It saddens me to see this petty bullshit on the front page of Hacker News.
Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.
61–70 of 158 posts
Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
What 'law' are they enforcing here? They are enforcing their own TOS, which is perfectly within their right. I'm not saying this is the right thing for them to do, but he is using their service, so they have a right to enforce their TOS. He is perfectly able to move his blog post, unedited, to another VPS provider if he does not like what they are asking him to do.
slander... the guy he was blogging about is not famous, not a public figure, talking trash, about someone by name in a public way is slander - perhaps this helps explain further: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation DO - TOS is like a slander clause
slander implies the quoted information was false. The argument isn't that the information presented was false. It was that it was presented at all.
You are generally free to speak with someone and report it.
Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.
#63Get this off of HN. This blog doesn't deserve the publicity.
Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
slander... the guy he was blogging about is not famous, not a public figure, talking trash, about someone by name in a public way is slander - perhaps this helps explain further: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation DO - TOS is like a slander clause
Oh I understand what slander is, and whether or not the blog post actually is slander or not is debatable. My point was that, in this case, DO has decided to use the 'slander' clause in the TOS to ask this person to edit his blog post. I don't necessarily think they should be doing this, but I am saying that they are perfectly within their right to enforce their TOS how they see fit. If the OP doesn't agree with them…
> whether or not the blog post actually is slander or not is debatable
Yes it is, it's relative to the laws of a given country what is considered slander and what is not.
> I am saying that they are perfectly within their right to enforce their TOS how they see fit
There are laws around slander and DO has no right to enforce them, because last time I checked vigilantism was illegal.
> If the OP doesn't agree with them, there is nothing that says he can't move his content to another provider that may not make the same decision DO has.
How easy or hard to move his content is irrelevant, the fact is he paid for a service which the provider terminated citing unproven(innocent until proven guilty) claims based on a one liner email from some random person on the internet.
Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.
#65Am I the only one who sees Digital Ocean as acting ethically here? This guy is a jerk. He harassed a guy, because the guy works at Google, into giving him his opinion about a semi-controversial topic in a private forum. Then he writes a blog hit-piece in which he explicitly identifies him and disparages him for the opinion he gave! I don't know if he has a legal right to do this, but you don't just do things like tha…
That's a small minded way to look at this. Consider for a moment that now Digital Ocean has just signaled that you can't reliably host anything on DO for more than just technical reasons. Post something someone doesn't like, despite it being true? It can be removed.
Let that sink in, because your comment is calling out the OP for being a jerk. You are making claims, legal claims, such as "he harassed a guy" as if they he was already guilty of the crime of harassment.
Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.
#66The real issue here is whether Digital Ocean should be enforcing a term in their ToS to prevent users from using their network in various socially negative ways. As a liberal-ish European, I think they should, but I appreciate this stance doesn't necessarily play well in the US. Nonetheless, taking quotes from an informal chat room and turning them into a biased, borderline libelous blog post isn't cool. It's immater…
Thats interesting. As a liberalish European, I think DigitalOcean shouldn't be allowed to police their content, just as ISPs shouldn't be allowed to block websites at their whim. Thats clearly in the realm of courts and lawyers. DigitalOcean can cancel the contract once others found the blog post to be defamatory.
> DigitalOcean can cancel the contract once others found the blog post to be defamatory.
Well ... that's what's happening. It's not "policing content", it's holding up their side of the contract.
Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.
#67Enjoy the cloud. Nothing more to be said. With the current "Waiver all rights in the TOS and no legal protections for the customers" it is only going to get worse. I think that cloud services and telecoms and ISPs should be designated as common carrier with the protections and obligations that come from that.
How do you host content then? Don't most collocation facilities and ISPs have their own TOS that are not that different?
My theory was that they shouldn't be allowed to have such TOS and be given immunity from lawsuits about the way their services are used.
So basicly the only reasons a hosting provider should have grounds to terminate/interfere with service are - court order/stopped payment/the way service is used actively disrupts other customers.
We should have service "first sale doctrine" equivalent - once you have sold the access service etc you have no say in how it is used.
Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.
#68The real issue here is whether Digital Ocean should be enforcing a term in their ToS to prevent users from using their network in various socially negative ways. As a liberal-ish European, I think they should, but I appreciate this stance doesn't necessarily play well in the US. Nonetheless, taking quotes from an informal chat room and turning them into a biased, borderline libelous blog post isn't cool. It's immater…
Libel implies it's not true. If it is true then it is legal (as far as I am aware). The original blog post strikes me as possibly slightly biased, but probably true, therefore not libellous.
It's best not to speculate on defamation matters, because defamation laws vary from place to place. Quite a lot, sometimes.
Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
What 'law' are they enforcing here? They are enforcing their own TOS, which is perfectly within their right. I'm not saying this is the right thing for them to do, but he is using their service, so they have a right to enforce their TOS. He is perfectly able to move his blog post, unedited, to another VPS provider if he does not like what they are asking him to do.
slander... the guy he was blogging about is not famous, not a public figure, talking trash, about someone by name in a public way is slander - perhaps this helps explain further: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation DO - TOS is like a slander clause
The key to any defamation claim is that it is a false statement. Truth is an affirmative defense.
Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.
#70Am I the only one who sees Digital Ocean as acting ethically here? This guy is a jerk. He harassed a guy, because the guy works at Google, into giving him his opinion about a semi-controversial topic in a private forum. Then he writes a blog hit-piece in which he explicitly identifies him and disparages him for the opinion he gave! I don't know if he has a legal right to do this, but you don't just do things like tha…
All DigitalOcean asked him to do was to give them editorial control over his blog. That isn't a small thing to me. At a quick glance it looks like a public forum (which has a bearing on how I view the ethics of the situation although even if it was private I don't think DO should act). When you are asked a question about your employer in public you are speaking for them and if you say something dumb that your company…
> All DigitalOcean asked him to do was to give them editorial control over his blog. That isn't a small thing to me.
A nitpick. They didn't ask for editorial control; they asked for observance of the Terms of Service, with the option on their side to discontinue service. Nothing in the ToS gives DigitalOcean any right to editorial control and nothing in their communications says "give us control".
It's a binary proposition. Stick to the agreement, or the agreement is off.