news GoDaddy terminates hosting of Texas anti-abortion tip website

mr-x said:

Not the place to debate abortion so I end with a simple question, do your parents sins make you worth less ?

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Probably not the place to discuss religion either then.

The bottom line is the "law" is not a real law as it has no legal enforcement mechanism.

Brad

bmugford said:

@Rob Monster

If Texas Right to Life was unwilling to change their website, would you still be willing to host their website with the original contact form?

Would that type of website be compatible with your TOS?

Brad

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First of all, they showed up at Epik without introducing themselves.

The same thing happened with 8Chan with whom we quickly parted ways after it became apparent that they were poorly equipped to self-govern.

If ProLifeWhistleBlower had not pivoted their approach we would have parted ways. That ultimatum was never presented, but that was the internal conversation.

Free speech within the bounds of the law is not an open license to engage in chaos generation.

Our simple acid test is usually this:

1. Does the content in the aggregate edify?

2. Are the governors that are behind the project serving as a force for good?

If the answer to both questions is yes, we'll work with them to clean up the mess. It is a lot more work, but it ultimately leads to a better outcome and loyal clients.

It also happens to be a Christ-like approach -- Jesus famously dined with "sinners and publicans", e.g. see Mark 2:16.

Rehabilitating digital projects that are built on good intentions are my specialty. That duty sometimes comes with the often thankless task of separating wheat from chaff. It requires a modicum of thick skin.

Rob Monster said:

If ProLifeWhistleBlower had not pivoted their approach we would have parted ways. That ultimatum was never presented, but that was the internal conversation.

Free speech within the bounds of the law is not an open license to engage in chaos generation.

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Thanks for clarifying that.

I was just interested because some people have been attacking GoDaddy for booting the site as if this is some freedom of speech issue, which it is clearly not.

This was not some media attack. Texas Right to Life made a poor, ill-concieved decision. They should just take responsibility instead of blaming others.

Brad

bmugford said:

Thanks for clarifying that.

I was just interested because some people have been attacking GoDaddy for booting the site as if this is some freedom of speech issue, which it is clearly not.

This was not some media attack. Texas Right to Life made a poor, ill-concieved decision. They should just take responsibility instead of blaming others.

Brad

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True, and Godaddy threw the baby out with the bathwater.

They aborted the fetus when adoption was a better option.

The universe corrected the issue and lemonade was served in abundance.

Rob Monster said:

True, and Godaddy threw the baby out with the bathwater.

They aborted the fetus when adoption was a better option.

The universe corrected the issue and lemonade was served in abundance.

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Sometimes the foetus needs to be aborted so the mum can drink lemonade in the future......

Religious arrogance only gets the mother so far...........

If some fetuses were not aborted this thread would be longer and vice versa is the opposite.
This people who are pro abortions don't realize they could be the ones aborted, no offence to anyone please.
The Godaddy not sure if they gave a chance to fix the mistake or just cut the roots of that web without any chance, if that is the case shame on them, also will point that Godaddy changes WHOIS of fresh hand regs which I did not reg, some salt in their faces from their old customer.

iTesla said:

If some fetuses were not aborted this thread would be longer and vice versa is the opposite.
This people who are pro abortions don't realize they could be the ones aborted, no offence to anyone please.
The Godaddy not sure if they gave a chance to fix the mistake or just cut the roots of that web without any chance, if that is the case shame on them, also will point that Godaddy changes WHOIS of fresh hand regs which I did not reg, some salt in their faces from their old customer.

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GoDaddy has no responsibility to a party that is clearly breaking their TOS. No reasonable hosting company would have allowed that type of website.

Also, not many people are "pro abortion".

There is no chance society is going to accept abortion being outlawed in cases of rape, incest, or health of the mother.

These victims had no choice in the first place. All that does is make it worse for the victims if they don't have any choice later.

Brad

Shame Godaddy; Cancel culture

bmugford said:

Probably not the place to discuss religion either then.

The bottom line is the "law" is not a real law as it has no legal enforcement mechanism.

