17 ms·

Besides the politics, this was a very stupid move by Cloudflare. Cloudflare set up a limit to what they allow or not so now they will have to fight where that l

by alecco 9y ago

Besides the politics, this was a very stupid move by Cloudflare. Cloudflare set up a limit to what they allow or not so now they will have to fight where that limit is. It can become death by a thousand papercuts. It'll start from the most controversial ones like child stuff and revenge porn. Then will keep moving, scandal by scandal. Don't get me wrong, we shouldn't tolerate the intolerant (e.g. nazis/terrorists), but who decides what belongs in that category is a huge problem that shouldn't be in the hands of a private tech company. See how Google/YouTube/Twitter did mass bans and ended up including people like Jordan Peterson.

hacking_again 9y ago
> It'll start... keep moving... ended up slippery slope
slg 9y ago
It is naive to think this battle wasn't going to eventually come to Cloudfare or the Internet as a whole. The US has some of the most extreme laws on allowing free speech and there is still plenty of stuff that we don't allow. Humanity has decided there are just some things that shouldn't be said or shared. Child porn is the most obvious example. Once you go from 100% free speech in which anyone can say anything to disallowing a single thing, you have to start defending where that line is. I don't think that is bad. I also think it may be a dangerous thing for the technolibertarians in our community to continue pushing for 100% free speech as if it is an ideal state because it doesn't account for how negative speech can silence the speech and infringe on the rights of others.
- pfortuny 9y ago
  That is what the judicial branch of the State is for: if someone has a problem with some kind of content, he can go and denounce it. The other possibility is just chaos and vigilante justice. Which is what the CEO of Cloudflare did.
  - slg 9y ago
    The idea that the owner of a business can not set any rules above the bare minimum legally is a little silly. Do you think an expensive restaurant should be able to deny service to a guy who comes in shirtless even though it is completely legal for him to walk around like that? Is that vigilante justice? Both the legal system and businesses need to draw lines. We can't pretend those lines don't exist or that 100% free speech is some ideal natural state. Once those line are drawn it is only natural for there to be debate about them. I think frequently debating and reassessing those lines is healthy.
    - pfortuny 9y ago
      As long as you let the people know in advance, before the contract is written, that you are willing to do so. As the Cloudflare CEO explained, that is not the case in this instance.
      - chris_wot 9y ago
        There is nothing in the Cloudfare ToS that state that if they find the content objectionable that they can terminate the service. https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/ https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/ The only way they can terminate the terms is: "Cause for such termination shall include, but not be limited to: (a) breaches or violations of the Terms of Service or other incorporated agreements or guidelines; (b) requests by law enforcement or other government agencies; (c) a request by you (self-initiated account deletions); (d) discontinuance or material modification to the Service (or any part thereof); (e) unexpected technical or security issues or problems; (f) extended periods of inactivity; (g) you have engaged or are reasonably suspected to be engaged in fraudulent or illegal activities; (h) having provided false information as part of your account; (i) having failed to keep your account complete, true, and accurate; (j) any use of the Service deemed at Cloudflare’s sole discretion to be prohibited; (k) use of fraudulent payment methods; and/or (l) nonpayment of any fees owed by you in connection with Cloudflare.com and associated Services."
        ballenf 9y ago
- 13years 9y ago
  Yet child porn is clearly a criminal act. Producing the media material would make you complicit. Kinda like if you went along with bank robbers to rob a bank, video tapped it and never reported it. You would be complicit of covering up the crime. I believe this distinction separates child porn from free speech. Also, like yelling `fire` in a building is not a speech issue, it is a property rights issue in that you cause damage to the owners of the property.
  - Zuider 9y ago
    Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre is likely to cause people to stampede in panic which can lead to persons being trampled to death.
    - 13years 9y ago
      Property rights covers damage to people as under property rights you own your self. The point is that it can be prosecuted, but not on the grounds of speech. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- yock 9y ago
  > Humanity has decided there are just some things that shouldn't be said or shared. The thought of this terrifies me. It invites the absolute worst kind of collectivism.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Yes, particularly with controlling what can be said, especially political speech. It's kind of crazy that we finally agreed that the government doesn't have the right to unfairly treat two gay dudes who want to get married, but now if someone doesn't want to serve them the cake the government can force you to. No matter how righteous either act, we just traded one form of tyranny for another and made no progress in understanding the importance of the lesson. When can we just agree that telling you what to think should have never been a legitimate role of government in the first place? It is a concept fundamentally and completely opposed to democracy and individual liberty.
    - AgentME 9y ago
