[genon]

Absolutely correct.

He is also effectively saying that since he can and will remove sites he personally doesn't like, that he personally approves of every other site using Cloudflare.

The excuse he uses for terminating TDS is an absolute crock; if TDS genuinely did falsely and sincerely claim that Cloudflare supports them, then Prince could and should have simply asked them to remove that claim.

It's an outrage that businesses that want to enjoy all the benefits of selling to the public can discriminate against members of that public for any spurious or bigoted reason they like.

Don't wanna sell cakes to gay people or host pro-Nazi sites? Don't start a business serving the public then.

[dang]

Single-purpose accounts aren't allowed on HN, nor are accounts that use the site primarily for ideological battle. That isn't what HN is for, and it destroys what it is for. Therefore we ban such accounts, and I've banned this one. Would you please stop creating accounts to break HN's guidelines with?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15032227 and marked it off-topic.

[foxylad]

> It's an outrage that businesses that want to enjoy all the benefits of selling to the public can discriminate against members of that public for any spurious or bigoted reason they like.

I have a problem with this, because in effect it is saying that if you want to be in business, you have to check your principles at the entrance.

I do run a business, and I do reserve the right to withhold service from people whose principles I find offensive. Just as as an employee, I would reserve the right to withdraw my service (resign) from an employer whose principles I disagreed with.

All this is very healthy for our society - it provides excellent feedback about your views, in both directions. The business owner losing business if they are overly intolerant, and the customer loses a valuable service if they are overly offensive. The system works pretty well - much better than any legal solution could.

[lovich]

I think that your point would be correct if businesses did not wield the enormous amount of power that they currently do. Who competes with Cloudfare right now? Who competes with AWS? There's already jokes about how if one of those services is down then the internet is down. While everyone might agree currently with getting rid of the Daily Stormer because they are assholes, the precedent and power is now set.

For the same reason is not ok for a public business to not make cakes for gay couples, we should not allow public businesses to pick and choose who is allowed to be part of the economy. If you want to argue against that, that is fine, but you have to accept it when people with the completely opposite set of morals start discriminating against _you_

edit: In case it wasn't clear, I am not a fan of Nazis, but I don't want to even set up the opportunity for businesses to have the power to just exclude me from normal day to day activity just because the CEO has decided he doesn't like whatever group I am in

[Larrikin]

Somebody started these companies. They are free to setup their own Nazi friendly servers and compete head to head.

[charia]

And people said that gay people could make their own cake shops. Would you be fine with that?

[vertex-four]

Gay people can't choose not to be gay. People can, however, choose whether they're going to be part of a political movement dedicated to the oppression and eventual "cleansing" of large groups of people primarily based on things those people can't choose. I really don't get why you can't see a difference.

[philh]

If gay people could choose not to be gay, would you have a different opinion about the cake shop?

[JohnStrange]

The crucial difference that many people in this partly appalling thread (and partly even more appalling, mind-bogglingly fascist moderation) don't get is that gay people have not committed a Holocaust against 6 million Jews and also do not generally sympathize with people who advocate genocide, ethnic cleansing, etc.

This thread is so full of false analogies, it's unbelievable.

Should any business be obliged by law to make business with and thereby indirectly support advocates of genocide and racism? Should any business be forced to make business with Nazis, Red Khmer, Stalinists, etc.? If your answer is Yes, then I have bad news for you. No need to spell it out, though, as it's obvious...

[olalonde]

Define "fine"? I believe that bigots should have the right to be bigots.

[genon]

I'm genuinely shocked at how some people can so blithely, and possibly obliviously, throw out textbook pro-discrimination arguments when the target of the discrimination is something they don't happen to support.

[howlgram]

Society is self-regulating, it's important to avoid herd-mentality within society, and that's why people talk about protecting free-speech, but when everyone agrees that something is not ok, e.g. sexual harrasment is not ok and shouldn't be protected by free speech, then there's really not a problem with allowing these rules to exist. A society where everything is ruled by some sacred maxims, like some sort of philosophical school, doesn't exist, life isn't that simple.

[mbrock]

Let's say you own a café. The local political youth group "Club Hitler" submits a proposal to have their weekly meetups in your venue. You agree, and they host a number of meetups. They then begin to publicize your venue's support for the Nazi cause as part of their promotional materials.

At what point in this process do you think it would be been morally appropriate for you to cancel your service to this group?

[Dove]

Lotharbot suggested the following standard, which I think makes good sense: if a business provides a generic product, they should not be able to discriminate in who they sell it to, and in turn, we as society recognize that they are not saying anything about support or disagreement with their customers' views by selling them things. If, on the other hand, a product involves customization and expression, the business can refuse customers for ideological reasons, and we can infer from their work what they support.

So a bakery making generic wedding cakes must provide them for everyone, and we as society are crystal clear that this does not imply the baker supports interracial marriage. However, a bakery providing custom cakes based on the couple cannot be compelled to write "Arranged marriage between children is beautiful" on a cake.

A web host is required to sell you webspace regardless of your content, unless it is actually illegal or contrary to technical and ideologically neutral terms of service. But a web design firm may decline to design a page for you based on its content.

I think this is a really good principle, and a great way to preserve both free speech and freedom of conscience.

[fennecfoxen]

> I have a problem with this, because in effect it is saying that if you want to be in business, you have to check your principles at the entrance.

Well, welcome to the club! Other noteable groups objecting to their principles being regulated by a government office include Masterpiece Cakeshop of Lakewood, CO, and Memories Pizza of Walker, IN. (For the moment, disregard the likes of Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor, as their matters of principle-regulation are less directly relevant.)

I figure there are three-ish main options.

1. People are consistently required to suppress their principles, and do business with groups like the Daily Stormer.

2. People are consistently allowed to exercise their principles, and refuse service to gay weddings.

3. A disaster area of conflicting regulations both for and against the right of various groups to be served by various businesses, conforming to no consistent set of principles but rather to whatever is politically popular and expedient today, and hypocritical to the core.

My money's on 3.

(There's a theoretical possibility they'll actually nail down specific principles and not make it a total mess, but I don't think it's plausible.)

[Xylakant]

You're missing out on option 4: People can't discriminate on properties that the person they are doing business with can't pick or change (gender, sexual orientation, color of skin, hair, size of nose ...) but can discriminate on properties that the person in question did choose or could change (voicing the desire to kill or suppress large parts of the population, affiliation with nazis or just being an idiot in general).

