Webhosting, Cancel Culture and Christ

A strange name for an article about what clients post on their websites and what we as webhosts might refuse to host.

Let's start with a declaration about our stance on free speech, freedom of thought and wokery.

Bizazz Pty Ltd and its owners are irrevocably opposed to unwarranted, overbearing interference of technocrats, corporations, government, bureaucracy, academia, media, self-appointed experts, powermongers or anyone else in the lives, minds and freedoms of other people.

We are disgusted by cancelling, victimhood parades, manipulation, snowflakery and political correctness. We abhor how institutions, self-acclaimed influencers & pressure groups assume the right to redefine our language, like a flock of Humpty Dumpties:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

Lewis Carroll, 1871: Through the Looking Glass

Cancel culture is NOT what Bizazz's website content policy is about. We are happy to host controversial content of many persuasions. We expect that some of our clients will publish content that we don't hold with. That's fine as long as it is clean, reasonably researched, presented fairly and is respectful towards people you disagree with.

Our content policy

Our Development & Hosting Agreement includes webpage content requirements for all websites hosted on our server. Obviously, content that is defamatory, in breach of copyright, pornographic or otherwise illegal is out. As for other content: it's not our intention to censor websites for manipulative political purposes, to control thought, or as a self-righteous moralistic crusade; but we do have limits to what we allow to be published on our server.

It's a matter of the company owners' conscience. Your freedom of speech matters and so does our freedom of conscience. You're free to publish what you will on your own website - but maybe not while it's utilising our services.

Our viewpoint

The Suttons believe we are answerable for how we use our resources, skills and time, to a loving God who has clear, trustworthy guidelines as to right and wrong behaviour by human beings. We stand for personal responsibility of every human being for their own actions and inactions. People, & thus the businesses that they operate, have inherent responsibilities and privileges. Freedom is one. Freewill and freedom of conscience are foundational responsibilities/rights.

Under freedom of speech, are people free to proclaim anything? Yes and no, in our view.

Yes, in the sense that humans always have freewill to hold any opinion and to declare it.
No, if you mean that people can say or write anything they want to, without possible consequences.
No, in the sense of being 'equally entitled to hold any opinion, however contrary to facts and logic it is'. Truth matters. There are laws against libel and perjury.

Not all opinions, beliefs & statements are good or even neutral. Witness the outcomes of Nazis' & Stalin's thoughts in the 20th century.

'Regulating' content

It's our freedom of conscience that causes us to place limits on acceptable content on the websites that Bizazz hosts. Because these sites use our company's server, our skills and (usually) our company's software created with our talents & skills, we Suttons believe we are (partly) responsible to God for the availability of content our clients publish. Legally we might not be; but spiritually we see it that way.

If we believe that your published content will have really bad consequences, we will class it as unacceptable content and take action. Normally that means we contact you & discuss the issue. If we are still seriously troubled, we will ask you to edit or remove the troublesome page(s) within the next 48 hours.

If we can't contact you in a timely manner, we might temporarily suspend a webpage, or delete or temporarily edit content pending your own edits. If you use Bizazz^® website software, a copy of the original content is archived by the content management system. (If you don't: it is up to you to retain your own copies of content that you publish online.)

Acceptable or not?

Guidelines

Bizazz's rule of thumb is that content must be 'fit for a child to view or listen to'. We judge this from the traditional Christian/Biblical viewpoint. Of course some websites cover topics that no child should or would read. For these sites, the tone needs to be non salacious and the purpose pure.

By doing business with us, you accept our limitations on acceptable content. If you want to publish stuff online that we don't accept: you are free to take your website and its content to another hosting service which has a different code of conduct. Or you can lease your own web server and host your website yourself.

If you aren't sure that your planned website content is acceptable to Bizazz, ask us. In the event of continued disagreement between client and Bizazz over acceptability of content: the final decision is ours, because this provision in our hosting Agreement is about our owners' consciences, not yours.

Comments/posts

Our content standards apply to 3rd party posts as well as to your own created or quoted content. If your website allows comments/posts: vet posts before you publish them. Safely check any links in the posts too. Monitoring posts on your website is commonsense. Your site could lose credibility or even attract attention from law enforcement if blog comments are abusive or libellous, or if they link to porn sites, infected websites or terrorist propaganda.

In practice...

Our interventions regarding website content are mostly in response to:

inadvertent copyright or other legal breaches;
outdated information;
typo's and grammatical errors;
functional problems: layout stuffups, broken links etc.

Acting on these helps our clients' sites remain relevant and useful online. We don't supervise every page on every website that we host. That would be ridiculous, unless clients paid us a premium. In our daily work though, we often get to know our clients' websites fairly well. We apply our content standards with a light hand and with patience, valuing your freedoms.

If you can't write without the F-word, expect correction.
If your online claims are way out of whack with evidence you have presented (or not presented), we might notice one day and challenge you about it.
If your website content departs from our Christian worldview so much that we are very uncomfortable hosting it: we will discuss this with you.
Worst case scenario: we/you decide that this client-host relationship isn't workable, and we ask you to host your site elsewhere. We'you terminate our Hosting Agreement in accordance with its terms.

Is Bizazz into cancel culture?

Principles

Is there a difference between Bizazz's content policy and actions of Big Tech to cancel social media accounts, ban videos, hide 'fake news', delete websites, trounce opposition platforms that allow the content they banned, & government misinformation bills? We believe there is. Motives matter. Principles matter. We want to foster truthseeking and to encourage thoughtful, useful discussion by our content policies; not to restrict human communication & enquiry.

The Suttons are in a delicate position, balanced (as Jesus' followers have always been) between sliding into freedom/licentiousness on one hand (an abuse of grace & forgiveness), and hyper-control on the other (legalism - an abuse of law & order). We all get it wrong sometimes, even when we're trying to do right.

