Tech Tyranny: Conservative Christian Site Blacklisted by Web Host

[Original Happy Camper]

Free speech is under attack

Is being Christian and robustly conservative now against tech companies’ terms of service? It increasingly seems so. A good example is the report that the pro-life, pro-family LifeSiteNews.com was recently blacklisted by its hosting company and given only 12 hours to find a new one — or risk being offline.

LifeSite is a Christian entity that covers a range of issues, with special focus on life, family, and the sexual devolution. Frequent readers also may recognize it as a site from which I sometimes quote. As for its problems, LifeSite reported October 27:

This is extremely urgent. I need to inform you that LifeSite just received an email at 8:30 p.m. EST from our web-hosting company alerting us that they will be taking our website down within 12 hours, if not sooner.

They wrote: “we are implementing our ‘SUSPENSION OF SERVICES’ clause...and giving you 12 hours notice to move your web site operations off of our servers..."

We received absolutely no forewarning whatsoever about this decision.

LifeSite doesn’t mention the hosting company’s name, but according to the former’s DNS recordand an LGBT-activist blog (which I won’t publicize by linking to), it’s San Francisco-based Cloudflare.

While LifeSite covers many issues, it was, unsurprisingly, focus on homosexuality that got it in trouble. In particular, the news organ explains, “The [hosting] company told LifeSite it is acting in response to a months-long campaign of complaints against us by Adam Flanders. Flanders is a convicted sex abuser and homosexual activist who is angered over our reports exposing him and his past.”

Read more here
Tech Tyranny: Conservative Christian Site Blacklisted by Web Host

 

[paul1149]

Cloudflare

I would stay away from Cloudflare. Check out its Wikipedia entry.

“The [hosting] company told LifeSite it is acting in response to a months-long campaign of complaints against us

This seems to be the MO of many on the Left, who have decided that free speech is a liability they cannot afford. They run campaigns of complaints against conservatives and by sheer numbers get sites removed, facebook or twitter accounts banned or shadowbanned, youtube accounts demonetized, and google search hits demoted. They won't allow conservatives to speak on campus and harass them when they do. They were displeased when the people spoke in 2016, and have determined that will never happen again.

 

[Original Happy Camper]

I would stay away from Cloudflare. Check out its Wikipedia entry.



This seems to be the MO of many on the Left, who have decided that free speech is a liability they cannot afford. They run campaigns of complaints against conservatives and by sheer numbers get sites removed, facebook or twitter accounts banned or shadowbanned, youtube accounts demonetized, and google search hits demoted. They won't allow conservatives to speak on campus and harass them when they do. They were displeased when the people spoke in 2016, and have determined that will never happen again.

this the statement that caught my eye in the article
"it is acting in response to a months-long campaign of complaints against us by Adam Flanders."

one complainer and thry acted

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

It's not just them, either. Search engine queries are also affected. Try using any marginally indelicate word to describe a person of alternate lifestyle on this forum and see where it gets you. My point of view is globally suppressed. Normally, I wouldn't care, if I felt that people were competent enough to think for themselves, but evidence shows that people tend to think what everyone else appears to be thinking. The tech companies can lead our foolish world anywhere.

 

[tulc]

...this isn't actually a "free speech" thing, you know that right? Even your article admits that:

Our First Amendment only protects against government trampling of speech, and most of the entities effecting this censorship are private (snip)

tulc(just thought that should be pointed out)

 

[Sketcher]

Free speech is under attack

Is being Christian and robustly conservative now against tech companies’ terms of service? It increasingly seems so. A good example is the report that the pro-life, pro-family LifeSiteNews.com was recently blacklisted by its hosting company and given only 12 hours to find a new one — or risk being offline.

LifeSite is a Christian entity that covers a range of issues, with special focus on life, family, and the sexual devolution. Frequent readers also may recognize it as a site from which I sometimes quote. As for its problems, LifeSite reported October 27:

This is extremely urgent. I need to inform you that LifeSite just received an email at 8:30 p.m. EST from our web-hosting company alerting us that they will be taking our website down within 12 hours, if not sooner.

They wrote: “we are implementing our ‘SUSPENSION OF SERVICES’ clause...and giving you 12 hours notice to move your web site operations off of our servers..."

We received absolutely no forewarning whatsoever about this decision.

Old story is old. Looks like they found a new host, lifesitenews.com is up for me currently. Which is good news, they deserved a better host than that (unless I'm missing a bombshell piece of information here).

LifeSite doesn’t mention the hosting company’s name, but according to the former’s DNS recordand an LGBT-activist blog (which I won’t publicize by linking to), it’s San Francisco-based Cloudflare.

CloudFlare is a proxy service which is very popular, and used by sites at many hosts. CloudFlare receives the traffic, and passes it on to the host, sometimes after filtering it a bit for malicious-looking traffic, if you have that in your package with CloudFlare. A DNS lookup that reveals a CloudFlare IP does not in any way indicate that CloudFlare is the host.

While LifeSite covers many issues, it was, unsurprisingly, focus on homosexuality that got it in trouble. In particular, the news organ explains, “The [hosting] company told LifeSite it is acting in response to a months-long campaign of complaints against us by Adam Flanders. Flanders is a convicted sex abuser and homosexual activist who is angered over our reports exposing him and his past.”

Read more here
Tech Tyranny: Conservative Christian Site Blacklisted by Web Host

Sounds like a professional troll who works to leverage and weaponize terms of service against sites he doesn't like. These losers should be considered distinct from the people running major social media platforms, who make similar bias mistakes as the people in traditional media do.

 

[The Barbarian]

We all have the right to free speech. We don't have the right to demand a private media company help us promote it.

Even if the internet becomes classified as utility, it won't help; Reagan killed the "Fairness Doctrine."

 

[creslaw]

Private companies have the right to decide which clients they will service ... unless they are a bakery or florist or photographer who does not agree with ssm.

 

[The Barbarian]

Private companies have the right to decide which clients they will service ... unless they are a bakery or florist or photographer who does not agree with ssm.

Public accomodation laws are a real problem, because it runs up against two different rights. People have a right to not be discriminated against in public accommodations like hotels, restaurants and food stores.
42 U.S. Code § 2000a - Prohibition against discrimination or segregation in places of public accommodation

On the other hand, a person's religious freedom allows him to refuse to take part in things objectionable to his religion.

Neither right is absolute; there are circumstances in which these rights conflict. And then some hard choices need to be made.

Media is not considered a public accommodation under the law, and therefore is not the same as the gay baker issue.