We’ve been given notice by our hosting provider that we need to move off the site. The reason is that we were suddenly faced with a big increase in hosting costs, and it wasn’t tenable. (Where’s big oil when you need them?) So they told us we had to move.
Therefore we are moving back to wordpress.com, where we started back in 2007. We will be picking up where we left off when we moved two years ago and migrating all the content of the last two years back to the original site (which I retained in case of just such an emergency).
So, if WUWT becomes flakey or offline at times over the next few days, don’t worry. We have it all backed up.
Thanks for your understanding and patience. – Anthony
“deplatformed” So thats what the kids are calling it now!
One of the earliest people I recall who was brutally “de-platformed” was former newspaperman Frank Hilliard, who wrote an honest, frank and up-front blog with the name “Mesopotamia West”. One or two others may remember it, now that I bring specifics to the fore … he is a Canadian bloke, ran for an office or two and took exception to Canadian politics as they have ‘run off the rails’ in the last decade. He also chronicled events and personalities as they were occurring in the Muslim world; this might have led to his ultimate undoing.
Anyway, the SJW crowd (before widely known as such) took umbrage with his writing and opinions (even when backed with facts!) and the rest is history. Remember the saying “First they came for … and I did not speak out … and then they came for me and there was no one left …”? It’s a reality, folks.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Frank+Hilliard+%22Mesopotamia+West%22&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
For ‘youngsters’, just look at the design spec for what is now known as the internet.
The USSR nukes The USA and ‘communications’ work around ‘dead’ Cities and dead communication hubs.
The ‘message’ finds its own way through the chaos.
Something ‘cancel culture’ doesn’t understand is that, despite their ‘nuking’ of hubs … the message always finds a way through. Idiots.
I see the myth that the internet was designed to withstand nuclear attack still lives. It wasn’t. It was designed to allow people to share data without having to mail computer tapes all over the place. There IS a network designed to withstand such an attack but it wasn’t ARPANET.
Uh, no — Arpanet was first conceived as a means to use to decouple computer terminals from dedicated time sharing hosts.
“In his room at the Pentagon, Taylor’s access to time-shared systems led him to a key social observation. He could watch as computers at all three remote facilities came alive with activity, connecting local users. Time-shared computers allowed people to exchange messages and share files. Through the computers, people could learn about each other. Interactive communities formed around the machines.
Taylor also decided that it made no sense to require three teletype machines just to communicate with three incompatible computer systems. It would be much more efficient if the three were merged into one, with a single computer-language protocol that could allow any terminal to communicate with any other terminal. These insights led Taylor to propose and secure funding for ARPANET.”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/ARPANET
Wow! Thanks for the notice. I’ll make a (rather overdue) donation today.
“Hosting costs” forcing you to move. Is this a proxy for the host being afraid of being cancelled?
Perhaps effect of the CCCP (Catastrophic Climate Change Protocol) for suppressing of scientific dissent.
Either that, or the site is generating significantly increasing amounts of traffic. Unfortunately, it may also just be a side effect of the politically biased cancel culture.
co2isnotevil
July 15, 2020 at 9:55 am
It does not matter what the “why” is, what matters is the “what”.
Which ever way weighted, the “what” points out that most probably Anthony is played for a fool, in all this matter.
(“What”, “what” is actually what actually happening,
where WUWT deplatformed, purged, removed from clowd service.)
cheers
Difficult from the little detail given. Maybe he needs to be careful until the move is put in place.
I imagine that this site does draw quite heavily on resources but all hosting companies I’ve seen give you a b/w quota and top up fees if you go over.
A massive increase in fees sounds like a deliberate attack. We’ll have to wait for more info.
I used to host with AIT decades ago, they were pretty fairly priced. Then on year they just slipped a note at the bottom of what looked like a banal end of year greeting to all customers basically announcing hosting fees were double.
They effectively gave you less than 7days to notice to all “resellers”, sneakily hiding at the bottom, hoping most people would ignore their banal end of year blurb.
Luckily I did not have many customers hosted there by then anyway because their support was going down the drain.
Greg
July 16, 2020 at 2:15 pm
————
“I imagine that this site does draw quite heavily on resources but all hosting companies I’ve seen give you a b/w quota and top up fees if you go over.”
——————–
My understanding is that in account of the cloud, the increase in resource demand, mostly does not count much as increased costs, not for the host provider at least,
as it is handled and incurred by the Cloud itself and almost all of it is offset by the increased value of the website or the service, whatever that be.
cheers
Good luck with the move, and thank you for all your hard work!
Ditto, Anthony, et al.
Stay safe and healthy, all.
Bob
But we don’t have to say “Bye, and thanks for all the fish”, right?
So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish.
Thank You for staying the course
I was wondering when this was going to happen.”The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change” certainly won’t go unchallenged in their efforts to cancel everything they don’t agree with. It’s very disturbing what is going on with this cultural Marxism and Cancel Culture. Time to fight back by standing up to this bulling, and not allow our freedom of speech to be squelched. Which is why this election is probably the most important in generations, as the future either goes one way, or the other.
yes , wondering who the trackback “owners” are?
and if others got the pricehike memos too?
huge work shifting it all again but very precient of you to keep wordpress viable
thank you for so many years if effort and info ,
will be patient as the swapover occurs
reminding me of a heade in today aussie news re sparkles markle telling to kids to not listen not debate just make noise and protest to drown out anyone upseting you
sure sounds familiar!
