[notacoward]

The headline is offensively misleading. A boycott, or severance of commercial relationship, is not censorship. It's people using commerce to express their values, which is also a form of free speech. Unlike true censorship, which comes from the government, both parties are free to seek other partners in promoting their products or messages. Lütke's attempt to paint this as a defense of free speech is disingenuous, and his attempt to portray anyone who disagrees as a censor is downright dishonest.

[edit: "refuses to censor" seems to be a local modification to the original headline, which is definitely supposed to be against the rules]

[notcolin]

> Lütke's attempt to paint this as a defense of free speech is disingenuous

Is it?

"To kick off a merchant is to censor ideas and interfere with the free exchange of products at the core of commerce. When we kick off a merchant, we’re asserting our own moral code as the superior one. But who gets to define that moral code? Where would it begin and end? Who gets to decide what can be sold and what can’t? If we start blocking out voices, we would fall short of our goals as a company to make commerce better for everyone. Instead, we would have a biased and diminished platform."

[abpavel]

So you're saying that Shopify can be used for porn and that Shopify does not have TOS and does not enforce it?

[ZeroFries]

Is that to be explained by legality rather than morality, though?

[tomp]

Did you also support Visa's and MasterCard's decisions to stop transactions to WikiLeaks?

[notacoward]

I don't see the two as being equivalent. For one thing, the contractual issues involved in the two cases are quite different. For another, one case could be considered to have involved criminal activity while the other clearly does not. On the other side of the ledger, Visa/MC enjoy a level of monopoly power that nobody in this case does. Those are just too many differences for a comparison to be very informative. I'm slightly inclined to say Visa/MC's actions were wrong, but not on that basis. The principle still stands. It also stands regardless of whether I or anyone else applies it consistently in disparate cases. Legal severance of a commercial relationship is still not censorship, and it does not harm anyone's right to free speech. Denying people that manner of expressing themselves, on the other hand, does abridge free speech.