Your notable groups are not required or regulated in any way that would require them to print a swastika on a cake or a Hitler face on their pizza if the customer ask so. They are, however, required to serve queer and non-queer people of all skin tones. There is indeed a difference between these kinds of discrimination.

[Tloewald]

I think this entire argument is classic "logic overreach". This is all socially constructed. There is no perfect logical algorithm for deciding what is reasonable.

The rule is more like "don't randomly screw people". Ok, we've decided to screw this Nazi website. Hmm, is that a case of randomly screwing people? Nope. OK, move along.

[fjh]

> People can't discriminate on properties that the person they are doing business with can't pick or change [...] but can discriminate on properties that the person in question did choose or could change

Religious beliefs seem to fall squarely in the latter category (at least to the extent that political views do). Are you really comfortable with people discriminating on that basis?

[Xylakant]

In principle I'd be fine with including religion and every (political) view in that list as long as the view infringes on the freedom of the person doing business. For example: view (a) that demands that all living people must wear black gloves and run in circles five hours a day would be on my "that's ok to discriminate against" list while view (b) that requires the follower to wear a three-pointed pirate hat and eat pasta at its religious gatherings would not be.

Basically: If your view demands anything of me or any other person I might know other than pure tolerance of your view, I can choose to discriminate against you. If your view only demands tolerance and only makes prescriptions for you, I can't. Obviously, the real world is a bit more messy since even a political moderate view that demands higher taxes to feed the poor infringes on my freedom to earn money - so the question where to draw that line is a matter of open debate.

[srssays]

People who change their religion are often disowned by their family, their spouse might divorce them, etc. It can in no way be considered a choice.

[logfromblammo]

I suppose you haven't heard of the "Trump voter divorce" yet, have you?

Political views are sometimes similar in character to religious views, such that expressing contrary opinions results in shunning and being ostracized by one's family and community.

It's one of the major reasons why free and fair elections have to use secret ballots, aside from vote-buying. Around here, it's risky to even participate in partisan primary elections, because employers can look up your name in the voting records and determine which party's ballot you used, then engage in party-based discrimination at work that ranges from subtle to blatantly overt.

While this area seems to have more than its fair share of petty and bigoted persons, it can basically happen anywhere that requires a declaration of party affiliation during the primary.

My own spouse has turned a bit more left over the years, even as my siblings-in-law have gone more to the right. It has resulted in some rancor, as those four gratuitously post replies on Facebook for each other's posts and summarily delete replies by my spouse. They're really being a bunch of a-holes.

If you don't conform to the views of your local community, you're going to have a hard time. And the more homogenous it is, the more you can be punished for your non-conformity.

[Xylakant]

It's still a choice to remain with your religion. It's not a simple one, granted, but if you stick with a religion that requires you to hate or be intolerant to other people, you don't deserve that others are tolerant of your religion. Hence they can choose not to engage with you. Why would hey have to bear the burden of you picking the easy path.

[NDlurker]

Lolwut are you serious?

[philh]

You can't choose not to be gay, but you can choose not to hold hands with your boyfriend in public. Is it okay to discriminate based on that?

[Xylakant]

Does it harm you when others hold hand in public? No, it does not. It only requires a modicum of tolerance. So no, it's not ok to discriminate based on that. Or do you discriminate based on couples kissing in public?

[philh]

I asked you to clarify your option four. Instead, you seem to have described a whole new option.

[abalone]

"Public service" is an important distinction here that you're missing. There's a big difference between opening a shop and running a telecommunications business. While it would be totally appropriate for you to set the tone and messaging of your shop and even discriminate among customers, I submit it would not be good for our society if telecom companies banned customers based on their legal speech. You wouldn't want that, because while it would be great if it only targeted racists and Nazis, what if it didn't? This is basic public communication infrastructure, just like the public streets that link up private shops.

The principle that applies is a basic Enlightenment one: everyone has the right to speak. You don't have to agree. You can not visit their shop. You can protest outside their shop. But you don't get to barricade their shop and cut its wires.

[gscott]

As long as they are not baking cakes they can turn down any customer that they want.

[nardi]

Gender, race, age, sexual orientation, etc. are “protected classes” that you can’t discriminate on. Being a Nazi is not a protected class. If you have a business, you can feel free to discriminate against Nazis. And you probably should.

[Consultant32452]

If you operate on public infrastructure, like being granted public right of ways to lay fiber, I think you lose the right to discriminate. This feels good because Nazis are assholes but it sets a very dangerous precedent. This is why the ACLU has a long history of defending Nazis and their ilk. Because one day it will be you on the other side. We should all discriminate against Nazis by denouncing them, ignoring them, etc. Public infrastructure should not.

[astrange]

By this argument Gmail shouldn’t be allowed to run spam filters.

[mike_hearn]

I actually used to work on Gmail anti-spam and wrote this reply to the same argument yesterday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15011913

[anc84]

Apples and oranges.

[howlgram]

You can talk about how things "should" be, about "precedents", etc, but the true guideline to measure these things is what the vast majority agrees to, because that's what public approval is all about. So all you can really do is try to convince the majority about what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'.

[bloobloobloo]

> So all you can really do is try to convince the majority about what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'.

Unless the people who own all the infrastructure disagree with you, and refuse to accept your money.

[Larrikin]

What happened last time the Nazis were ignored?

[hueving]

The last 70 years.

[Ygg2]

Look on the bright side. The last time they were banned - 1939.

[Consultant32452]

You mean when the redshirts rioted and killed 24 people which pushed the public towards the brownshirts and ultra-nationalism? Was that when we're imagining the Nazis were ignored?

[anarazel]

There's this event called the second world war.

[novembermike]

He's referring to the fact that a major catalyst for the Nazis gaining power was German communists engaging in what was practically open warfare with them.

[colllectorof]

Protected classes in California include "political activities or affiliations".

Also, did the website actually self-identify as Nazi, or were they just called that by other people?

[dllthomas]

Well, they seem to have been named by reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_St%C3%BCrmer...

[crottypeter]

Your link is broken. It works if I remove trailing dots..

[dllthomas]

Ah, whoops! Those were intended to just be punctuation, not part of the link.