Brad

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I didn't think of rape or incest as a religious sin. It's basic moral code we all know.

Samer said:

Shame Godaddy; Cancel culture

https://twitter.com/x/status/1433819084068622345

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Steve Silberman needs to read the Constitution then.

This has nothing to do with freedoms or cancel culture. Even Rob said he would not have hosted the site as it was.

Again, collecting and storing private personal information such as medical records from 3rd parties without permission likely violates many laws, and is morally reprehensible.

Brad

I was thinking on something eralier which can happen in my case, I personally want to build websites which will be against the Governments and to escape the website to be shut down is to build my personal Hosting PC, so my PC will host my websites and no one can take the content down, only if they come to me and put a gun at my head. I think this is the only solution for such websites, if they want to continue to run as they did by breaking the laws, in short I feel we soon will see more decentralized Internet.

Other idea, why there is no local domain host possibility yet?
Some kind of certificate from Registrar/Registry which will renew when you connect to internet and the domains hosted on your PC, this can be an idea for future. Also in case of as people discuss in other thread (which I also was thinking) about an WW3 scenario, flood and other natural or artificial disasters, it can be a solution to host our own domains even the possibility to store a copy of domains on portable memory like USB stick, HDD, SSD etc. Something similar to a hardware wallet for crypto.

iTesla said:

I was thinking on something eralier which can happen in my case, I personally want to build websites which will be against the Governments and to escape the website to be shut down is to build my personal Hosting PC, so my PC will host my websites and no one can take the content down, only if they come to me and put a gun at my head. I think this is the only solution for such websites, if they want to continue to run as they did by breaking the laws, in short I feel we soon will see more decentralized Internet.

Other idea, why there is no local domain host possibility yet?
Some kind of certificate from Registrar/Registry which will renew when you connect to internet and the domains hosted on your PC, this can be an idea for future. Also in case of as people discuss in other thread (which I also was thinking) about an WW3 scenario, flood and other natural or artificial disasters, it can be a solution to host our own domains even the possibility to store a copy of domains on portable memory like USB stick, HDD, SSD etc. Something similar to a hardware wallet for crypto.

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As far as your first idea goes -

1.) Many ISP simply don't allow you to host a website on their connection.
2.) Even if they do, they have a TOS that governs what you are allowed to do. Any TOS is going to give them wide leeway to do as they choose.
3.) You don't normally have enough bandwidth to host a (even moderately popular) website.
4.) The ISP would not have to hold a gun to your head. They could simply turn off your connection either via their own choice or request of legal authorities.

The bottom line is any option that involves a 3rd party registry/registrar, hosting, connection, etc. is going to be subject to a TOS. Even outside that, legal authorities can take down a website with ease via any number of legal (or other) mechanisms.

Brad

iTesla said:

I was thinking on something eralier which can happen in my case, I personally want to build websites which will be against the Governments and to escape the website to be shut down is to build my personal Hosting PC, so my PC will host my websites and no one can take the content down, only if they come to me and put a gun at my head. I think this is the only solution for such websites, if they want to continue to run as they did by breaking the laws, in short I feel we soon will see more decentralized Internet.

Other idea, why there is no local domain host possibility yet?
Some kind of certificate from Registrar/Registry which will renew when you connect to internet and the domains hosted on your PC, this can be an idea for future. Also in case of as people discuss in other thread (which I also was thinking) about an WW3 scenario, flood and other natural or artificial disasters, it can be a solution to host our own domains even the possibility to store a copy of domains on portable memory like USB stick, HDD, SSD etc. Something similar to a hardware wallet for crypto.

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Keep it on the darknet or in some 'obscure' places in Europe. Hosting it at home is asking for trouble.

Rob Monster said:

If you bother to look at the site, you will see it now redirects to the site of the 46 year old organization that is championing pro-life causes:

https://texasrighttolife.com/

The prior whistleblower site is completely offline.

The media, including forum threads like this one, fanned the awareness flames.

