DIRECTNIC - scumbags or doing their job ?
 

I'm sure most everyone has heard of "westboro baptist church", the screwballs behind " gothatesamerica.com godhatescanada.com godhatesfags.com etc " , they picket soldiers funerals and such with signs saying "thank god for dead soldiers" and shit like that.

Out of curiosity i did a whois on them and noticed directnic is the registrar for most of their obnoxious domains.

So my question is .. Is it directnic role to not step in in matters like this or do you think they should step up and ask them to move somewhere else ?

I'm sure even the most vocal "freedom of speech" people would at the very least be offended if someone had children picketing your family members funeral , saying they are going to hell and such. I just can't fathom how these people have managed to stay alive.

If you were the registrar what would you do ?

If someone showed up to picket at my gay or military friend's/family member's funeral, I would end up going to jail.

Are there specific rules/laws about hate speech as it relates to websites and registrars?

If it were me I would let them register the domains. If you start choosing what names people can and can't register than I think you start heading yourself down a slippery slope.

so if you owned directnic you would be a registrar for NAMBLA or babymolesters.com ?

what if it was on a more personal level like think of the person you love most and if the domain was "god-hates-insert-name.com" ,

lets say it was your 80 year old christian grandmothers name :winkwink:

limit to free speach has no limitations
if u start lmiting one thing, u gonna limit a lot

That's right. It's all or nothing. The only thing that defeats hateful speech is better speech, and more of it.

well we already have some limits, you cant tell a cop to go fuck himself.

While I think its pretty pathetic I agree that it opens a can of worms if you start saying who can or cannot have a domain name.

remember the question is not if certain words should be banned from domains ,just if directnic should allow it.

if you owned a movie theatre you can still advocate free speech but not allow someone to scream over and over during the movie..

If you owned a covenience store and some old man would come in and tell all the children he wanted to squirt his manjuice in their mouth thats freedom of speech , nothing illegal about it , but you dont have to let him in the store, you arent limiting his free speech you are simply not allowing it in your store. are you saying you would allow this dirty old man to come back in and do it over and over..

While I might be offended by it, I would not disallow it. I understand there are sometimes consequences for peoples actions. If you buy babymolesters.com and people hate you for running a site with that name, you have to deal with it. If you scream in a crowded theater you have to deal with the consequences of doing so. I could see where you might not allow domains that are about illegal activities. obviously molesting a baby is illegal so you might disallow that on the grounds that it is an illegal activity, but even then I would be hesitant because where do you draw the line? What if I want shootingherion.com and I make it an anti-drug site?

There are always extremes with freedom of speech. I personally figure if the extreme things are allowed, those of us who rarely venture out to that part of the world will always be safe.

Why do you hate America?

who gets to pick where the line is drawn?

While I voted for the option closest to what I feel (follow the law). I also feel there is no issue with a company personally deciding to tell someone else to take their business elsewhere if they choose based on these or some other circumstances again within the scope of the law.

I would not as a registrar police anything, if I could help it

There's plenty of other people willing to police things and when you step into that roll you have a shitload of judgement calls to make.

Thats said if I did own a registrar I would have certain strings flagged for approval.

:thumbsup good points

how funny
a board whore in a porn industry is trying to limit constitutionally protected free speech rights in another industry

I'd say the only scumbag here is YOU !!



and for the record "westboro baptist church" are pieces of shit.

ok now to throw a little twist into the question.

Recently directnic suspended a few domains due to content on the domains without a court order. This kinda points to them using personal opinion on some occasions.

Godaddy also often suspends domains due to spam complaints without a court order. Do you think registrars that suspend domains without following a court order should also suspend sites they deem "inappropriate"

p.s. no beef with directnic , i have a bunch of domains with them.

wtf , i just asked the question i didnt tell you how to vote :1orglaugh

i brought it up for a number of reasons, there was a gfy thread a bit ago about someone having there porn domain suspended because directnic wanted to see id of a model on the site or something.

