Social Network Gab.com being threatened by GoDaddy: 24 hours to transfer or suspension

[domainguy50]

backstory: Gab is a social network alternative to twitter. their selling point is free speech (all speech is welcome, including what you believe might be hate speech.) which is basically is the first amendment. no unlawful material is allowed, but virtually any speech is. recently they purchased the "gab com" domain for $220k.

this site is very controversial as a result, with mainstream media outlets claiming it is popular with nazi and anti-semite messages. the site has 800,000 users and has experienced modest growth recently so it really isnt all bad hate speech. regardless, those disgusting messages on the site by some users are also lawful no matter how distasteful they are. as a result of these media attacks, (and the recent revelation that the synagogue shooter in pittsburgh yesterday had an active gab profile) gab is being unfairly targeted by smear campaigns online reporting the site as "a hate speech site" via email to gab's service providers.

gabs host (microsoft) revoked its contract with gab a few months ago

gabs payment providers (paypal and stripe) just revoked their services

just a few minutes ago, godaddy has said they will stop working with gab:
(i cant post the image or link idk why)
"BREAKING: Godaddy is threatening to suspend our domain (which is worth six figures) if we do not transfer to a new provider by tomorrow. This is madness."

the complexity of the situation is compounded by the fact that Gab is on a payment plan to fully own the domain since they recently purchased it. the broker/escrow agent control this which makes it even more difficult for the company to transfer to a new registrar by EOD tomorrow.

I understand that Godaddy is a private business and its clauses may allow it to do this, but this seems extreme overreaction. "24 hours to transfer or else" is a very menacing way of doing business.

-if you were in charge of gab what would you do? create your own payment processor, host, and DNS? they got deplatformed quickly... i guess they could try to get an offshore Hosting company or invest in native hosting.

-what is the most "free speech" friendly DNS provider there is?

-is it fair for internet infrastructure companies to de-platform a small upstart social network because of controversial speech? or should companies like DNS and hosting should be regulated and allow any customer as long as it is lawful content being hosted.

 

[offthehandle]

Here we go again, the EU and the French over reach.

First they steal a 20 year old domain name France.com, now this madness. It's not like Archive.org is even used by the general public often, but I could be wrong.

Few US people I would imagine care about or even go to .FR French websites, or even read care to learn or French so if the French want to visit English websites- use a VPN. Archive.org should simply block all IP addresses and their website access, let them police their own citizens.

Again the idiocy of the pathetic wimp nation of France and EU chumps are now attempting to control what Archive.org collects. It seems a stretch that US Courts would allow jurisdiction, but in the crazy new world it would not surprise me a cave-in somehow. Like the 24 hours notice GAB was given to leave, the French push it even more stupid- as if like 1 hour is even possible. Disgusting bullshit from the French/EU. Most commerce occurs in the US, therefore the US should dictate policy and shove it down the throat of the rest of the world. Censor your citizens. They have no definition I can see yet either of what is "terrorism.", it's difficult enough to debate free speech with anyone.

"The European Parliament is set to vote on legislation that would require websites that host user-generated content to take down material reported as terrorist content within one hour. We have some examples of current notices sent to the Internet Archive that we think illustrate very well why this requirement would be harmful to the free sharing of information and freedom of speech that the European Union pledges to safeguard.

In the past week, the Internet Archive has received a series of email notices from French Internet Referral Unit (French IRU) falsely identifying hundreds of URLs on archive.org as “terrorist propaganda”. At least one of these mistaken URLs was also identified as terrorist content in a separate take down notice sent under the authority of the French government’s L’Office Central de Lutte contre la Criminalité liée aux Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (OCLCTIC).

The one-hour requirement essentially means that we would need to take reported URLs down automatically and do our best to review them after the fact.

It would be bad enough if the mistaken URLs in these examples were for a set of relatively obscure items on our site, but the French IRU’s lists include some of the most visited pages on archive.org and materials that obviously have high scholarly and research value. See a summary below with specific examples."


https://blog.archive.org/2019/04/10...an-550-archive-org-urls-as-terrorist-content/

 

[Rob Monster]

Here we go again, the EU and the French over reach.

First they steal a 20 year old domain name France.com, now this madness. It's not like Archive.org is even used by the general public often, but I could be wrong.