Thanks for your tireless efforts to keep it going for all of these years. You have provided an invaluable public service that all should be grateful for.
Sudden overwhelming increase in costs? Hmmm
More likely they got an offer they couldn’t refuse …… with a bonus from the Open Society Foundation!
Whoa! Wow! What’s the word for this … unexpectedly? Another (subtle?) Cancel Culture Casualty? The host felt ‘pressure’ from somewhere?
You guys all keep me sane in a world gone mad. Donation made. Sorry it has taken so long to appreciate your tireless efforts.
Ditto. Donation sent.
Thanks for your understanding and patience. – Anthony
As though you owe us thanx for ANYTHING. Thank you, Mr. W., for EVERYTHING that you do(!)
(how about a BIG amen to that guys)…
+ big amens
Mega Ditto Amens !
and some money
Very Big Amens!
AMEN
Amen … + overdue donation. Thanks for all you do, Anthony … even though some of it goes over my little brain
AMEN! Thank you Anthony! (and the mods of course)
Yes, a big one.
I know a small businessman who’s a bit of a s**t disturber. He was putting ideas into the heads of the other tenants in the building where they all rented space. When his lease came due, the property manager jacked up his rent by an order of magnitude and he had to move. The property manager couldn’t kick him out but could make darn sure he left anyway.
Whether it was targeted / political, or it’s just how [redacted -AW] treats their customers, it’s good to know that they’re a provider to be avoided.
[Note: I still need to stay onboard a week to complete the move, I don’t want people harassing them during that time, so I redacted it. – Anthony]
Sorry about that!
Anthony, was there a reason for the increase?
+1
Because the could? and/or because they wanted to (as in wanted to do without the revenue WUWT was bring in)?
Have other sites had the same problem?
Thank you so very much Anthony, moderators, and all who make WUWT happen. This site and its contributors may very well have saved the WORLD from the leftist scourge of climate lies. Well done, and we look forward to Goliath finally being slayed. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and these are mine.
As far as I can tell, these are the people that you might want to talk to:
https://www.webair.com/company/
(scroll down)
You are an essential bulwark against Malthusian mind rot and the nonsense of “climate change.”
I will support you to my dying day.
For those speculating about there being a political motivation for the price increase, please stop. Mr. Watts didn’t indicate that there was, and the speculation is unjustified. It tends to undermine instances where there is evidence that someone wants to suppress those who don’t hold to the climate alarmist’s view.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deplatforming
thank you Damp–I did not know this. Learn something everyday. I thought it was a neutral word.
A “ditto” of Shelly’s post, word for word.
Coming up on 79 years of age, well and truly retired, and there’s still not enough time to keep up with the changes and additions to the English language, quite apart from the hardware that’s “smarter” than I am.
Still, English is spreading some. The Norwegians have a base an Antarctica. Their Web Cam is “Webkamera”. Dark there at this time of year.
“The Norwegians have a base an Antarctica.”
Uh oh, Didn’t they see the movie The Thing??
Jeez there really are people who sleep walk through life, wake up there bud, the war’s been going on for a while now.
I just saw the post from Damp, linking to the definition of Deplatforming. I had no idea it was specifically used in the context of denying a platform for political purposes. I know that happens a lot for conservative views.
As far as I can tell, the term is used by Social Justice Warriors (SJW) to describe what they’re trying to do. They think evil people should not have a platform to spout their hateful messages. Of course, anyone they disagree with, even a little bit, is evil. Anything said by an evil person is hate speech.
If I tell an SJW that the sun rises in the east, that’s hate speech because I’m an evil person who needs to be deplatformed. Why? The best I can figure is that I am adamantly in favor of properly biased transistors and have said so on many occasions.
You may not know it, cBob, but science itself is just a tool of the white male patriarchal hegemony, for example.
So, saying the sun rises in the east could well bring a charge of racism down on your head.
Thanks for the heads up.
This site in invaluable to the world.
+1
Dear Anthony,
Have you thought of opening a SubscribeStar or similar to allow people to contribute to the hosting costs?
Yours,
FD
I suggest using several contribution methods. Since you are a disfavored voice, you should keep options open in case of unexpected banning/deplatforming.
The move apparently means that means all the links we have to very useful older WUWT articles will be lost. Almost all of Willis’ take-downs, for example.
Bu??er! Can they still be saved anywhere or do we all need to do it ourselves?
No
Links should be by URLs based on Anthony’s domain “wattsupwiththat.com”. He retains ownership of the domain and assuming the current structure can be reproduced on the old platform the links should still be good.
But in the general case, links to specific parts of the HTTP hierarchy are not durable unless care is taken to make them so.
The online world has a great deal to learn from the library community, which has been struggling with this issue for centuries.
Has nobody got an ‘HTTP ripper’ program that archives a site by copying the entire site to a local disk while relocating internal links to the new disk whist retaining the external links as such.
I know for certain such software is available on Linux operating system (e.g. https://29a.ch/httpripper/ ). Sure some link may not resolve correctly but is that not usual these days.
Time and money would be needed to archive this entire site.
