Shopify pulls Donald Trump stores off its platform
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Tobi Lutke has spoken in podcasts about the power dynamic at his company; he has more security than his employees due to his position at CEO. He said it bothered him.
Statements were made during the same conversation about power dynamics with big tech making political value judgment calls; it seemed he didn’t agree that tech should make all the calls on what speech is allowed.
Now this.
Maybe it’s because it involves a sitting president so this is okay for them to make a value judgment on. Even though small businesses promoting violence in other ways is acceptance on their platform.
This is idiotic and is a non sequitur to the unadvised happenings at the Capitol.
This is a political statement that says only some political views are acceptable and others are not approved.
It’s so blatant.
That has been the case since forever. White supremacy gets you banned from sites, for example, and that is a political stance. What is the difference between that and whats happening here?
The store sells merchandise. It’s not selling riot gear or items taken from the ill advised occupation. I don’t know if anything the store sells which is controversial.
Even Snowden and Greenwald people the left admired when expedient, disagree with how social media is tripping over itself to seem pious.
All these media who are virtue signaling have awful offenders on their sites. They don’t care. They only care if it makes them look virtuous.
Glenn and Edward are on the left politically but they are honest leftists who see the idiocy behind these moves. The utter and disgusting loss of the freedom of speech among Americans.
Some indeed need disclaimers: Not an endorsement of Trump.
Does music with violent or misogynistic lyrics incite violence. Do songs with gunshots in them incite violence?
Do songs that make people think of suicide constitute violence?
Do violent or misogynistic movies or videos incite violence?
So much potential for removal and delisting!! Chomp, chomp.
In the South, racists didn't want to do business with black people, and the government intervened and said they had to. There are many other protected classes, it's just politics isn't one of them.
We have not had anything remotely like the ability "to do business with whoever you chose" for 55 years in the U.S. because of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
What people supporting this are implicitly saying is they don't think political affiliation is or should be a civil right.
"In the South, racists didn't want to do business with black people, and the government intervened and said they had to"
Again, business <-> customer relation is protected. Business <-> business protection relation is not protected in any way shape or form. As a business owner you can stop doing business with any other company for any reason, including the protected reasons, because while corporations might be people in the US, the protected classes protection does not apply in this sense. You could say you don't want to do business with another company because their CEO is a man or a woman, or because you don't agree with their sexuality or their religion or any reason you like and that's allowed in its entirety. Business to business relations are not protected this way.
I never said they were. But there's no moral difference even if there is a legal one. Bluntly, Shopify clearly thinks it's OK to not sell their software to people who might express ideas they don't approve of.
By extension, they're also maligning half of America as either too stupid or immoral to have good reasons for voting for Trump.
If these merchants aren't worthy of business, by extension, neither are those voters.
But now Spotify see the toxicity of the Trump brand as exceeding their ability to profit from it. This doesn't make them heroes, just greedy cowards.
Sure, as they should have a right to. If they chose to not sell to Biden's campaign they should also be free to do so.
>>By extension, they're also maligning half of America as either too stupid or immoral to have good reasons for voting for Trump.
Your extension is so wild it not only extended past this conversation, it left this solar system. Are you projecting your own beliefs?
What we're witnessing here is an (attempt?) at a catharsis in the republican base. I think it seema like a very good opportunity for many repubblicana to denounce trump and his extremist base as being not representative of the republican identity, thus saving their group identity without being dragged down with trump
Also, this seems like a valid terms of service breech. Is the choice to uphold it an excuse to make a statement? I think probably.
I, for instance, cannot sell myself into slavery. Shopify cannot have terms of service in a contract that violate federal law.
The whole concern with terms of service on HN just convinces me that the practitioners need to get out more. They should also quit foisting some weird conception of software onto society. Irrespective, the objective fact that there are many ironclad things business cannot discriminate on is true and has been for a long time.
Simply put, Shopify believes they should be able to discriminate against people for holding political views.
