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IncogNET filed an official complaint against HE with the Attorney General of Washington State
4pple5auc3
Member
https://twitter.com/IncogNetLLC/status/1685359845505957888
https://ibb.co/dPnNP3W
https://ibb.co/J5vQKMv
Today we filed an official complaint against @henet (Hurricane Electric) with the @AGOWA (Attorney General of Washington State) over their censorship of legal and protected speech. We have also reached out to the @EFF who has previously shown support in protecting the foundation of free speech on the internet.
Free speech is for everyone, even those you disagree with. Dropping routes to a subnet in the middle of the night with no notice and with no prior complaints or concerns expressed is not a way to do business. Under Washington State House Bill 2282, ISPs may not "Block lawful content"
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Comments
Anyone can submit a complaint, it is literally just an online form
Kiwi Farms strikes again 🥝
Edit: the LEB article about Kiwi Farms being deplatformed is now updated.
Just thought a T1 provider blocking subnets over a single website without warning was worthy of discussion.
Thanks @MannDude for attempting to stick up for free speech.
This. But, it's a start.
Hurricane Electric acted poorly. Essentially saying, "Hey, we don't like your customer and we're not going to talk to you about it we're just going to not let you provide service regardless if the content is legal or not."
Zero complaints. Zero warnings. Zero communication. Just lights out in the middle of the night for a downstream customer's IP subnet.
Technically Washington state has protections against such actions. We'll see. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
Does HE have a TOS or contract language that allows them to do this?
For all the talk we've had around businesses like Cloudflare shutting down users, this is where I think we all feared the topic was going. One cannot be expected to keep up with the whims of those who shutdown networks without warning based on content which isn't illegal, which undermines the confidence in a company like HE. Dare I say that is indeed a topic worthy of conversation.
It's entirely possible to dislike that website and those who risk the freedom the internet has largely known since it's inception simply to please a few loud people. Sincerely, fuck that website. But right now, fuck HE too.
And if they've violated a law, it should be easy to approach that. Contrary to popular belief, we came up with ways to enforce laws many years ago and having privately owned police forces wasn't one of the ways we largely agreed upon. It would equally be a shame to see HE enforce an unknown law rather than notify and cooperate with law enforcement.
Is it, though?
Don Black's Stormfront has been operating since the early 1990s and he's still online to this day, without any issues whatsoever.
Why would KF be "censored" so much if it's a free speech thing?
That's the thing, though... no pun intended, it's not a free speech issue. It's a matter of pretending to be a community that follows the law, while it actually doesn't.
Intimidating people and making fun of their sexuality, hiding non-consensual photography behind a login form, etc... none of those things are legal, at least not when you plaster it all over the website and paint a target on people's backs for not liking it.
Don't get me wrong, lolcows will be lolcows, but if you do in fact follow the law, then you also have to understand that you have to be objective, and take your own advice, and... I don't know... maybe not engage the lolcows, and moderate the platform a bit better, so that they can't take it down that easy.
They stated it was an AUP violation, but did not answer what part of the AUP it violated.
Their AUP doesn't override state law: https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2017-18/Pdf/Bills/House Bills/2282.pdf
Namely:
It's just a bad precedence.
I get that. But last time I checked, it's not illegal to be an asshole.
I said those things as a user of the site, and someone who actually likes it, but not the abuse that comes from it. If that makes any sense... I, like many others likes what makes KF what it is: the people. But then you have the bad apples... namely Josh with his really strange targeting of trans people and his regular taunting of anyone who objects to his actions, even though they are inherently illegal.
If you want to be a fully legal community then you need to remove all personal feelings from administrative decisions, and you need to let the community be run autonomously, without you making any major decisions that could impact the community's future on the clearnet.
Josh is doing exactly what any dictator would do, in my opinion... he keeps talking about free speech, but then he also keeps taunting people who could in fact be the victims of some of the KF users. Like I said before, not all KF users are psychos, but some are... same could be said for any community, and at least when it comes to KF... they run amok.
I wasn't aware HE offer broadband internet access services.
Learn something new every day: https://he.net/ip_transit.html
(Note the law doesn't say residential)
I understand that as I have contracted services with them, the point I was trying to make was the actual definition of broadband. It’s one thing to filter and fuck with mom and pops cable internet service vs IP transit.
https://www.fcc.gov/general/types-broadband-connections#fiber
Even for fiber it’s worded for last mile providers.
This is the bills definition of "Broadband internet access service"
RIP dial-up
Troll hat on: Fiber isn't a wire... Cable and DSL are!