Teleport Pro will copy a whole website to your harddrive.
https://teleport-pro.en.softonic.com/
I see. Freedom is threatened as in the US as in France by the red-green activists’ networks. Good luck, friends !
We are in the middle of the digital equivalent of the Nazi book burnings.
Indeed.
Whenever the web became the “goto” place for any and every inquiry, I thought the day would eventually come that someone would pull its plug and make it go away. Either that, or they would (like Winston Smith in the book “1984” did for a living) revise everything to make truth disappear.
I reckon that day won’t come until TPTB get tired of tracking everyone who consumes articles that haven’t been tampered with.
I like hard copies and books/magazines/newspapers whenever I can get them. I would have liked to have a library of periodicals of content from WUWT over the years.
Whenever someone urges everybody to “go paperless”, I just see another bite taken out of the economy.
I have an odd hobby, I collect encyclopedias. Have had to get rid of some, no storage space, still have a complete Britannica 1895, another 1910, another 1925, another 1955. Have an assortment of text books going back to 1895 and up to 1965, math, science, history(world and American), primary reading and composition. Also have various and sundry engineering, construction and chemistry trades books/manuals from 1890s-1920s. Yea, knowledge.
“We are in the middle of the digital equivalent of the Nazi book burnings.”
The saner sections of society are beginning to speak out against the radicals.
There aren’t that many street demonstrations anymore, although you wouldn’t know that listening to the Leftwing Media (include Fox in this) and the ones that take place are populated by the most radical leftists in the country.
One thing to glean from this is there are not that many radical leftists in the country. There are enough to cause some trouble. and most of that is because the trouble has been allowed to happen by Democrat politicians. So the radical Left can make some trouble but they can’t overthrow our current way of life.
The only way they can overthrow our way of life is if they manage to put Democrats in the presidency at the ballot box, and the only way that can happen is if the voters believe the lies put out by the Leftwing Media.
It is the lying Leftwing Media that is the existential threat to the Republic, not a handful of violent, radical Leftists/Marxists marching in the streets.
I think Trump is getting ready to crack down hard on these violent, radical Leftists. He’s already put many of them in jail for destroying monuments. He’s going to go around the Democrat politicians that are allowing this violence from the Left to continue.
Funny how fascist the anti-fascists are. That’s a special of kind of cognitive dissonance.
There are 2 kinds of Fascists: Fascists and Anti Fascists
Ennio Flaiano
Which hosting provider deplatforming you Anthony?
What if you decide not to move off?!
It is amazing… is it not!
Please, Anthony, do clarify, which kinda of hosting provider is attempting to deplatforming WUWT?
I do not know about others, but am not sure who is taking you for a fool!
cheers
Donation incoming. Cannot forget how important this site is.
Anthony,
Thank you for all the work and effort you put into providing us with your incredibly interesting and educational site! While I rarely go a day without visiting here several times, I will try to bear up under the fear of not having the cool kids available for edifying discussions of current topics. Oh, wait, I’m not a Liberal, or an alarmist, so I don’t have to play victim.
A belated thank you for the podcast with Willis; my only concern was I wish I was longer. I hope you will do a follow-up with him and please, please consider doing ones with some of your other commenter gems like Jim Steele and David Middleton! Bravo! Bravo! Encore!
I wish it was longer! Drat! I hate to miss simple mistakes!
We are living in very scary times where all our freedoms are concerned, especially free speech.
All have noted the recent ramp up of the the controversy, political correctness and virtue signaling over whether mask edicts should be issued to the general public everywhere, even as the death rate from Covid-19 drops dramatically in most places around the world.
Two weeks ago a very brave person up here in Alaska attempted to get a group of physicians who opposed mandatory universal masking for medical reasons some publicity by creating a “GoFundMe” group called “Truth Unmasked” to produce professional videos for public service ads.
Many Alaskans, including yours truly, made contributions via “GoFundMe” to her group. Shortly after doing so, we were all shocked when we received a notification from “GoFundMe” that our contributions were being refunded and that there was no group called “Truth Unmasked”. No reason given. All traces of the group disappeared from their site. (Note: if you go to GoFundMe’s website you will see they are full supporters of Black Lives Matter and all the protests around the county)
The lady starting the group moved to another funding site and managed to make one video with a physician (an anesthesiologist), which is viewable on a blog site, but nothing more has been heard her from group since and now even more local governments and media are demanding mask wearing in public.
Again, very scary times!
Keep up the good work, Anthony!
https://mustreadalaska.com/truth-unmasked-project-shut-down-by-gofundme-funds-seized-and-returned-to-donors/
Check out Dreamhost and Bluehost
I can speak about Dream Host. The unlimited cheap account only allows a few gigabytes of storage and there are limits on data transfer. Once you reach those limits, you need to look at a bigger account. I am also not in favor of solid state disk drives on an active account because they have a write limit and can wear out in as little as a year. I would rather be on an old fashion rotating raid because they can be hot swapped with no down time.
If you can live within those limits, Dream Host works reasonably well however I was looking at a terabyte over several years so at some point the minimal account would no longer work.