What a narrow point of view. Shopify is a seller platform, do you think they should be forced to sell items on their platform that they don't want to sell? Because if yes, I'd like to point you towards almost any payment processing institution in the US, since they will stop working with you the moment you start selling something they don't like(pornography, sex toys, gambling products) even if they are not illegal at all. They don't want to participate in this transaction and you can't force them. So I don't see how you could force Shopify to carry something on their platform that they don't want to.
Yes. They're not doing the selling, the merchant is. Shopify sells software, not things.
Toyota doesn't refuse to sell me cars because they don't like where I might drive. HP doesn't refuse to sell me laptops because they don't like what I might write on it.
Shopify's actions are just as ludicrous as the two I just mentioned above. The virtue signalling corporate nonsense (and that's what this is) will eventually backfire
Well, then you're simply wrong, Shopify should have the right to not do this business with another company if they chose to. Again, I'd like to point you towards for instance Stripe who also isn't "doing the selling" yet will stop working with you if the product you(the merchant) are selling isn't liked by their backing bank - and that happens all the time with things that I mentioned, despite them being legal . They cannot be forced to work with you nor should they be.
>>Toyota doesn't refuse to sell me cars because they don't like where I might drive.
Toyota won't because it would make a poor business decision, but Ferrari absolutely won't sell you a car if you want to repaint it and use for messing around. They famously refuse to sell their cars to YouTubers and celebrities who they don't want associated with their brand. What, do you think they should be forced to? How would that even look like? A court order where Ferrari has to sell you a car under threat of penalties? Does that not sound insane to you?
>>HP doesn't refuse to sell me laptops because they don't like what I might write on it.
No, because again, that doesn't make good business sense. But for instance apple will refuse to sell their laptops to be used in productions they don't want to be associated with. Nvidia won't sell you their GeForce cards if you're an academic institution or research institution(because they would rather sell you quattro cards). Again, how will you force them to again?
I mean, we can keep going on like this for a while if you'd like.
>>Shopify's actions are just as ludicrous as the two I just mentioned above.
So, not ludicrous at all then, we're in agreement then.
Look, you're being completely unreasonable to prove a point that is ultimately just wrong.
Or are hats and flags and whatever else prohibited ? I can’t wait to see all other campaign merchants get delisted.
To me it seems blatantly political. It’s like removing the DNC or The Biden campaign (as opposed to Biden the person).
So what? Do you think Shopify should be forced to do business with someone who wants to sell Nazi paraphernalia? Do you think you should be forced to do business with someone who does?
Given the circumstances this is a good business move. Twitter and Facebook have distanced from trump, and the riots are filled with trump merchandise.
People do not choose a sexual orientation, nor do they choose the color of their skin. Discrimination for natural factors is the antithesis of America. All men are created equal, common welfare, etc.
Believing in a rigged election is up to the whims of an individual. The same as how believing violence is an acceptable answer is the whims of the individual. Those are perfectly discriminatable factors, and rightfully so.
Also, for reference, legally yes a cake shop can choose to not make cakes for any reason.
My point here is not that Trump is a great guy and businesses should be forced to deal with him. Quite the contrary, if I had a business that interested him I would probably also like to refuse him service. But I am not a hypocrite, or I try not to be, so I do think the same freedom should apply to every business, for any reason, as opposed to everybody being forced to adopt the same morals as me.
Well, in the case that has been litigated to the Supreme Court, the answer was “Yes”, though in part that rested on specific behaviors by the state actors that tried to say “No”, and the outcome might be different otherwise.
But certainly, its not established as a matter of law that the answer is “No”, so resting a counterargument to the Shopify action on that being the answer is weak.
(Its also weak even if the answer was established to be “No”, because even if it was it would be because of specific laws protecting against private discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation, which are an exception to the general principal that private businesses can choose who to do, or not do, business with.)
Some might argue that this bans some political views. And it does. It bans anti-democratic and anti-scientific views. Which is great. We don’t need another Hitler.