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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.

#121

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…

> Am I the only one who sees Digital Ocean as acting ethically here?

Yes. Digital Ocean is just providing his VPS. Why should they be involved at all? If i say something about Scientology are they going to kill my VPS because they happen to like Scientology? What if i criticize anti-vaccination supporters?

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

#122
So, let's be clear:

1. The blogger signed up with DO and agreed to some TOS that prohibit certain types of activities.

2. He then, by his own admission, lurks in a chatroom.

3. He asks a Googler a question but does not disclose what he intends to do with it. By his own admission, he had no plans to write a piece.

4. He takes the Googler's comments, contorts them, and constructs a poorly written screed in which he, amongst various other calumnies against good taste, investigates the home address of the Googler and uses that to add dramatic effect to his hit piece.

5. The hoster -- whose TOS he explicitly agreed with at the start -- asks him politely to edit his piece to comply with the agreement. They seem to only require him to remove the personal identifying information.

6. Despite the fact that removing the name of the person would not really diminish the albeit half-baked and poorly thought out idea that the author is trying to get promote, he acts as though he is the one that should feel aggrieved and outraged for removing the Googler's name.

7. By doing so, he reveals his true intent. He isn't interested in making a point about Google; he is interested primarily in presenting the said Googler in a negative light and personally maligning him or inciting others to malign him.

Or, the shorter version, the blog author is an odious and obnoxious attention-whore and troll who is trying to build a reputation by demolishing the reputation of an innocent engineer; and then who is so blinded by his desire to get attention that he doesn't realise that he looks like an ignorant jackass by whinging and whining that DO are asking him to simply adhere to the TOS that he himself agreed to.

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

#123
post #51

Earlier 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

Which part of his statement was untrue?

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

#124
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.

"This varies by [the sanity of the] jurisdiction."

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

#126
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.

The others, to clarify, in that case being: a court.

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

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

>The hosting provider should err on the side of its customers as opposed to random third parties.

Maybe they do. This is a fairly clear case of online harassment. The guy acted like bully and it shows in his post. All they wanted from him was to remove references to his name. This is fairly standard - for example, Reddit frowns upon identifying people in certain stories because they had issues with vigilante mobs forming.

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

#128

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…

>There are at least two assholes involved in this story.

Whose the other asshole?

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

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 opi…

Except this isn't a free speech issue. Just like Reddit disallowing the identifications of individuals in certain kinds of stories is not a free speech issue. There are no free speech issues when a company does not wish to be associated with certain kinds of discourse on their servers. DO may have policies against hosting sites with hate speech, or pornographic content - that's ok, even though neither is illegal. This guy clearly crossed a line with the content and tone of his blog post. I think DO is being reasonable.

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

#130
post #116

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…

I think you are the Googler who was harassed, based on your distorted justification for Digital Ocean's unethical behavior and the fact that you don't see it as unethical. Here's a major reason why Digital Ocean was unethical: they took unilateral action based on a complaint from some googler transmitted to a highly placed Digital Ocean executive who the googler knew personally. If that's an acceptable resolution to…

>I think you are the Googler who was harassed

I have no connection to this Googler, to author, to Google or to DO. Believe it or not.

>they took unilateral action based on a complaint from some googler transmitted to a highly placed Digital Ocean executive who the googler knew personally.

They took unilateral action because they own the service, and maybe they took this action because it's quite evident what happened just by reading his post.

And all they did was ask him to remove identifying information, that's it. That's a very prudent and reasonable request. Reddit, for example, had major issues with vigilante groups forming after some inflammatory posting which also named some private individuals. More often than not, it led to innocent people being harassed. I've just re-read the original post, and it's a total personal attack against a private individual for no good reason. This bully went so far as to find out where the Googler lives.

The entire conspiracy theory around the fact that some DO executive may or may not know the Googler personally and that's why all this happened, is just some hand-waving speculation. I don't know anyone at DO and I don't know this Googler, and yet, I think this was the right move.

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