      Is it a similarly-terrifying tyranny when the government forces restaurants to serve black people?
      - wallace_f 9y ago
        You know I can appreciate some good snarkiness like this; but to be fair, governments almost always sell tyranny to the people in the name of moral righteousness. I guess what it comes down to is what you fear more: tyranny or some racist people with restaurants.
  - Joeri 9y ago
    Almost everyone would agree at least some things should be illegal to express or share, like child pornography or calls to physical violence. Human rights end at where someone else’s rights begin. It’s obvious following from this that perpetrating physical violence on the innocent is wrong and must be stopped. But what of people who glorify, encourage or publicly plan to do such a thing? Do you always have to wait until people translate toxic words into toxic actions?
- jihibdokd 9y ago
  A rather ignorant view of history. Lookup US obscenity law and case history. Child pornography is an easy example, 80 years ago it was any pornography, or even obscene literature, joyces Ulysses was once banned. On general speech has only gotten freer, to think we now are at the precipe and speech won't be even freer is naive, provincial, and arrogant. Interacial kissing was once provocative, sodomy illegal as recently as 2003, and now depictions of transexuals is edgy. That anyone thinks its okay to limit speech, the midwife of thought -- its a debate going back to the State sanctioned murder of Socrates for 'corrupting the youth', 'making the weaker argument the stronger', and 'profaning the gods' -- its sad hilarious but those we are educated know such views are on the wrong side of history even if good people like Socrates are murdered along the way. Let's see if I even share my speech here, I'm regularly shadow banned for no reason.
  - slg 9y ago
    This is exactly the type of belief I was talking about in my last sentence. All speech is not equal. That may be a hard truth for some to accept, but it is the truth. Once your speech starts to infringe on the rights of others it is no longer deserving of protection. Your rights are not more important than the rights of your fellow citizens. I don't understand why libertarians don't agree with that. I thought the whole point of the government was to protect the rights of the individual.
    - louithethrid 9y ago
      And deep down everyone has that feeling, that his gut feelings should be the judge of that. The problem starts, when people project there wish to control the lives of others upon some vague enough person as power.
    - hitekker 9y ago
      For most of its followers, Libertarianism is a means to an end, a label that can be shed and worn repeatedly, a justification rather a-way-of-life. Other People need the help of government? They should stop being lazy and put their faith in the free market. My folks need government help? Well we deserve it, give it to us, right now, don’t delay, don’t you have a heart? Compared to the members of communist, conservative and other demanding and identity-integral idealogies, libertarians are far smaller in number and altogether weaker as an independant political force.
eighthnate 9y ago
> Don't get me wrong, we shouldn't tolerate the intolerant (e.g. nazis/terrorists) No. They are precisely who we should tolerate. That's what free speech rights exist to protect. We shouldn't tolerate violence, but we should tolerate speech. > See how Google/YouTube/Twitter did mass bans and ended up including people like Jordan Peterson. But according to the left, peterson is an intolerant person. This is why we have principles and rights. The first thing everyone used to learn in a philosophy class was that if the neo-nazis don't have free speech, then nobody has free speech. You can disagree with neo-nazis. That's your right. But if their speech is curtailed, then nobody has speech because speech no longer is a right, it's a privilege that depends on the whims of the offended.
- lern_too_spel 9y ago
  > We shouldn't tolerate violence, but we should tolerate speech. Yet we already don't tolerate violent speech. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions?wprov=sfla1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_ex... It is crazy to me that a (if I might assume) straight white non-Jewish and non-Muslim man living in a like society will speak authoritatively about what kind of speech should be allowed. Go live in a society in which you are the minority where a significant and growing segment of society hates you, and then tell me what kind of speech we should allow.
  - ebfd 9y ago
    That's essentially the point; free speech protects the rights of unpopular minorities. Why would a gay Jewish, Muslim, woman want straight white men to enact limitations on their speech?
Feniks 9y ago
Oh yeah I know how most people operate. Free speech is all fine and dandy until somebody says something you don't agree with. Happens every single time.
marindez 9y ago
Not tolerating the intolerant makes you an intolerant too.
- devdas 9y ago
  Tolerance isn't a moral viewpoint, it's a peace treaty.
  - golemotron 9y ago
    The underlying morality is respect for people regardless of their views.
    - devdas 9y ago
      The point of calling it a treaty is to be able to reject those who violate it.
- davidgerard 9y ago
  It turns out there's a considerable body of prior work on this specific issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
  - stale2002 9y ago
    And that work is mostly false. The US has extremely strong protections for "intolerant" and "unpopular" beliefs. And it works out fine for us. Freedom of speech, and tolerating everyone, including the intolerant, has worked out pretty well for us.
    - davidgerard 9y ago
