Rackspace claims credit for shushing Koran-burning 'pastor' Hosting company Rackspace shut down the Dove World Outreach Center's website last night, because it broke its acceptable use policy. Pastor Terry Jones is enjoying his 15 minutes of fame thanks to plans for an International Burn the Koran Day to mark the anniversary of 9/11. Jones also plans to burn copies of the Talmud. …
You know the 'To hell with democracy, Islam will rule the world' types. It would have made the news if Rackspace had shut such sites down, so I don't think it has. 'Hate speech', after all, only applies to those who are not part of the 'diversity'.
Before anyone can reply they need your definition. And that is the problem. Hate speech is in the eye of the beholder.
You say that Islamic hate sites have frequently been shut down. You must have some examples for everyone.
BB because I am afraid of some one who is operating a utility ( which is what the Internet is, just like phone and power) says what I can listen to.
>>"BB because I am afraid of some one who is operating a utility ( which is what the Internet is, just like phone and power) says what I can listen to."
I don't think you quite understand the Internet.
This isn't about anyone deciding what *you* can look at (ie your ISP blocking you from seeing sites that exist), it's about people running web hosting services deciding who *they* want to have as customers.
If I decline to let someone spout bollocks or spew vitriol from my premises, I'm not stopping them speaking elsewhere *or* preventing you from listening to them, I'm just declining to be a paid facilitator of their communication, as I have a perfect right to do.
PS
George Orwell is the guy with the moustache.
The guy with the sideburns and mortar board is an actor in a (60's?) school comedy.
You tell us all, on here, the RUL for such a site which you know for a fact is hosted on Rackspace, we can register a complaint with them, then see what happens.
Deal?
After all, you must know of some such sites - surely you wouldn't resort to spouting bullshit just to try to stir up more anti-Islamic hostility, right?
I would imagine the figure of Islamic sites that have been shut down will be the exact amount that had received justified complaints about abuse of Rackspace's terms of service (if that amounts to any at all).
Now calm down and go back to reading the daily mail/express/bnp leaflet
any extremist gives religion a bad name. stupid redneck biggots even more so.
I feel sorry for the Christians who have to live with lunatics like this claiming to represent them... just like the Irish had to put up with the IRA "speaking for them" and a few unbalanced "fundamental" Muslims make life hard for the rest.
so much for religion being a comfort and a set of guidelines to live a better life when a minority of shouty nut-jobs can pervert the message and excuse their poor behaviour...
Without religion, it's just a nutter saying "let's burn some paper and ink".
Throw religion into the mix, and you have a bunch of crazed nutter with their sky-fairy backing them up.
So it goes from "Let's burn some paper and ink because I said so" to "Burn the work of the devil because God saysso and if you don't you'll burn in hell!".
Rather a fundamental (excuse the pun) difference there by adding religion and the Sky Fairy into the mix.
Lets a get a few things straight:
Stalin - trained as an orthodox priest before leaving to join the revolution.
Manson - started his own "church". Kinda like this moron.
Hitler - happily bought off the church with a large amount of money in the form of the kirchesteuben (Church tax). And singled out other religions (judaism in particular, but others as well) as being for the gas chamber.
Just because they didnt do their death and destruction in the name of a religion, doesnt mean they didnt follow a religion.
Why you thought your comment was a relevant reply to AC's comment, which was stating that fundamentalists of all religions cause problems for the rest of us, i will never know!
Well said. Keep promoting this viewpoint and they lose their power.
The IRA spoke for the IRA. NOT Ireland. I'm Irish, and was sickened by the stuff they did. They did not speak for me. EVER!
The fundies and random nutters of any arbitrary group speak only for themselves, but try to pull the rest of us into one side or another. It only works if you let it.
I do like the way you rate importance El Reg. Sarah Palin is right up there with Hilary Clinton (who has a powerful job) The Vatican and an Army general fighting a war. (and you missed off President Obama who added his weight to it) how a jobbing useless creationist nutter that now works for Fox news (who have been taken to court for lying and making stuff up.) can rate up there is anyones guess, but credit to reg' for trying.
Go rackspace, but me thinks double standards and fear of them getting reprisals more than a courageous stand.
