I am normally supportive of the right to free speech but today I was saddened by a hosting request I received from a white supremacy organization. I never considered hosting them, but I did visit their website and its contents really disgusted me. Racist propoganda, crossword puzzles and other games to indocrinate young children - It was really sick.

My question to everyone here is, how do you feel about hosting organizations with radical (but legal) views, and when do you think they cross the line?

Well, these sites truly put your belief of 'free speech' to the test. The bottom line, is that it crosses your line, and you don't have to host anything you don't want to.

please recall, you don't have to host anybody that you don't like or want on your servers. you can moderate your signups.

mike

update edit :

I was thinking of the problems that you will have becuase this might be a profitable avenue but the risk are just way to high.

1) hackers for sure, I believe that there is a general mandate that hate sites are open targets and thier host also.

2) you are now placed on a list of supporter's of hate ( yep those do exsist and you'll be surprised how fast you'll be contacted from your community )

3) if your clients find out that your involved in this you will most likey have a small but steady stream of people leaving.

4) sleep will off

upside:

1) you can charge alot for the risk your taking.
increase your business by advertsing in such hate generated web sites.

2) if you do it correctly, nobody will track it directly to your firm or more importantly yourself ( use an off-shore holding company and reroute all your-mail, your billing will have to be from the off-shore enterprise also )

3) you sleep off if you are found out.

Mike

I wouldn't have anything to do with them. This may seem wrong but I am in business to help others and not to reproduce hate. I don't think I would be helping someone if all they cared about was spreading their message of hate to anyone that would listen. I couldn't sleep at night knowing I'm making money and basically supporting something like that.

Make them pay a $450 immorality fee. :rolleyes:

Free speech is necessary to protect freedom. Everyone has the right to say what they want.

The right of free speech does not include a right to be heard. Others are not required to provide a soap box for you to stand on.

There is nothing wrong with not listening to, or providing a means to be heard, to those with whom you disagree. That's the beauty of Freedom.

Don't host them, and sleep well at night.

All the advice is good. I firmly believe in the right to free speech. That doesn't mean that I have to like what they say, nor does it mean you have to host them.

This is one of the best things about the ACLU. I don't always agree with what they defend, but they uniformly defend our civil rights. That's important and they rock for doing that!

So as others said, let them speak and buy their own hosting, somewhere else...

In the US, constitutionally only Congress is prevented from barring free speech -- not individuals and not companies. If you're not comfortable with this group's message, send them on their way. But you're not barring their right of expression, you're just refusing to give license to it. Big difference.

Madskilage,
feel free to go to our site and copy/paste relevant sections from our TOS if you so desire.

We felt that it would be great to stress that we are supporters of free speech in our TOS, then we thought of adding special reserves regarding hate groups :angry:

FWIW, in some jurisdictions it is illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their political views. Manitoba and Quebec come to mind here; in those provinces, it is illegal to "refuse to provide a product or service" on the basis of "political activities or opinions".

Thanks for all the response. I recognize that I have the right to not host anything I am not comfortable with. I also suspect that the aforementioned group would be interested to know that I am the product of an interracial marriage. It would be rather ironic hosting a site that would tell me to hate myself :eek:

"I may not agree with a word that you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"... - Voltaire.

I'll agree 100% with that. But that doesn't mean that they can't find someone else to host their site. If, however the government ever disallowes them from expressing their views... Then we have problems.

- James

I agree, but this stance can prove to be very unpopular. Just ask the ACLU how defending Nazi's has affected their membership in the past.

Although I don't disagree that hate-groups have every right to say what they want, I don't want to support their message in anyway.

Your Free Speech and personal Freedom only goes as far as someone elses personal freedom begins. If your Freedom affects the freedom of someone else you are kidding yourself if you believe that it is ok.

Originally posted by MadSkilage
Just ask the ACLU how defending Nazi's has affected their membership in the past.

It lost them 30,000 of their 66,000 members; but how many would have left if the ACLU had not taken the case?

I think this case -- and the fact that the lead attorney, David Goldberger, was Jewish -- did more to advance the ACLU's position than anything else in the past half century.

Point well taken - my post was merely to comment on how defending radicals can be very bad pr. Although now we (or at least I) can say that the ACLU has a fundamental responsibility to protect all Constitutional rights, at the time, many people did not feel that this should extend to defending hate-mongers and the like.