Seems that the more advanced we get, the more we go back. Twenty years ago, many website were located in a closet or basement with an ISDN connection to a local ISP. The owner had to worry about power, local router, as well as maintaining the server, its storage and web content. Then came web hosts that took much of that overhead away. Then there was the cloud. Then social media, which became more important than the website itself as far as attracting new users and traffic. In a flash you’re back at square 3. Worst case, you’re back at square one with a Linux box connected to an ISDN line.
For a minute there I was thinking you were losing your host site for telling too much of the truth.
If that should happen I suggest epik.com, which is Gab’s hosting site and can be relied upon not to deplatform people for ideology.
Well, sorta yes.
Great example of the need for content providers to always have backups and a contingency plan for a potential deplatforming, or other scenarios such as cyber attacks. Especially for those who may publish controversial subject matter.
Just sent a contribution in grateful appreciation. Never let your b*#*#@@;&ks dangle in the dust.
Very best wishes – I hope all goes well.
Anthony,
OK. Would it be helpful if we all refrained from posting comments, during the transition? How can we help ‘minimize the pain’ for you?
I was going to mention that. During the last move, there were a few days worth of comments during the migration that missed boat. Some people were rather annoyed.
So don’t post something you will miss, or (better), save a copy and repost when the dust settles.
What’s the climate change position statement of the platform?
All the dems want to do nowadays is increase broadband availability whist squelching the voices of reason.
Donation sent. This is one of the few sites I go to more than once a day. Thank you for being.
Norm
Donation sent.
Thank you Terry
Yikes! I might actually have time this weekend to look after my stuff. (Humble apologies for neglecting the Test page for a couple years.)
I did manage to get My Guide to WUWT running again a while back, but Anthony missed my requests to get it back up on the right side nav bar. It broke while back (it may just be my poor handling of odd unicode characters). I’ll try to get that up to date and get it going again on WordPress after the move.
What does this mean for the new search engine? That is really good for some stuff. Will it stay?
At the very least I’ll make sure the ENSO meter keeps ticking.
Oh hey. I’m forgetting my own stuff. It turns out my guide updates have been running fine, check out https://4castwidgets.intelliweather.net/enso/guide/ and follow either the “monthly” or categories links.
Thank you for doing what you do. It is greatly appreciated.
Anthony,
Have you considered going with your own hosting solution? I am sure there are some very sharp IT people who support your work that could advise and help. Perhaps setting this plan C in motion now so that it will be ready when you start picking up problems with wordpress.com?
Obviously you weren’t around here in 2008 or so.
There are people who don’t like this blog and will actively attempt to shut it down. DDoS attacks were one of the reasons Anthony moved from his own server to WordPress with their large bandwidth.
It would be interesting to know what kind of a budget WUWT has for IT infrastructure and services. With a reasonable budget, CDN services from cloudflare.com or akamai.com could probably do a good job of blocking denial of service attacks and hide the real IP addresses of the servers, whether hosted somewhere or running in a private data center. Good IT is not cheap though.
Might be a good idea to host in a conservative state like Utah where you can find a hosting company that is not run by a bunch of woke goons.
Thanks for the update. I hope your migration goes well.
Best wishes, William.
10 years I’ve been posting comments on WUWT & never heard nuthin’ from nobody about it ever owning slave servers. I say: “Make WUWT great again!”
WUWT’s always been great.
Thanks AW for all yours and others work here. Ben
Thank you for your important work. I hope all goes well.
AW,
Thank you. Donation to be sent.
This quote (Polonius) came to me as being rather apt, considering how you have given truth to us over the years – and I have been here since the beginning:
The corollary to which is, IMHO, that, no man can thus be false to you in truth for honour, if not history, shall find him out.
Good luck, Anthony!
(I hope my long list of bookmarks will somehow still work, or find proxy links).
The Green Donkey finally fired a neuron in my brain …… Very funny !
You need to make some lawn posters . I want one
Anthony –
Thank you so much for all the articles/coverage/work you have done over the years.
Hope the upcoming move is uneventful.
As WUWT is one of my daily staples, see you on the old site if and when.
Thanks for all your hard work, Anthony. WUWT has always been a champion of rational thought and long may it remain so!
Well, here’s the deal: if the hosting provider doesn’t want you because you offend the delicate sensibilities of the ecohippies and their ilk, and they are prodding your hosting service into abandoning you to your fate, there’s that little old 1st amendment thingy in the US Constitution that says something like ‘freedom of speech, freedom of the press’, etc., etc., etc.
That needs to be inflicted on those twits at least once, really hard, so that it makes their ears ring and gives them headaches.
Anyone who fears an opposing point of view and wants it shut down has a problem…. a very serious problem.
First Amendment only applies to government, not private businesses.
Wrong answer. It applies to individuals as well as all those other things such as businesses.
I’m afraid Grumpy Bill is right Sara. “Congress shall make no Law…”
Various civil rights laws define protected classes making it a crime to to refuse to hire or do business with someone on the basis of their being in the protected class. For example, because they are black, a woman, a Jew, gay, etc.
These laws do not prevent a business from declining someone’s business on the basis of their actions taken or their speech, although that obviously wouldn’t fly as a practical matter, in the case where the person in question is in a protected class and could pretend that the business’ motivation was discrimination on the basis of their membership in the protected class.
Having a certain opinion does not make you a member of a protected class for purposes of civil rights protections.