Well... I took the mention of the fake hockey mom and fake hunter as a way of implying that condemnation of this guy's plan is coming from all sides -- even the publicly anti-Islamic ones. By the way, now they (the anti-Islamic) are using this to boost their campaign against the "ground-zero" (it isn't) "mosque" (it isn't either), by saying it's the same situation -- just because you have the right to do it in America, it does not mean you should, they say.
Oh well, as other fellow commentards already said, it's the media's fault. A tiny loony ignored is a tiny loony no one would have ever heard of.
I think the point of including Palin was that even 'a jobbing useless creationist nutter' can and does (to use Mrs Palin's word) 'refudiate' the lunatic hatred from some twat from Florida.
Otherwise, I absolutely agree. Rackspace probably are more concerned with attacks, both financial and physical, than with hate regulation. Much in the same way Comedy Central network were too scared to broadcast Mohammed in South Park but perfectly willing show Jesus Christ shitting on the US flag and President Bush in the same show.
Sarah Palin is just in the list for calibration purposes: if Hillary Clinton appears at the "mainstream liberal" end of the scale, then you need someone to appear at the "fringe conservative" end of the scale. That this guy then appears off the scale, beyond Palin, is enough to tell everyone that he's not merely outside the mainstream, he's a total moron.
Really it's just a case of offshoring.
Catholics have been the official bogeyman and suppliers of terrorism services by royal appointment since 1536 - proper hand crafted British terrorism.
Now they just outsource it all to the third world with shoddy cheap foreign terrorism.
It's just not fair..
>>"They're the Christian equivalent of Islamic terrorists."
Well, strictly speaking, a better [domestic US] equivalent would be the people who go round murdering doctors who commit the crime of undertaking legal abortions.
For all his regrettable delusions and sickeningly selfish behaviour, Phelps does seem to try and stay inside the letter of the law, even while possibly pissing all over the spirit of it, and possibly this latest self-styled cleric may be similar.
However, I'd agree that it's sad that a few people who would seemingly be better off in a psychiatric hospital can end up being seen as even slightly representative of a religion.
I think you'd find churches speaking and acting against injustices are the norm, but that doesn't make juicy headlines or spoutfodder for anon cowards like yourself.
Maybe this book burning nut job is just carrying on the same old Anglo-American racist and imperialist traditions as the troops are currently in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not that I'd subscribe to such ridiculous notions.
Surely "out troops are in danger" only because news agencies around the globe are focusing on this one backwater idiot? How would the jihadist even know of this if it wasn't for the news agenices.
Granted it could've been a slow day when it was first picked up but surely journalists have the right to report the facts, not an obligation to report every single thing they see when it can snowball such as this.
Without media coverage it'd've been a couple of fools burning as easily re-printable bunch of paper in a field somewhere no one gives a shit about - but now?
Because they're involved in an illegal (the Congress has not issued a formal declaration of war, as required by the US Constitution) war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bring them all home and they won't be in danger anymore.
And the US First Amendment can breathe a sigh of relief that it's no longer being attacked from a range of people from the loony left (Sec'y of State Hilary Clinton) to the loony right (former AK governor Sarah Palin.)
but the President could legitimately say that the Koran-burning increased the risks. Having troops there illegally (especially with the example of how the Afghans chewed through the Brits, just read some Kipling, and the Afghans bankrupting the USSR into nonexistence) threatens both the troops and the Republic.
I believe you are incorrect. My apologies for not taking the time to educate you, but should you be so interested I am sure you will find that congress gave Bush (and any president after him, sweeping powers to respond to the 911 attack, that include waging military operations, and I don't believe there is duration set, so it should still apply to the current president.
Wise? most definitely not, but I believe you are wrong to say its an illegal war.
Further if the President declares it, he can use FEMA rules to enact Martial Law. We have lots of checks and balances, but our democracy is built on faith and belief as well. If a president (like Bush for example) were to grossly abuse their presidential power, everyone on both sides knows that there is NOTHING anyone can do to stop him, short of a revolution. As long as the TV stays on, and there is beer at the store people in the US are too weak and cowardly to get up in arms about anything other than immediate danger. If the president were to create concentration camps, or start killing people, we may just revolt, but otherwise, we would lie down and take it, (like we did for 8 years under Bush.) The president is in charge of the department of Justice, which Bush used to avoid serving justice to his own staff on repeated occasions.