They werent legally ordered to suspend the domain , they did it because they must have based their decision on the content on the domain. This points to them using perosnal opimion on who to suspend. Its hardly "unbiased" to use different rules for different groups.

tell that to the mothers of soldiers who died in iraq who had to listen to children tell them they pray to god that their sons died and they will burn in hell as the mothers attend their sons funeral.

dont get me wrong i am not saying i disagree with you entirely, just wanted to get a discussion going to see what other people thought.

Christianity at its best.

That is a tough one. If it were my brother or son they were picketing I may just end up hitting a few of them, but that is probably what they would want so they could sue me. I'm a little more of the type that would bite my lip, find out who they were and where they lived and do my best to make their lives miserable.

Free speech can be ugly and I think in this particular case you can restrict it to public places or force them to stay a certain distance away because they are actually holding a protest or assembly and there are laws in many places regulating where and how these can take place. At least that way they won't be 20 feet away screaming at you.

I don't know what I would say to the mother other than to try to ignore them and rest on the reality that her son was a good person who died defending his country and that these people will live the rest of their lives in misery because they are so full of hate and fear they know nothing but that. She can walk proud knowing that her son lived his life with courage and honor and he died protecting all of us. Some of us (like the protesters) are scum and are not worthy of his sacrifice and those scumbags will never understand that. She can know that because of men like her son they have the right to do what they are doing, but they will never understand strength, honor, courage or real happiness and if that is how they choose to live their lives so be it. Fuck them and let them preach their hate and fear to other scum, they are not worth this mother's tears or anger. The best way for her to strike back at them is to walk past, proud and defiant and live a good life.

I guess, ultimately this is why battles of free speech are fought mostly in court where much of the emotion of the subject can be taken out of it. I'm sure you can't fully convince a mom who's son as died in Iraq that these people have the right to protest. But you can convince a jury that for all speech to be free, you have to include that which you don't like or understand.

I agree with that. Back in the day there was only one registrar, now there are a ton and I think any registrar should be allowed to tell people that they don't want to do business with names like that and that they can register it elsewhere.

But I don't think certain domains should be banned outright.

what the hell? You're calling directnic scumbags because some scumbags registered domains with them? Is what they're doing illegal?

This makes no sense

I think they are some of the most evil people on earth but I also think that if we want registrars to police domain names we might not like where that leads.

people run their business how they run their business. i know them all quite well and am partners with mikeai on several projects and to suggest they somehow are playing morality police is absurd or let personal opinions/preferences play a role in who owns what domains is retarded and naive.

i am not speaking for them... but i can say that just because registrars might make what seem to you to be arbitrary decisions... its because you aren't aware of all the facts and you are sitting there making assumptions based on no information.

usually they spend a ridiculous amount of time dealing with legal threats, lawsuits and legal bullshit (getting drug into lawsuits between companies and partners suing each other) because we have a legal system that allows any jackass the right to legally harass anyone for any reason.

i can't understand how people can be so retarded and still feed and clothe themselves.

and what the fuck is with your "tell that to the mothers of the children who died ...." what do soldiers defend?

really?

have you slipped so far over the communist edge that you have absolutely no sense of what your rights should be as an american and that those rights are supposed to be the foundation of this society?

are you so clueless that you can't understand that those rights are EXACTLY what a soldier signs up to defend?

i have a lot of hoax sites and read countless e-mails everyday from people using the same moronic logic... "this is america... and you can't blah blah blah" .... "even though i know its a joke, i am still going to get your site shut down.... "

what is it even supposed to mean to be american anymore? do any of you fucking idiots remember? that piece of paper called the Constitution? Bill of Rights? freedom of religion? freedom of speech? capitalism and free markets?

holy fuck. its the year 2008 and we are looking at choosing between a dead guy and 2 fucking idiots for president who want to tax everyone into oblivion as a solution to all social ills. what the fuck happened to this place? when did we become a nation of people holding their hand out and expecting the government to fill it?

how did this become a country that stood for freedom and opportunity turn into a bunch of useless fucking idiots on Maury Povich, making their 9th appearance for a paternity test to figure out who the father of their kid is?