As long as Congress (and state legislatures) make no law infringing free speech such as to ban companies from doing business with individuals or organizations who express unpopular views, the First Amendment doesn’t come into it. Individuals and businesses are free to choose their customers on the basis of their actions or speech.
I’m not arguing that it’s the way it should be or that there isn’t a real issue with Big Tech having a practical monopoly over web platforms needed to exercise free speech on the Internet. I’m just pointing out that we don’t have any legal protections from either the First Amendment or civil rights laws in this case.
There is equal protection under the law. All laws passed by government must apply equally to all individuals. There is no general law requiring individuals to treat other individuals equally. There are only laws that prevent individuals from treating others differently on the basis of certain enumerated criteria, that is, there are only limited specific protections.
Anthony being discriminated against on the basis of the views espoused on WUWT is regrettably not illegal.
re: “Anthony being discriminated against on the basis of the views espoused on WUWT is regrettably not illegal.”
We’re in kind of a grey area here; Section §230(c)(1) (of the Communications Decency Act) defines that an information service provider shall not be treated as a “publisher or speaker” of information from another provider. When service providers start to act as ‘publishers’ of your material is where a grey area is approached.
The basis for this is in “publishers” (like a Time or Newseek, and the newspapers) versus “common carrier” services (e.g. telephone, telex and telegraph companies, UPS, Fedex, buslines, airlines) offering services to the public; how does his “platform” provider represent himself? These are areas of law being looked at presently with the the biggies e.g. Twitter, Facebook and Google that carry your postings and writings and not specifically theirs. The ‘want ads’ in the back of the newspaper is where “communications for hire” was most often experienced by the public years ago, and you paid by the word (or letter).
Jim, in my view, the idea of requiring a platform to police “decency” is an open invitation to woke censors to run roughshod over conservative freedom of speech. That is what we are seeing today, and as I said already, it is legal behavior. Not ethical or right behavior, but legal. The law needs to change to put a stop to this, by clearly establishing certain internet functions as common carriers who are required to treat all customers equally.
The only way that “platforms” can fairly operate is not to be allowed to censor at all. Let government enforce the restrictions on free speech that have legitimately always existed, such as threats and abuse. To require a woke corporation to monitor and enforce “decency” or accuracy standards empowers them to censor political speech under the excuse that they are required to do so by law. But coincidentally, they will only enforce against opinions that they do not like and will fail to notice the indecent or inaccurate content that fits their narratives.
It is an amazing perversion of the original intent of the First Amendment. How ironic that what was once the target of decency laws, pornography primarily, is now mainstream and basically protected, while political speech (or ordinary speech that is interpreted as political by hyper-sensitive intolerant lefties) is the target.
Freedom of political speech and religious practice are the main points of the First Amendment. Pornography and flag burning, neither of which are actual speech, are the leftists’ concept of protected speech. The world is one messed up place that has no clue about history.
Rich, answered above (or below) depending where this comment appears, but this reply will trigger the notification e-mail.
@Rich Davis
re: “Jim, in my view, the idea of requiring a platform to police “decency” is an open invitation to woke censors to run roughshod”
Rich, this is (IMO) moot, or on first face maybe a strawman argument (although unintended to be made) in light of the fact that in 1997, in the landmark case of Reno v. ACLU, the United States Supreme Court struck the anti-indecency provisions of the act.
Q& A time from a wiki reference:
Q: Is the Communications Decency Act still in effect?
A: The Internet community as a whole objected strongly to the Communications Decency Act, and with EFF’s help, the anti-free speech provisions were struck down by the Supreme Court. But thankfully, CDA 230 remains and in the years since has far outshone the rest of the law.
Now let’s take a look at CDA230, full cite is: 47 U.S.C. § 230 (link below *)
Section 230 says basically that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider“. Isn’t this what I was getting at by citing “common carriers” in my first post? Yes, it is.
So, Anthony, Conservatives, Liberals etc. would seem to be covered … no? Why do we find ourselves STILL in a quandary discussing this then? Chalk it up to a general, overall failure of the ‘legal’ circles to inform the public … or maybe enough court cases have not be won yet?
In closing, IANAL but I still discuss these things.
.
.
* http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
Jim,
My comments about it being bad to allow or require platforms to enforce decency or accuracy were a response to you raising that point, but were not intended to imply that there is a current law in force that allows for the de-platforming trend that could be repealed. That is as you say, a moot point.
What allows for the current state of affairs is the fact that there is no law overriding the general case that individuals (and corporations) are free to choose with whom they associate and do business.
A great many exceptions have gone into law over the years. Coupled with the fact that no rational business person will want to be seen as treating customers unfairly, it’s commonly assumed that equal treatment is a legal requirement in all cases as a general rule. But that is not true. If a business doesn’t mind being seen as treating certain customers unfairly, then they are free to do that. They are only stopped legally if certain specific protections are triggered in certain specific cases. Hiring based on race, lending based on religion, renting an apartment based on marital status, etc. It is not a general rule, it is a patchwork of specific rules.
Just because a “platform” provider is not a “publisher” liable for any libelous or threatening content put onto the platform, does not preclude the platform provider from setting onerous terms and conditions for the use of their platform. Those terms and conditions may be as blatantly biased as they wish. They may freely choose to ban all persons with the given name James or any derivation thereof. They may state that any comments made that offend any other person may at their discretion result in immediate termination of service.
