Crackdown on hate speech spreads
Cloud hosting services are reconsidering their responsibilities.
The tech industry’s crackdown on content from right-wing users spread this week from social media platforms to behind-the-scenes companies that don’t typically take on free speech issues, a sign of heightened aggressiveness ahead of a planned far-right gathering this weekend inspired by the riots in Charlottesville, Va.
Microsoft, which provides cloud services that host websites, on Thursday threatened to cease hosting an alt-right leaning social network called Gab.ai after a user posted comments that threatened Jewish people with “ritual death by torture.” The content, Microsoft said, “incites violence, is not protected by the First Amendment” and violated company policies.
Microsoft then issued an ultimatum: Gab must remove the posts or Microsoft would terminate the site’s access to its cloud service, called Azure. Gab ultimately complied.
The demand appeared to mark the latest escalation by tech giants to strike the right balance between facilitating free speech and combating hateful, abusive or violent content online.
“We believe we have an important responsibility to ensure that our services are not abused by people and groups seeking to incite violence,” Microsoft said.
Gab did not respond to an email seeking comment. Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab, wrote in a post they’re seeking a new hosting provider and considering how to build “our own infrastructure.”
“We believe this was the best decision for the longevity of the platform and the war against Silicon Valley,” he wrote.
The threat of censorship by a cloud provider is more unusual than removals by sites such as Facebook and YouTube of content that violates their policies. One such high-profile case came this week, when Facebook, Apple, YouTube and others deleted years of content from conservative conspiracy site InfoWars. Cloud-hosting services, which are less visible, tend to take a more neutral stance on a content than social networks like Facebook and YouTube, which have policies on behavior and teams of moderators.
As neo-Nazi rallies in Charlottesville demonstrated last year, tech platforms can serve as both organizing tools and catalysts for violence. Alt-right groups initially tried to use Facebook to coordinate their efforts at the “Unite the Right” rally, and sites like the Daily Stormer praised the death of a counter-protester who was killed. In response, tech companies faced immense pressure to rethink their policies and take down the offending content.