Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada • Hacker News Board

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#101

Post by lordnacho » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #64

gingerlime wrote: post #10

A couple of our employees from Syria also got blocked today. They were using Slack from Syria though. EDIT: I don't understand why they ban/block the account rather than "simply" block access from IPs from the country. This seems really strange and overreaching.

How do you have employees in Syria? It’s a violation of federal sanctions. Edit: In the US, UK, and EU.

This is like when you see an HN thread about labour conditions and everyone says W-2, H1B, and "at-will state" as if the world has only one country.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#102

Post by tremon » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

InGodsName wrote: post #49

avar wrote: post #14

If you work for an American company, get a bug report from a user you know to be in Iran against an open source project you work on during company time and fix it as a result, can the company be considered to be engaging in commerce with Iran?

Direct exchange of value has to take place. In this case no, because fixing that bug in your project doesn't benefit him specifically.

But direct exchange goes two ways. Fixing a bug in your project does benefit the project specifically.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#103

Post by icebraining » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:27 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #89

jordank wrote: post #80

My wife’s Slack account was closed yesterday. She created the account while traveling in Cuba (legally) years ago and hasn’t been back to Cuba or any other sanctioned country since. She is a cofounder of an org that uses Slack heavily and has now lost access to all her messages and files from the past couple years of work. There appears to be no appeal process here.

The appeal process is filing a lawsuit against Slack, provided the person wronged didn’t already agree to give up that right when accepting Slack’s TOS.

Even if it wasn't given up, what would the lawsuit complain be, and what would one gain from it if it succeeds? Isn't Slack legally entitled to shut down any accounts at any time?

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#104

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:27 PM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #74

As an outsider, I am really surprised by how deep-rooted America's hostility is towards Iran. Shi'ite Iran certainly has human rights issues, but as far as terrorism is concerned the majority of them are orchestrated by Sunni groups. 9/11 hijackers, Al Queda, Islamic State, Paris attackers - are all Sunni.

Hate towards certain ethnicities and countries is a tool used by the leaders (political and business) of the US to further their economic interests, either for selling weapons or sewing discord to take advantage of other people’s natural resources.

Kind of ironic when you consider the leaders of a country using patriotism for their personal gain. It’s so weird seeing all the flag toting, national anthem singing population in the US tow the line when they can’t even be bothered to learn their country’s history or participate in the civic process and hold its leaders accountable.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#105

Post by robteix » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:27 PM UTC

Aside from the obvious wrong of blocking people based on their origin, what's up with these companies closing accounts with no warning and no recourse? I know they're private companies and they _can_ do it, but just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Why not give the user even a few days notice so they can communicate with support to try and clear things up? Taking the OP's story at face value, Slack should easily be able to verify with him that he lives in Canada. Instead, they simply block it and bye. I find this extremely hostile.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#106

Post by ilikehurdles » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:27 PM UTC

startupdiscuss wrote: post #59

I think Slack is sending a clear and strong message: use a VPN!

Or don’t rely on U.S. providers for any kind of international internet communication.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#107

Post by robotbikes » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:28 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #66

kkarakk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is another good reason to choose Zulipchat and other self-hostable platforms instead of proprietary SaaS solutions until someone targets your host and gets it shut down.

Then at least you can move it elsewhere.

Zulipchat offers free SaaS for open source projects and also provides you with the ability to export your data and choose to self host at any time in the future. I've found it to be superior to Slack but it just doesn't have the same level of name recognition and thus people are less inclined to use it for some reason. I hope this builds into a real campaign to have free software projects choose a more ethical alternative.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#108

Post by glup » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:29 PM UTC

Is this because of export controls on encryption? Or something else?

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#109

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:29 PM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #74

As an outsider, I am really surprised by how deep-rooted America's hostility is towards Iran. Shi'ite Iran certainly has human rights issues, but as far as terrorism is concerned the majority of them are orchestrated by Sunni groups. 9/11 hijackers, Al Queda, Islamic State, Paris attackers - are all Sunni.

Wealthy Saudi propaganda organizations?

But I think the defiance is why the US elite hates Iran. They successfully kicked out a US-backed leader, humiliated Carter's rescue plan, fought off a US-backed Iraqi invasion, defied the US over nuclear proliferation. Refusing to follow US orders enrages the US.

Ironically there has been extensive on-the-ground cooperation between the US and Iran while fighting ISIS in eastern Syria.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#110

Post by laumars » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:30 PM UTC

paraditedc wrote: post #65

kkarakk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is another good reason to choose Zulipchat and other self-hostable platforms instead of proprietary SaaS solutions until someone targets your host and gets it shut down.

I don't understand what's wrong with this comment, but OP is right. We have seen cases where domain registries or hosting providers suspend accounts for violating their ToS, which is totally legal.

Because you don’t need a hosting provider to self host. You don’t even need a domain name either.

But in all honesty, there are hundreds of registrars and thousands of hosting providers around the world. Not all of them fall under US jurisdiction. But if you’re really really paranoid of getting shut down, there’s also .onion sites or distributed systems like IPFS.

You can not prevent people from communicating on the internet any more than you can prevent people from writing letters.