      Good to know we've got someone really knowledgeable about philosophy like Hacker News user stale2002 to set those n00bs Popper and Rawls right on their foolish notion that this might in some way be a nuanced question.
betterunix2 9y ago
It is worth remembering that DS had claimed that Cloudflare's management secretly supported DS ideas/worldview/etc. There was a reputation problem brewing for them, so they decided to drop one customer to keep a lot of others.
- rabite 9y ago
  We never made such a claim. Cloudflare's CEO has basically come out and admitted that now it was powerful well connected individuals threatening him instead. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/24/cloudflare-ceo-matthew-prince-explains-why-he-booted-the-daily-stormer.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/24/cloudflare-ceo-matthew-princ...
  - betterunix2 9y ago
    From that article: "The Daily Stormer then raised the stakes with a claim that Cloudflare's management was supportive of its ultra-nationalist ideology."
    - goatsi 9y ago
      Cloudflare never provided a screenshot or quote to support that claim, and in a different article admitted that it was just a regular user posting on the dailystormer forum, not a post on the site. https://gizmodo.com/cloudflare-ceo-on-terminating-service-to-neo-nazi-site-1797915295 https://gizmodo.com/cloudflare-ceo-on-terminating-service-to... >“The Daily Stormer site was bragging on their bulletin boards about how Cloudflare was one of them and that is the opposite of everything we believe. That was the tipping point for me.” I suppose Cloudflare customers should make sure to censor what gets posted on their sites if it refers to the political opinions of Matthew Prince.
      - detaro 9y ago
        That quote doesn't say that it was "just a regular user" (it's possible that it was, but that's not what it says)
    - 9y ago
mtgx 9y ago
Yes, before we know it, Cloudflare will also get in trouble for "facilitating fake news" or "not doing something about it." The internet is trending towards becoming a cluster of walled gardens. Whether or not that will make a "better internet" than the one we have/had, it remains to be seen, but I'm inclining towards believing it won't. It could make it better for some things, but I think it could make it much worse for other things (freedom of speech, defending controversial ideas like gay marriage, or national security whistleblowers, etc).
R_haterade 9y ago
The Jordan Peterson point is a good one. His point has been for quite a while that if you're a young man, and you're unhappy with your life, the way to fix that is to work on fixing your life, not joining some far-right movement. Google really worked at cross-purposes with its own agenda there.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  Holy s---! I never knew what could happen by bring a stickler for traditional English. (Adds a whole new depth to 'grammar Nazi') Thanks for the massive wakeup call... I'm going to have to move to less capricious ways to use the internet.
- throwawayknecht 9y ago
  > His point has been for quite a while that if you're a young man, and you're unhappy with your life, the way to fix that is to work on fixing your life, not joining some far-right movement. Weird, then, how as soon as something went wrong with his life, he joined a far-right movement. (And seems to be very well-compensated financially for doing so.)
  - eradicatethots 9y ago
    It doesn’t seem like this is true from his Wikipedia page. Don’t see any movements listed here. Don’t think havi views that a far right movement supports is the same as joining and supporting that movement, and I don’t think it’s fair to label him that way.
    - cabaalis 9y ago
      I fear your belief is in the minority. Increasingly, choosing a side and holding it is becoming required.
      - musage 9y ago
        For people who disqualify themselves as honest thinkers. Numbers don't change that.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gaius 9y ago
Cloudflare set up a limit to what they allow or not so now they will have to fight where that limit is. It can become death by a thousand papercuts. Twitter also enforces its policies very selectively, and seems to be getting away with it so far, but they are walking a tightrope. E.g. now violating the ToS is OK if it's "newsworthy" etc. Or how "Kill all X" will get you banned for some values of X but not others.
- MikusR 9y ago
  I think Twitter has not claimed they are content agnostic. That's the difference.
  - NaliSauce 9y ago
    There used to be a time when twitter tried to brand itself as "the free speech wing of the free speech party"[1]. Obviously they have changed their stance by quite a bit. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/21/twitter-free-speech-champion-selective-censor https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/21/twitter-f...
- tehwebguy 9y ago
  Twitter is a joke. I keep reporting accounts that call black people "nic gurr" to avoid being caught dropping actual N bombs and they are almost never banned. I guess Daily Active User KPI is more important! Edit - For anyone wondering about Trump's place on Twitter, he's not going anywhere. Twitter is extremely proud of his account and is using him in advertising in Japan: http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-ads-featuring-donald-trump-appear-in-japan-2017-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-ads-featuring-donald-...
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    > I keep reporting accounts that call black people "nic gurr" to avoid being caught dropping actual N bombs and they are almost never banned. This is a war you'll never win, though. People will keep inventing new combinations of characters as you ban the previously used ones.
jwineinger 9y ago
> we shouldn't tolerate the intolerant Doesn't this make us intolerant by definition?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

