The emails they sent did not have any appeals process. They were also sent from no-reply addresses.
The worst thing about this isn't them blocking (even though they didn't need to). It was that they assumed their systems are 100% perfect and no one would need to appeal.
It was also the timing of this that was annoying. Right before long holidays (harder to get to your workplace and let people know what happened)
> Our systems may have detected an account on our platform with an IP address originating from a designated embargoed country. Please send a note to feedback@slack.com so we can investigate further.
I’ve seen the email sent to aaomidi, and it didn’t say that. It’s possible that they revised the notice after receiving complaints, but the initial batch was worded rather harshly without any indication that it was possible to appeal.
Companies can ask the federal agencies responsible for enforcing sanctions in advance whether particular actions are compliant or not. If you make a good faith effort to work with them they won't come down hard on you. Bureaucrats prefer cooperation rather than dealing with the hassle of enforcement; it's just less work for them.
Similarly, Google Cloud Platform blocks IPs from Iran, because I suspect they don't have a big-enough customer that pushes them to enable it. Some lazy-ass product counsel at Google does not have the balls to do the right thing and just decides to ban entire countries from accessing their customers' services because it's easier to be conservative.
Amazon, for example, operates in the same country and decides to interpret the law differently, despite being a bigger player. One more reason to not use Google Cloud.
(The irony is that the Iranian government is also fully aligned and likes to block things, so the poor people have to deal with the mess and circumvent blocking from both sides.)
I haven't visited in about a decade so don't have a full picture. I'd say a lot of people have access to a VPN, but would not go as far as to say they are always connected to a VPN.
But enforcement actions at this level always have a political twist to them. You can get permission one year, then a new person is appointed to head the agency or the sanctioned country does something. Now the permission you got last year isn't worth the paper it is printed on.
That's just not how it works. I defy you to show us a single case where a company was punished for a sanctions violation based on an action for which they previously received written approval. Federal judges don't tolerate that nonsense.
With a very broad interpretation you can be found guilty of breaking US sanctions when you have never even visited the US or are a US person. Every person in Iran is breaking US law with their daily shopping. It truly is absurd.
To be fair, no one ever went after Freenode over a desire to ban Iranians in Canada.
What you're saying seems to be along the lines of "It's a dumb law, don't blame slack." But to be fair, (heh) it's not like this mess was completely unforseen. There are censored/censorable forums and there are open ones. A lot of people knew the difference and warned us about this kind of thing.
That's... a fine response to a feature flame war. Fine fine, slack is better. IRC just doesn't compare. All of us using it are dinosaurs who should be forgotten. I'll grant all that stuff.
But real people are having their accounts banned simply because they've been to Iran (Or more worryingly, simply because they're Iranian; are european tourists getting banned? Seems like it's all expats in the article...)
You can't compare serious issues of censorship to platform flame wars. The moral scales are so vastly different that you're practically doing political censorship.
The worst thing about this isn't them blocking (even though they didn't need to). It was that they assumed their systems are 100% perfect and no one would need to appeal.
It was also the timing of this that was annoying. Right before long holidays (harder to get to your workplace and let people know what happened)