The fact that a platform is not a publisher and may be “thought of as a common carrier” does not enshrine that thought in law. I’m not sure what protections are granted to customers of common carriers under what specific laws (if any), but before that would mean anything here, there would have to be an explicit definition in law that an internet forum provider is subject to whatever laws regulate common carriers.
Honestly I do not have in mind a good solution to this problem. Freedom of association is a liberty that I would like to see constrained as little as possible. It seems that the issue relates to anti-trust regulation as much as anything. To the extent that there is a functioning free market and no restraints on competitors catering to any segment of the market, that should ordinarily resolve the issue. It’s the network effect that makes this difficult.
Anyone could start up a competitor to twitter, maybe call it blather, bubble, or echochamber. What good would that do? All the conservatives could abandon the public square to the woke fascists and huddle together on their chosen platform. Some benefits of twitter could be retained, but not all. You could still share ideas with like-minded people, organize, etc. But if you’re trying to engage undecided minds, you can’t do that on a fringe site where all minds are on the same wavelength already. If you’re trying to engage opposing viewpoints so that undecided people can see the strength of your arguments, you surely can’t do that on a fringe conservative site. So the platform that has the largest network is categorically different from any other platform even if it is so technically identical as to infringe copyrights. If you don’t have a facebook account you just aren’t going to keep up with your cousins’ latest exploits. Getting a myspace account isn’t going to fit the bill.
Rich,
NO amount of ‘pining’ by you or by me is going to change this a whit. I cited the applicable law (AND the basis for ‘common carrier’ justification; there is much on this front in other areas of business, no doubt you are unaware of), there isn’t much more one man (myself) can do except enlighten (as I have tried) another man (you). I’d say “save your breath for the courtroom” if you’re a lawyer, otherwise, ride your congressman and senator like they were red-headed step children as you seem to be one who has no loss of words on this subject, I suggest your energy be directed ‘for effect’ as mentioned in the paragraph above.
I don’t know if you are aware, but our president has sought (IIRC) the involvement of several federal agencies which have overlapping jurisdiction in this area, including the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and the FEC (Federal Election Commission). It might behoove you to do a little digging on this aspect and see where investigations are WRT those agencies and if any other alphabet agencies were tasked with looking into this issue as well.
ONE CAVEAT: Do not fall victim (as many people are prone to do) on ‘falling back’ in what you think are well-justified arguments concerning ‘freedom of speech’ and the rights and responsibilities some ‘platform’ may arbitrarily decide on, e.g. deciding whom to provide service to. There is much law and case law concerning common carriers and the like in the US and the free world. Perhaps you need some further introduction to this avenue of thinking?
The business of physical transport of people and goods, a “common carrier”:
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/common+carrier
A common carrier, in telecommunications: an entity that provides wired and wireless communication services to the general public for a fee. … In the United States, the common carrier designation made by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under authorization of the Telecommunications Act of 1934.
“Common Carriers Under the Communications Act”
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4236&context=uclrev
The ‘rules and regulations’, “47 U.S. Code Part I— Common Carrier Regulation”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/chapter-5/subchapter-II/part-I
Ok Jim, let me put it succinctly as I can. Twitter, facebook, YouTube are web applications which you may get an account on if you bind yourself to their terms of service. They are not sufficiently like a pure common carrier to be legally-bound to act as such. In practice, they are not being treated that way, even if in practice they act very similar to a common carrier. If the solution is to force them to behave as a common carrier, then it will take a new law. And a new law means getting Nancy The Ripper out of the Speaker’s seat.
I’m neither a big fan nor an enemy of our president. It just seems to me that the twitter covfefe is ultimately what the Clintonistas used to call “boob bait for the bubbas”. There’s zero chance that administration posturing is going to prevail in changing how internet platforms are regulated, but a certainty that it will play well at a rally.
And I’ll overlook your fighting words “if you’re a lawyer” 🙂
c.f. Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2
re: “let me put it succinctly as I can.”
You have not read a single thing I’ve written or linked.
Apparently, you’re relying entirely on the ‘model’ of the world you’ve built in your head, having had a classical ‘liberal’ education. I cautioned against such ‘constructs’, to no avail, apparently.
Have a good day.
I read what you wrote, Jim, all snark and insults included. Did not return fire. It is you who misrepresented what I said and refuse to address the real world.
Just because you like the arguments of people who think that twitter is a common carrier doesn’t make it so under the law. And what is more relevant is that it doesn’t matter whether the letter of the law can be plausibly stretched to fit your interpretation. What matters is whether the courts will rule as you think they should.
In a world where courts block the executive from enforcing explicit immigration law, you apparently imagine that the same administration is going to prevail in an ambiguous case.
Wake up! The law is becoming a thin fig leaf covering the naked exercise of arbitrary power. Even if we had explicit statutory protections requiring platforms to behave as common carriers, I’m not so sure that that would be a resolution because the courts would likely gut the law.
The same discussion could be had talking about how the Interstate Commerce clause has been misinterpreted by the courts for a century. Most of what the federal government does today is unconstitutional. But that ship has sailed.
So indeed, good day to you. I don’t know what accounts for your animosity, but I’ll choose not to share it. If this is how you plan to persuade a Reaganite like me, I’m wondering how you imagine you can persuade Hillary and Bernie voters.