by alecco 9y ago

hacking_again 9y ago

> It'll start... keep moving... ended up slippery slope

slg 9y ago

It is naive to think this battle wasn't going to eventually come to Cloudfare or the Internet as a whole. The US has some of the most extreme laws on allowing free speech and there is still plenty of stuff that we don't allow. Humanity has decided there are just some things that shouldn't be said or shared. Child porn is the most obvious example. Once you go from 100% free speech in which anyone can say anything to disallowing a single thing, you have to start defending where that line is. I don't think that is bad. I also think it may be a dangerous thing for the technolibertarians in our community to continue pushing for 100% free speech as if it is an ideal state because it doesn't account for how negative speech can silence the speech and infringe on the rights of others.

pfortuny 9y ago
That is what the judicial branch of the State is for: if someone has a problem with some kind of content, he can go and denounce it. The other possibility is just chaos and vigilante justice. Which is what the CEO of Cloudflare did.
- slg 9y ago
  The idea that the owner of a business can not set any rules above the bare minimum legally is a little silly. Do you think an expensive restaurant should be able to deny service to a guy who comes in shirtless even though it is completely legal for him to walk around like that? Is that vigilante justice? Both the legal system and businesses need to draw lines. We can't pretend those lines don't exist or that 100% free speech is some ideal natural state. Once those line are drawn it is only natural for there to be debate about them. I think frequently debating and reassessing those lines is healthy.
  - pfortuny 9y ago
    As long as you let the people know in advance, before the contract is written, that you are willing to do so. As the Cloudflare CEO explained, that is not the case in this instance.
    - chris_wot 9y ago
      There is nothing in the Cloudfare ToS that state that if they find the content objectionable that they can terminate the service. https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/ https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/ The only way they can terminate the terms is: "Cause for such termination shall include, but not be limited to: (a) breaches or violations of the Terms of Service or other incorporated agreements or guidelines; (b) requests by law enforcement or other government agencies; (c) a request by you (self-initiated account deletions); (d) discontinuance or material modification to the Service (or any part thereof); (e) unexpected technical or security issues or problems; (f) extended periods of inactivity; (g) you have engaged or are reasonably suspected to be engaged in fraudulent or illegal activities; (h) having provided false information as part of your account; (i) having failed to keep your account complete, true, and accurate; (j) any use of the Service deemed at Cloudflare’s sole discretion to be prohibited; (k) use of fraudulent payment methods; and/or (l) nonpayment of any fees owed by you in connection with Cloudflare.com and associated Services."
      - ballenf 9y ago
13years 9y ago
Yet child porn is clearly a criminal act. Producing the media material would make you complicit. Kinda like if you went along with bank robbers to rob a bank, video tapped it and never reported it. You would be complicit of covering up the crime. I believe this distinction separates child porn from free speech. Also, like yelling `fire` in a building is not a speech issue, it is a property rights issue in that you cause damage to the owners of the property.
- Zuider 9y ago
  Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre is likely to cause people to stampede in panic which can lead to persons being trampled to death.
  - 13years 9y ago
    Property rights covers damage to people as under property rights you own your self. The point is that it can be prosecuted, but not on the grounds of speech. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
yock 9y ago
