Censorship: How does OVH protect us against fake complaints?
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Question

Censorship: How does OVH protect us against fake complaints?

by
JonathanB20
Created on 2023-01-10 08:14:05 (edited on 2024-09-04 14:22:58) in Dedicated Servers

I have been a customer with OVH for over 15 years and never received any complaints. But around 2 months ago, somebody didn't like an article that was published by a client we are hosting. We confirmed with our lawyer that the article is 100% legal so we didn't see any reason to delete it.

But the person started sending fake complaints to OVH pretending that we are hosting pedophilic material. Obviously, this is not true, but OVH doesn't even verify the complaints, it just forwards the request to us asking for the link to remove.

The guy sent a complaint almost EVERY DAY for 2 months. Every time, I had to reply it was a fake complaint. Eventually, I got tired of it and deleted the post. But the person kept sending the complaints, even if the URL was taken down.

So the person sent another complaint on December 31 and I was busy with holidays and I didn't reply because the URL was already taken down. A few days later

OVH sent this email on Fri, Jan 6, **8:38 AM**
[Abuse #NRMGFKKGBF] REMINDER (action needed): abusive use of *******.net

Then a few minutes later the server was put offline
Fri, Jan 6, **8:42 AM**
[********.net] Paramètres d'accès au mode RESCUE

So to sum it up: OVH sent us a reminder for a fake complaint, OVH didn't verify if the URL was already taken down, and put our server in rescue mode ONLY 5 MINUTES AFTER SENDING THE EMAIL.

This is ridiculous. WHAT IS OVH DOING TO PROTECT OUR FREEDOM OF SPEECH? This server should have NEVER been taken down for a fake complaint. OVH should have asked the complainer to provide a court order. OVH should have verified if there was really "pedophiliac" material on the site

What am I supposed to do as a web host in a case like that, when I have already confirmed the content is NOT illegal with a legal opinion from a lawyer?

OVH obviously doesn't care about freedom of speech. Found content you don't like on a site hosted by OVH? No problem! Just pretend they are hosting child porno and you'll get the censorship you want. Thanks, OVH for helping bad actors to censor the web, good job.