Making things marginally easier for people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_St%C3%BCrmer

[icebraining]

    https://www.dailystormer.com/why-free-speech-and-free-internet-advocates-must-become-nazis/

The site is offline, but if you search for it on Google, you can still find it in the cache

Yes, it's pretty clear.

[Chris2048]

This isn't so clear cut though. Religion is usually included in that list, even though That is pertly ideological. Recently, gender and/or sexual orientation/identity has become arguably ideological too. Racial identity has some problematic examples (are jews white? what about light-skinned hispanics?)

[webXL]

Can of worms doesn't even begin to describe these half-baked, feel-good, shortsighted, "shore up a few voting blocks" measures. Parents who petition the city council for soft playground surfaces have done humanity a great disservice. Just be grateful there is a playground and work to make sure others get playgrounds before you turn your child into someone who can't produce something of value without first making sure everyone else is following "the rules".

[cyorir]

It may be helpful for people to understand some of the underlying legislation that lays out protected classes. Of course, there is state and local legislation that can further refine the protections at a state/local level in addition to the national legislation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class

[webXL]

Hmm... Nazis are typically white & male. Do I need to ask all my white male patrons if they're Nazis before I serve them?? /s

[derefr]

> if TDS genuinely did falsely and sincerely claim that Cloudflare supports them, then Prince could and should have simply asked them to remove that claim.

The damage of libel is reputational damage. Getting the libelous claim retracted after the claim has been seen by the public doesn't undo or erase the damage the claim does. Usually you have to do something drastic to actively disprove the libelous claim, if you want to regain the lost reputation.

[leereeves]

If TDS did make such a claim publicly enough to cause reputational damage, there should be evidence we can all see.

Anyone know where that evidence is?

[mjevans]

Assuming good faith on all parties (including in this discussion)...

The public posting was probably on their website, which is now likely blackholed due to being DDoSed after they were no longer protected by a CDN.

The Internet is broken when some terrorists can get together and decide to blockaid someone else; even if that someone else is nearly universally agreed upon to vile.

I agree with that user on Twitter that wants to make (the racist) individuals /infamous/ so that they can receive the blowback they deserve for their public behavior.

[cestith]

It doesn't even have to cause reputational damage yet I don't think. IANAL, but the contracts one signs with this sort of company tends to include things like not claiming endorsement of the content by the provider.

[genon]

> Usually you have to do something drastic to actively disprove the libelous claim

Yes, that something is called suing for libel and proving it is libel in a court.

Simply claiming something is libel (which Prince doesn't even do in his blog post) doesn't make it libel.

> Usually you have to do something drastic to actively disprove the libelous claim, if you want to regain the lost reputation.

Because of Cloudflare's action there are now 1000 times as many people, including myself, who are aware of TDS's claim who otherwise wouldn't have heard of it.

[KirinDave]

> He is also effectively saying that since he can and will remove sites he personally doesn't like, that he personally approves of every other site using Cloudflare.

Well... Yeah. I'm not sure why people think this is not how the internet works. It's a knit of private industry in most of the west and with the exception of a few (eroding) laws, private industries do all kinds of things.

The problem for DS is: there aren't many sites that WILL CDN them now that are as good as the alternatives that will surely not.

We can talk about strengthening guarantees of access to internet services and hosting, but that'd almost certainly be government mandated. Very few governments in a position to dictate this kind of policy to a global entity like the internet are terribly friendly to outright fascist, nazi policy.

So you can pick your poison: inconsistent rules from private entities or more consistent but more likely unfavorable and less mutable rules from government mandate (probably with the weight of government survey and law enforcement).

> Don't wanna sell cakes to gay people or host pro-Nazi sites? Don't start a business serving the public then.

The difference here is that neo-nazis make a decision to be bigots. They could stop. Most LGBT people consider their status to be a matter of birth.

Even for deeply held religious beliefs, we've long recognized a difference in fairness between discriminating on the circumstances and nature of birth vs. the circumstances and nature of choices made.

I think CDNs are a problem in general (their existence speaks to the self-inflicted wounds of an ultimately lawless internet, bad actors contained within gradually destroying it from abuse). It's a bad thing if they start consistently policing content.

But I think it's much worse to vigorously justify murder of people exercising their rights to free speech. Ultimately, people opting out of the tit-for-tat game of free speech and engaging in spontaneous acts of violence are opting out of society as a whole, and will start finding themselves exiled and imprisoned formally. And it's difficult to see any other way to proceed.

[fghvbnvbnfe]

> The difference here is that neo-nazis make a decision to be bigots. They could stop. Most LGBT people consider their status to be a matter of birth.

I don't understand why this argument gets thrown about so often. Obviously not so much about neo-nazis in particular, but whenever a comparison is made to LGBT people. And before anybody jumps to conclusions, I am not about to argue that sexual orientation is a choice.

Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of all kinds, from all sorts of sources, there are people that seem to honestly believe the earth is flat. There is no way to make a reasoned decision to believe that. It must be something they are not in control of. It could be something they were born with, something in their experiences, or both, but it's clearly something they are not rationally deciding.

I'm not certain it can be said that the neo-nazis are definitely making a choice. It seems to be a pretty vehement emotional response, which would indicate it's not.

I don't mean to say we should tolerate neo-nazis in the sense that we just let them do their thing. But I do think we might be better off treating them as people that have some predisposition to being neo-nazis than as people that just decided to be one.

[logfromblammo]

Muslims make a decision to follow Islam. They could stop.

But then they would be considered an apostate by most of the people they have ever known, and some of those people may consider apostasy to be a capital crime.

Do you really think it that easy for someone who is immersed in a niche culture to walk away from it, particularly if it is an insular and unpopular culture? It happens, but not everyone is strong enough to overcome the cognitive dissonance and leave behind everything they have ever been taught.

It isn't a matter of expecting a neo-Nazi to suddenly decide to stop being one, but in getting one to a cult deprogrammer counselor and providing sufficient social support afterwards, as they will likely have to discard all previous friends and family in the process. It would be similar to a homosexual kid coming out to fundamentalist parents. "Mom, Dad... I have decided that all people are created equal, and I want to judge people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." "I knowed we never shoulda sent you to no public school. Get out."