Few US people I would imagine care about or even go to .FR French websites, or even read care to learn or French so if the French want to visit English websites- use a VPN. Archive.org should simply block all IP addresses and their website access, let them police their own citizens.

Again the idiocy of the pathetic wimp nation of France and EU chumps are now attempting to control what Archive.org collects. It seems a stretch that US Courts would allow jurisdiction, but in the crazy new world it would not surprise me a cave-in somehow. Like the 24 hours notice GAB was given to leave, the French push it even more stupid- as if like 1 hour is even possible. Disgusting bullsh*t from the French/EU. Most commerce occurs in the US, therefore the US should dictate policy and shove it down the throat of the rest of the world. Censor your citizens. They have no definition I can see yet either of what is "terrorism.", it's difficult enough to debate free speech with anyone.

"The European Parliament is set to vote on legislation that would require websites that host user-generated content to take down material reported as terrorist content within one hour. We have some examples of current notices sent to the Internet Archive that we think illustrate very well why this requirement would be harmful to the free sharing of information and freedom of speech that the European Union pledges to safeguard.

In the past week, the Internet Archive has received a series of email notices from French Internet Referral Unit (French IRU) falsely identifying hundreds of URLs on archive.org as “terrorist propaganda”. At least one of these mistaken URLs was also identified as terrorist content in a separate take down notice sent under the authority of the French government’s L’Office Central de Lutte contre la Criminalité liée aux Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (OCLCTIC).

The one-hour requirement essentially means that we would need to take reported URLs down automatically and do our best to review them after the fact.

It would be bad enough if the mistaken URLs in these examples were for a set of relatively obscure items on our site, but the French IRU’s lists include some of the most visited pages on archive.org and materials that obviously have high scholarly and research value. See a summary below with specific examples."


https://blog.archive.org/2019/04/10...an-550-archive-org-urls-as-terrorist-content/

Archive.org is quite remarkable. I don't understand the economic model, but there are many times that it has helped people a ton, e.g. if a host goes down, e.g. Alpnames recently, and people had no backup of their website content. It happens more often than you think as we are routinely re-constructing websites for customers where there was some dispute with some stakeholder. Archive.org saved the day.

As for the process of takedown requests, the evidence is ample now that this will apply to a great number of websites. That is what is most troubling about solutions like Trusted Notifier or Registrar of Last Resort whereby you either have compliance or you risk having your domain taken offline at the registry level, or losing the domain entirely to a digital gulag.

This is really why I see the importance of Resilient Domains, as it combines a Forever domain with unlimited VPNs for users to connect to the content. While this lowers a site's Alexa rank, it allows publisher and consumer to engage securely with no practical scope for packet-sniffing as AES-256 cipher is essentially quantum-resistant.

I agree with you that the industrial sanitization of the big social media products will just cause folks to leave. As the web dev tools get better, decentralization should increase. The open question will then be how soon before registrars are required to go through central identity verification to sell someone a domain name. This is the other big reason why I like Forever domains.

 

[Rob Monster]

I have not read all of this thread, but I like the comments made by Rob about Epik's protection of free speech. Except that the protection is limited to what they consider free speech?

We protect lawful free speech. There are some situations where we don't need to wait for a court decision to know that some content is unlawful, e.g. a site that actively promoted rape.

A challenge with user generated content is that inflammatory content can be posted, and create just cause for a takedown. The key there is being certain that management is actively monitoring and taking action.

As stated elsewhere, we do our best to protect lawful free speech without bias or preference, but also without being coerced or intimidated by those who rely on the court of public opinion.

I am sure most registrars who deal with these cases never thought that this would be a meaningful part of the job. The thought never crossed my mind in 2011 when Epik.com became a registrar.

 

[MolaRam]

Without hijacking the thread too much - what is Epik's Forever registration about? Is it a lump sum paid upfront or is it another name for auto-renewal?

 

[Rob Monster]

Without hijacking the thread too much - what is Epik's Forever registration about? Is it a lump sum paid upfront or is it another name for auto-renewal?

The Forever domain is a one-time forever domain purchase, e.g. $399 for .COM. It varies by TLD:

https://www.epik.com/forever/

Epik renews the domain for the maximum period and then renews each year on the anniversary. For people who never intend to drop a domain it is a time savings, stress reduction and long-term cost savings.

The Resilient domain is a Forever domain with BitMitigate enabled, including unlimited user VPNs to connect to the domain securely -- essentially enabling a public domain to work like a VPN.

