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If I wanted to create an alternative to YouTube with a conservative bent what are the chances Cloudflare will wake up one morning and shut me down? What if the

by OzzyB 9y ago

If I wanted to create an alternative to YouTube with a conservative bent what are the chances Cloudflare will wake up one morning and shut me down? What if the content is just generally in "bad taste" and not overtly Neo-Nazi, will CF feel the need to play "Content Cop" or are they willing to abide by their role as utility?

eastdakota 9y ago
Zero.
- tomschlick 9y ago
  What about on the monetization side of things? I know many YT firearms channels that have been basically blacklisted from monetization in recent months because YT classifies anything they do as "unsuitable for ads". It has forced a lot to double publish to https://www.full30.com/ https://www.full30.com/ to monetize their work.
  - eastdakota 9y ago
    While we intend to provide ways for our customers to insert advertising or partner with third party advertisers, I don't think we'll be providing an ad network ourselves anytime soon. As a result, end users will have much more control over exactly how their content is monetized. Using your example, a firearms video stream could stream videos through Cloudflare Stream and sell ads themselves or partner with an ad network that was willing to sell them to an audience that cared about firearms. I totally agree that the one-size-fits-all solution of Facebook or YouTube reverts to the lowest common denominator and, in doing so, will inherently not be right for every publisher.
  - discreditable 9y ago
    YT has also been demonetizing videos on one of my favorite veterinary channels for being too graphic. It's a shame because they use the funds to provide care to abandoned animals. They always warn when videos contain surgery footage, even though it's relatively tame imho.
    - tomschlick 9y ago
      You're talking about VetRanch I assume? Yeah they are demonetizing Matt's DemolitionRanch and a number of other similar channels. Whatever algorithm YT changed a few months ago is really putting a hurt on content creators for little gain. If certain advertisers don't want to be on channels with certain keywords they should be able to configure that, but wholesale demonetization is really stupid.
      - discreditable 9y ago
        > You're talking about VetRanch I assume? Yes, that's it!
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Presumably, the algorithm change was to make advertisers more happy. Advertisers don't want to advertise on some content, as much as the creators might like them to. The advertiser response to some people that get demonetized complaining is "we wouldn't have advertised in the first place if we knew, so count yourself lucky you got the money you did". The reality is of course somewhere in the middle, and there's some content which some advertisers would not want to be associated with, while others might actually want to target, and the current algorithm may not be serving these needs well. Hopefully it's just a matter of a better system being needed that might come later. Interestingly, which topic was covered recently in Mozilla's IRL podcast[1]. 1: https://irlpodcast.org/episode7/ https://irlpodcast.org/episode7/
- protomyth 9y ago
  What is my guarantee on that? Cloudflare has done it once, and I really don't know what political views would set the CEO off again. I hate what the stormidiots spout, but I'm pretty sure I don't trust Cloudflare anymore as neutral ground.
  - ryanworl 9y ago
    I’m not sure if you noticed, but you’re already replying to the CEO of Cloudflare.
    - hueving 9y ago
      Yes, guy accused of emotional decision making replying that he won't do it again isn't going to carry a lot of weight when there is no binding guarantee.
    - protomyth 9y ago
      realized that after the fact.... The rhetoric of today and with people framing their opponents as the vilest people on earth, I just have a tough time with anything but absolutes on infrastructure decisions. Of course, proper legal authority within their proper jurisdiction must be respected. I might disagree with a couple of court decisions, but a business needs to deal properly with those and I would never fault a business for that.
    - squeaky-clean 9y ago
      Does that comment constitute a binding contract? If not, it doesn't matter who said it, it doesn't actually add anything to the discussion. Of course the CEO is going to say they won't take down your site, but how can I be sure?
  - NaliSauce 9y ago
    Especially the post-hoc rationalizing they did in that blog post - that was just insulting. I just couldn't help but get the impression that whoever wrote it thinks that the readers are either ignorant or stupid. It's probably just that whoever had written it wasn't experienced in cleaning up a mess and never intended it to be that way though. I would have hoped that their answer to impulsive decisions would be 'checks and balances' to prevent it from happening again.
