.S. Constitution, from common law, from statutes, from treaties and other international law, from regulations, or from the case law arising from judicial interpretations of all these, do not arise merely because of a common sense of fairness. Law is objectively knowable. Law can be studied and learned. Law as it exists is not always a matter of what we believe it should be.
If you don't mind me mentioning as an aside, this (and particularly the last sentence) pretty neatly sums up our responses on the entire "Sovereign Citizen" board.
---
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Jeffrey »

Well, I completely agree that the provider was within their legal rights to have terminated service, I'm it shouldn't be legal.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by SquatloosianTroll »

[Moderator: The Observer] - Link removed due to poster spamming irrelevant link across the site, without any explanation of how this link impacts or comments on the thread.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by bmxninja357 »

[quote="SquatloosianTroll"][/quote]

Off topic repeat post trolling.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Gregg »

Jeffrey wrote:Well, I completely agree that the provider was within their legal rights to have terminated service, I'm it shouldn't be legal.
Really, why not? Assume for just a second that I'm in the business of proving access to the internet to content providers, like Stormfront. Without getting into if I agree with them, disagree with them or don't agree but think they have a right to be heard. But you see, I might be thinking about the business. Somewhere, people are paying me for the service I provide, a whole lot of them who have opinions on this of their own. Let's also assume here that I am providing my service to Stormfront. Some of my other customers might feel so strongly about it that they would move their patronage of my services to someone else who doesn't provide services to hate groups. So you see, Stormfront may have a right to be heard, but they don't have a right to cost me business because I provide the platform.
My right here, to my free speech, includes my right to NOT let something that hurts me on my platform. I might even be a closet white supremacist but that doesn't mean I would let what I think hurt my business, so I have the right to be quiet and to force my business to be quiet on the subject.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Gregg »

If Stormfront wants to be heard, they and groups like them can either find someone to provide the service, or set up the service for their own use.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Gregg »

One loophole they might use, though is to run for Congress. There is a law that prohibits FCC licensed radio stations (and maybe TV bu I dunno) from denying ads to bona fide Congressional campaigns. I know this because there is a right wing nutjob in Cincinnati who runs absolutely terribly offensive ads on the radio every election cycle that is always preceded by an announcement by the radio station to the effect of "sorry, we know this is bad, but the law requires us to run it, so cover your ears" and the ads are usually the topic on one of the talk radio shows in the weeks leading up to the election.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by wserra »

I intended to get around to posting my thoughts on the subject. Glad I procrastinated, because Gregg did it for me.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Jeffrey »

Gregg wrote:If Stormfront wants to be heard, they and groups like them can either find someone to provide the service, or set up the service for their own use.
There's two problems with the "buy hosting somewhere else" argument. They can't (at the last time I checked up on the issue) find someone willing to provide website hosting services. The last discussion in terms of hosting options was to migrate to the darknet, which would mean, as a hypothetical, that if a Stormfront member were to post their intent to bomb a synagogue, it would be impossible for law enforcement to get the IP address of the person making the threat.

On the other hand, the "buy somewhere else" argument doesn't work for the same reason we don't tell people of color or gays to avoid establishments that are unwilling to sell goods or services to them. By denying basic services or even non-basic services like wedding cakes, you're making it impossible for a person to live in society.

Neither the Government nor Corporations should have the power to determine what ideas I can and cannot be exposed to.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Determinator »

There is a host for virtually everything, but you have to work hard to find them, and make sure you don't just read the T&Cs but also get in touch with them to see whether they will allow the type of content you want to host. There is a big difference between commentary that some may find "defamatory" (and everyone loves free speech, as long as nobody says anything negative about them), and content that's likely to be illegal in almost any jurisdiction. Even then, if you look in the right countries, you may even be able to host child porn or jihadist stuff. The bigger problem here would be hiding your identity so your local police force doesn't locate you.

A lot of what has been discussed on this thread refers to the US, but legislation may be different in other parts of the world, and there is nothing stopping you from using a hosting company in another jurisdiction, with very different legislation. For example, pirated software used to be hosted on Russian sites because, in Russia, "reverse engineering" was considered legal.

There are hosting companies that allow more "free speech" than others. We have a new thread here that refers to similar issues: viewtopic.php?f=52&t=11539&start=100. In this case, the website in question was hosted off-jurisdiction, which is why the complainant went straight for Nominet, as the domain used was one of the .uk range under their control. As there was nothing wrong with the domain name as such, the claimant, an unrepresented individual, lost, and was saddled with Nominet's legal costs.

This brings us to the subject of domains, it's not just where you host your site, but also where you register your domain, and what type of domain you use. In this case, the domain was registered with a UK based registrar that offered privacy protection, only that protection was very flimsy. The website in question was only a blog set up to comment on the posts made on another forum, since all the posters had been banned from the forum in question, they set up their own platform. Given the purpose of the site, disclosure of the identity of the registrant wasn't really a big deal, however, it could be in other circumstances, and I'm not just referring to people who engage in illegal activities.

It's fair enough for the police to be able to obtain such details, provided the website is used for something illegal. That's not the same as letting everyone have your details. If someone has reason to believe a website is being used for something illegal, then it should be reported to the police, and it will then be up to the police to establish whether a crime is being committed in the first place, and if that's the case, it will also be up to them to take the necessary action, rather than leave it up to random individuals making complaints.

Attempting to stifle free speech has been not only futile but also very costly for this individual and both sides (website operators and complainants) should learn from this experience. Webmasters: choose your domains, registrars and hosts wisely. Complainants: choose your course of action wisely.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Judge Roy Bean »

Gregg wrote:One loophole they might use, though is to run for Congress. There is a law that prohibits FCC licensed radio stations (and maybe TV bu I dunno) from denying ads to bona fide Congressional campaigns. ...
The FCC's "equal time" reach applies to both radio and TV airwaves, but in terms of cable, the equal time doctrine only applies if the cable operator produces original content. Municipalities have a hand in cable, too, because they typically grant some form of license to the cable operator for exclusivity in terms of territory. With recent events regarding planted fake ads and news on the net, we can expect some factions to assert that regulatory oversight of internet content is needed.
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Re: Bad Sites Can't Find a Host

Post by Determinator »

Judge Roy Bean wrote: The FCC's "equal time" reach applies to both radio and TV airwaves, but in terms of cable, the equal time doctrine only applies if the cable operator produces original content. Municipalities have a hand in cable, too, because they typically grant some form of license to the cable operator for exclusivity in terms of territory. With recent events regarding planted fake ads and news on the net, we can expect some factions to assert that regulatory oversight of internet content is needed.
You mean "alternative news"? I still disagree with internet regulation, not least because it's impossible, as per my previous post, you can just go host on another country, preferably one that's anti US...

Last night I saw part of a TV program dedicated to Julian Assange, where I heard about Manning being sentenced to 35 years in jail for passing documents to Wikileaks! Good grief! Was there any actual issues with national security as a result of those leaks? It doesn't look like it! 9/11 clearly didn't have anything to do with any military secrets. As this site is against ideologies such as FMOTL, etc., I can only assume it's not keen on "Truthers" either. Have been on the other thread about websites (Bennison v Nominet), and the site in question seem to be run by "Truthers", they have one of them videos on their home page.