Why? I don't feel blame or any other kind of discomfort when using a knife to make a dinner just because someone uses it to kill somebody.
The difference is that no kitchen knife manufacturer actively sells kitchen-knife license renewals to people known to kill people with their kitchen knives. On the other hand, XenForo currently does sell renewals, new licenses, and official add-on purchases to genuinely dangerous hate websites.
In a lot of cases sites which arguably should be taken down are deliberately hosted in countries and with companies which frankly couldn't care less and won't do anything.
But if they're they kind of community the warrants licence revocation to begin with, they're probably the type that could find a cracked copy pretty easily and carry on doing what they're doing.
This is generally not the case. These websites often operate in the United States because it is one of the only places in the world that this kind of thing is not illegal. Most countries have severe limitations to free speech. And, thus, sites like Stormfront and equivalent are illegal in places like Russia, where I live, and many European nations.
Plenty of legitimate providers that would never dare host material that infringes on people's copyright (i.e. a terminated, illegal copy of XenForo) are willing to host sites like Stormfront. As an example, while I love Francisco and the guys at BuyVM, they willingly host The Daily Stormer, but they would not host a similar site that infringed on XF's copyright, that's for sure.
While I am personally against "hate" sites, I am more against curtailing freedom of speech. Free speech is not free if it only allows for "nice" topics. If someone does not like a site's content it's as simple as choosing not to visit it. It doesn't reflect on Xenforo, no more than it reflects on Microsoft if a hate site posts an Excel file. It reflects on that site, and its users only.
It is their freedom of speech to run such a site, but it is also your freedom of speech to say "go find someone else to help you run this thing; I'm not interested". And, again, as far as not reflecting poorly, that would be the case if XenForo truly had no control over this, but that isn't the case.
Do not put the onus of police on this small team. If you have issues with a site, and they are warranted beyond moral crusading, take it up with the police. If the police do nothing, warn people to not go there.
You're acting like it takes a lot more effort to revoke a license than it does. This doesn't require an FBI investigation to determine whether or not a Neo-nazi website violates your AUP, and, if so, pressing the big red "revoke license" button.
Again, the problem is that, in the United States, it is
not illegal to be a neo-nazi, and it is not illegal to spew rhetoric that people continuously use as justification to murder others. This is not something that the police can handle without a constitutional amendment, which will never happen, judging by how attached to the paper Americans have become in recent years.
It is absolutely the moral obligation of providers to not sell to people who dog-whistle the killing of minorities and women. Personally, I will not buy another XenForo license until the agreement is changed. Until then, I'll keep using alternative software for new websites. If it wasn't for the fact that I have customers to support, I wouldn't even be renewing my current license, but I have an ethical obligation to continue providing support for new XenForo versions.