- idbeblacklisted 9y ago
  It’s going to take a lot more than that to convince skeptics and free speech advocates. Especially to anyone with a conservative or controversial position, those who probably have the largest incentive to move videos off of YouTube. Do you think Breitbart would trust you? What about the RNC? An eroge developer? What if 8chan wanted to add video uploads? Trust is easy to lose and hard to gain.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
hbosch 9y ago
Content in "bad taste" doesn't kill people. Organized Neo-nazis do.
- hueving 9y ago
  So does any organized hate group and it's not hard to link any content "in bad taste" to the message of some sort of hate group.
  - rcthompson 9y ago
    Are we really worried about being able to tell the difference between bad taste and advocating for genocide? I'm not convinced there's a gray area between those two.
    - a_t48 9y ago
      Racism doesn't have to be overt.
- josteink 9y ago
  The nazi demo where people got killed would have been a non-violent event where stupid nazis outed themselves peacefully if the antifa hadn’t showed up, outnumbered them, and attacked the nazis, armed with bats and other weapons. The nazis are shit too, no doubt, but it’s hard not to blame the antifa for the ultimate outcome. Also worth remembering: the nazis were using their legal right to free speech in a legal demonstration. The antifas were illegally and violently obstructing it. Don’t be too quick to pick sides.
te_chris 9y ago
God for the amount of going around accusing others of being slaves and cucks and whatever you would think you'd all be a bit, y'know, stronger and complain a lot less
MikusR 9y ago
It depends on the mood of their CEO.
- azinman2 9y ago
  I think this is rediculius. If they took down child porn, would you also have an issue with this? What about a phishing site hosting malware and capturing passwords for the Russian mafia? It seems clear to me you can’t be 100% agnostic to your content. There is a huge gap between “conservative bent” and those trying to actively incite violence in the name of Hitler. And that they’ve only removed ONE such site across all their hosted properties is hardly an indication that their CEO is randomly moody. A single data point is not a trend.
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    And that they’ve only removed ONE such site across all their hosted properties is hardly an indication that their CEO is randomly moody. If you read the blog[1] regarding that incident, it provides a lot more evidence than the datapoint of the removal. It also completely undermines Cloudflare's claims of being content-neutral. Given that content neutrality is a binary state... [1]: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ Also hosted by cloudflare: ISIS sites, which are a lot more of a clear and present danger to real people than a bunch of racists. That means the standard has gone from content neutrality - to content neutrality so long as you don't imply things the CEO doesn't like. I.e. not neutral. From the blog: >And, after today, make no mistake, it will be a little bit harder for us to argue against a government somewhere pressuring us into taking down a site they don't like. Anything I can say about this will be ridiculously snarky, but this is the hill you chose to sacrifice your principles on, Matthew? Really?
    - azinman2 9y ago
      I was going off my memory of stormfront situation. Apologies if I incorrectly cited number of data points. I still am not concerned about the GP’s issue given the CEO expressed remorse and created a debate. It’s hard to imagine neo-nazis doing such a thing themselves should they create a cloud front competitor. I agree they should remove ISIS sites. It’s marginally harder given you could argue it’s about religion/politics, but I’m happy to lump them in with neo-nazis inciting violence. It’d be nice if you could create some perfect set of clear rules that you could cleanly apply to 100% of sites. Unfortunately the world is squishy and gray, which is why we have judges despite countless laws written in legalese that build on top of each other’s precedent. I don’t expect judging content to be the same. I appreciate the CEO thinking they should just defer to when gov forces them to shut something down. I also appreciate the perspective of removing extremist sites — you got one life to live so why not make a difference creating barriers to _EXTREME_ hate/violence around the world.
sergiotapia 9y ago
It depends on whether or not the CEO is feeling poopy that day.
rmc 9y ago
There's a difference between Stormfront, a neo-nazi site, and "a conservative bent"
- katastic 9y ago
  Tell that to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Google examples if you dare.
- briholt 9y ago
  Define it. Then define it in such a way that everyone advocating this censorship will agree too. Then pledge that when people start pushing for additional censorship you'll vehemently push back.