For most humans, leaving an accidental community requires subsequent joining of an intentional community. And the stronger the stigma and adversity against that original community, the harder it is for someone to believe they could be accepted by anyone else upon leaving it.

But that really only applies to the passive followers, who go along to get along. There are always true die-hard believers, for whom facts and contrary evidence simply dissolve under the light of their religious or pseudo-religious faith. They have intentionally excised their own capacity to question their beliefs. How much effort are you willing to expend to crack open that nut and "save" them? They are certainly never going to pull themselves out under their own power.

[rayiner]

> It's an outrage that businesses that want to enjoy all the benefits of selling to the public can discriminate against members of that public for any spurious or bigoted reason they like.

> Don't wanna sell cakes to gay people or host pro-Nazi sites? Don't start a business serving the public then.

Work and business is an enormous part of human life: exempting businesses from Constitutional protections dramatically limit the scope of those protections. Should federal agents be able to raid a business without regard for the Fourth Amendment? Should Texas be able to take legal action against Amazon, Microsoft, etc. for speaking out against the anti-bathroom bill?

In America, you get to run a business with whatever political views you have, subject to very narrow restrictions of a handful of anti-discrimination statutes (which are, incidentally, all based on the much-maligned Commerce Clause).

[pessimizer]

Nazis aren't a protected class, yet. Do you think that businesses shouldn't be allowed to discriminate against skateboarders, or people who refuse to wear shirts and shoes?

Not that you can't think that, but it's a weird personal ideology that calls for explanation and argument, not some pronouncement of what should or should not be done.

I'm pretty sure you can make the argument why gay people, women and racial or religious minorities shouldn't be discriminated against. Make the same argument for skateboarders if you don't want to make it for Nazis. Do you have an similar argument for why Nazis shouldn't be fired, or why we shouldn't consider whether the people that we do business with employ, or are, Nazis?

[gbarc888]

Political affiliation is a protected class. I don't really know what the word "Nazi" means these days because people have used it to label everyone from far-right conservatives to Trump voters to people who self-identify as neo-Nazis. Unless a person registered with the NSDAP prior to 1945, technically they are not a Nazi.

[KirinDave]

> I don't really know what the word "Nazi" means these days because people have used it to label everyone from far-right conservatives to Trump voters to people who self-identify as neo-Nazis.

This coyness about the dilution of meaning is utterly irrelevant here. We're not discussing figurative Nazis or the erosion of the term. We're discussing people literally waving modern variants of historical Nazi flags, historically used Nazi flags, inventing new similar flags, chanting english versions of Nazi slogans, publishing extensive content about racially motivated violence that cites pre-existing Nazi dogma, and cheering acts of spontaneous and fatal violence against those that oppose them.

This is not some case of the excluded middle. The word "Nazi" is used judiciously here and no one seems to be feigning confusion except the people who think it should be okay to endorse acts that even our conservatively run justice department things could be categorized as hate crimes.

And forgive me, but it's difficult to not hear a note of falseness in this kind of protest. Many of these people in these rallies self-identify as Neo-Nazis, and use slogans that have been associated with violent white-supremacist movements for decades. A powerful deductive intellect is not required to make the connection here.

If all that's required to make this right in your book is the prefix "neo-" then please, let me offer you a chrome or firefox plugin to tighten up everyone's language to match one you'll understand.

So I ask: are you actually confused here or is this simply a rhetorical tactic?

[ethanhunt_]

Over the years, a common argument I've heard against the tactic of calling all kinds of right-leaning people Nazis and Racists was that one day we might really need to identify Real Nazis as Nazis and then nobody will believe it (the boy who cried wolf).

And here we are.

[KirinDave]

I understand in these tumultuous times, life comes at you fast. Let me give you a quick guide on how to recognize a real nazi. Is your subject:

- Waving a flag with symbols associated with nazi imagery?

- Deliberately using the "heil"?

- Chanting, "Jews will not replace us!" while making a salute?

- Wearing a conical white hood, open or closed, and white (and possibly scarlet) robes at torchlit rallies?

- Calling themselves neo-nazis?

Who is actually confused? Are you?

[shandor]

That's not the problem. The problem is that for many, the years and years of calling your run-of-the-mill Republicans and whatnot "nazis" has diluted the term, just like GP mentioned.

So, now, when people try to get others to understand that the Nazis we now have are almost exactly the same we had in Germany way back then, people don't really make that connection (even if they say they do) on emotional level. Instead, they associate the self-professed Neo-Nazis with the "nazi Republicans" and the not-really-a-nazi-alt-righters that have been cried at in the 2000's.

Source: many acquaintances who are clearly very, very confused on the matter.

[peteretep]

    > - Chanting, "Jews will not replace
    > us!" while making a salute?

Sounds like an idiot anti-semite to me

    > - Wearing a conical white hood, open
    > or closed, and white (and possibly
    > scarlet) robes at torchlit rallies?

Sounds like a Klan member to me

They're all deplorable, and I'm sure there's a great deal of overlap between groups, but why sacrifice accuracy by calling them Nazis?

[fmueller]

The problem is that real Nazis will not do anything of the above. What you describe is just the behavior of the plebs and not of the leaders.

[makomk]

I've seen plenty of people, these last few days, using those exact same acts of violence to label every Republican a Nazi. It's been hard to avoid on social media. I've seen an equal number insisting that the definition of Nazi is crystal clear and anyone who suggests otherwise is covering for Nazis.

Thing is, the latter never seem to aim their ire at those who are actually stretching the definition of Nazi to tarnish their political opponents. It's always aimed at those who observe this happening and criticise it.

[honestoHeminway]

No, we just have been yelled at for soo many reasons and so long, we concluded that whoever yells at us is always wrong.

[gnicholas]

> Political affiliation is a protected class

This is not true at the federal level, which is generally what people mean when they refer to "protected classes". However, there are some states that prohibit discrimination based on political affiliation, including California. [1]

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

[ubernostrum]

The folks in question seem to eagerly and happily apply the word "Nazi" to themselves and embrace the so-called ideals of the German Third Reich.

So if you'd like to nitpick over the semantics of "Nazi" versus "adherent of a Nazi-Party-of-Germany-inspired philosophy", be my guest. But I'll be busy opposing them with my every breath, because that's what we do to Nazis.

[idoh]

What do mean by protected class? Cloud flare isn't a restaurant, they can pick clients based on politics.

