Boycott Amazon? Not doing it. | Hacker News Reader

Boycott Amazon? Not doing it.

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22 pointsdavewiner34 comments

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

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.

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.

"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."

"They aren't the guarantors of anyone's rights, that's the government's job"

But what you do when your government refuses to do its job? Sit and wait until it decides to protect free speech?

I think the US government officials are taking this too personally. That's what they wrote, right? Shouldn't they stand behind their own words?

I agree this whole cablegate thing is annoying and I would be annoyed in their place, but I seriously doubt this will impact significantly US diplomacy. It's news to me and you, but it certainly isn't news to whoever they wrote about.

> It's news to me and you, but it certainly isn't news to whoever they wrote about.

Simple knowledge can have drastically different effects than public knowledge, as can be quickly illustrated in a simplified form[1].

[1] http://xkcd.com/blue_eyes.html

People always expect someone else to stand against the government, they won't do it themselves since there are negative consequences for that behavior, but its easy to pontificate with self righteous indignation.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but how is boycotting Amazon taking a stand against the government? It seems to be more about punishing someone else for not taking a stand against the government.

It doesn't violate someone's right to free speech or any other right for a company to fail to provide a service to them. A company having to provide service to some particular entity only violates one set of rights - those of the company.

I'm not sure what your point is here? You're saying that you can define freedom of speech in a narrow way so that Amazon is off the hook. Great.

But that doesn't change what they've done - it just makes you look like a lawyer making excuses for the inexcusable.

It sounds more like this: "If Amazon is wrong for refusing service to someone that is hosting potentially-controversial content, then that implies that no hosting company can refuse service to such a person. I.e. that person is 'untouchable.'"

This seems to cross lines with the 'Affirmative Action'-type arguments: that in an effort to 'make up' for past wrong against black people we are making it impossible to refuse X (where X could be employment, etc) to a black person, even if the reason isn't because of their skin color.

{update} I was only attempting to clarify what I thought that the parent poster (gp to this post) was getting at.

Luckily, no-one's rights are at issue and no-one's going to be forced to do anything.

It's a simple question of whether people want to support a company that acts in ways they don't approve of. A boycott is simply voting with your wallet. There's no rule that it's only right or just to boycott if laws have been broken. I'd be surprised if more than a tiny minority of boycotts were based on corporate behavior that wasn't 100% legal.

I agree with everything you say here. I only take issue with claims that Amazon was violating someone's right to free speech. I no more think people shouldn't boycott Amazon if their dislike of Amazon's decision makes them not want to use their service than I do that Amazon should provide hosting to someone if they don't regard it in their interest to do so.

Calling it a violation of free speech waters down the impact of the phrase as it covers real governments doing it with real violence. I went to college during during the height of the political correctness bubble and was exposed to nuts who called holding a door open for a woman "rape." I couldn't imagine any more crass or insensitive action with respect to real rape victims.

From a business perspective, if Wikileaks is charged with federal crimes, and Amazon is still hosting it, that would roll amazon into the investigation and open them up to whatever charges the US govn't might throw at them. Is it good business for Amazon to potentially get sucked into federal investigations or congressional hearings? Not to mention all the bad mainstream press they began getting. And I wouldn't be surprised if the federal govn't is an AWS customer.

Whether its right or wrong thats just a mess nobody needs. While I support Wikileaks first amendment rights I don't think you can blame Amazon for not wanting to get embroiled in the battle

I can't say I was surprised by Amazons actions, but somewhat by their motivation behind those actions.

I think this should serve as a wake up call for founders who maybe to easily trust a third party with essential parts of their business. As the real question should be what happens when a special interest group pressures Amazon to take down your startup? Do you have external backup?, is your codebase adapted to Amazon? etc.

I think it's in the interest of all service providers to be seen as just only a service provider. There was quite a big discussion about this in Sweden several years ago which made Bahnhof start the "integrity" initiative[1]. This is, among other things, why Wikileaks have been hosted in Sweden for a long time.

[1] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=sv&sl=sv&tl...

The only difference between Amazon and most other hosting companies is tha the others don't let you start if your site will violate their TOS or AUP. Amazon has automatic activation, so violating sites get a few days service before being rejected.

They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

It's OK to ignore abuse when by doing so you are enabled to maintain your financial status.

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