Just a gentle reminder, winning elections isn’t about being right, it’s about convincing more people that you’re right than there are people who think you’re wrong.
If you wish to have the last word, have at it.
This is what happens when nothing is done against the beginning of antisocial movements.
If WUWT had taken a clear position instead of making Switzerland, these things would not have happened.
If a handful of activists are enough to put you in crisis, you could also close the whole shack.
We have to do analyzes and observations, not just publish four antics that activists do.
Lullaby.
Anthony, thanks for giving us WUWT!
We’ll definitively hold on patiently through the transition.
This has a baleful feel to it, if the current hosts are buckling to cancel culture pressure one wonders if WP can hold out against it.
This could be the twilight of the internet.
I’m sure that someone has mentioned this before , but I was staggered when on a google search for your sight, there was Google’s own analysis and summary of WUWT…and it said something to the effect, The world’s foremost or most popular CLIMATE DENIAL sight. I was staggered at the utter prejudicial description.
However at least WUWT was the first entry on the first page of the WEB page search. I just now googled it , and the sight is not even mentioned on the first page Instead we have this:
“What Up with That?” is a recurring sketch on the NBC television series Saturday Night Live which first aired in 2009. It stars Kenan Thompson as DAndre Cole, host of a talk show on BET.
Wikipedia.
WUWT only now occurs on the fourth page of references to websites . Maybe this is owing to the change in the hosting…or maybe not.
I’ve given up on Google. Duckduckgo promptly brings this site up when you type in “WUWT”.
You might try Google too.
http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=WUWT
I get this message on your link. Don’t know what it means.
Web Page Blocked
An error occurred while trying to rate the website using the webfiltering service.
Web filter service error: no correct FortiGuard information
Client IP: 10.0.0.34
Server IP: 91.121.227.33
User name:
Group name:
Given your 10.x.x.x address, you’re behind a firewall. It looks like the filters there don’t want you accessing locations like letmegooglethat.com
Looks pretty benign to me.
$ host 91.121.227.33 192.168.0.1
Using domain server:
Name: 192.168.0.1
Address: 192.168.0.1#53
Aliases:
33.227.121.91.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer s1115.myfasthosting.com.
Ric, from your link, a outright smear:
Watts Up With That? is a blog promoting climate change denial that was created by Anthony Watts in 2006
Second your recommendation to use Duckduckgo instead of Google.
Because of its politically inspired ministrations, Google has managed to make itself the last choice for search engines on my browsers.
My google search for WUWT gives seven results on the first page.
The first and third are legitimate.
The 7th is a Union City, TN low-power TV station.
The other four first-page results are all leftist disinformation pages about WUWT: from Wikipaganda, ATTP, DeSmogBlog, and SourceWatch, respectively.
SourceWatch / PRWatch = The Center for Media and Democracy, which is a far-left propaganda outfit. Lies are their stock-in-trade. They openly admire notorious Stalinist I.F. “Izzy” Stone, and they boast of receiving an award named after him.
DeSmogBlog is the climate disinformation site which conspired with Dr. Peter Gleick to smear Heartland Institute with a forged “strategy memo” in the Fakegate scandal.
Wikipaganda lies just as blatantly, calling WUWT “a blog promoting climate change denial… generally accommodating beliefs that are in opposition to the scientific consensus on climate change.”
Ken Rice’s ATTP is the least blatantly dishonest of the four. He’s one of the brighter climate alarmists out there, but he strictly censors his blog to promote climate alarmism, thereby converting what could be a useful forum into a propaganda site.
DuckDuckGo is slightly better. Only two of their first-page results are leftist disinformation pages.
I never use Google, just DDG
Anthony, thank you for all you do. I watch this forum regularly and know I tread with the giants here (with the exception of a few trolls). I sent a donation.
Thanks yet again to Anthony and the team for keeping WUWT going through thick and thin. We wish you all Good luck with the move over, and thank you for all your hard work! We will hang on during the bumpy ride.
What a coincidence…
After the transition is successfully made, we would like a summary of how all of this transpired.
Finally made a small donation. You’ve been a source of enlightenment for me for several years.
Suspicious. Hosting costs are going down industry-wide, and there is fierce competition to drive them down further.
Maybe you can find a hosting provider in Switzerland?
From Chile, the end of the world, thank you very much for all the information and opinions, and of course the humor.
I haven’t commented as frequently as I used too (twist and turns in real life that effect my “typing time”) but I’m still here and will continue to be.
Anthony: I realize you likely want to remain independent, but maybe WUWT should follow Volkh to reason, or Insty to PJ media. I think you would retain editorial independence without the maintenance issues.
I will continue to read this, the bet science site on the web.
Volokh?
Donation sent
This site has to be maintained or I would need to find something else to do first thing in the morning.
I called Charles. Dunno if the many contributions already proffered here will cover the WUWT Deplatform conversion costs back to WP. But told him to tell Anthony that I will cover any financial WUWT shortfall, no matter what it may be. Don’t fret it, just do it.
And Charles already knows my unlimited cover offer is good way beyond any conceivable cost limits.
Rud,
That is a most generous and wonderful offer! As one who loves WUWT, thank you!