I thought about the exact same thing when I read it. But does that argument work? While a troll it is still a fun one for a debate.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I have a funny feeling HE will pick at the definitions the same way. The law is a little vague, imo.
Don’t get me wrong, them dropping the routes without notice is unacceptable.
Yeah, hope to see some spicy updates someday. But according to ChatGipperty 3.5 fiber is not a traditional fiber but anyone who knows how the Internet works will say that its a stupid argument. But ey attorneys are not smart when it comes to this stuff.
No worries
I don't personally care about KF, but I think this sets a scary precedence as MannDude said. I also see KF as a good litmus test case for how to keep a site or service online when all the big guys want you permanently offline for good.
Why hasn't HE done this yet with pirate sites? No T1 providers are blocking TPB or any of the huge torrent sites yet.
Are T1 providers going to start doing this with pirate sites, controversial websites, and maybe traffic from countries the western world doesn't like?
Aren't T1 providers supposed to be neutral bandwidth providers? Wouldn't it be most beneficial to them to just keep their mouth shut and allow anything that doesn't cripple their network unless ordered to by the courts?
For years Cloudflare said they are just a neutral bandwidth provider and that defense helped them in court cases to avoid liability. After de-platforming a few highly controversial sites in the past 5-6 years, this claim holds up less and less. Copyright trolls are already asking them if you can ban KF, 8Chan, Daily Stormer, etc then why can't you also ban copyright offending sites. https://torrentfreak.com/cloudflare-rejects-role-as-internet-or-piracy-police-220901/ Wouldn't this same logic then apply to T1 providers and potentially hurt them in future court cases for selectively blocking questionable content without court order?
Why do T1 providers and Cloudflare seemingly only care when its rainbow activists getting hurt feelings? We all know huge amounts of questionable websites online that for some reason get a pass. Are they just not a priority? Who determines the priority and why does a Twitter mob get a more serious response from these huge providers than actual malicious websites? 99.9% of those complaining aren't actually going to ever be a HE customer.
I'm concerned about the future of internet freedom and I'm concerned about selective enforcement of the rules, especially when its not being enforced by actual laws and courts, but by a couple dozen huge companies as a virtue signaling PR move. Its not like any of us can just quickly start operating as a T1 provider. They used to say if you don't like a platform's rules then start your own. Fair enough. Are we going to have to operate our own Internet backbone soon too? This has moved beyond switching domain registrars or hosting providers now.
@4pple5auc3 Yes, them shutting down Kiwi could hurt them in future court cases
However, I think that’s the reason they called Kiwi a treat to life, because now they could try to remain neutral but say that of course, if there’s imminent treat to human life, they’ll have to get their hands dirty anyway
It's a good start, but without any expectations.
@4pple5auc3 HE is not a T1
Well. Here's in interesting spin: https://about.att.com/sites/broadband - "Broadband Internet Access Services" just as stated in the law.
Other than some FTTH services (I'm assuming), I'm not seeing anything "IP Transit" related. Nothing over 5 Gbps on fiber either. Unless I'm blind!
Ok fair enough. I guess its a T2 or something in between technically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network#Other_major_networks
Its still a massive worldwide transit provider. You get my point though.
However GTT and I believe Zayo are T1 and have actively blocked KF too.
Verizon blocks some torrent sites/piracy sites.
Isn't that just via their DNS on the consumer level side of things?
I think T2 because they are not a T1 at v4 or v6 while Cogent is still a T1 for v4 but not v6.
Yeah, was just pointing that small thing out
GTT, Lumen, Zayo, Voxility.
Big ISP's had to block TPB (and proxies) in the Netherlands on an IP and DNS level. Other than that you have the EU blocking Russia news outlets because of the Russia Ukrain war.
The ips are blackholed in their network. Their bgp looking glass shows the next hop to be a private AS65512 and just dead ends.
I'd beg to differ.
Due process exists for lawful entities, but if you are a criminal entity you are entitled to no such thing. In other words, they won't bother sending you requests asking you to moderate your site if they know that you won't. They will just remove you from their network, and when it just so happens that you actually not only embrace the infamy, but also sic your users on people advocating for your site to be shut down, well... at that point you are in fact an actual criminal entity, and not because of the majority, but rather because of the few users that believe that "everything" is free speech, even though it's not.
Commentary is fine, but when you go out of your way, bribe or otherwise illegally access information pertaining to someone and then publish it, it's not free speech... it's targetted harassment.
I think he approached the issue from a criminal's point of view, and not that of a citizen.