Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

Re:Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada by soheil on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:03PM (#18727297)

That’s pretty much the point of sanctions, what did you think was going to happen, people of sanctioned countries getting a medal? The point is to put as much pressure on those countries as possible and there is no better way to pressure a country than to pressure its people to force a change. The question should be whether or not Iran should be sanctioned. But if you agree that it should then this is an example of a perfectly reasonable outcome.

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Re:Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada by vertexFarm on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:17PM (#18727458)

Wait, so sanctions against a country should affect all people who share the common ethnicity in that country regardless of citizenship status or location in the world? So essentially it's a sanction against an ethnic group, not a state. Are you sure that's a reasonable idea?

How did Slack figure out this guy's ethnicity / citizenship / status? Why are they allowed to access that information and unilaterally act on it? Sounds like there's a valid question being asked here to me.

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Re:Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada by davismwfl on Thursday December 20, 2018 @03:00PM (#18728569)

They didn't figure out anyone's ethnicity, according to their press statement they banned all accounts which were accessed via Iranian IP's. While seemingly a little heavy handed IMO, they are trying to comply with US laws. They also provided a way for people to send an email to address their specific accounts if they feel they were terminated improperly.

Slack is protecting their multi-billion dollar business and their investors which are both based in the U.S. If they do not, they could run into trouble and put far more at risk. This does not only affect Iran, it affects other countries too which the U.S. has active sanctions against.

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Re:Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada by nissehulth on Thursday December 20, 2018 @06:29PM (#18730199)

Not just a little heavy-handed. If that's what they did, they probably picked up users that just happened to use the service from one of the countries at some previous point in time. And, at that point, the sanctions may not even have been in place.

Now, I admit that visiting the countries on the list aren't on my to-do-list, but if for example I decided to make a vacation trip to Cuba I really shouldn't lose my account at any US-based service just because of that.

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Re:Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada by gdy on Thursday December 20, 2018 @03:07PM (#18728631)

Which is a good argument for cutting down reliance on American companies.

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Re:Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada by soheil on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:27PM (#18727570)

That's a question for Slack how they found out and that is a great question, but there seems to be much conflation of that question with justification of sanctions in the first place, which I wanted to address. It's a question of nationality and citizenship if Slack determined one of those to be the case then they simply followed the regulations set forth by the sanctions.

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Re:Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada by gdy on Thursday December 20, 2018 @03:05PM (#18728608)

"there is no better way to pressure a country than to pressure its people to force a change"

So you would make people suffer and think that they would blame their own government for that and not the US?

Don't you think that makes you and your country evil?

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Re:Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada by eloff on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:06PM (#18727320)

He's a Canadian student. How is this acceptable in any way?

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Re:Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada by soheil on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:15PM (#18727430)

The status of being a student does not expunge your status of being a citizen of your country of origin nor does it cut all your ties with said country. Part of sanctions is to pressure citizens of sanctioned countries in order for them to seek change in their governments.

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Re:Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada by eloff on Thursday December 20, 2018 @04:07PM (#18729131)

Ah, I read that wrong. It's different if he's on a student via I suppose vs having permanent residency

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