This is why it is so critical that we have a man of solid moral character, and some wisdom and intelligence in office - for all the titles we use he is at the very least a Temporary King of the US.
...is now including the Torah in his burn bag. Thats appropriate since the Torah and the Koran are derived from the same writings. Of course many of us are more familiar with this book as "The Old Testament."
Now if the Book of Mormon, The Twelve Steps, and other texts promoting various "Higher Powers" were added to the list, we could have an Equal Opportunity Bonfire.
Reg Readers aside, it seems most humanoids need religion to help them understand life. According to Isaac Asimov in his "Asimov's Chronology of Science & Discovery" (ISBN 0-06-015612-0,) the concept of something beyond life began about 200,000 BC.
Monotheism, had to wait for the development of writing (3500 BC) and the alphabet (1500 BC) before a proper sky fairy could emerge. The first known monotheistic religious writings were by Amenhotep IV, of Egypt, around 1375 BC. He wrote about the Sun-God Akehenaton, but was opposed by the Egyption Population, especially the Priesthood, and was thrown out of office, but his writings preserved these ideas, which about 150 years later were taken up by the slave leader Moses. (ibid.)
Since there were no books to burn, Amenhotep had soldiers smash statues and temples to the previous pantheon.
Apparently his website was also taken down.
"Or maybe just burn a few bibles across the street."
Yeah, cos upsetting all Christians is a logical protest about the actions of one non-representative nutter. Just like upsetting all Muslims is a logical protest about the actions of a few non-representative maniacs.
You are missing the common factor in all of this is. People. They're all people. It's people you need to be taking a stand against. You need to find some way of upsetting all people on the planet. That'll show them. Once this is done, it'll bring all people to their senses and peace and harmony will reign throughout the world. It's so simple and brilliant it can't fail!
I'm stuck for how you'd do this though. Perhaps setting fire to kittens?
"His tiny church has already lost half of its 50-strong congregation in response to his stunt"
<ROTFLOL>
Well at least half of his "congregation" has half a brain.
Every time I see an article about one of these nutcases it reminds me why religion has no place in my life. They are all the same regardless of what "faith" they spout nonsense about.
As for Rackspace shutting down their website, who cares.
Probably had 300 hits total in the 5 years before this week.
'Goodgame said the analogy was of someone shouting racist abuse in the street - they are free to do so. "But they may not come into my hardware store and carry on the abuse in front of my customers and friends - if they do so I have the right to ask them to leave."'
I call foul on this. You are not allowed in this country to shout racist abuse in the streets lest you get arrested on the charge of inciting racial hatred.
I think you are both right, and there are lot of complicated cases that came out on both sides.
My overall viewpoint is this:
In the US you can stand on the street saying how much you hate a group of people: why they should not be hired, or trusted, or let your kids near them etc. This is an opinion and is protected by free speech. This would include burning religious books, burning flags, crosses etc. Painting portraits of Muhammad etc.
in the US you can NOT stand on the street and call out for people to join you or act on your behalf to commit crimes against people. The nazi groups and KKK have been trying to balance this legal gray area for decades. We do have laws that prevent people from shouting fire in a theater, or inciting a riot, or encouraging others to commit acts of violence.
The key distinction is voicing your beliefs, or voicing an intent or desire to commit a crime.
Well if any paramedic refused to treat someone - a job which they are PAID and therefore OBLIGED to do professionally - because they don't like or agree with the patient, then they would be fired from that role.
This and similar morally baseless scenarios are frequently used as propaganda to promote mass-immigration and Islamification to ill-informed and impressionable Westerners.
If you don't realise that a pastor protesting against the evils of Islam is defending you, then perhaps moving to country that observes strict Sharia law might better your judgement? I do hope you read the Koran and learn about the "religion of peace" which states that atheists should be killed though Jews and Christians may be spared if they pay tax to their Islamic overlords.
>>"If you don't realise that a pastor protesting against the evils of Islam is defending you..."
But he's not protesting on anyone else's behalf about the problems of fundamentalist nutters, he's saying that the entire religion is wrong because it isn't his religion, and therefore it diverts people away from the One True Salvation.
