GoDaddy Reignites Debate Over Infrastructure Layer Moderation By Banning Texas Anti-Abortion Snitch Site

from the never-ends dept

The debate over content moderation at the infrastructure (rather than edge) layers of the internet stack is heating up again. For what it's worth, we'll be hosting our next Techdirt Tech Policy Greenhouse on this very subject later this month (if you're interested in contributing, please reach out). Last week Reuters claimed that Amazon was going to more aggressively police sites that rely on AWS (which created a bit of a furor earlier this year when the company booted Parler). Amazon has denied these claims, but it certainly raised some eyebrows.

Then, on Friday, hosting company GoDaddy announced that it had given Texas Right To Live 24 hours notice that it was shutting down the snitch site that organization was running as part of Texas's ridiculously unconstitutional plan to allow anyone to sue anyone for vaguely "aiding and abetting" someone getting an abortion. As some commentators noted, such a site appeared to violate some of GoDaddy's policies -- and that's exactly what GoDaddy said in telling the site it had 24 hours to find a new host.

GoDaddy claimed that the snitch site violated multiple policies, but the one that everyone has focused on is Section 5.2 of its terms:

You will not collect or harvest (or permit anyone else to collect or harvest) any User Content (as defined below) or any non-public or personally identifiable information about another User or any other person or entity without their express prior written consent.

I have to admit that that clause is... pretty vague. I understand the intent behind it, certainly, but the language could be applied to lots of sites that collect some information for purely non-nefarious purposes. Under this policy, would it be against GoDaddy's terms to create a private site that allowed people to discuss -- for example -- incidents of sexual harassment, such as what happened during the #MeToo movement?

There was, separately, the issue of the fact that the site was being (somewhat hilariously) flooded by bogus snitching reports, designed to make the site useless. Some enterprising coders had even hacked together a simple script to flood the site with bogus snitching info.

Either way, within hours, the site was back up on Digital Ocean... and then was kicked off again (again, for claims of policy violations). It quickly then found another home on Epik, which is kind of the last hosting refuge of assholes who piss off every other hosting company (it has worked with Gab, Parler, and 8chan at times). Update: And apparently even Epik wanted nothing to do with the site and told the operators that it violated Epik's terms of service as well...

As we discussed when the Parler situation hit, we should look at infrastructure-level moderation as being fundamentally different from edge layer moderation. There are different things at play, and the impact is much greater. Moderation at the infrastructure layer can not be narrowly targeted. It is, by default, a sledge hammer approach. That said, (again as we noted in the Parler situation), it is not as big of a concern when there is widespread competition. The larger concern appears in non-competitive markets. Thankfully, as the site's ability to bounce around and find new hosts quickly has demonstrated, the hosting market still is pretty competitive.

That's not to say that there don't remain some concerns about what happens at the infrastructure layer of the internet and who should have the power to shut down entire websites. It's just to note that the issue a lot more complex than any simplistic analysis will entail. Either way, stay tuned for the Greenhouse posts later this month...

Filed Under: abortion, content moderation, domain registrars, domains, hosting, infrastructure, texas
Companies: digital ocean, epik, godaddy, texas right to live

Parler Attempting to Come Back Online, Still Insisting The Site's Motivation Is 'Privacy' Despite Leaking Details On All Its Users

from the about-that dept

Last week, I explained my thoughts on why the Parler takedown from AWS didn't bother me that much -- considering that there were many other cloud and webhosting solutions out there. Yet Parler has quickly discovered that many other providers aren't interested in hosting the company's cesspool of garbage content either. As I pointed out, at some point, some element of that has to be on Parler for attracting such an audience of garbage-spewers. Either way, we figured the site would eventually be back up, and now it appears that it's on its way. The site put up a holding page with a few "Parlezs" (their version of tweets) from its execs and lead cheerleaders.

The site appears to be using Epik for hosting and DDoSGuard for DDoS protection. Neither of these are that surprising. Epik has built up something of a specialty in hosting the garbage, hate-filled websites no one else wants to touch. It has hosted Gab, 8chan/8kun, and The Daily Stormer among others. DDoSGuard is a somewhat sketchy Russian company that provides services to an equally sketchy group of sites -- and some terrorist groups. Brian Krebs has recently discussed how DDoSGuard may create some significant liability issues:

A review of the several thousand websites hosted by DDoS-Guard is revelatory, as it includes a vast number of phishing sites and domains tied to cybercrime services or forums online.

Replying to requests for comment from a CBSNews reporter following up on my Oct. 2020 story, DDoS-Guard issued a statement saying, “We observe network neutrality and are convinced that any activity not prohibited by law in our country has the right to exist.”

But experts say DDoS-Guard’s business arrangement with a Denver-based publicly traded data center firm could create legal headaches for the latter thanks to the Russian company’s support of Hamas.

Ooof. There's a lot more in Krebs' writeup.

But what struck me as most ridiculous about Parler's holding page (beyond trying to hide behind MLK Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" as if Parler's raging nut job userbase is somehow oppressed) is that the company is still claiming that beyond being a place for (a misunderstood concept of) "free speech," that the impetus behind the site was about "protecting privacy."

That reads:

Now seems like the right time to remind you all — both lovers and haters — why we started this platform. We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social media. Our aim has always been to provide a nonpartisan public square where individuals can enjoy and exercise their rights to both.

We will resolve any challenge before us and plan to welcome all of you back soon. We will not let civil discourse perish!

The "privacy is paramount" line is one that Parler really only started spewing more recently. Rebekah Mercer used a similar line when she outed herself as a co-founder of the platform and it never made any sense at all. After all, Mercer was also behind Cambridge Analytica, a company involved in what is now considered one of the biggest privacy breaches in the history of social media. The whole "privacy" claim seemed like little more than a convenient talking point to pretend that their approach was somewhat different than Facebook's or Google's.

But in the case of Parler, it's even more ridiculous. After all, this was a company that required users who wanted to get its version of "verified" to hand over their social security numbers. And, of course, before Parler shut down, a hacker was able to grab nearly the entire corpus of Parler posts, including pictures and videos that did not have location metadata stripped out. This allowed multiple reporters to find and highlight Parler users as they stormed the Capitol, exposing exactly who was raiding the Capitol and what evidence they revealed about their own activities. Indeed, it's becoming clear that law enforcement is using this data to go around arresting tons of people.

Doesn't seem that privacy protecting, after all, now does it?

Of course, much of this seems to be due to just plain old incompetence, rather than malice. Last week there was also a fascinating thread on Parler's clueless CTO, who didn't seem to understand some fairly basic things about running a large internet-scale service. That thread, by software engineer Sarah Mei is worth reading, if only to reach the conclusion, that Parler "might have done better with four ferrets in a trench coat."

So, yes, the site may be coming back, but to say that it takes privacy seriously, while asking for social security numbers, hosted on a dodgy host, with a DDoS provider best known for its Russian home-base and its willingness to provide services to terrorists and online criminals... I would suggest that anyone who thinks of Parler as supportive of privacy, do so at their own risk.

Filed Under: competition, ddos, free speech, hosting, privacy, russia
Companies: ddosguard, epik, parler