AR15.com Booted from GoDaddy | Hacker News Reader

AR15.com Booted from GoDaddy

thedomains.com

82 pointsNDizzle60 comments

First it was the social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.). Then it was the app stores (Apple, Google). Then it was the payment processors (Stripe, etc.). Then it was the cloud computing platforms (Amazon). Now its the domain name registrars (GoDaddy).

We're working our way up the stack on censorship.

Waiting for the tor browser to announce the takedowns of sites at this point

It is only half joke: independent browser developers already call for "more than deplatforming". https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...

Which means:

1 looking at who is advertising around unwanted content. That’s hardly a new strategy.

And 2 looking at how filter bubbles work. Not news.

which means it wont work and would only be counterproductive

Same. I literally blogged about this last month: https://vancelucas.com/blog/when-fact-checking-comes-to-web-...

After their recent post [0], I just can't wait for the new update from the Mozilla Firefox that will have this fabulous feature built in /s

I have only seen yours and some other speculations as of yet [1], but you'll never know, weirder things have happened. Luckily we can start using Surf browser instead.

0. https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9xK44imGVc

This is what should have been protected all along, this is the infrastructure level and if anywhere has a universal access obligations this should be it.

Unfortunately people were crying about being deplatformed and losing their audience for years, they never cared about securing their right to self publish on the internet.

Last I checked there’s a zillion TLDs wholly privately owned, even if all the registrars won’t have you it’s a whole ass internet out there.

Chrome could block domains, and so could top-level DNS.

And hosts files still exist shrugemoji

And pigeon post in case your provider disconnected you.

The requirement of cooperation of different private entities on different layers is a feature, not a bug. If you're behaving so badly that's unacceptable to all of these different people and organizations, maybe they're not the problem?

Meanwhile, no one's free speech is being prevented - convenience of reach is certainly being limited, however once again that's a feature.

These companies all have very clear terms of service, where they reserve the right to remove you for any reason. Using their service is a privilege, not a right.

If everyone is “censoring” you, then there must be a good reason why they prefer to distance themselves.

Of all those listed, you must be an especially toxic brand to be kicked from GoDaddy.

Nothing scares me more than thinking that you might actually mean this.

The mobs are not always in the right, no matter how large a majority they have.

Everyone in power at the time "censored "Giordano Bruno. He must have been hella toxic, according to you.

He was, actually. He got into fights with pretty much everybody -- and not just people in power.

The story is about a billion times more complicated than "the church burned him to hide the truth about science". He was, indeed, a heretic, as the Church defined it, and "science" had little to nothing to do with it.

That does not, of course, justify any of what happened to Bruno. But the oft-repeated story of "Giordano Bruno died so that I could have an all-purpose martyr for anything I want to disagree with" is false. It's worth reading a biography, or at least the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

> The mobs are not always in the right, no matter how large a majority they have.

Sometimes those are the only in the right (or should I say left) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsheviks

This is exactly how China works. If you don't have enough social credit, everyone is censoring you. And it is your fault of course, correct your behavior.

Are you comparing the US with China, where the CCP controls everything, a non-elected government, and literally has their fingers in every company of importance there? Maybe I'm misinterpreting your comment, your intent is a bit ambiguous.

I hate when I spent 5 minutes typing the comment and then HN tells me I'm blocked for unknown amount of time because I was downvoted. So replying with a different account to keep the comment. Sorry dang.

The original response:

Of course not. I'm just pointing to the flaw in this argument: if everybody ban you, then you are the problem. Sometimes there are other reasons for that than you, and I provided with an example.

> literally has their fingers in every company of importance there

However, now you said it, authoritarian states work differently. They don't tell every company what they should do. Each private company already knows what it should do, otherwise they will have certain consequences like change of ownership.

But again, putting the equal sign between PRC and the US is wrong at the moment.

> I'm blocked for unknown amount of time because I was downvoted

Is that really a thing on HN? Seems pretty unfair to block someone because of an unpopular view, isn't flagging used for that when a comment breaches the guidelines?

> > I'm blocked for unknown amount of time because I was downvoted

> Is that really a thing on HN? Seems pretty unfair to block someone because of an unpopular view, isn't flagging used for that when a comment breaches the guidelines?

Hamster news is not a safe space for wrongthink.

No, you don't get blocked for an unpopular view or for violating some nebulous 'groupthink'. You need to clearly cross the line several times to get blocked.

No need to get blocked you get suppressed. And plenty people dont even take the time anymore to write something known to be unpopular here. Including myself. HN is just as much a bubble as any other place. Probably should be rewritten in Rust.

If u seriously believe we the youngest country in the world r not headed to exactly to where u just commented about U r either blind to history of the world or a democrat!!

So long as it's not a single entity controlling all of those other entities - like federal government - then I agree.

> they reserve the right to remove you for any reason. Using their service is a privilege, not a right.

> If everyone is “censoring” you, then there must be a good reason why they prefer to distance themselves.

Or it could just be an any reason.

ar15.com is owned by Brownell's sports. it's hardly an "especially toxic brand."

GoDaddy really stepped over a line here and to this point has nothing to say for itself.

I think they should have the same rights as the local baker or local florist. Buying a wedding cake or flowers is a privilege.

IMO it would be way way worse if it was ICANN not a rando registrar.