  - rmc 9y ago
    You can start off with the definition in German law: publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism .. publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims by approving of, glorifying, or justifying National Socialist rule of arbitrary force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial#...
    - briholt 9y ago
      So obviously people like Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz, Donald Trump, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, Charles Murray, and George W. Bush don't qualify. So just reply with some links where you've been defending their right to speak as loudly as you've insisted Nazi censorship won't impair it. Because surely no decent person you would insist on clear lines of censorship and then quietly disappear as violent rioters use that reasoning to slander and silence people. Edit: I'll take that downvote as a sign of "I casually claim censorship can be limited while doing nothing to stop its expansion."
- cm2187 9y ago
  There is an increasing (and worrying) trend among liberals to call racist or misogynist anyone who doesn't demonstrate enthusiasm for the cause of the day. Concerns about being censored when accused of racism isn't exactly irrational paranoia. A recent example of what appears to be a moderate, democrat voting professor experiencing it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4546704/Professor-called-racist-asked-resign-students.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4546704/Professor-ca...
goony 9y ago
Just use something like https://pullgrid.com/ https://pullgrid.com/ where you can host it from your dropbox or google drive and distributed through webtorrent. Or use https://vid.me/ https://vid.me/ or https://bitchute.com/ https://bitchute.com/
lsmarigo 9y ago
I know you guys took major issue with the Cloudlfare takedown of DailyStormer but try to look at the big picture. Mankind has never had a tool as powerful as the internet. The advent of the printing press played a key role in the lead up to the Salem Witch Trials. How big a role the internet played in the mess we find ourselves in today as a country, that's up to future historians to argue, but make no mistake the impact is massive and unlike anything we've ever seen. The spread of hate and bigotry on the internet left unchecked has now lead to real loss of life which is what prompted CloudFlare/Reddit/Facebook to push these new policies. How, in the face of actual murders can you contend that these companies are wrong to take down these websites? Is loss of human life an acceptable cost for free speech? Tech companies didn't choose to be the society police, yet here we are.
- pen2l 9y ago
  Good points, I want to add: We just witnessed something very significant, when Russia interfered. They had an express goal and they carried it out with technologies we know. A medium that is absolutely free of censorship is not in your best interest, because it can and will be used to compromise you. The solutions are difficult, but what is clear (especially to folks who have had to moderate even a small channel or forum) is that a policy of no-censorship never scales in the real world, the question is how you do it, where to draw the line, etc..
  - a_t48 9y ago
    I'm facing this situation right now. I've peeked in the discord channel of the ones who want to post edgy memes on our forums and they see themselves as martyrs for getting banned or quitting the forums.
    - movedx 9y ago
      It sounds like you're just dealing with teens who want to be edgy.
      - pls2halp 9y ago
alexhornbake 9y ago
The right to be a customer of cloudflare (edit: cloudfront typo) is not really a "free internet" either. Personally, I value the right to not do business with nazis over the right to have hate speech backed by a CDN. No one is stopping you from starting your conservative YouTube on your own servers.
briholt 9y ago
This was exactly my first thought too. "I'd better not make any videos that the CEO will dislike or he'll shutdown my site on a whim and then brag about it."
jamespo 9y ago
Ah yes Daily Stormer, just a website with a "conservative bent"
edmccard 9y ago
>with a conservative bent ... what are the chances Cloudflare will wake up one morning and shut me down >are they willing to abide by their role as utility? I can remember when the conservative position was to support freedom of association, and to oppose regulating private businesses as utilities.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > I can remember when the conservative position was to support freedom of association, and to oppose regulating private businesses as utilities. I can remember that as recently as this year, in the debate over net neutrality.
yahna 9y ago
Well start by not saying they support your cause.
badwulf 9y ago
They already shown that they have no problems taking down content, that does not violate the law. I would not rely on a service that has it's own arbitrary rules, that can change without a moments notice.

