[wakeywakeywakey]

I keep seeing this sentiment in similar threads (i.e. Cloudflare, Twitter, etc...). Gab has a right to free speech and association. Does Coinbase not enjoy the same right?

Until a service becomes so widespread and essential as to be declared a public good/utility, this looks like 'business is business' IMO.

[benj111]

Well you can't accept hard currency on the internet, so payment processors are kind of essential.

Also business is business only gets you so far. What happens if service was withdrawn because the user was black?

[Barrin92]

>What happens if service was withdrawn because the user was black?

in the analog world countries provide civil rights protections for day to day commerce for this type of situation, in the digital world it's unlikely to ever matter that you are black, unless you state so in the first place.

The question itself shines light on the important difference here. Gab is not discriminated because of some natural feature about them, they are discriminated against because they act like unsavoury people that nobody wants to be associated with.

Nope, being black is not the same as being a troll or a fascist on the internet. People have the right to not be associated with you if you present yourself in a manner that alienates other customers or is simply incompatible with our values at large.

[benj111]

But there should be no discrimination at all. If there is a court case and gab is found guilty of something, or a court orders something, fair enough. That isn't the case here.

[kordlessagain]

Discrimination is a broad term, typically used to indicate an individual person is being discriminated against based on their membership of a group of similar persons which usually fall around race, age, sexual orientation, etc. Discrimination, outside this context, means "recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another". A company cannot be discriminated against while applying an individual person context because they are not people.

There's exactly one person being discriminated against here and that is based on the business they run and the relationship they had with Coinbase. Coinbase, and Brian, have every right to limit their business dealings with Gab, and can do so without it being "discriminatory" in nature. Arguing otherwise may be considered an attempt to control the conversation in a direction that leads away from logic.

[deogeo]

What if it was socialists, union organizers, or environmentalists getting discriminated against? Will we also tell them to stop acting in a way that makes businesses not want to be associated with them?

You said 'incompatible with our values', but it's not 'us' that make these decisions by voting or something, it's a handful of corporations.

[Barrin92]

Well personal disclosure I'm pretty staunchly left so I'm not going to lie, I think It'd be pretty bad of a business to discriminate against those groups but I think at least the case can be made that those groups have the potential to disrupt the platform and everybody else on it through their political activity, so I think the owner has some legitimate discretion.

I do agree that there should be basic protections on private platforms for speech, especially if people are threatened to be excluded based on ethnic or religious or apolitical identity. But I think it would be absurd to say, if a company could not shut down a threatening or violent, or otherwise outside of the norm organisation.

[gamblor956]

There are businesses that do discriminate against those groups. You don't hear much about it because they're usually small businesses that can afford to alienate people who aren't their customers.

[beatgammit]

And that's precisely why I'm so interested in projects like GNU Taler[1]. We need a privacy-focused payment system for the internet, and something like GNU Taler tries to imitate cash, which I think is a good fit.

- [1] http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/taler/

[np_tedious]

Is Taler in active development? Do you know anything about the status?

Looks to me that it's 4 years old, has 3 members, and is still "pre alpha".

[kordlessagain]

Andrew Torba is not black.

[deogeo]

Even with multiple services, they can have similar terms. E.g. sex workers have great difficulties finding payment processors, and nazis have a hard time finding web-hosts.

[flyingfences]

Yes, they have the same right. Whether they ought to exercise that right is another question entirely.