If you want an analogy, let's say there was a large family who lived outside my town, most of whom were fine, but *some* of whose members had a tendency towards violence (not always directed particularly accurately).
If a guy, despite eveyone advising against it, went around shouting outside their house about what morons they are, and burning photographs of their mothers, knowing that it will likely cause trouble, only a complete moron could characterise his actions as 'defending me'.
>>"I do hope you read the Koran and learn about the "religion of peace" which states that atheists should be killed though Jews and Christians may be spared if they pay tax to their Islamic overlords."
Which, of course, as everyone knows, is widely implemented in all majority-Islam countries.
FFS, there is all kind of violent nonsense in the Bible, and various other retarded practices were once justified by claiming they had Biblical support, yet most modern Christians seem able to overcome that baggage.
When suppliers cut people's views off from the net based on content, we lose net neutrality.
And there are a LOT of things in the Koran, as well as the Bible, which can easily be characterized as "hate speech". For example, the 84th verse of "The Family of Imran", one of the books in the Koran, directs Muslims to believe in what Moses taught; and the 621 commandments in the Mosaic law include such goodies as the summary execution of male homosexuals (Lev. 20:13), as well as a literal take-no-prisoners approach to warfare, killing men, women, and children (Deut. 7:1-2).
I fail to see how someone burning a pile of non-unique books, no matter how dear they are to some people, is more 'hateful' than hosting anything related to worship of the God of Abraham.
Then again, most of the people controlling the web at least nominally worship that deity.
>>"When suppliers cut people's views off from the net based on content, we lose net neutrality."
In that case, I guess we've never had net neutrality, just as we've never had banking neutrality or retailing neutrality.
And yet somehow, strangely, the world has carried on turning.
Some web companies have always been likely to withdraw service from people saying things they found excessively offensive, and/or whose actions would be likely to lose the company business.
Other companies may make a point of accepting anyone not actually breaking the law, however deluded that person might be, but even then, whatever they claim about free speech, chances are they're doing that for marketing reasons, not some Great Principle.
If someone came to me asking me to host a website for them, I have a perfect right not to take their money, just as a shop has a perfect right to refuse to retail a product.
I don't have to give a reason, and I don't even have to have underlying consistent rules.
If it turns out I made a bad decision (ie someone else actually makes money overall by taking on someone I'd refused), then I lose, otherwise, I win.
That's capitalism for you.
Now, if it was a case of 'Bigots-R-Us Hosting Company', (none of whose mouthbreather clients was strictly breaking the law) being refused a connection to the internet backbone, that might be different issue, since that would be like someone being prevented from setting up their own shop.
Net (and let's be clear here, it's NET, not WEB neutrality) has to do with not banning speech based on content. This goes back to pre-web days on the USENET, where there were always arguments about the binaries newsgroups as well as many of the alt.* groups. Since there weren't many people savvy enough or who had enough time on their hands to uudecode the binaries, Hollywood wasn't particularly worried, although they'd lob a threat or two from time to time. A lot more people were worried about groups like alt.support.depression and alt.suicide.holiday, but most USENET carriers dismissed the complaints because of the principle of net neutrality.
Now, however, this term has been hijacked by people who believe that because they're watching a movie, they should get a priority routing without paying for the infrastructure to allow it. The lag time for the lower tier will likely be unnoticeable; the lag time for watching movies is critical. Since everyone knows already that net neutrality is good, that term has been seized - not for content neutrality - but for costs remaining the same no matter how many bits are consumed.
adding Religious hatred just adds to the FLAMES.
whats worse? Dis-communicated or Dis-connected
and for those that dont know the difference:
one is that GOD hates you, the other is the local ISP Admin hates you.
i could go on, but i'll probably be crucified, stoned.....or banned from the network!
as it's his property. Burning a book - any book, including the Koran - is neither a crime, nor 'hate speech'. Poor taste, certainly, but nothing more.
Somewhat hypocritically, it's actually *official policy* for Saudi Arabia to burn any bibles, crosses, or other Christian paraphenalia coming into their country? At least our 'hate speech' is restricted to the lunatic fringe, rather than being a the government's official stance.
The American Constitution presents a challenge to anyone trying to shut down web sites, even those with a U.S. domain - witness the Al Quaida web sites.