by OzzyB 9y ago

eastdakota 9y ago

Zero.

tomschlick 9y ago
What about on the monetization side of things? I know many YT firearms channels that have been basically blacklisted from monetization in recent months because YT classifies anything they do as "unsuitable for ads". It has forced a lot to double publish to https://www.full30.com/ https://www.full30.com/ to monetize their work.
- eastdakota 9y ago
  While we intend to provide ways for our customers to insert advertising or partner with third party advertisers, I don't think we'll be providing an ad network ourselves anytime soon. As a result, end users will have much more control over exactly how their content is monetized. Using your example, a firearms video stream could stream videos through Cloudflare Stream and sell ads themselves or partner with an ad network that was willing to sell them to an audience that cared about firearms. I totally agree that the one-size-fits-all solution of Facebook or YouTube reverts to the lowest common denominator and, in doing so, will inherently not be right for every publisher.
- discreditable 9y ago
  YT has also been demonetizing videos on one of my favorite veterinary channels for being too graphic. It's a shame because they use the funds to provide care to abandoned animals. They always warn when videos contain surgery footage, even though it's relatively tame imho.
  - tomschlick 9y ago
    You're talking about VetRanch I assume? Yeah they are demonetizing Matt's DemolitionRanch and a number of other similar channels. Whatever algorithm YT changed a few months ago is really putting a hurt on content creators for little gain. If certain advertisers don't want to be on channels with certain keywords they should be able to configure that, but wholesale demonetization is really stupid.
    - discreditable 9y ago
      > You're talking about VetRanch I assume? Yes, that's it!
- kbenson 9y ago
  Presumably, the algorithm change was to make advertisers more happy. Advertisers don't want to advertise on some content, as much as the creators might like them to. The advertiser response to some people that get demonetized complaining is "we wouldn't have advertised in the first place if we knew, so count yourself lucky you got the money you did". The reality is of course somewhere in the middle, and there's some content which some advertisers would not want to be associated with, while others might actually want to target, and the current algorithm may not be serving these needs well. Hopefully it's just a matter of a better system being needed that might come later. Interestingly, which topic was covered recently in Mozilla's IRL podcast[1]. 1: https://irlpodcast.org/episode7/ https://irlpodcast.org/episode7/
protomyth 9y ago
What is my guarantee on that? Cloudflare has done it once, and I really don't know what political views would set the CEO off again. I hate what the stormidiots spout, but I'm pretty sure I don't trust Cloudflare anymore as neutral ground.
- ryanworl 9y ago
  I’m not sure if you noticed, but you’re already replying to the CEO of Cloudflare.
  - hueving 9y ago
    Yes, guy accused of emotional decision making replying that he won't do it again isn't going to carry a lot of weight when there is no binding guarantee.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    realized that after the fact.... The rhetoric of today and with people framing their opponents as the vilest people on earth, I just have a tough time with anything but absolutes on infrastructure decisions. Of course, proper legal authority within their proper jurisdiction must be respected. I might disagree with a couple of court decisions, but a business needs to deal properly with those and I would never fault a business for that.
  - squeaky-clean 9y ago
    Does that comment constitute a binding contract? If not, it doesn't matter who said it, it doesn't actually add anything to the discussion. Of course the CEO is going to say they won't take down your site, but how can I be sure?
- NaliSauce 9y ago
  Especially the post-hoc rationalizing they did in that blog post - that was just insulting. I just couldn't help but get the impression that whoever wrote it thinks that the readers are either ignorant or stupid. It's probably just that whoever had written it wasn't experienced in cleaning up a mess and never intended it to be that way though. I would have hoped that their answer to impulsive decisions would be 'checks and balances' to prevent it from happening again.
idbeblacklisted 9y ago
It’s going to take a lot more than that to convince skeptics and free speech advocates. Especially to anyone with a conservative or controversial position, those who probably have the largest incentive to move videos off of YouTube. Do you think Breitbart would trust you? What about the RNC? An eroge developer? What if 8chan wanted to add video uploads? Trust is easy to lose and hard to gain.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

hbosch 9y ago

Content in "bad taste" doesn't kill people. Organized Neo-nazis do.