That’s an honourable offer indeed.
Rud Istvan
Top Man!
Top banana, Rud!
Thanks Rud. We have it covered so far.
Thank you, Rud, for your generous offer to Anth*ny.
So the price of FREE SPEECH has been increased again .
Congratulations, Anthony!
The fact that you’ve been deplatformed is prima facie evidence that you still drive the climate clowns crazy!
Keep up the good work!
You might want to take a glance at https://cis.net. I am not sure what you’re paying for hosting but the minimum sites are fairly low cost and they have plenty of bandwidth. Our site is a bit more because we have multiple domains and a more complex email system tied to the site. They have Word Press support however we are running Simple Machines so I don’t know how good the Word Press support is.
I also use cis.net as my hosting provider. They are wonderful! Been with them for 4 years already and there support staff is amazing! Definitely recommend these guys.
Fahrenheit 451, digital style?
There is a drive to digitise all books one usually finds in a library and put them online. I think Google is the big driver in that. This can mean only one thing.
Anthony,
Do you need some contributions? Money is tight, but I could find some play in the budget if it means helping you do your work. Let us all know.
Does this mean that I have to, finally, either figure out what my WordPress password is or reset it?
I don’t suppose the passwords and accounts switch over automatically?
Just donated $50. Keep up the good job!
Check out Hosting Matters – https://hostmatters.com/
Been using them since 2003 and very very happy.
Good luck with the move Anthony.
Thanks for your tireless efforts, as always WUWT remains number one on evidence based climate science.
This might be a mistake. A number of websites have been banned from wordpress, and they don’t get their files back either.
brief list of banned wordpress sites:
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/
https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/tag/wordpress-censorship
https://twitter.com/memoryholeblog/status/1029415973500137479
https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/291375-wordpress-blocks-latest-guccifer-20-docs
And before you say “We’re not as crazy as those conspiracy theory/misogynist/etc nuts”, the slope is *extremely* slippery. Hopefully that’s obvious by now.
I suggest giving Epik a call. Rob Monster (love the name) is very pro free speech as long as it’s moderated. wattsupwithat.com would fit right in. And no I’m not marketing them, they’ve just solved a number of deplatforming issues over the last year such as Gab.
To read up on how to watch for “woke” corporations, I suggest the book by Vox Day called “Corporate Cancer”. I tells you what patterns to look for (e.g. in their terms of service), and even how to fight back (think, scalable arbitration assymetric lawfare)
Hopefully, I will be able to log on with my wordpress site. In recent times I have been censored especially when I mention my post on methane which no one has refuted.
First they came for Trump supporters
then they came for good hard working families and their properties,
then they came for the statues of Confederates
then for those of the founding fathers,
then for that of Columbus,
then for those of saints and Jesus Christ,
Then for WUWT
Whose next.
The algorithm already knows.
Please don’t go back to Word Press. You will possibly face censure their as well. Set up your own reseller account with Go Daddy. You will get your own virtual server and you can host as many domains as you want. Will cost about $300 a year.
Since the rise of Greta, I’ve noticed there are many commentators making disparaging personal remarks about her.
Perhaps this is partly the reason why WUWT is being censured?
What ever the official reasons for WUWT being deplatformed, I think we can guess the real reasons.
Anthony said:
“We’ve been given notice by our hosting provider that we need to move off the site. The reason is that we were suddenly faced with a big increase in hosting costs, and it wasn’t tenable.”
Did they just tell you that you need to move the site because they didn’t think you could afford their new rates, or did they increase the rates, and you decided you couldn’t afford them?
I do think there is a difference, and I can’t see how both those sentences can be true at the same time.
Was yours the only site hosted by them that got a price hike?
$s sent.
Many thanks to Anthony – and all the regulars contributors here. I’ve learned a lot.
Good luck with the move.
hope the move goes smoothly, Anthony.
can’t recall seeing this posted (maybe I missed it):
9 Jul: Retraction Watch: Stanford prof ordered to pay legal fees after dropping $10 million defamation case against another scientist
A Stanford professor who sued a critic and a scientific journal for $10 million — then dropped the suit — has been ordered to pay the defendants’ legal fees based on a statute “designed to provide for early dismissal of meritless lawsuits filed against people for the exercise of First Amendment rights.”
Mark Jacobson, who studies renewable energy at Stanford, sued in September 2017 in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for defamation over a 2017 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that critiqued a 2015 article he had written in the same journal. He sued PNAS and the first author of the paper, Christopher Clack, an executive at a firm that analyzes renewable energy…
Jacobson could be on the hook for more than $600,000, the total of what the plaintiffs have told the court were their legal costs — $535,900 for PNAS, and $75,000 for Clack…
https://retractionwatch.com/2020/07/09/stanford-prof-ordered-to-pay-legal-fees-after-dropping-10-million-defamation-case-against-another-scientist/
$ for the cause sent.
Thank you for all the efforts to leep this running!!!
No worry be patient take the time needed:-)
This is strange, at least to me.
In my “universe”, the one I understand,
only Anthony can really deplatform WUWT from the Cloud.
Oh well, if that is what Anthony is going a do, good luck with it.
cheers
Donation sent. Anthony, read you every day..never give up the fight.
Ditto Anthony – hang in there and keep up the good work. It is vitally important.