However Wikileaks and PirateBay have demonstrated how to configure servers to make them U.S. proof - which this nutty preacher should study. The other remedy is to run your own servers, so the Rackspaces of this world can't express their content opinions.
Whilst I agree with the general displeasure of what the nut-bar preaches, Rackspace demonstrates the weakness in the system - if ISP's want the protection of telco's vis-a-vis immunity from hosted web site content liability, they should also have a hands off policy - not trying to talk out of both sides of their mouths.
Who knows, Rackspace might decide to block The Register!
Can I take this opportunity to inform those ignorant people here following the politically correct strawman argument that its only a small minority of muslims who support terrorism, that a survey of british muslims for a channel 4 documentary a few years ago found almost 25% of british muslims supported the 7/7 london tube bombings. Its not just a few unbalanced fundamentalists. Islam has a huge problem and the moderates need to do more to stand up to the extremists in their midst rather than bleating on about Islamophobia. There is a big difference between criticism and racial hatred.
You believed a documentary on TV!
They are about seeking attention grabbing headlines. Was their poll results published? Was the poll conducted by a neutral third party and performed in an unbiased way? What were the questions that were asked? What age range was interviewed, what was the gender breakdown, what was the geographical dispersion of the interviewees?
If someone wants a statistic to match a headline they can cherry pick everything. Leading scientific journals get it wrong from time to time and they have peer review. Media companies have nothing of the sort.
I have a problem with the BBC giving out statistics and not linking to the source, let alone some media company with no real moral requirement.
Actually I seem to recall that the survey in question was totally debunked by the Radio 4 'More or less' program.
In other news I know and work with many Muslims, some of whom I consider to be very close friends. I don't know of a single non-teenaged-boy who is also a Muslim who considers any act of terrorism, let alone one done in their name, to be acceptable in any way.
You might have confused ‘More or less’ rebutting a claim that ‘in the Netherlands, 50% of all newborns are Muslim’ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/more_or_less/8189434.stm). The C4 survey, carried out by GfK NOP, is available here: http://www.channel4.com/news/media/images/articles/2007/06/04_muslims_survey2.doc
The survey sampled 500 British muslims; one can speculate how accurately this represents an estimated 1.6 million muslims in Britain (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=293); one can deliberate the ambiguities of 57% disagreeing that HMG has told ‘the whole truth’ about 7/7; one might worry that 68% feel that the muslim community bears no responsibility for the emergence of extremists, or be reassured that 58% agree that it should be doing more to address extremism. Or one can airily dismiss it like a good liberal.
I have known a few Muslims too, apparently westernised and often charming—and I found it worrying how they pulled out every anti-Western canard when topics such as 9/11, the West’s role in the middle-east, etc. came up. While I don’t expect them to be wearing suicide vests any time soon, how much material aid would they give to those who would, if asked? How much are they giving now? (http://defendingfreespeech.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/alms-for-jihad-charity-and-terrorism-in-the-islamic-world/) *Some* Muslims have no loyalty to our country, and that is an issue that must be addressed not dismissed.
Some muslims, but not *all* by any means: ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them’: RIP, Jabron Hashmi (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/jul/04/military.afghanistan1 / http://jabron-hashmi.gonetoosoon.org/memorial/).
This used to be a free country. Our president was happy to shout out to the world that muslims had the right to build a mosque near ground zero, and declined to give his opinion on whether he believed it was the right thing to do, but now, apparently his opinion matters, and it's that someone shouldn't do what they have the constitutional right to do.... this is in direct opposition from his statements last week, that his opinion was irrelevant. I would urge everyone to email 10 friends a brief version of the koran and have them simultaneously delete them at the same time on friday... what difference does it make if it's in print or digital media ? It's very sad that our leaders live in fear of a few radical groups, I wonder sometime if they know the reason that we arm ourselves and our country against invasion from external forces. Sensitivity be damned! We will not live in fear!
(I do not endorse what the pastor is doing, but I will stand by his constitutional right to freedom, Which includes the freedom to burn one of his own posessions. Otherwise just have our government pass a bill declaring all Korans "untouchable" regardless of ownership, and while they're at it they can add the Bible, Mein Kampf, wicken tombs, and missalettes etc...)
>>"Our president was happy to shout out to the world that muslims had the right to build a mosque near ground zero"
He was happy to /state/ that, presumably because it's demonstrably true.