hueving 9y ago
So does any organized hate group and it's not hard to link any content "in bad taste" to the message of some sort of hate group.
- rcthompson 9y ago
  Are we really worried about being able to tell the difference between bad taste and advocating for genocide? I'm not convinced there's a gray area between those two.
  - a_t48 9y ago
    Racism doesn't have to be overt.
josteink 9y ago
The nazi demo where people got killed would have been a non-violent event where stupid nazis outed themselves peacefully if the antifa hadn’t showed up, outnumbered them, and attacked the nazis, armed with bats and other weapons. The nazis are shit too, no doubt, but it’s hard not to blame the antifa for the ultimate outcome. Also worth remembering: the nazis were using their legal right to free speech in a legal demonstration. The antifas were illegally and violently obstructing it. Don’t be too quick to pick sides.

te_chris 9y ago

God for the amount of going around accusing others of being slaves and cucks and whatever you would think you'd all be a bit, y'know, stronger and complain a lot less

MikusR 9y ago

It depends on the mood of their CEO.

azinman2 9y ago
I think this is rediculius. If they took down child porn, would you also have an issue with this? What about a phishing site hosting malware and capturing passwords for the Russian mafia? It seems clear to me you can’t be 100% agnostic to your content. There is a huge gap between “conservative bent” and those trying to actively incite violence in the name of Hitler. And that they’ve only removed ONE such site across all their hosted properties is hardly an indication that their CEO is randomly moody. A single data point is not a trend.
- Karunamon 9y ago
  And that they’ve only removed ONE such site across all their hosted properties is hardly an indication that their CEO is randomly moody. If you read the blog[1] regarding that incident, it provides a lot more evidence than the datapoint of the removal. It also completely undermines Cloudflare's claims of being content-neutral. Given that content neutrality is a binary state... [1]: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ Also hosted by cloudflare: ISIS sites, which are a lot more of a clear and present danger to real people than a bunch of racists. That means the standard has gone from content neutrality - to content neutrality so long as you don't imply things the CEO doesn't like. I.e. not neutral. From the blog: >And, after today, make no mistake, it will be a little bit harder for us to argue against a government somewhere pressuring us into taking down a site they don't like. Anything I can say about this will be ridiculously snarky, but this is the hill you chose to sacrifice your principles on, Matthew? Really?
  - azinman2 9y ago
    I was going off my memory of stormfront situation. Apologies if I incorrectly cited number of data points. I still am not concerned about the GP’s issue given the CEO expressed remorse and created a debate. It’s hard to imagine neo-nazis doing such a thing themselves should they create a cloud front competitor. I agree they should remove ISIS sites. It’s marginally harder given you could argue it’s about religion/politics, but I’m happy to lump them in with neo-nazis inciting violence. It’d be nice if you could create some perfect set of clear rules that you could cleanly apply to 100% of sites. Unfortunately the world is squishy and gray, which is why we have judges despite countless laws written in legalese that build on top of each other’s precedent. I don’t expect judging content to be the same. I appreciate the CEO thinking they should just defer to when gov forces them to shut something down. I also appreciate the perspective of removing extremist sites — you got one life to live so why not make a difference creating barriers to _EXTREME_ hate/violence around the world.

sergiotapia 9y ago

It depends on whether or not the CEO is feeling poopy that day.