How did you assholes slip so far that you now are more in tune with what is happening on Dancing with the Stars than why you are paying 4.00 a gallon for gas?

this country went from a great nation that stood for something great and where people came to fulfill their dreams, to a bunch of ghetto trash, rednecks and hippies that thinks the world owes them something


I read this board and more and more start to sympathize with that Taliban. at least they have no questions about what they stand for and are ready to fight and die for it. people in this country have no identity and stand for nothing but hypocrisy and rhetoric, yet have this sense of being somehow special in the world. somehow more free than other nations (gee dipshit.. travel much?). and somehow being some sort of moral authority in the world and beacon of hope.


the more i read this board...the more i sympathize with the Taliban.

not saying i agree with them completely ... but you know, they have some good points about the US.

I don't mind those idiots having a site where they can vent and communicate with idiots on the other side of the world, BUT they should be decapitated for ruining funerals.

I swear if one of those retards would show up to protest at any of the funerals I'd attend I would slit their baby's throats.

Child molestiong is illegal. Calling someone a fag and saying god hates them isn't. Big difference.

Why the piss on directnic?

As much as I hate those scumbags (the westbro fuck offs) I'd have to say it's boarder line on directnics side. I think we remember how much flack myself included that we gave directnic when they turned off Slick's DNS n his TGP's for false CP claims.

So how could we bitch at them for that, yet expect them to treat these guys different from ourselves? As I say that I still think it's boarder line because these guys might have the right for freedom of speech but is what they are doing protected by that or is it promoting hate?

So it comes down to this, we all said it wasn't directnics job to police the internet in our cases, so how can we expect them to do it in this case? If you do it with these guys what is next? Would enough complaints bring down a anti Bush site or a anti Obama site? A pro Jihad site or a Pro war site? could go on and on.

In short the best solution is to just go beat the hell out of those fuckers.. and let the hackers lose on their webpage. :winkwink:

As a member of the ACLU i respect both the rights of the picketers. And the rights of the families who chase them down with baseball bats for fucking up their funerals : )

I can't wait for him to die to see how many people picket it.

thats different....people paid to see the movie, & the opening has a "rule" asking the audience to please maintain silence, its part of the agreement you make buying a ticket

Child molestation and hating people are two different things.

I saw a documentary on BBC America about them. They're truly a bunch of nut cases. Especially the daughter. But, imo, they should be allowed to register the name.

i was referring to the name not the content on the site

people pay to buy a domain don't they and i would assume they have rules right.

please read the thread. i didn't call them scumbags , i asked you if they were scumbags or doing their job

i was trying to play devils advocate in asking the question , i didn't give my opinion yet. :2 cents:

I pretty well agree with much of what has been said , and alot of what you said.

I didn't give my opinion because mine is a bit slanted. I had a domain suspended by directnic recently and they didn't follow a court order , they did it based on "personal opinion", with that being said i somewhat agree with their opinion , just perhaps not the method.

I am certainly not trying to "BASH" directnic . i have many domains with them and don't plan on changing that anytime soon.

some might argue that forcing kids to picket soldiers funerals is child abuse.

no piss, i use them , and continue to use them . i gladly pay the extra price to use a solid product.

Godaddy has addressed things like this on Bob (the CEO's) podcast. Basically their stance is that they do not limit anyone's free speech in any ways unless their legal department rules their content, etc is against the law or they receive a court order.

So in this case, I say Directnic is doing the right thing. Until the sites content/practices break the law then they should let it be.

hard to say. i work @ godaddy and know first hand they can fuck with your domains if they feel like it even though they say they are not police-ing the internet. its in their terms or service. i heard direct nic was the same way...

with that logic, you could arrest anyone who reports cp in newspapers etc for inciting the crime..

i think they are scumbags but i dont see anything wrong with them letting those domains be registered.

Nah, it's not their job, once you start picking what domains your allow and which ones you don't, you open yourself up to a lot of drama...

can you imagine if they started forbidding PORN RELATED domain names?
you can register anything you want...

i love directnic..id actually like to get mike ai better

I understand how you think Smokey...as a programmer like me you're always in "logic" mode.

Unfortunately free speech can not be explained with simple logic. Its a belief, a culture, a way of life....intended to protect all of the other rights by itself.

Think of it as a necessary driver for the operating system we can democracy. If we make changes to it, or fuck with it AT ALL, the OS will become unstable.

If your not offended once in a while you dont live in a free country.