> Humanity has decided there are just some things that shouldn't be said or shared. The thought of this terrifies me. It invites the absolute worst kind of collectivism.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Yes, particularly with controlling what can be said, especially political speech. It's kind of crazy that we finally agreed that the government doesn't have the right to unfairly treat two gay dudes who want to get married, but now if someone doesn't want to serve them the cake the government can force you to. No matter how righteous either act, we just traded one form of tyranny for another and made no progress in understanding the importance of the lesson. When can we just agree that telling you what to think should have never been a legitimate role of government in the first place? It is a concept fundamentally and completely opposed to democracy and individual liberty.
  - AgentME 9y ago
    Is it a similarly-terrifying tyranny when the government forces restaurants to serve black people?
    - wallace_f 9y ago
      You know I can appreciate some good snarkiness like this; but to be fair, governments almost always sell tyranny to the people in the name of moral righteousness. I guess what it comes down to is what you fear more: tyranny or some racist people with restaurants.
- Joeri 9y ago
  Almost everyone would agree at least some things should be illegal to express or share, like child pornography or calls to physical violence. Human rights end at where someone else’s rights begin. It’s obvious following from this that perpetrating physical violence on the innocent is wrong and must be stopped. But what of people who glorify, encourage or publicly plan to do such a thing? Do you always have to wait until people translate toxic words into toxic actions?
jihibdokd 9y ago
A rather ignorant view of history. Lookup US obscenity law and case history. Child pornography is an easy example, 80 years ago it was any pornography, or even obscene literature, joyces Ulysses was once banned. On general speech has only gotten freer, to think we now are at the precipe and speech won't be even freer is naive, provincial, and arrogant. Interacial kissing was once provocative, sodomy illegal as recently as 2003, and now depictions of transexuals is edgy. That anyone thinks its okay to limit speech, the midwife of thought -- its a debate going back to the State sanctioned murder of Socrates for 'corrupting the youth', 'making the weaker argument the stronger', and 'profaning the gods' -- its sad hilarious but those we are educated know such views are on the wrong side of history even if good people like Socrates are murdered along the way. Let's see if I even share my speech here, I'm regularly shadow banned for no reason.
- slg 9y ago
  This is exactly the type of belief I was talking about in my last sentence. All speech is not equal. That may be a hard truth for some to accept, but it is the truth. Once your speech starts to infringe on the rights of others it is no longer deserving of protection. Your rights are not more important than the rights of your fellow citizens. I don't understand why libertarians don't agree with that. I thought the whole point of the government was to protect the rights of the individual.
  - louithethrid 9y ago
    And deep down everyone has that feeling, that his gut feelings should be the judge of that. The problem starts, when people project there wish to control the lives of others upon some vague enough person as power.
  - hitekker 9y ago
    For most of its followers, Libertarianism is a means to an end, a label that can be shed and worn repeatedly, a justification rather a-way-of-life. Other People need the help of government? They should stop being lazy and put their faith in the free market. My folks need government help? Well we deserve it, give it to us, right now, don’t delay, don’t you have a heart? Compared to the members of communist, conservative and other demanding and identity-integral idealogies, libertarians are far smaller in number and altogether weaker as an independant political force.

