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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.

#101

Post by 27182818284 »

scarmig wrote: post #96
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.

This is how I see it too. If Google or the guy had a problem and contacted the blog, and then Digital Ocean, then it would seem fair for Digital Ocean to maybe step in depending on rules and whatnot, but to pseudo-personally step in and ask that the person's name be made anonymous feels like nepotism at work.

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

#102

Post by gdrulia »

Tloewald wrote: post #88
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…

There are at least two assholes involved in this story. If there were only one there would be no story. I think exposing what people say in the open (not private but also not quite public) isn't exactly something someone who works at google should be complaining about. If "stuff you do online can come back to haunt you" shocks you then you probably shouldn't be working at google (except perhaps as a contractor with n…

Two assholes?

Really? Ok, lets think about it, one of them tells his opinion about certain topic on a chat system which has very small community. Once he notices something fishy going on there, he mutes the other person.

The other one has different thoughts about the same topic and tries to get contradicting opinion. Than writes a blog about it in a manner that shows how bad and unfair that opinion is, even though that is really arguable topic.

And yet we end up with having to assholes. Quite a careless use of words I would say.

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

#103

Post by andrewfong »

leephillips wrote: post #74
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…

Although this guy is clearly a jerk, I'm crossing DO off my list of providers that I'm willing to use. I sometimes write controversial articles on my own website. These articles can make certain groups of people very angry and have elicited a range of responses up to and including me getting sued for defamation by two public figures (they lost). I have no interest in fighting with my hosting provider in addition to e…

> I have no interest in fighting with my hosting provider in addition to everything else

This is really the issue here. The hosting provider should err on the side of its customers as opposed to random third parties. There are a lot of edge cases on what can or should be legally hosted. The hosting provider may have the legal right to take down controversial content, but it's an absolutely cowardly thing to do. The free speech-friendly approach would be to side with its customers UNTIL the third party has obtained a court order that the content be taken down, rather than insist that their own customers get a court order insisting that the content stay up.

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

#104

Post by hect0r »

All DO are asking the blog author to do is to just honour the Terms of Service that he himself agreed to. I don't see any controversy here; it is all very simple.

Maybe, the blog author is attention-seeking and trying to manufacture outrage by trying to cast himself as a "victim". The real victim, if there is one, is the Googler who has had his conversations in a closed forum relayed to the world and editorialised by someone who obviously didn't explain his true intents. Anyway, if the blog author disagrees and doesn't feel that he wants to honour his contract then he can just move his blog or, as DO suggest, launch legal action and get an injunction. I suspect though he will just skulk off and look for some other controversy to rant about.

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

#105

Post by cordite »

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.

I agree with that.

What does an individual do at a time like this? It seems his solution is to try to rally up people in anger and emotion against DO.

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

#106

Post by andrewfong »

nobodyshere wrote: post #60
blueskin_ wrote: post #12

Don't use Digital Ocean. Every time I hear their name, it's a complete index of WTFs.

Find me another service that praises you for violation of their TOS. I'd be really pleased to find at least one.

TOSes are what they are, but at least Rackspace's TOS doesn't prohibit acts that "embarrass" someone.

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

#107

Post by rsynnott »

ddebernardy wrote: post #90

It's surprising that wordpress.com leaves this petty post up. OP is likely violating their ToS too...

How's that surprising? Most blogging providers (Wordpress, Blogger etc.) and indeed large ISPs in general are pretty tolerant of things that are merely potentially offensive to an individual, as opposed to libellous.

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

#108

Post by mrjatx »

Touche wrote: post #93
JackFr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is not remotely rare in web hosting. If you're on a shared host and over consume resources you'll be shutdown before the admin has a chance to even generate a ticket. Some hosts don't even generate a ticket, they just suspend the account with a page that informs the owner that they've over consumed resources.

Not saying it's great, but when you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of VPS/cPanel accounts and one account affecting 5000 other accounts on a server you're sometimes forced into a corner where you have to act as quickly as possible.

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

#110

Post by jasonlotito »

macspoofing wrote: post #84
jasonlotito wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

>Post something someone doesn't like, despite it being true? It can be removed. Which service would allow you to just post anything you like?

Outside of things like child porn and other blatantly illegal things, there are lots of hosting providers that allow you to post things others may not like.

Basically, it's as if Amazon threatened someone's account on AWS because someone posted an article about something Jeff Bezos actually said.

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