>>"...and declined to give his opinion on whether he believed it was the right thing to do, but now, apparently his opinion matters, and it's that someone shouldn't do what they have the constitutional right to do.... this is in direct opposition from his statements last week, that his opinion was irrelevant."
There's a huge difference between people just building a cultural and religious centre for which they aren't seeking any great publicity, and some retard quite evidently going out of his way to offend people for no obvious good reason, in a way which may well lead (albeit via the similar retardedness of others) to problems for Americans overseas.
People offended by the New York building have largely chosen to be offended by it.
I haven't heard many of them say /how/ close they think is /too/ close, and the impression they give is that for most of them, /any/ mosque is one too many, wherever it is.
On the other hand, even large numbers of people with no particular liking for Islam can still recognise a pointless act of provocation by a self-styled 'pastor' for what it is.
Considering the Koran is also recited and learnt rote, the idea of burning a text version of it as a symbol of resistance or protest misses the point. The symbolism is closer to book or cross burning which have different resonances in the US and abroad. Setting fire to an effigy of Muhammad (Praise, etc) instead might either offend the intended recipients more, or have no effect at all, seeing as the Prophet is portrayed in paintings or drawings with a flaming halo. The idea of burning an english language version of the Koran might even appeal to isolationist or orthodox / traditionalist Muslims.
I always thought the Koran would appeal to nerds and open-source fanatics simply because it begins with a version history... "This is version A recited to person B recited to person C to person D" etc ...
how often do most folks get a chance to piss-off pretty much everyone in existence? Think about that. One religious nutter spewing against another group of religious nutters, and suddenly everybody is up in arms, crawling all over each other to decry his particular brand of religious nuttery. It's, like, nuts...
The nutty pastor has finally cancelled his burning event. Of course, he did it after losing half of his already-diminished sheeps, getting slammed by the left *and* the right, other Christian groups, Islamic groups, and even the general population of the town where he was planning to do the burning. Even Sarah Palin disowned the whole thing. By now, he's done the right thing in calling the whole thing off, but he's already lost more than he could have ever gained with this bigoted stunt.
.... the reason the site was shut down probably had nothing to do with the the actual content of the site.
They say he broke their AUP. The section he probably broke was the one that says that they will shut down any sites that degrade the quality of the server.
If he was on a "shared hosting" (the usual $10/month hosting is shared) then he was sharing a server probably with 100's of others. In this case hosts will allocate a set amount of resource usage, and if a site goes above this usage and stays there for to long, then they shut the site down as it will affect other sites on the same server.
More then likely his recent publicity caused the site usage to skyrocket, this started affecting others on the same server, he was then shut down.
More then likely if he had been on a dedicated server, there would have been nothing more then a bill to him for excess bandwidth or something.
Rackspace probably shut him down for resource usage, and are now going for a little publicity of their own.
*I don't work for rackspace, however I do work for a hosting company.
I heard the recently acclaimed pastor's statements on NPR, tonight. It's amazing how he's twisted the story, to conflate his misunderstanding of the original placement of that community center into an "answered prayer" as if it was "moved" at their behest.
Damn the cliches, ignorance is folly.
So here's a straight "keeping it real" rhetorical grenade, in a sort of rhetorical safety-burn, to prevent further forest fires. Enjoy the show, Moderatrix & readers.
Anonymous, because ... wouldn't you?
Why burn the Koran when just like the Bible it is perfectly fit to wipe ones arse upon?
No I am not inciting hatred, I will hug, support and help any Muslim or Christian, in fact any indoctrinated delusional who is prepared to accept and hug me.
Yes I am kafir and proud of it.
Seriously though, this is just going to encourage those who do take this religion thing far too seriously to don an exploding waistcoat and fuck over more "innocents". I use quotes here because, well because is anyone over the age of three or four truly innocent?
A tough one for you Sarah, show me that free speech isn't dead.
Moderating here, as I keep patiently explaining to you, has nothing to do with free speech. It's a privately-owned site and we publish comments or not according to our own judgement - if you're not published here you're free to go and rant anywhere else.
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but that comment seems relatively tame to me. I can remove it if you're really jonesing on that sense of outrage?