[genon]

> Do you think that businesses shouldn't be allowed to discriminate against skateboarders, or people who refuse to wear shirts and shoes?

I don't believe that businesses should be allowed to discriminate against anyone who is behaving in a lawful manner.

Is that belief what you're calling a "weird personal ideology"?

> Do you have an similar argument for why Nazis shouldn't be fired, or why we shouldn't consider whether the people that we do business with employ, or are, Nazis?

If someone's beliefs don't negatively affect their ability to do their job, why should they be fired for their beliefs? Should Democrats be fired? Should atheists? Are "Nazis" the only people capable of bias and discrimination?

Likewise, why should someone's beliefs be a factor in whether I do business with them? If I'm buying something from someone why would anything other than price and quality of the product or service even come up?

[egypturnash]

> why should someone's beliefs be a factor in whether I do business with them? If I'm buying something from someone why would anything other than price and quality of the product or service even come up?

Okay, let's make an example. Let's make a really blatant one.

Imagine you're Jewish. Furthermore, imagine there are two bakeries in town: Bob's Bakery, and Pastry 88.

All of the people working at both of them are perfectly civil when you go in to buy a donut. But everyone in town knows that Al Hilter, the guy who owns Pastry 88, is a Nazi. And now and then Mr. Hilter takes out ads in the local paper espousing his Jew-killing views.

Bob's Bakery and Pastry 88 are right across the street from each other. You have a hankering for a donut. Where are you gonna go to fulfill this desire?

Let's make it a little more complicated: Pastry 88 makes an amazing lemon-filled donut, and Bob's Bakery Bob's kid has a major lemon allergy. So you can't buy anything with lemons in it at Bob's. And you love lemon donuts. Do you love lemon donuts enough to give money to someone who has said that you should be gassed and have your tanned skin used for lampshades?

[genon]

Let's make it even more complicated. Bob believes absolutely everything Al does, in fact his views are somehow even worse than Al's, but because he's not allowed to express his opinion nobody knows what he really thinks and he can only plan his genocide in secret.

Is it okay for me to buy donuts from him then?

[logfromblammo]

Also, neither business is carbon neutral, nor do they plan to be. Refusing to buy doughnuts is implicit fat shaming, so you have to buy from somewhere. Due to a local endangered species deciding to build nests on the only road into town, no doughnuts can be shipped in from the outside.

I'm beginning to think that the only reasonable thing to do in the ridiculous hypothetical is to lease another corner on the same intersection and open up "Solomon Cohen's Pro-Semitic, Lemon-Friendly Bagel Shop and Delicatessen".

[tshaddox]

> I don't believe that businesses should be allowed to discriminate against anyone who is behaving in a lawful manner.

This principle doesn't seem very robust. Can a bar refuse entry to children? Can a cinema kick someone out for talking during a movie? Can a dance club have a dress code?

[genon]

> Can a bar refuse entry to children?

If it's legal for children to enter a bar, I don't see why a bar should be able to refuse entry to children.

> Can a cinema kick someone out for talking during a movie?

If they're causing a problem for other people in the cinema and refuse to stop, sure. A right to be access a product or service shouldn't override other people's right to get what they paid for.

So for "lawful manner" in my above post: "lawful manner, or manner that doesn't negatively impact other customers".

> Can a dance club have a dress code?

If a club wants to only allow a specific type of member then it should be a private club.

[tomtheelder]

> If a club wants to only allow a specific type of member then it should be a private club.

All clubs are private, they just have varying degrees of specificity in their entrance requirements.

That's really the entire point here. Private entities have the right to choose who they will do business with unless the law prevents them from doing so, as it does in many cases (sex, race, etc).

[ixtli]

To be fair if being the single worst nazi site on the internet is the thing that gets him so angry he removes a site, thats an exceptionally high bar.

[wyager]

> It's an outrage that businesses that want to enjoy all the benefits of selling to the public can discriminate against members of that public for any spurious or bigoted reason they like.

I don't think that Cloudflare (or any company) should be legally obligated to work with someone they don't like. (Besides, do you really want your wedding cake baked by someone who hates you?)

However, I think it's a moral and practical travesty that companies have the ability to effectively deplatform people from the modern internet. It's our responsibility as technologists to make sure that you cannot be silenced, whether you're a persecuted minority or someone who would persecute minorities. Having political gatekeepers to the internet is bad for everyone in the long run.

[susanrigetti]

I never once in my life imagined that one of the first comments on a front-page HN post would be one that claimed that refusing service to Nazis was "spurious" and "bigoted" and that said comment was not flagged-to-oblivion.

For anyone reading this thread, please know that this is NOT the majority opinion within the tech industry - not by a long shot. We are not Nazi sympathizers, and we do not think this is normal. It's not normal.

[briandear]

Nobody is sympathizing with Nazis. And who is “we” and what don’t you think is normal? Essentially who elected you as a tech industry representative or the official pollster of the tech industry?

This my isn’t about Nazis. This is about speech and freedom, business policies, discrimination.

Change the word “Nazi” to “Communist” and I would be willing to bet you would not be making the same statements, despite communists being more murderous throughout the 20th century than the Nazis.

Is the ACLU a Nazi sympathizer? Of course not. Use your brain and stop being distracted by the “Nazi” part of the discussion. It isn’t relevant.

[matt4077]

"They shot Bin Laden. So wrong! Change the name 'Bin Laden' to 'my Grandmother' and I would be willing to bet you would no longer support it!"

It's super-convenient to create an argument where you can just ignore the actual topic that's being discussed. To say that this isn't about Nazis, a few days after they splattered some peaceful pedestrian along a wall, is cynical to a degree where people may indeed mistake the free-speech absolutism as a badly-veiled attempt to cover actual sympathies with such terrorists.

I'm wondering where all these but-I-will-give-my-life-for-your-right-to-say-it-grandstanders were on Saturday, when muslims in Charlottesville were praying while fascist militia in fatigues, and with automatic weapons, were standing outside, chanting threats.

Edit: Ah, sorry! Those were jews, not muslims. And not even the police was willing to protect them: http://www.newsweek.com/charlottesville-police-refused-prote...

[genon]

I'm surprised at how many people are pretending not to understand what I wrote, seemingly in order to proclaim how anti-Nazi they are.

