Recently, a conversation detailing the whining between someone named Ben Rometsch and the amazingly cool folks at Host Matters. Host Matters is the provider for a weblog called Little Green Footballs which is a supporter of, among other things, our policy in [[wp:Iraq]]. Ben seems to be someone that spends a lot of time on The Daily KOS and is clearly a rabid supporter of many things including making sure Bush isn’t re-elected.
As with most of these types of people, whenever they don’t like something they try and shut it down in a sort of “but it’s hurting my feelings” frenzy. We have seen this sort of thing before from people like this. So when KOS decided he didn’t like what LGF was saying, he urged his users to try and shut the site down and like a good little zombie Ben apparently went right to work.
Anyway, big kudos to Hosting Matters for being cool enough to stand up to this sort of thing and not cave like so many spineless providers do. I have included the exchange between Ben and Hosting Matters below, edited to be in chronological order and with minor changes to formatting.
Some serious whining…
Hi There,
I just had the following discussion with [email protected]:
(read from the bottom up…)
There was a forum thread on their support forum discussing this, and the forum administrator actually posted the above email discussion to that thread. The thread no longer exists. I signed up to the forums, questioning why it had been removed, and was banned instantly, and my thread also deleted.
Anyone think it is worth taking this up with their hosting company?
From: Ben Rometsch
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 9:48 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: One of your clients is abusing your AUP?
Hi There,
Do you not feel that the a large number of
comments found on this site:http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/
Violate the following part of your AUP:
Material that is defamatory or
abusive in nature, that infringes on the privacy or rights of others, or
that is otherwise threatening, is prohibited.???
Thanks,
Ben Rometsch
From: Abuse Investigations <mailto:[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 9:50 PM
To: ‘Ben Rometsch’
Subject: RE: One of your clients is abusing your AUP?
Please feel free to visit this link in our forums:
Abuse Investigations wrote:
Apologies, the mail sent off before the link had finished pasting in.
From: Ben Rometsch
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 9:57 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: One of your clients is abusing your AUP?
Thanks for the prompt reply.
I have read that thread, yes. I do not see a distinction between “material”, as in “Material that is defamatory or abusive in nature” and “comments left on the site by visitors to it” (link).
Do you? Surely the comments left on the site are “material”?
Abuse Investigations wrote:
“Material” in our view, is content created by the site holder who holds an account with us. On a site as busy as the one in question, it is impractical to believe that every comment can be reviewed by the site holder, just as it is impractical for us to review all of the sites we host. We would apply the same standard to any site within our network where outside visitors can leave commentary, in fact. If you believe that any of the site holder’s commenters have crossed some line, you can contact him to review the comments those people have made. Without some egregious activity by the site’s commenters (threats to kill someone, posting their personal contact information/phone, inviting others to harass an individual, or anything else a reasonable person would interpret as a real threat), we will take no action related to those comments, just as we take no action related to comments placed on the more left-leaning sites we host when presented with the same type of complaint. As noted in the linked thread in our forums, we have requested the removal of a comment once. It is – as it should be, in our opinion – a rare event to make such a request.
From: Ben Rometsch
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 10:07 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: One of your clients is abusing your AUP?
Ah, OK. So if I set up a website, and people leave comments on my site advocating, say, mass genocide, you are happy to host that, providing you dont receive a complaint?
Abuse Investigations wrote:
I believe you’re being disingenuous, purposefully. Your intent appears less like reasonable dialogue and more as if you have already determined what your position happens to be, without any concern, awareness, or attempt at understanding ours. If you wish to believe what you have just written, it is certainly within your power to do so. However, we will not respond to insults of this nature. As noted, here and within the thread linked in our forum, multiple times: if you have an example of a specific, credible threat, you are welcome to point it out.
From: Ben Rometsch
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 10:21 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: One of your clients is abusing your AUP?
Sorry, do you mean a threating post by the site owner, or by a member of the site, posting a comment?
Abuse Investigations wrote:
Either. Please note these words: specific, credible. If a reasonable person could not construe something as specific and credible, we are unlikely to take action.
( note that it looks like an email is missing here, but the response seems to be complete )
Abuse Investigations wrote:
I’m not sure what further clarification is needed here. We have told people, including yourself, that any specific, credible threat will be investigated. I’m afraid that your opinion of the links below as “advocating war crimes” is not one that is accepted by us when reading these comments in context. Nor are these items a specific, credible threat, unless you know one of these posters has a nuclear device hidden somewhere or that they can convince someone to push a button to launch a missile against a country/city/person. The comments may be nasty, and they may be things with which you or I do not agree. They are not, however, cause for removal of them by us, nor are they cause for removal of the site under which they were posted. If you believe the posts should be removed, you can contact the site holder with whatever rationale you have for such an action.