 

[frank-germany]

free speech?

better be quite sometimes
when you live in Brunei

https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/brunei-todesstrafe-homosexuelle-101.html

that is about the state of Brunei
telling the European Union
to be tolerant and to understand their position

as they have that penalty of
stone to death

for homosexuals people
( male I guess )
oh no - I just learned women have same rights in Brunei

and there is no need to be in disgust
as they need 2 men of high moral standing and piety
to verify it

here we have the British source:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/22/brunei-defends-stoning-death-gay-sex-letter-eu




(looks like a job for somebody we know..)

 

[Rob Monster]

free speech?

better be quite sometimes
when you live in Brunei

https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/brunei-todesstrafe-homosexuelle-101.html

that is about the state of Brunei
telling the European Union
to be tolerant and to understand their position

as they have that penalty of
stone to death

for homosexuals people
( male I guess )
oh no - I just learned women have same rights in Brunei

and there is no need to be in disgust
as they need 2 men of high moral standing and piety
to verify it

here we have the British source:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/22/brunei-defends-stoning-death-gay-sex-letter-eu




(looks like a job for somebody we know..)

There will be an interesting circumstance if/when historically liberal countries become theocracies, e.g. governed by Sharia Law or Noachide Law. "Anything goes" gets introduced to "capital punishment". To an extent, there is already evidence of vigilante justice based on Sharia Law in some parts of the world that are not formally theocratic. It is definitely a trend to watch.

 

[Rob Monster]

Here we go again, the EU and the French over reach.

In the past week, the Internet Archive has received a series of email notices from French Internet Referral Unit (French IRU) falsely identifying hundreds of URLs on archive.org as “terrorist propaganda”. At least one of these mistaken URLs was also identified as terrorist content in a separate take down notice sent under the authority of the French government’s L’Office Central de Lutte contre la Criminalité liée aux Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (OCLCTIC).

The one-hour requirement essentially means that we would need to take reported URLs down automatically and do our best to review them after the fact.

It would be bad enough if the mistaken URLs in these examples were for a set of relatively obscure items on our site, but the French IRU’s lists include some of the most visited pages on archive.org and materials that obviously have high scholarly and research value. See a summary below with specific examples."


https://blog.archive.org/2019/04/10...an-550-archive-org-urls-as-terrorist-content/

Upon further review, I am beginning to see the issue. Archive.org is not just archiving vast number of websites that once existed, and also backing up sites that still exist. Archive.org is a vast online library and repository of digital content. Wikipedia often links to this content.

For example, if you research into the rather fascinating character of Alberto Rivera you will find the Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia article links to Archive.org which has content that some might find objectionable. Alberto was an ex Jesuit priest who did a tell-all.

Wikipedia does already get brigaded and editors routinely "camp" on pages. So it is already somewhat broken. And yet, Wikipedia, Archive.org, YouTube and Google Books all have vast archives of content that was pretty much in accessible until very recently. Censorship here would be a notable development.

 

[offthehandle]

@GILSAN check this out, a domain blogger is claiming TR the initials belong only to Turkey. lol.

Click bait headline if you ask me.

So I guess, another domain blog is attacking you Rob. This is crazy. As if "TR" really isn't his initials and somehow TR can only be for Turkey. "rightfully belongs to...", please.

"Tommy Robinson, who has been banned from most major social media platforms due to his anti-Islam “hate speech”, is now conducting business via a domain name that some believe rightfully belongs to the Muslim-majority nation of Turkey.

The registration could add fuel to the fight between ICANN and its governmental advisers over whether certain domains should be blocked or restricted."

It will come as no surprise at all for you to learn that the domain was transferred out of GoDaddy, which occasionally kicks out customers with distasteful views, to Epik, now de facto home of those with far-right views, a couple of weeks after the web site launched.

The irony of the choice of domain is that many governments would claim that tr.news — indeed any two-character domain, in any gTLD, which matches any country-code — rightfully belongs to Turkey, a nation of about 80 million nominal Muslims.