When I was a teenager and first read Chomsky, being anti-censorship was a left-wing thing. I don't think Chomsky has changed his opinion on censorship, or his political persuasion, and neither have I.

It's a pity that people who believe in fascistic ideals (censorship and discrimination based on political beliefs) are what is deemed "the left" these days.

IMO, if you believe in censorship and do not support free speech you are not left-wing.

> claimed that refusing service to Nazis was "spurious" and "bigoted"

Do you seriously need me to explain that "bigoted" referred to the cake example? Seriously?

As for the rest. Cloudflare did not refuse service to "Nazis". Had they done so, they would have not had to remove that service, under the entirely spurious reason that Matthew Prince woke up in a bad mood and claims they wrote something he didn't like.

They're still providing service to Stormfront, and who knows how many other "Nazi" sites.

[davedx]

I've also read Chomsky and lived in a country (the UK) with 'incitement to racial hatred' laws for most of my adult life. There are many countries like this. I have a carefully held belief that there should indeed be certain limits on free speech, and these countries get it more or less right.

Believe it or not, you can actually be 'left' or 'right' wing (or anything else) and hold more subtle positions than absolute, black and white. I think this is a huge problem in discourse in the USA right now. People believe that everyone is completely divided and polarised at opposite extremes.

It's incredibly ridiculous. You can hold many varying positions, and I think people who are completely absolutist are in the absolute minority. Just look at this thread.

[Chris2048]

> lived in a country (the UK) with 'incitement to racial hatred' laws for most of my adult life

Do you trust GCHQ?

[davedx]

No, but that's a separate discussion.

I agree with the laws.

[Chris2048]

Proposed cryto ban, high government surveilance, "nanny state" legislature.

With all the secrecy around the law and its effects, its not such a tangent.

[abalone]

> if TDS genuinely did falsely and sincerely claim that Cloudflare supports them, then Prince could and should have simply asked them to remove that claim.

I'd go a step further. If cloudflare were a branch of the government like the literal internet police, then it would be immaterial if an entity claimed they supported them. The response would be to simply ignore or refute the claim, not demand that they withdraw it lest they lose police protection.

Cloudflare is essentially performing the function of the police protecting the KKK's right to march, just like they protect the right of civil rights marchers to be free of denial-of-marchedness. The core issue here is that government-like functions on the internet are handled by an amalgamation of private entities, who are not bound to the same constitutional requirements.

[icebraining]

I have the right to police protection, but that doesn't mean I get to have a cop patrolling my building 24/7. That's why businesses hire private security.

Likewise, DDoS is a crime and TDS has every right to present a criminal complaint. Cloudflare is just the Internet equivalent of private security.

[abalone]

Where that analogy fails is that IRL you still do enjoy police protection even if you can't afford private security. Even if they're not patrolling 24/7, the cops should still show up if someone's trying to burn down your unpopular place.

[pgorczak]

OTOH if you're a private business, refusing service to someone can be a way to express your political opinion. It's easy to call out injustice and oppression for many categories (race, gender, ...) but that case is harder to make for categories like "political ideology that actually favors oppression".

Of course this should not result in human rights violations and being restricted from communicating your beliefs to the world is one of them. Especially in infrastructure, we rely on private companies to fulfill basic needs that are protected by human rights.

If your infrastructure company is huge and as powerful as a public institution, and is able to single-handedly mess with people's human rights, you should of course not be allowed to have a political agenda. Not selling cakes to Nazis in your corner shop is something completely different.

[matt4077]

> He is also effectively saying that since he can and will remove sites he personally doesn't like, that he personally approves of every other site using Cloudflare

A -> B does not imply !B -> !A

Example: if you eat an Apple, saying "hey, that's one good-looking Apple!", it does not require you to heretofore eat every good-looking Apple you come across.

[tr352]

> A -> B does not imply !B -> !A

A -> B does imply !B -> !A. The error in reasoning here seems to be that attitude towards a website is assumed to be a binary "like/not like" variable, while in reality one can also neither like nor dislike something.

[snovv_crash]

No it doesn't. Just because you tell me you don't like to get shot doesn't mean you are ok with being stabbed.

[tr352]

Yes it does. In fact, in classical logic, A->B is equivalent to !B->!A. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraposition

[spookyuser]

Exactly.

A consequence of this being true is the Raven Paradox [1], seemingly the OP has solved the classic riddle in a HN thread.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_paradox

[matt4077]

While it pains me to admit: They're actually right, and I was wrong above.

[lern_too_spel]

False equivalence. Gay people don't choose to be gay, and gay people aren't harming others. A business can refuse to serve skateboarders, shirtless people, and other people who are being a nuisance; and it can certainly refuse to serve people who bring violence wherever they go.

[DharmaPolice]

>Gay people don't choose to be gay

Out of interest, if tomorrow it was somehow proved beyond doubt that being gay was a choice, would this make discrimination OK?

[lern_too_spel]

You left out the second part of the sentence.

[mnglkhn2]

You seem to contradict the recent view in the LGBTQ. community that gender is a social construct and that you can choose which gender feels right for you!

Your implication that being gay has to do with biology and hence it has a hereditary component is at odds with what we are currently hearing from everywhere.

Which view is it the valid one?

To me these are exclusive so in the community should choose just one discourse.

[dashundchen]

Wow, grossly misrepresented and mischarachaterized.

As a member of the LGBTQ community I have met zero trans people who feel that they chose their gender expression, and zero people who felt they chose their sexual orientation, instead of being born and growing into their identities over time. I'm not saying it doesn't exist but I highly, doubt it's anywhere close to a plurality much less a majority.

Where exactly have you heard that most trans people are "choosing" their expressed gender? And why do you think there is one view for many people to "choose"?

[mnglkhn2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer

https://lgbtq.unc.edu/resources/exploring-identities

http://lgbt.wikia.com/wiki/Gender_identity

[dashundchen]

Sorry, I'm not sure which part of those sites supports your claim.

Identification and expression, in gender and sexuality, are not the same as choice.

A gay person living in an society oppressive to gay men would not choose to identify as gay and may express themselves as being straight, but that doesn't mean their orientation is heterosexual.

They may choose to repress their sexual orientation or gender expression for the sake of survival, or other reasons, but the innate feelings behind the expression are typically not choice. Do you think LBGTQ people in countries where expression is punishable are death are just casually opting to risk the lives of thmeselves and their family?