rmc 9y ago

There's a difference between Stormfront, a neo-nazi site, and "a conservative bent"

katastic 9y ago
Tell that to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Google examples if you dare.
briholt 9y ago
Define it. Then define it in such a way that everyone advocating this censorship will agree too. Then pledge that when people start pushing for additional censorship you'll vehemently push back.
- rmc 9y ago
  You can start off with the definition in German law: publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism .. publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims by approving of, glorifying, or justifying National Socialist rule of arbitrary force https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial#...
  - briholt 9y ago
    So obviously people like Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz, Donald Trump, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, Charles Murray, and George W. Bush don't qualify. So just reply with some links where you've been defending their right to speak as loudly as you've insisted Nazi censorship won't impair it. Because surely no decent person you would insist on clear lines of censorship and then quietly disappear as violent rioters use that reasoning to slander and silence people. Edit: I'll take that downvote as a sign of "I casually claim censorship can be limited while doing nothing to stop its expansion."
cm2187 9y ago
There is an increasing (and worrying) trend among liberals to call racist or misogynist anyone who doesn't demonstrate enthusiasm for the cause of the day. Concerns about being censored when accused of racism isn't exactly irrational paranoia. A recent example of what appears to be a moderate, democrat voting professor experiencing it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4546704/Professor-called-racist-asked-resign-students.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4546704/Professor-ca...

goony 9y ago

Just use something like https://pullgrid.com/ https://pullgrid.com/ where you can host it from your dropbox or google drive and distributed through webtorrent. Or use https://vid.me/ https://vid.me/ or https://bitchute.com/ https://bitchute.com/

lsmarigo 9y ago

I know you guys took major issue with the Cloudlfare takedown of DailyStormer but try to look at the big picture. Mankind has never had a tool as powerful as the internet. The advent of the printing press played a key role in the lead up to the Salem Witch Trials. How big a role the internet played in the mess we find ourselves in today as a country, that's up to future historians to argue, but make no mistake the impact is massive and unlike anything we've ever seen. The spread of hate and bigotry on the internet left unchecked has now lead to real loss of life which is what prompted CloudFlare/Reddit/Facebook to push these new policies. How, in the face of actual murders can you contend that these companies are wrong to take down these websites? Is loss of human life an acceptable cost for free speech? Tech companies didn't choose to be the society police, yet here we are.

pen2l 9y ago
Good points, I want to add: We just witnessed something very significant, when Russia interfered. They had an express goal and they carried it out with technologies we know. A medium that is absolutely free of censorship is not in your best interest, because it can and will be used to compromise you. The solutions are difficult, but what is clear (especially to folks who have had to moderate even a small channel or forum) is that a policy of no-censorship never scales in the real world, the question is how you do it, where to draw the line, etc..
- a_t48 9y ago
  I'm facing this situation right now. I've peeked in the discord channel of the ones who want to post edgy memes on our forums and they see themselves as martyrs for getting banned or quitting the forums.
  - movedx 9y ago
    It sounds like you're just dealing with teens who want to be edgy.
    - pls2halp 9y ago

alexhornbake 9y ago

The right to be a customer of cloudflare (edit: cloudfront typo) is not really a "free internet" either. Personally, I value the right to not do business with nazis over the right to have hate speech backed by a CDN. No one is stopping you from starting your conservative YouTube on your own servers.

briholt 9y ago

This was exactly my first thought too. "I'd better not make any videos that the CEO will dislike or he'll shutdown my site on a whim and then brag about it."

jamespo 9y ago

Ah yes Daily Stormer, just a website with a "conservative bent"

edmccard 9y ago

>with a conservative bent ... what are the chances Cloudflare will wake up one morning and shut me down >are they willing to abide by their role as utility? I can remember when the conservative position was to support freedom of association, and to oppose regulating private businesses as utilities.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> I can remember when the conservative position was to support freedom of association, and to oppose regulating private businesses as utilities. I can remember that as recently as this year, in the debate over net neutrality.

yahna 9y ago

Well start by not saying they support your cause.

badwulf 9y ago

They already shown that they have no problems taking down content, that does not violate the law. I would not rely on a service that has it's own arbitrary rules, that can change without a moments notice.