Incidentally - how can you be proud to be kafir if you don't believe in the religion that considers you kafir? It's meaningless. And paradoxical.
Everyone else - if you're upset that your comment has been rejected, it's because I don't want to preside over a furious screaming match oozing with hate. Your comment may not be hateful but if I think it'll provoke it, then it's not going through. I'm sure you understand.
The bit about the religous nut is a mere distraction - the real story here is that Rackspace actually /did/ something.
On that topic, I have a few questions that weren't covered by the article:
1) How long did it take for them to resolve this complaint ticket?
2) How many different queues did it wait in on it's way to resolution?
3) How many other random websites did they temporarily take offline before they got the right one?
4) How many calls to the complaint line were required before the ticket was even opened?
Judging by my experience with them, the answer to each of those is probably 'several dozen.'
Telephone companies, and ISP's, have immunity for prosecution against illegal content. i'e' advertising illegal services doesn't make them liable.
The telephone company, correctly IMO, hasn't cut this hate-mongers telephone service, nor should Rackspace. It has behaved in an irresponsible way given it's legal protections.
Remember, what's good for the hate-monger might be used against YOU in the future.
I think you may be confusing ISPs with hosting companies.
An /ISP/ may have immunity (that is, it is not responsible for what it's customers look at on the connection it provides them, or for data they upload to some remote site, or for incoming/outgoing email traffic, etc, even when the contents of such traffic is illegal.
However, a /hosting company/ often does have legal responsibility for the content of websites they host, once they have been informed that such content is illegal.
Even going beyond what is legal, a hosting company is under no obligation to provide service to anyone, even if that person's website contents are entirely legal. They can refuse to take new business, and (subject to contractual conditions) terminate existing business relationships.
If a company provides both services, their legal responsibilities can vary depending on the service, but they can always decide to stop doing business with me even if I haven't broken the law.
Now, I suppose in certain jurisdictions, it *might* be possible for someone to claim they were being discriminated against if they were refused service, but they'd probably have to show such discrimination was against the law.
As far as I'm aware, even if raving bigots are [fortunately] in a minority, they're not generally a legally protected minority.
No hosting company is in anything like a monopoly position, and a bigot can always go elsewhere if they can find someone who actually wants their business.
>>"Remember, what's good for the hate-monger might be used against YOU in the future."
Sure, it's the scary old Thin End Of The Wedge again.
Personally, I think there are probably enough people roughly like me that I don't have to worry on that score, just as, being a relatively well-behaved person, I don't have to worry when I see a loudmouth drunk being thrown out of a pub that maybe tomorrow it will be /me/ being thrown out.
Like most people, I'm actually worth businesses having as a customer.
"he's already lost more than he could have ever gained"
Apart from becoming (in)famous! And now every like-minded 'Christian' in the US (and there will be plenty) will be joining up and sending him money. There's no such thing as bad publicity, especially in the Land of the Gullible...
And he's starting to retract his cancellation.. :-(
The whole hate speech issue is a red herring. Rackspace, I'm guessing, expected millions of hits to a tiny website over a short period of time. This would have brought down the servers and the network and disrupt service to its customers. It's a matter of bandwidth, as literally everyone in the world tunes in to see the book burning.
America's propping up Israel financially and militarily. American troops are busy shooting Muslim civilians and taking ears. And now some nutjob American preacher wants to burn the Koran to make sure the Muslims are good and pissed.
And then Americans wonder why the Muslim world isn't exactly happy with them. Go figure, as they say over there.
The problem isn't this particular nutjob - if it was just one loony then no-one would really care. If he decided to burn a Torah, Israelis are not going to protest in the street. The trouble is that this loony is just the cherry on the top of a particularly large sh*tty cake as far as Muslims are concerned.
I support freedom of speech, but it needs tempering with intellect.
If, for example, tonight on my way home I a group of a young thugs out of their heads on their substance of choice I would be free to say to them "out of my way sh1theads". Unless I was a total idiot I could anticipate what the consequences might well be and so choose not to exercise my freedom to say what I want.
This part-time furniture salesman/pastor (sic) who says he has "no experience" of the Koran beyond what people like Bill Riley & Glenn Beck have told him lacks the ability to recognise the effects of his behavior. I wonder what his score on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist would be?
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