Not coincidentally, LBGTQ people were persecuted and exterminated by Nazis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_homosexuals_in_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_LGBT_people

[vaishaksuresh]

>Don't wanna sell cakes to gay people or host pro-Nazi sites? Don't start a business serving the public then.

I get what you’re saying and agree with you, but please don’t compare gay people and neo-nazi. They’re not same or even similar.

[taneq]

That was kind of the point. Non-discrimination, like free speech, is worthless if it only applies to things you approve of.

[eyelidlessness]

Nazis are not a protected class.

[taneq]

To be honest, the whole idea of protected vs. non-protected classes makes me uncomfortable. Yes, there are some things that force you to compromise your ideals in order to make a workable system, but it's a hack, not a proper solution.

[forapurpose]

Here's how I think about protected classes:

In a democracy, the majority has limitless power. They can vote to oppress or kill the minority, which survives only due to the majority's good will and whim. Democracy is the angry mob. 'Democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner', goes a saying.

The solution is constitutional democracy, which includes rules protecting the minority, via civil rights. In the U.S., these rules are the Bill of Rights. The rule of law also is essential.

But it's very clear that even those rights and laws are not sufficient: In the U.S., slavery, segregation, lynchings of blacks, and oppression of other politically vulnerable groups, including women and LGBTQ, has continued in varying degrees for over 200 years despite the Bill of Rights and rule of law.

The politically vulnerable groups - the groups the majority can oppress and kill and destroy - need additional protection. (That's why when people try to make some logical inference that oppression of white males is the same thing, they miss the core factor: White males are not politically vulnerable to the majority;, they are the majority (in terms of power); a quick look at a group photo of the people in power in every domain of American and European life will show you that.

[taneq]

The only reason to exclude currently-powerful people from basic protections (rather than making basic protections universal) is if you think that one day, those currently-powerful people will be vulnerable enough to need them. And further, that at that point, they don't deserve to be protected in the manner that currently vulnerable people deserve to be protected.

Remember the last time that popular sentiment regarded a group of rich, influential people as not needing those should-be-universal protections because of their privileged position? And then decided that this group was the cause of all their problems? Let's not let that happen again.

[briandear]

This is a nitpick but an important one: the U.S. isn’t a constitutional democracy.

It’s a constitutional republic. And there is a difference.

As far as protected classes; the U.S. Constitution makes each individual a protected class. The protection of individual liberty is the cornerstone of the United States. (Or at least it was.)

This idea that some groups need more protection is ludicrous. We are saying that some people are less equal than others. What is needed is a consistent and impartial application of the law – which, granted, was not always the case. But, the philosophical concept of protected class goes against the concept of equality.

Committing a crime against a gay person IS A CRIME. That exact same crime against a non gay person IS A CRIME. The idea that either one of those should be punished differently is more Animal Farm than US Constitution.

This idea of the thought police is obscene and the very opposite of John Locke.

A man should not be punished for thoughts. A man should not be punished because of his motivations. A man should only be punished for his actions.

[r00fus]

That's a considered yet succinct explanation. Thank you.

[wyager]

Free speech, freedom of conscience, and non-discrimination are moral principles that go beyond US federal statute. "US federal law doesn't precisely reflect your moral standpoint" isn't a very good argument against a belief.

[losteric]

All of civilization has been about limiting specific individual freedoms in order to guarantee others to the collective.

Even in the US, freedom of speech is not unlimited. Perhaps we're finally learning that the freedom from discrimination trumps the freedom to preach discrimination.

It's about time we lost our naivety. Our European brethren learned this lesson during WWII.

[spaginal]

Naivety is thinking you can open the Pandora's box of government limiting speech based on what is popularly acceptable in an emotional moment, and not eventually having any speech against government or incumbent politicians or ideas eventually labeled in the future as hate speech and banned.

The reason you don't go down the path of Europe in this regard is because Europeans are already losing representation, and democracy fails when people aren't free to speak their minds and express their ideas, love it or hate it. That's how a truly free society actually works.

[wyager]

> freedom from discrimination trumps the freedom to preach discrimination.

Essentially any political viewpoint can be described in such a way as to fail this test. Do you really want to set the standard that if the execution of a viewpoint has a negative impact on some group, it's OK to use violence against anyone who holds that viewpoint? I guarantee you this won't play out how you want.

> Our European brethren learned this lesson during WWII.

The US has strong protections on free speech and other fundamental rights because "our European brethren" didn't, and therefore treated their colonies so poorly as to almost universally engender armed insurrection. Nothing much changed in this regard then or in WWII, so I'm not really sure what "lesson" you think you're referring to; that Germany should have more aggressively censored anti-incumbent sentiment in the aftermath of WWI? Yes, what a lovely lesson.

[pessimizer]

> Free speech, freedom of conscience, and non-discrimination are moral principles that go beyond US federal statute.

What does this even mean? Free speech is severely limited to the point that I can be fined for singing most songs in a public place. What I can say to or about people is limited, and I can be charged with various crimes based on the content of that speech. What I say to a child can be interpreted as abuse just based on its explicitness. In many circumstances, I'm not allowed to tell anyone any significant news about what's going on within a company that I work for or have any connection to, for fear that they might profit.

"Free speech" is about the government restraining people from political speech, and even that's been heavily restricted at different times - currently speech can be interpreted as giving material support to terrorists, conceivably opening one up for indefinite detention. We've jailed people for treason for anti-war speech.

Free speech is not about anybody being forced to help you say whatever you want to say. You can't just literally translate the phrase, it's a shorthand. If you want to fight for businesses losing control of their platform in proportion to their size, I'd be glad to support you. Expropriate and renationalize, I say. If Cloudflare is a public utility, I'd demand that Nazis have the opportunity to use it as freely as everyone else.

As for the rest, 1) there's no indication that Cloudflare can prevent them from thinking what they would like, and 2) non-discrimination is not a moral principle; if we didn't discriminate, we wouldn't need more than one word, or to learn our left from our right. Our norms are against certain types of discrimination, not the basic idea of distinguishing between things. There are differences between Nazis and Jews, for example. If we couldn't see them, we wouldn't be able to understand why some people wanted to murder other people, or discriminate accordingly when deciding who we should do business with.