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Yes, this. I dont even know where to begin.

I know! WashPost (owned by Jeff Bezos)
Look at the atrocious, egregious coverage.
WOW. Rob, they dont care about the story. They just care about painting their narrative.

WashPost calls epik:
Folks, they dont acknowledge epik registrar.
They acknowledge Godaddy as one. Nothing bad is said of Godaddy. Rob already said many times, why he cut 8Chan -WP doesnt care. As far as WP’s concerned epik is the big bad boogeyman that accepts everything. This journalism is Despicable. — It feeds hate. Epik cares more about your rights, than # NoDaddy.
Did you know, Washington Post is paid?

A rag, i dont want with my Apple News, lol.
PS: i thought u made negligible amt hosting.
Are you a hosting company, or Registrar? The hateful WashPost piece makes epik like a lawless hosting provider. — Dont give ‘em an interview, Rob. character statement they wont hesitate to to use by twist against you. This is nothing to what they are capable of



it’s why i & many call them “Wash Compost”Thanks for addressing us, human CEO; on what let to the ultimate decision at hand.

Salute you, @Rob Monster and support you

Samer

Samer said:

Yes, this. I dont even know where to begin.

I know! WashPost (owned by Jeff Bezos)
Look at the atrocious, egregious coverage.
WOW. Rob, they dont care about the story. They just care about painting their narrative.

WashPost calls epik:

“a web hosting company that has supported other websites tech companies rejected, such Gab, 8chan”
​

Folks, they dont acknowledge epik registrar.
They acknowledge Godaddy as one. Nothing bad is said of Godaddy. Rob already said many times, why he cut 8Chan -WP doesnt care. As far as WP’s concerned epik is the big bad boogeyman that accepts everything. This journalism is Despicable. — It feeds hate. Epik cares more about your rights, than # NoDaddy.
Did you know, Washington Post is paid?

A rag, i dont want with my Apple News, lol.
PS: i thought u made negligible amt hosting.
Are you a hosting company, or Registrar? The hateful WashPost piece makes epik like a lawless hosting provider. — Dont give ‘em an interview, Rob. character statement they wont hesitate to to use by twist against you. This is nothing to what they are capable of

Show attachment 198885

it’s why i & many call them “Wash Compost”Thanks for addressing us, human CEO; on what let to the ultimate decision at hand.

Salute you, @Rob Monster and support you

Samer

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You can argue about biased reporting all your want, but this is not a story about "cancel culture" or freedom of speech. If anyone was violating freedoms, it was Texas Right to Life when they set up a form to collect, store, and likely act on private information like medical records from anonymous 3rd parties.

There is just no way to deflect that by blaming others. What they did is so irresponsible and likely not compatible with several laws.

It is not GoDaddy's responsibility to make sure a website is in compliance with their TOS. Any reputable host would have booted them.

It was Rob's choice to work with them, but as the site originally existed he said he would not have hosted it @ Epik.

People have a right to privacy. There is nothing more private than medical records. That is a right that has been upheld by the Supreme Court time and time again.

There is no Constitutional right for vigilantes to collect, store, and use private medical information to intimidate and harass others.

That is why this law is so ridiculous at face value, and will not withstand any serious legal challenge. It is not a "law" if there is no mechanism for law enforcement officers to enforce it.

No serious court challenge is going to give standing to unrelated, uninjured 3rd parties. That is a foreign concept to the US legal system.

It is one of the slipperiest slopes I have ever seen and could be abused in countless ways from the most conservative to the most liberal areas.

Brad

Rob Monster said:

First of all, they showed up at Epik without introducing themselves.

The same thing happened with 8Chan with whom we quickly parted ways after it became apparent that they were poorly equipped to self-govern.

If ProLifeWhistleBlower had not pivoted their approach we would have parted ways. That ultimatum was never presented, but that was the internal conversation.

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Samer said:

Dont give ‘em an interview, Rob. character statement they wont hesitate to to use by twist against you.

