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Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

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Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

#91

Post by mark212 »

danpalmer wrote: post #26
DanBlake wrote: post #18

FWIW, all I ever read about on HN is how DO is constantly a disaster. Why you would choose to host there is beyond me. Just move your blog- It takes all of a few hours.

FWIW, this is one of only a few 'bad' DO incidents I've seen, among many very positive things. As a DO user for over a year, I can say I am mostly very happy with the service I have received, although I hope they issue a statement about this, apologising to the author and pledging to review their policies on this.

Same here. I've been very pleased with their service but DO is way out of line here. Shutting down content based on a single complaint, without a court order or any kind of injunction -- and then saying that the customer has to get a court order from a NY court to keep it open? Exactly the opposite of what I expect from a VPS.

Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

#92

Post by voidr »

untothebreach wrote: post #78
voidr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 the…

You keep saying they are enforcing 'the law,' when in fact they are just enforcing their own TOS, which is perfectly within their rights. > the fact is he paid for a service which the provider terminated This makes it sound like they just shut down his account, when in fact they communicated with him, telling him exactly what he would need to do to bring his content into compliance with their TOS, at which point he w…

> You keep saying they are enforcing 'the law,' when in fact they are just enforcing their own TOS, which is perfectly within their rights.

Relevant links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilantism

There are laws regarding defamation, I don't think DO can just opt in to enforce them. They can write anything in their TOS, wether or not it's legally enforceable is another question.

Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

#93

Post by Touche »

JackFr wrote: post #72
Touche wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an incident where there was a problem with one of my droplets and their response was to shut down all of my droplets , and only leave me a message saying they needed to verify my identity. I had to ask questions to even figure out why my droplets were shut down. After communicating with them for about a half a day they agreed to turn them all back on and in the future to only shut down the offending droplets (w…

More information about the 'incident' would allow readers to make an informed judgement about whether this was reasonable behavior or not.

Not sure what information you want. Do you think it's ever reasonable for a VPS provider to suspend an account without telling the customer why the account was suspended?

Doesn't the fact that they agreed to handle it differently in the future indicate that they even believe they handled it inappropriately?

Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

#94

Post by gizzlon »

jacques_chester wrote: post #66
Argorak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

and their contract, it seems like, says that they can police content.

It's still policing content. As a customer I didn't expect that they would for anything short of illegal.

Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

#95

Post by chillingeffect »

Argorak wrote: post #8
petercooper wrote: post #6

The 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.

Exactly. If the post is "socially negative," then that interaction is between the two people having the interaction. They have to work it out between themselves and let other people make up their own minds based on what they see. If the playground/commons/social theatre gets terminated every time two people disagree, then we'll never be able to work out anything worthwhile, justice will be harmed.

Harassment is pressure and intimidation. Travis Collins is a prevaricator for fabricating the story that the author was following him online and harassing him. DO doesn't have the resources, wisdom or dissociated self-interest to be able to properly police things and will botch themselves up seriously if they try. They should learn from history instead of retreating into Cover Your Ass mode.

Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

#96

Post by scarmig »

macspoofing wrote: post #36

Am 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 of what you said misses the point entirely. Was the original blog post stupid? Certainly. Is it irresponsible and probably harmful to a guy who did nothing wrong besides saying something maladroitly? Yes.

I don't care though: all of those things are well-within the law. If DigitalOcean's TOS means that they personally police content, then I'm out.

Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

#97

Post by andrewfong »

jacques_chester wrote: post #71
tmarman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key to any defamation claim is that it is a false statement. Truth is an affirmative defense.

> Truth is an affirmative defense. This varies by jurisdiction.

It's a defense in New York, which is Digital Ocean's jurisdiction.

Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

#98

Post by chillingeffect »

leephillips wrote: post #82
macspoofing wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't see why you assume it wasn't "on the record". Because it's a nice thing to do when you're dealing with private citizens. We're talking ethics here, and the thing about ethics is that they can essentially be boiled down to "don't be an asshole". This blog post can seriously hurt someone who never asked for it and doesn't deserve it. Why not be a little bit fair? If you're not sure if it's "off the record", as…

"all I see is a bully." I think that's a good word for him. Unfortunately, this is the way many journalists act much of the time - exactly how they create "stories" out of nothing. I guess while playing journalist this guy forgot that the didn't have the resources of a news organization to back him up, and now he has to fend for himself.

Hmm. It's not really about having the resources of a news organization. The "resources" are the inertia and hard-won philosophical reasoning behind having a free press. An individual's free speech has just the same amount of weight behind it as a large organization's.

So he's hardly fending for himself - he has the backing of all those who support free speech behind him. There are rather many of us.

Also, if your opinion of journalists is that many of them act this way, may I respectively suggest that it would benefit you to upgrade your news sources?

Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

#99

Post by andrewfong »

voidr wrote: post #64
untothebreach wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

The TOS is a contract. If the poster has "defamed" someone within the meaning of the contract, then DO is within their right to terminate. Moreover, the TOS also gives DO a lot of discretion to make their own determination of what constitutes defamation.

It is not vigilantism because DO is not threatening to throw the poster in jail over an allegedly illegal act. They are simply enforcing their contractual rights.

You could argue that this is a breach of contract, and that the poster must be shown in court to have defamed someone before the contract is terminated, but note that the section of the TOS that DO cites also says that the poster cannot "harass or embarrass" someone. That's pretty vague and gives DO a lot of leeway to argue that the poster breached the TOS. It's a pretty crappy TOS to be sure, but I wouldn't bet money on the poster winning a court case here.

Re: Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t edit a blog post.

#100

Post by zedpm »

Given his sensationalist writing style, I'm not at all surprised to see that it was a Gawker piece he questioned Travis Collins about. Gawker is Yellow Journalism[1] and as such deserves no response.

The larger issue makes for interesting discussion, however. I believe he's right that the complain ought to have been directed at the author initially, rather than at the hosting provider. I doubt it would have accomplished anything to complain to this individual, but it is nonetheless the correct procedure.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

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