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Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

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

#211

Post by geofft »

icebraining wrote: post #103
sneak wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

One, no, you are not legally entitled to shut down accounts on the basis of race or national origin, if that's what they're doing.

Two, they may have to at least return the data: if I let you use a desk at my place and you start doing business there, I am pretty sure I cannot legally refuse you entry and hold on to your papers.

Three, even if they are, we're also legally entitled to call Slack incompetent losers, and to tell our employers that we should not switch to Slack if we wish to continue being co-workers with Iranians. I will be telling my employer that shortly. (One fascinating aide effect of using Slack is thst the entire company must conform to Slack's policies. You cannot hire someone whom Slack won't create an account for, nor someone who won't agree to Slack's ToS, because if they're not on Slack they can't get work done.)

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

#213

Post by thinkloop »

malloryerik wrote: post #197
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beyond that I find it outrageously unethical. What, complying with national and international sanctions and erring on the side of caution? Losing part of your customer base is preferable over getting fined to the tune of hundreds of millions of USD.

If the sanctions demand this, then the sanctions are outrageously unethical. If the sanctions don't explicitly demand it and banning ethnic Iranians is just "erring on the side of caution" then yes, sorry, but Slack is being outrageously unethical. Even if the sanctions do demand it, to me this is a reason to seriously consider either moving Slack to another jurisdiction like Canada, the EU, Switzerland, etc., or pro…

> consider either moving Slack to another jurisdiction like Canada, the EU, Switzerland

I wouldn't put Canada in the same company as the EU or especially Switzerland, Canada is generally very happy to play ball on these matters.

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

#214

Post by jwildeboer »

mirimir wrote: post #190

So is this really an accurate title? It seems most likely that Slack has geolocated IP addresses from account access logs, and closed accounts with hits from sanctioned countries. Perhaps going back years. That in itself seems over the top. But it doesn't constitute ethnic profiling. But if someone has a counterexample, that would be OK too.

OP here. I would partly agree. But at the time I posted the link, I only had examples from Iranian people that are living in other countries using Slack and getting banned. Now that I have heard more stories about people from Syria and even one US person, I wouldn't post it again with that description.

I'll leave it to the mods to change the description accordingly, if they feel inclined to do so.

UPDATE: The mods have changed the description to "Is Slack shutting down accounts of those ethnically associated with Iran?"

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

#215

Post by thecatspaw »

AJ007 wrote: post #203
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know they're private companies and they _can_ do it, but just because you can doesn't mean you should. Actually, if you look at the image, Slack is beholden to US law, export regulations and economic sanctions - companies doing business with countries they shouldn't are in big trouble. See also: Huawei, who despite sanctions continued to do business with Iran, which caused the US to give them a huge fine. I don't…

This is another strong case for open source software development along with open, publicly available, standards and protocols. This isn't about Slack, it isn't about US sanctions law. It is about any private entity creating closed sourced, remotely hosted software. Everyone knows that APIs can be pulled at any time (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) Spying can be mandated whether it is the US government, China, or anyone else…

> No one would build a high rise where all of the elevators could suddenly vanish

You also wouldnt build a highrise where all elevators are built by a random Joe, who you arent even sure if thats his real name

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

#216

Post by gaius »

Iv wrote: post #87

If Slack has a presence in France, they can be sued for this. And I think in any country with anti-discrimination laws which I thought included many US states?

You should be able to use GDPR to force them to give you your data, probably not to reinstate services.

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

#218

Post by wil421 »

gingerlime wrote: post #195
wil421 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU and U.K. are not in the US last I checked.

last I checked there are no restrictions on employment of Syrian people in the EU/UK, unless they are related to the government or military etc.

You just said you didn’t know and now all of the sudden you do?

It seems the harder restrictions were lifted in 2014 in the EU due to member state disputes.

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

#219

Post by geofft »

AJ007 wrote: post #203
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know they're private companies and they _can_ do it, but just because you can doesn't mean you should. Actually, if you look at the image, Slack is beholden to US law, export regulations and economic sanctions - companies doing business with countries they shouldn't are in big trouble. See also: Huawei, who despite sanctions continued to do business with Iran, which caused the US to give them a huge fine. I don't…

This is another strong case for open source software development along with open, publicly available, standards and protocols. This isn't about Slack, it isn't about US sanctions law. It is about any private entity creating closed sourced, remotely hosted software. Everyone knows that APIs can be pulled at any time (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) Spying can be mandated whether it is the US government, China, or anyone else…

To put a finer point on it: open communications protocols driven by free software and end-to-end encryption both are and should be above the law, at least where the law purports to create national boundaries on the internet.

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence

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