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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

#241

Post by mirimir »

kypro wrote: post #210
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.

Yeah, they're clearly not checking the ethnicities of everyone using their service, but this still seems rather harsh, and with no appeals process too?

The lack of an appeals process seems like the norm, sadly enough. Maybe, if there's enough of a backlash, they'll restore accounts for people who don't currently access from sanctioned countries.

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

#242

Post by purerandomness »

mbesto wrote: post #232
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.

So, uhh, just stop using Slack then? There are plenty of alternatives now.

I don't think this is about Slack.

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

#243

Post by walterbell »

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.

How do people export/backup messages from Slack?

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

#244

Post by jessaustin »

skrebbel wrote: post #85
kkarakk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sourceforge actively DID block interaction with countries under sanction by the US. even though they're garbage malware distributers now it is a data point https://www.computerworld.com/article/2467444/open-source-to...

They're not garbage malware distributors anymore.

Once you @#$& a goat, you're always a goat-@#$&-er?

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

#245

Post by tapoxi »

adminu wrote: post #226
jstanley wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is the future of the web. This sort of thing is a temporary blip before everybody figures out decentralised solutions for everything. Decentralisation is clearly the end game as long as politics causes problems like this. A decentralised solution will continue to "just work", while centralised solutions continue to boot people off. It's pretty obvious which one is going to win.

Until taking part in a decentralized system is a crime by itself due to potentially illegal content and your possession and distribution of that content. The distributed system does not stop to work then, but the user might risk punishment for using it, which might be even worse than not being able to use it.

I've been thinking about running a Mastodon server so I'm in control of my social media, but I'm worried about letting anyone use it because of the GDPR.

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

#246

Post by user5994461 »

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?

Highlight doubt that. France and Europe have similar sanctions.

We had an alumni from my university who opened a company and sold some stuff to a client in a middle east country. Hardware parts, not software. One shipment got stopped at the border for a random control, before the police showed up at the office and arrested everyone. Turns out there are sanctions. Couldn't sell there.

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

#247

Post by macspoofing »

robteix wrote: post #105

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 eas…

>Aside from the obvious wrong of blocking people based on their origin

How is that an 'obvious wrong'? That's how sanctions work. Sanctions are laws that prevent companies in one region from doing business with companies from another region.

>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.

That I agree with. Slack should do better. But doing better means doing more investigative work and you probably don't want to delegate that to your frontline tech support worker, so it means it's expensive and not particularly scalable.

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

#248

Post by sudhirj »

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #228
hnauz wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy is bitching so much in the thread, claiming that he's been profiled based on his race (and not the fact that he connected to Slack from Iran at some point), that it's hard to take him seriously.

Yeah imagine bitching because you lost a primary communication tool and a bunch of your saved data because of your ethnicity.

I disagree with the way Slack handled this, but by now it’s clear (even the original poster seems to have realised) that Slack banned everyone who accessed the service from an Iranian IP, irrespective of who they were or where they were from.

It’s pretty clear that’s it not motivated by race or any kind of profiling.

Slack has no incentive to boot more people off their platform than necessary, so this overly broad ban could be a result of either misunderstanding the US governments mandate, or that might be just what they were asked to do.

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

#249

Post by hnauz »

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #228
hnauz wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy is bitching so much in the thread, claiming that he's been profiled based on his race (and not the fact that he connected to Slack from Iran at some point), that it's hard to take him seriously.

Yeah imagine bitching because you lost a primary communication tool and a bunch of your saved data because of your ethnicity.

That's not what happened at all, that's why it's hard to take him seriously. He makes it look like Slack went out of their way to look at all of their users and check of what race they are to ban those who are Iranians, when they just made a geoip check.

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

#250

Post by elmo2you »

1. The export control regulations apply to companies and individuals who do business with any of the sanctioned countries.

2. Discrimination based on ethnicity, religion or political views is forbidden by law.

In the absence of proof that this user had business with Iran (or any of the other sanctioned countries) through Slack's platform, the export control regulations do not apply.

If the user has business with Iran outside of Slack's platform, Slack can not invoke the export control regulations to justify their action.

Ergo, the only thing left here is that Slack broke the law that forbids discrimination based on ethnicity.

If the USA fails to punish Slack for it's illegal behavior, and Slack successfully avoids prosecution elsewhere, other country have the right to block access to Slack completely, from within their own borders.

Personally, I think US citizens should be more concerned with what their government does, especially to and with other parts of the world. For eventually, the will feel the consequences of those actions on their own skin.

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