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I think what Rob said above was perfectly reasonable.

At the end of the day every registrar/host has a TOS, and no major webhost would have hosted that website as it was. Outside the ethical issues, it could expose the host to serious legal issues as well.

Brad

bmugford said:

You can argue about biased reporting all your want, but this is not a story about "cancel culture" or freedom of speech. If anyone was violating freedoms, it was Texas Right to Life when they set up a form to collect, store, and likely act on private information like medical records from anonymous 3rd parties.

There is just no way to deflect that by blaming others. What they did is so irresponsible and likely not compatible with several laws.

It is not GoDaddy's responsibility to make sure a website is in compliance with their TOS. Any reputable host would have booted them.

It was Rob's choice to work with them, but as the site originally existed he said he would not have hosted it @ Epik.

People have a right to privacy. There is nothing more private than medical records. That is a right that has been upheld by the Supreme Court time and time again.

There is no Constitutional right for vigilantes to collect, store, and use private medical information to intimidate and harass others.

That is why this law is so ridiculous at face value, and will not withstand any serious legal challenge. It is not a "law" if there is no mechanism for law enforcement officers to enforce it.

No serious court challenge is going to give standing to unrelated, uninjured 3rd parties. That is a foreign concept to the US legal system.

It is one of the slipperiest slopes I have ever seen and could be abused in countless ways from the most conservative to the most liberal areas.

Brad

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@Samer was commenting on the way wapo characterized Epik, not the website. Story is Rob Got them to change the website, but as usual first two thirds of the story were editorial

mr-x said:

@Samer was commenting on the way wapo characterized Epik, not the website. Story is Rob Got them to change the website, but as usual first two thirds of the story were editorial

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Yep, I just posted above that what Rob said was reasonable IMO. He would not have been willing to host the site as it originally was.

That is something the story probably should have pointed out, but I have no idea what went on behind the scenes.

Did they reach out to Rob for comment? Did they not reach out? Did Rob not comment? Did he comment and they didn't use it? I have no idea.

The facts of what happened though are not that debatable. Texas Right to Life tried doing something morally and legally unacceptable, then blamed others when there was push back and the contact form was rightfully shut down. They need to take responsibility for their own ill-conceived actions.

Brad

You raise a lot of good questions. You’d think a responsible journalist would have thought of them before editorializing

bmugford said:

You can argue about biased reporting all your want, but this is not a story about "cancel culture" or freedom of speech. If anyone was violating freedoms, it was Texas Right to Life when they set up a form to collect, store, and likely act on private information like medical records from anonymous 3rd parties.

There is just no way to deflect that by blaming others. What they did is so irresponsible and likely not compatible with several laws.

It is not GoDaddy's responsibility to make sure a website is in compliance with their TOS. Any reputable host would have booted them.

It was Rob's choice to work with them, but as the site originally existed he said he would not have hosted it @ Epik.

People have a right to privacy. There is nothing more private than medical records. That is a right that has been upheld by the Supreme Court time and time again.

There is no Constitutional right for vigilantes to collect, store, and use private medical information to intimidate and harass others.

That is why this law is so ridiculous at face value, and will not withstand any serious legal challenge. It is not a "law" if there is no mechanism for law enforcement officers to enforce it.

No serious court challenge is going to give standing to unrelated, uninjured 3rd parties. That is a foreign concept to the US legal system.

It is one of the slipperiest slopes I have ever seen and could be abused in countless ways from the most conservative to the most liberal areas.

Brad

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I guess this covers it nicely. Well put.

As for the media coverage... They need traffic. Journalism (if you can even call it that) isn't what it used to be.

bmugford said:

I think what Rob said above was perfectly reasonable.

At the end of the day every registrar/host has a TOS, and no major webhost would have hosted that website as it was. Outside the ethical issues, it could expose the host to serious legal issues as well.

Brad

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@Samer @Rob Monster @mr-x

Even Epik says the Texas abortion “whistleblower” site violates its rules

Epik says "collecting anonymous tips" about abortions violates its terms of use.