[eyelidlessness]

Alright then.

Nazism is not a political position, it is a death cult. Nazis are murderers or would-be murderers who want me and everyone I love or care about dead. They are actively conspiring to make that a reality, sometimes achieving some fraction of it. Incitement to mass murder is not and should never be protected speech.

They are also actively conspiring to eliminate free speech, freedom of conscience and non-discrimination. Protecting the direct efforts to destroy those moral principles, in the name of preserving them, is an obvious contradiction and an obvious failure to uphold those values.

None of this is hypothetical or theoretical. We know what happened the last time they achieved real power. We know that they have escalated their violence as they have gained allies in power today.

We should protect the free exchange of ideas. We should not protect or give a platform to a conspiracy to mass murder.

[hasenj]

Free speech is largely an American thing. You may believe it's universal, but you would be wrong.

It's not uncommon for religious people to think that the principles of their religion are so obvious and universal.

This seems like a very similar attitude. But really, you're just used to it. That's all.

As a person who was not born into western culture, I find the concept sort of weird in some way. Although I do accept it as a given in western cultures, I can't see it as either obvious nor universal.

[scrps]

Articles 18-20, United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Ratified by 48 nations, no votes against and 8 abstentions.

http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/inde...

[wooter]

great answer to this oft repeated nonsense deflection

[dashundchen]

No, it's not nonsense. The line has been drawn on once and many times after, by the Supreme court.

When your speech impinges on the safety or rights of another citizen, you are not covered by free speech.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

Free speech is not carte blanche to invite violence or call for a genocide. Please watch the recent vice documentary to hear what and how the Charlottesville white supremacists prepared for. It's truly vile and genocidal.

If you want to see a society who has been much more firm holding against racist nonsense, see Germany who has legislated against Nazi symbols and propoganda. Do you see why allowing indimidation and hateful violence run rampant is a bad idea?

[genon]

If you get what I'm saying - comparing two well-known instances from different parts of the political spectrum where businesses try and refuse custom for ideological reasons - why are you pretending I'm comparing gay people to neo-Nazis?

[vaishaksuresh]

Because you choose to be a neo nazi, you don’t choose to be gay. I’m not talking about denying service. I’m saying one of them did not choose to be what they are.

[Stratoscope]

No one is comparing gay people with neo-nazis or saying there is some equivalence, they were just two very different examples to illustrate a point. In fact, what makes it such a good illustration is how different they are from each other.

Let me change it to an example more dear to my own heart:

> Don't wanna hire old programmers or host pro-Nazi sites? Don't start a business serving the public then.

I certainly didn't choose to be an old programmer! It seems to have just happened, maybe by some law of nature. But I'm not offended by being mentioned in the same sentence with pro-Nazi sites. It's pretty obvious that no comparison is being made between the two.

[invisible]

No comparison is being made but they are being equated as two of the same types of "discrimination." They are very different in that one group, Nazis, are most notably known for their discrimination against others (e.g., a choice).

[everheardofc]

What if neo nazis get rebranded under some other name? They'd still be discriminating against others but hey at least they are no longer neo nazis, right?

[edraferi]

> Because you choose to be a neo nazi, you don’t choose to be gay.

I agree with you, but many people do not, making it a political statement. Things get very complicated as soon as you abandon the bright line test of "you must serve the whole public."

[sandaru1]

But the religious groups are a protected class. Religion is something you choose. By that logic, it would be possible to discriminate against "Christians", "Muslims", etc.

[fusiongyro]

I feel like you can see the problem with this line of reasoning if you finish that list you started there.

[leereeves]

It's not clear that people choose their beliefs - or anything else. That's essentially the free will debate, which is still unsettled.

[baddox]

Suppose one could choose who they have romantic/sexual relationships with. Would that really change the argument here?

[peteretep]

Your bakery is free to discriminate against swingers.

[snakeanus]

You don't choose to have a certain ideology.

[peteretep]

    > comparing two well-known instances
    > from different parts of the political
    > spectrum

Being gay isn't a position on a political spectrum. Neither is being black. Neither is being female. Being a neo-Nazi is.

[baddox]

I believe the commenter is referring to the political controversies of private businesses refusing service to members of those two groups.

[woofyman]

The difference is the people of Colorado through their elected representatives included gays in an anti-discrimination law. Here in Georgia, the bakers would get an medal from the legislature.

[urbanj]

Because you are

[Spivak]

Right, the distinction is that neo-Nazi's are bad -- hateful, intolerant, divisive, problematic or however you want to put it. I'm uncomfortable saying that it's okay to do these things to the bad guys, even when it's obvious, because in an alternate universe it might be obvious that gays marrying is hateful toward Christians and intolerant of their sacred rituals.

[im_down_w_otp]

Nobody fought and won war---to the conclusion of unconditional surrender---against an army and ideology of the LGBT community.

Nazism didn't go through some kind of Martin Luther style academic and cultural reformation in the last 80 years. Neo-Nazis are the same as the original Nazis. They have the same ideology & the same ambitions. They're literally incompatible with Western liberalism & enlightenment.

Neo-Nazis are just late-stage Third Reich acolytes, sympathizers, and insurrectionists. They're still trying to fight a war that they lost to terms of unconditional surrender. It's frankly shocking that they're given the deference of being just yet another political voice in the diverse landscape of voices. They are not. Very, very few modern political movements were defeated explicitly at the tip of a spear instead of the stroke of a pen. Nazism is in scarce company in that regard.

There's no point at all to engage any of it as though Nazism is the same as normal political speech. Allowing for ideological recidivism and re-litigating WWII sort of defeats the purpose of having fought that war and conquered them to begin with.

It would make way, way more sense to consider them enemies of the state and deal with them as such.

[howlgram]

On point, they are akin to ISIS, perhaps people confuse them for 'just another ideology' just because they are too afraid to act on it right now, but given the opportunity they will, and recruiting people IS their opportunity.

[vaishaksuresh]

No. The distinction is that neo-nazis chose to follow a hateful ideology. Gay people did not choose to be gay. I’m not supporting denial of service, in fact I think nobody should be denied service. I’m just pointing out that the equivalence is not right.

[snakeanus]

> The distinction is that neo-nazis chose to follow a hateful ideology

Did they?