See comments inline. Note that we will be posting this correspondence in our forums, without your identifying information.
-_-_-
Item #1“Kos seems to be the kind of guy looking for love on the internet from other fucked-in- the-head men who are also looking for Mr. Right-but-actually-Left.
Besides, he was an abused child….not even the dog would play with him.”
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10469#c0049Random insults of this nature are not “avocating war crimes”. Nor are they plausible threats against another person. Juvenile, whether you agreed with the Kos statements or not? Yes. There’s no law and nothing in our AUP preventing people from acting like asses in this regard.
-_-_-
Item #2“We will never win this war on muslim terror, if we do not topple the regimes in Iran and Fraudi Arabia. Assad, as well as any holdouts in Iraq will tumble on their own after that. Pakiland is a whole other ball of feces though.”
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10415#c0006Opinion on the state of military/governmental affairs in the Middle East, which matches some national commentary I’ve seen here and there. There is no advocacy of “war crimes” here, nor is there any threat inherent in stating an opinion on how war should be waged or how democracy should be spread, or whatever the poster would like to term it.
-_-_-
Item #3“Honestly, I say you drop a daisy-cutter on both Fallujah and Mecca.”
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10415#c0020(Note: you left off the end of this comment: “All this nonsense would end in 24 hours. Notice how quiet the palestinians have become since their boy Arafat gotthe message.”)
-_-_-
Item #4“I’m sick of Fallujah. What are we waiting for? Turn the damn thing into a CRATER already!”
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10415#c0063(Note: you left off the final portion of this comment: “Damn Bush and his PC war.”)
-_-_-
Item #5“The real problem is that the towelheads simply do not understand – in their guts – the dynamic at work here. We have decided to provide them with democracy and civilization *in lieu of killing them*. If we ever come to the point where, as a culture, we decide they *cannot be civilized*, then only one avenue will remain. Kaboom.”
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10415#c0064-_-_-
Item #6“Level Fallujah. Do a Dresden on that town and let it be an example to everyone else.”
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=10415#c0131Note: you also left off the beginning and end of this comment, which puts it squarely in perspective. If you’re going to complain about comments, you should include the *full* comment, not one sentence pulled from one comment in one thread.
The full quote is as follows:
“Fricking animals. I have a friend who’s a Bechtel contractor in Iraq. I pray that he’s safe. Level Fallujah. Do a Dresden on that town and let it be an example to everyone else. I’m beginning to agree with Camel Prophet and that scares me.”
Four comments, pulled from a thread with almost 800, which follows a posting about the events in Fallujah on the day it occurred? Posting in anger, as noted in the forum thread, is not a crime, nor is it against our AUP. I’m not certain what credible threat you see in the above, but I suppose if you look closely enough, you’re apt to see just about anything.
From: Ben Rometsch
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 11:50 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: One of your clients is abusing your AUP?
There’s no law and nothing in our AUP preventing people from acting like asses in this regard.
So when your AUP states:
Material that is defamatory or abusive in nature, that infringes on the privacy or rights of others
what exactly does that cover? If a website states that someone was “abused as a child”, is that not “material that is defamatory or abusive in nature”?
Abuse Investigations wrote:
I think you’re really trying to stretch nothing into something. Do you seriously believe for one minute that the poster is trying to defame the individual about whom he is posting? To any reasonable person, it is clearly a juvenile insult, and says quites a bit more about the *poster* than it says about the individual he is trying to insult. I would suggest that if you are that sensitive you avoid the comments on the site or contact the site holder and request their removal. When you come across the insults directed against contrary viewpoints in the comments of left-leaning sites we host (yes, believe or not, they do exist), we hope you’ll be just as aghast as what you preceive to be violations of our AUP and treat them exactly the same way. Somehow, however, I doubt this will be the case.
From: Ben Rometsch
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 12:11 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: One of your clients is abusing your AUP?
I am in full agreement that the post was most probably made in a juvenile manner, and certainly says more about the poster than it does the person he is referring to. However, are you suggesting that it is not “defamatory material”?
If you wish to forward me some URLs of other sites that you feel may be in breach of your AUP, I will happily look at those, too. The implicataion of your statement, it has to be said, is that the post that I highlighted IS INDEED defamatory, and against your AUP. Would you not agree?
Just for my records, could you detail your tier 1 network suppliers?
Abuse Investigations wrote:
I’m afraid this conversation is over. You are interested in one thing, and one thing only, and we’re simply not going to debate it any further, especially since you seem further insistent on reading things into my statements that I have not said. If you seriously believe that one comment posted by that one individual in that one space on that one blog is “defamatory” and that it would stand a legal test of same, you should advise the individual against whom it is directed to contact a lawyer and begin proceedings against the individual who posted it *or* take it up with the site holder, as had been repeated ad nauseum.