[governance] Google to Censor Blogposts

[Norbert Bollow]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2015 07:17:59 -0800
"Michael Gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

> Good idea/bad idea?
> 
> http://techaeris.com/2015/02/24/google-warns-users-will-censor-blogger-porn/

I have just commented on this at
http://sustainability.oriented.systems/aup-no-critical-content/


Independently of the substantive questions in relation to issues of
online nudity (which in my view are not nearly as easy or clear-cut as
many people seem to think), it is in my eyes very wrong of Google to
break incoming links on a whim like they’re doing here.

Still more upsetting however are AUP practices of some other companies.

Here’s an email which I just sent to CtrlS Datacenters Ltd, which
boasts having “Asia’s largest Tier 4 datacenter”, in relation to their
AUP http://www.ctrls.in/aup.php :

--quoted email text starts--
Hi,

your AUP (which abbreviation by the way properly means "acceptable use
policy", your current AUP gets that wrong in two different ways)
contains very unacceptable provisions.

The most serious problem is that you seem to want your customers to
agree that on their hosted websites nothing would be included that says
anything critical about anyone or about anything, as your definition
of "Defamatory content" includes "any website content that ... may give
an individual, business, product, services, group, government or nation
a negative image."

Please read up on the actual meaning of "defamation", and think hard and
carefully about what it means for democratic discourse when factually
justifiable criticism is forbidden by AUPs.

In view of your AUP provisions, I currently cannot recommend your
services to the organization which has asked me to advise them in the
choice of a hosting service provider.

Best regards
Norbert Bollow
--quoted email text ends--

Greetings,
Norbert

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