TR is the ISO 3166-1 two-character code for Turkey, and until a couple of years ago new gTLD registries were banned from selling any of these ccTLD-match two-letter domains, due to complaints from ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee.

http://domainincite.com/24156-oh-th...-activist-shows-up-on-turkish-new-gtld-domain

 

[Bernard Wright]

Jordan Peterson just began promoting his new project, Thinkspot (dot com). He touts it as a platform where members don’t adhere to a maximum number of characters, but rather a minimum (of 50...so even trolls have to put in some effort and think of something "quasi-witty", as he puts it). And, moderation will be, seemingly, relatively lax. I have seen a statement from Dr. Peterson in which the platform is explicitly declared a place for “Censorship-Free Curated Content”.

"The terms of service for the new site take an extreme position on free speech. Peterson said: 'Once you’re on our platform, we won’t take you down, unless we’re ordered to by a US court of law.'"

Personally, I think it sounds great! Yet, while I've never read Gab's TOC, I'd think they would have had a similar policy regarding adhering to US laws and freedom of speech. Here's the ironic part: Thinkspot is registered at GoDaddy. I'm trying to make sense of why Dr. Peterson thinks Thinkspot is going to meet a fate any different from Gab's.

I think I've read or heard somewhere in the past few days that the content will be behind a pay wall. Perhaps this would allow Thinkspot to operate and moderate more freely than Gab? If so, is that what we're coming to? I've heard "Free speech isn't free", but literally having to pay to speak freely is an interesting notion.

I don't know all the facts. I just know enough to bring up this interesting topic, and this thread seems like an appropriate place to do so.

 

[Rob Monster]

Jordan Peterson just began promoting his new project, Thinkspot (dot com). He touts it as a platform where members don’t adhere to a maximum number of characters, but rather a minimum (of 50...so even trolls have to put in some effort and think of something "quasi-witty", as he puts it). And, moderation will be, seemingly, relatively lax. I have seen a statement from Dr. Peterson in which the platform is explicitly declared a place for “Censorship-Free Curated Content”.

"The terms of service for the new site take an extreme position on free speech. Peterson said: 'Once you’re on our platform, we won’t take you down, unless we’re ordered to by a US court of law.'"

Personally, I think it sounds great! Yet, while I've never read Gab's TOC, I'd think they would have had a similar policy regarding adhering to US laws and freedom of speech. Here's the ironic part: Thinkspot is registered at GoDaddy. I'm trying to make sense of why Dr. Peterson thinks Thinkspot is going to meet a fate any different from Gab's.

I think I've read or heard somewhere in the past few days that the content will be behind a pay wall. Perhaps this would allow Thinkspot to operate and moderate more freely than Gab? If so, is that what we're coming to? I've heard "Free speech isn't free", but literally having to pay to speak freely is an interesting notion.

I don't know all the facts. I just know enough to bring up this interesting topic, and this thread seems like an appropriate place to do so.

Thanks for that.

Before anyone places too much stock in Jordan Peterson, I would definitely watch this expose video:

https://us.tv/WXYuqrO8LLo/

Jordan Peterson is a gifted orator and has made more people spiritual and contemplative about their purpose and mission. However, there is more to that story.

The video is a must-watch for context. For the moment it is also still on YouTube:

I would expect that guy's channel to be wiped any day now.

 

[wormfood]

A bit off topic but GD shows the domain Thinkspot was purchased for 17k.

it even says 2019

who would sell it for that little

https://namebio.com/thinkspot.com
9,999 in 2011

Registered in 1986,

unlikely
that's the year .au was created

https://web.archive.org/web/20090501000000*/thinkspot.com.au

 

[Bernard Wright]

Where/how do you folks tap into the sales data like that?

 

[Rob Monster]

it even says 2019
Show attachment 121431
who would sell it for that little

https://namebio.com/thinkspot.com
9,999 in 2011


unlikely
that's the year .au was created

https://web.archive.org/web/20090501000000*/thinkspot.com.au

That is what I get from the registry:

 

[thinkthpot]

Thinkthpot will be the haven for all nazis and pedos and violent and doxxers. Thinkthpot will not have to remove any contents unless court ordered. This will be a great service to the free speech movement.

 

[Rob Monster]

Thinkthpot will be the haven for all nazis and pedos and violent and doxxers. Thinkthpot will not have to remove any contents unless court ordered. This will be a great service to the free speech movement.

Welcome Newbie.

As for your description, it sounds more like a HONEYPOT than a THINKPOT

Note to self: Avoid Thinkpot like the plague.

 

[Bernard Wright]

How does one search sales data like that?