Facts of life in an information age

People are entitled to access information & commentary, and to make wise informed decisions about matters which affect us, our society and our children. We're all responsible to make decisions, and we need grist to our mill.
As for discerning which 'facts' are really facts and which conclusions are well grounded - we've all been given brains. As adults, it is our responsibility to use them. Pre-mushed food (& information) is for infants. If all our intellectual food comes packaged & filtered, people never grow our own capacity to judge wisely.
Every webpage, video, book, newspaper etc reflects somebody's interests, worldviews and opinions (fairly held or not). They might be the views of an editor, website owner, guest writer, advertisers; or some other entity which exerts influence in secret or openly via cash, coercion or favours.
Business owners and their employees have responsibilities. Among them are integrity, honesty and consistency: to treat clients and site users fairly under their rules. Even the biggest corporation is comprised of people. No business is exempt from morality.

'Big Tech'

Facebook, Youtube, etc and the mainstream media are information sources, whether reliable or not. What kinds of information do they present or omit, and why? It's up to those who use and even trust such online services to find out, or at least to be wary.

Corporations (being made of people, and owned by people, and seeing commercial advantage in certain actions/stances) favour particular political and social causes. Like individuals, they can aver their preferences graciously or not. They can label the 'others' as liars, inciting violence, abusive, racist etc. Big Tech has enormous power to attach labels - 'hate speech', 'fake news', 'misinformation' &c - which will be seen/heard by millions.

Ownership & authority

Let's look at Facebook as an example. It is a 'platform' run on a specific website and hosted on Facebook servers. Facebook owns that website, including 'your' Facebook page. In our view:

Facebook has legitimate authority to limit the content that goes onto its own website and its own servers, which Facebook pays for and keeps operational.
That caveat should be made plain to all users - account owners & site visitors. Then we all know that some information or viewpoints might be missing from Facebook posts, or less prominent. We don't have a false or misleading impression of what Facebook provides.
Facebook should be open about its own editorial preferences (left-leaning/right wing conservative/atheist/postmodern/progressive/....). Then users can be aware of which topics, viewpoints & contributors are liable to be edited,and decide for themselves whether Facebook is a reliable or worthwhile information source on those topics.
Facebook's 'right' & choice to intervene with available content on its website involves more than including one term among hundreds, in a Terms of Use document which an account holder ticks at signup time.
All this is particularly important because edited content on Facebook may appear to be actual content as posted & approved by another, named author.

That's fair and honest dealing with account holders & site users.

Questions for online platforms & services

Does the service make their restrictions on content/posts clear to users?
Does it, to the best of its ability, apply its terms of service consistently across all accounts?
For services that use factcheckers to vet and bar posts/accounts: what guidelines govern the checkers? Who funds/owns the factcheckers and who are their main clients? What is the fact checkers' claim to authority in the areas they factcheck?
Why does the service ban content or suspend user accounts, when it does?
If an account owner protests a decision, is there a fair, fast appeal process? Are controversial cases ever not reviewed until they are politically less potent?

Track record for Big Tech: our experience

We Suttons have witnessed Big Tech block, or make access difficult for, content on certain topics; but only ever from the conservative/small government/non-socialist side of debate. We're aware of content being deleted from public view, despite strong supporting evidence: such as multiple, published and peer reviewed studies, and the testimony of experts who had no financial incentives & later lost their jobs for disagreeing with what is now (peculiarly) called the 'mainstream narrative'.

Mainstream media has refused to publish our (polite, brief, correctly spelled) posts on their sites if we questioned 'facts' presented in online articles. Many others attest to the same epxerience. We've seen social media & an online payment service suspend accounts - including our own account - without discussion or explanation. These suspensions occurred after posts/payments which were likely to be at odds with the corporate owner's political views.

Writers whose content is cancelled (eg a website is suddenly deleted) are not just restricted from publishing specific content on a specific Big Tech platform. They are labelled as bigots, murderers, dangerous purveyors of fake news, etc. They may be 'cancelled' not just from the service where the offending content appeared, but as widely as accumulated Big Tech & mainstream media can influence information flow.

We don't disagree with any provider's freedom to offer its own services for use in ways that it sees fit. We do question secrecy and arbitrariness of restrictions. We strongly disagree with platforms presenting themselves as places for public information flow while actually blocking certain info for many unreasonable reasons. We wonder at coordinated political preferences across platforms, at judgments made on shifting ground (what will be 'hate speech' this week?), and decisions to cancel content made despite independent evidence.

Good or bad?

You tell if a tree is good or bad by its fruit. Big Tech alleges that its removal of content is done 'for the public good'. Yet actions like those we cited above only hinder fair discussion, debate and research. They create a fear of posting certain content in case of being 'cancelled'. They suggest a uniform 'public opinion' which does not exist. They create an appearance of uniformity by deleting dissent and allow vicious slurs to be posted against dissenters.

Big Tech's actions, like those of highly controlling nation states, silence dissent with a chosen viewpoint rather than encouraging intelligent and informed debate. The list of verboten comments grows longer. Their actions assert superior, 'correct' knowledge by Big Tech, government, bureaucracy &/or unknown fact checkers. Their decisions about 'misinformation' cannot be questioned. They cover many fields of human endeavour and enquiry which these self-appointed judges have no authority in: science, medicine, history...

What will be the fruit of this? In our view, not peace or freedom or creativity or life. It's all been done before in less technologically 'advanced' cultures & eras.

Do you think that our website content policy is like Big Tech's cancellations, or government attempts at misinformation laws? If so, please tell us why and we'll re-consider the matter. This is a weighty thing, difficult to put into words and very important to us.

Diane Sutton