Epik general counsel Daniel Prince emailed Ars and other news organizations on Sunday, saying, "When the site owner moved it to Epik's name servers... we contacted the owner of the site, notified them that the website violated Epik's terms of use, and persuaded them to stop collecting anonymous tips and to take it off the Internet entirely. At no time did Epik serve as the web host for prolifewhistleblower.com."

When asked why Epik hasn't terminated the site's domain registration, Prince told us today that "the domain is not currently violating our terms of service by simply redirecting to the main page of Texas Right to Life. If that changes, we'll address it." Epik did not tell us which rule the site breaks, but a Daily Beast article said the "specific violation was reportedly the collection of information on third parties without their consent."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ortion-whistleblower-site-violates-its-rules/

For anyone interested, here is one Supreme Court ruling that is going to come up in the near future.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/07/opinion/how-massachusetts-case-could-end-texas-abortion-law/

In an 8-1 ruling the Supreme Court basically rejected the entire flawed concept of a state delegating governmental power to private parties.

To quote the court in Grendel’s Den “delegate[ing] to private, nongovernmental entities power to veto … a power ordinarily vested in agencies of government.” As the court said, it is difficult in such situations to imagine “any ‘effective means of guaranteeing’ that the delegated power ‘will be used exclusively for secular, neutral, and nonideological purposes.’

Why would anyone purchase hosting from Godaddy ?

Get your own dedicated server! NOT from Godaddy!!!

bmugford said:

For anyone interested, here is one Supreme Court ruling that is going to come up in the near future.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/07/opinion/how-massachusetts-case-could-end-texas-abortion-law/

In an 8-1 ruling the Supreme Court basically rejected the entire flawed concept of a state delegating governmental power to private parties.

To quote the court in Grendel’s Den “delegate[ing] to private, nongovernmental entities power to veto … a power ordinarily vested in agencies of government.” As the court said, it is difficult in such situations to imagine “any ‘effective means of guaranteeing’ that the delegated power ‘will be used exclusively for secular, neutral, and nonideological purposes.’

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"A legal decision once prevented a church from vetoing a Harvard Square restaurant’s liquor license."

The Texas abortion law was passed by the Gov. Not Private Citizens.

People think of abortion as a religious issue because they do not value life or have not admitted that every abortion kills a human.

There may be times an abortion is morally, medically responsible but the vast majority are elective and a barbaric form of birth control. An entire industry has developed to kill humans, process their remains and sell the pieces.

Objecting to abortion is as religious as objecting to murder.

1) Abortion is not a enumerated right. It was "construed" as a right using flawed reasoning.

2) Abortion deprives another human of the most basic right, the right to live.

3) Abortion is not healthcare or reproductive health ( euphemisms ). It's termination of a life. Democrats now support killing human babies that are born alive ( survive the abortion ).

When you do stop and look in the mirror?




</rant>

Does collecting anonymous tips about other crimes violate their TOS or just abortion?

bmugford said:

@Samer @Rob Monster @mr-x

Even Epik says the Texas abortion “whistleblower” site violates its rules

Epik says "collecting anonymous tips" about abortions violates its terms of use.

Epik general counsel Daniel Prince emailed Ars and other news organizations on Sunday, saying, "When the site owner moved it to Epik's name servers... we contacted the owner of the site, notified them that the website violated Epik's terms of use, and persuaded them to stop collecting anonymous tips and to take it off the Internet entirely. At no time did Epik serve as the web host for prolifewhistleblower.com."

When asked why Epik hasn't terminated the site's domain registration, Prince told us today that "the domain is not currently violating our terms of service by simply redirecting to the main page of Texas Right to Life. If that changes, we'll address it." Epik did not tell us which rule the site breaks, but a Daily Beast article said the "specific violation was reportedly the collection of information on third parties without their consent."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...ortion-whistleblower-site-violates-its-rules/

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Not sure why you cc'd me, I already said it was a bad idea. I also said hacking Epik was politically motivated.