My position (in theory) would be that DNS, ISPs and datacenters are a different layer of the "freedom tech" stack. Depriving a business of the ability to host and distribute content via at least a DNS-backed website should be held to a different standard than removal from an app store or specific social media site.

There are thousands of other registrars out there. GoDaddy doesn't want them, they can move to someone who does. Once they've gone through them all and been rejected by every last one I'll accept that maybe maybe something should be done. Then again if you are being rejected by every single registrar out there maybe you should look inward for the problem.

That's a very libertarian take. "Why should a business have to cater to black people? Or be forced to build a ramp for a handicapped person? The market will take care of it, there are plenty of grocers in town."

DNS and network connectivity are pretty effing vital to using the web. Again, it's a much more fundamental layer than the app store, and while yes there are other registrars, I'm not sure we should condone this.

And practically, how quickly can they move to get their domain moved to another registrar? Get their nameservers moved?

Agree. If you cared or fought for net neutrality at all then you cannot support this mentality. It’s a terrible precedence to set. Especially when it’s applied in a targeted way where one group is allowed to do the thing the other is not (e.g actual dictators allowed on Twitter and Trump not, left wing allowed to support violent riots etc.)

Do you feel this way about cake bakers to?

unless you want to sell it and eat it as well

When a single "cake baker" holds nearly half of the world's market, as monopolies like AWS do, and routinely colludes with their "competitors" to not serve anyone they dislike or that starts a competing service, absolutely.

Anyone who cares about "free speech" should move to epik.com for domains.

I want infrastructure providers to be neutral, and allow whatever is allowed under the law. Not Twitter, FB they're free to censor.

But the App Store/Play Store, cloud providers should be neutral.

Take the bare minimum measures to prevent chaos, don't overreach your hand.

> Anyone who cares about free speech should move to epik.com for domains.

Care to explain why them and not one of thousands of other providers?

In now deleted comments someone said gab.com uses epik.com. That’s very strong recommendation. Thanks!

On this thread because it's what AR15.com have gone to.

I've been using Epik for about 2 years now due to their support of open and honest speech. I wonder if that will get them in hot water with paypal/stripe or debanked. Who knows what the rules are now. Strange world.

Yeh, nowadays a customer of a customer of a customer can get de-platformed because 'you're either with us or against us', such incredibly fascist rhetoric flying out from every window it's scary. Speaking of windows, why wouldn't Microsoft put a filter into their OS so that this problem of internet hate-ship could once be solved on the network config level once and for all /s

GoDaddy when we have domain problems: sits around not doing shit

GoDaddy when they can milk some PR: URGENT! ALL HANDS ON DECK!!

I mean they got to cause downtime on purpose this time. It’s basically their ideal situation.

Is there more to this story? Was this a shift in GoDaddy policy or did AR15.com post content calling for violence or otherwise inflaming the situation?

My gut instinct as an owner of firearms is that they had some kind of "revolution" promotion or something equally stupid, but I admit the possibility it is GoDaddy jumping on a bandwagon.

You never had to look very far on AR15.com's General Discussion board to find people posting what they'd like to do to Pelosi/Schumer/AOC, or more recently, saying that if the election result isn't overturned legally "it's up to us to do something about it". I distinctly remember after SCOTUS refused to hear the Texas v. PA case, posters saying they wouldn't mind if some justices were assassinated.

The site's code of conduct prohibited making threats, but very thinly veiled ones went mostly unmoderated. Including the practice of simply using CoC (code of conduct) as a euphemism, such as "Somebody needs to CoC that bitch (angry red grrrrr emote)".

The site cracked down MUCH harder on that stuff right after Twitter banned Trump and Parler went down. They moved politics to a separate, paid-members-only board and closed most of the political threads in GD. But apparently it wasn't enough and GoDaddy doesn't want to be associated with it.

I don't believe AR15.com ever made any official posts that advocated for violence in any way. It was all user content.

Users - a blessing and a curse

The site itself has never done that.

There are certainly subcultures. They do mod them somewhat, though not as well as they should perhaps.

GoDaddy has refused to tell the site what the alleged violation is or allow them to appeal.

Back through 2008 til I guess 2016, you couldn't go more than 2 threads without some diseased brain talking about wanting to murder the president or all the people who approved of him. People selling and making targets with the presidents head in the center were all over. I saw enough fanfics with people hoping that there was a civil war and all the cities full of "those people" are obliterated and we can get on with our happy lives.

And that was some of the tamer crap that they admins of the site allowed. It got really bad right around when I got interested in firearms but right around the same time that Obama signed the bill to allow firearms in national parks when threads about what type of optics to get or about some site having a sale on magazines would devolve 5 posts later into someone wanting to plink the skull a libtard. After a few weeks of trying to filter out that crud, I just realized I couldn't stand the people and that there was nothing of value to me on that site.

You know its bad when the most inescrupulous domain registrar doesn’t want your business

The author links to a Twitter post about an ISP that is blocking Twitter and Facebook by default. The interesting thing to me is that the ISP’s explanation capitalizes words they to show emphasis. They also misspell whether (weather). I want to draw a line between their illiteracy and their poor policy decision, but I fear that is unfair.

Pathetic.

Who sent the first email to GoDaddy making them aware of this?

I feel like someone with power to wield might be 'advising' all these platforms to consider deplatforming..

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