eighthnate 9y ago

> Don't get me wrong, we shouldn't tolerate the intolerant (e.g. nazis/terrorists) No. They are precisely who we should tolerate. That's what free speech rights exist to protect. We shouldn't tolerate violence, but we should tolerate speech. > See how Google/YouTube/Twitter did mass bans and ended up including people like Jordan Peterson. But according to the left, peterson is an intolerant person. This is why we have principles and rights. The first thing everyone used to learn in a philosophy class was that if the neo-nazis don't have free speech, then nobody has free speech. You can disagree with neo-nazis. That's your right. But if their speech is curtailed, then nobody has speech because speech no longer is a right, it's a privilege that depends on the whims of the offended.

lern_too_spel 9y ago
> We shouldn't tolerate violence, but we should tolerate speech. Yet we already don't tolerate violent speech. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions?wprov=sfla1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_ex... It is crazy to me that a (if I might assume) straight white non-Jewish and non-Muslim man living in a like society will speak authoritatively about what kind of speech should be allowed. Go live in a society in which you are the minority where a significant and growing segment of society hates you, and then tell me what kind of speech we should allow.
- ebfd 9y ago
  That's essentially the point; free speech protects the rights of unpopular minorities. Why would a gay Jewish, Muslim, woman want straight white men to enact limitations on their speech?

Feniks 9y ago

Oh yeah I know how most people operate. Free speech is all fine and dandy until somebody says something you don't agree with. Happens every single time.

marindez 9y ago

Not tolerating the intolerant makes you an intolerant too.

devdas 9y ago
Tolerance isn't a moral viewpoint, it's a peace treaty.
- golemotron 9y ago
  The underlying morality is respect for people regardless of their views.
  - devdas 9y ago
    The point of calling it a treaty is to be able to reject those who violate it.
davidgerard 9y ago
It turns out there's a considerable body of prior work on this specific issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- stale2002 9y ago
  And that work is mostly false. The US has extremely strong protections for "intolerant" and "unpopular" beliefs. And it works out fine for us. Freedom of speech, and tolerating everyone, including the intolerant, has worked out pretty well for us.
  - davidgerard 9y ago
    Good to know we've got someone really knowledgeable about philosophy like Hacker News user stale2002 to set those n00bs Popper and Rawls right on their foolish notion that this might in some way be a nuanced question.

betterunix2 9y ago

It is worth remembering that DS had claimed that Cloudflare's management secretly supported DS ideas/worldview/etc. There was a reputation problem brewing for them, so they decided to drop one customer to keep a lot of others.

rabite 9y ago
We never made such a claim. Cloudflare's CEO has basically come out and admitted that now it was powerful well connected individuals threatening him instead. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/24/cloudflare-ceo-matthew-prince-explains-why-he-booted-the-daily-stormer.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/24/cloudflare-ceo-matthew-princ...
- betterunix2 9y ago
  From that article: "The Daily Stormer then raised the stakes with a claim that Cloudflare's management was supportive of its ultra-nationalist ideology."
  - goatsi 9y ago
    Cloudflare never provided a screenshot or quote to support that claim, and in a different article admitted that it was just a regular user posting on the dailystormer forum, not a post on the site. https://gizmodo.com/cloudflare-ceo-on-terminating-service-to-neo-nazi-site-1797915295 https://gizmodo.com/cloudflare-ceo-on-terminating-service-to... >“The Daily Stormer site was bragging on their bulletin boards about how Cloudflare was one of them and that is the opposite of everything we believe. That was the tipping point for me.” I suppose Cloudflare customers should make sure to censor what gets posted on their sites if it refers to the political opinions of Matthew Prince.
    - detaro 9y ago
      That quote doesn't say that it was "just a regular user" (it's possible that it was, but that's not what it says)
  - 9y ago

mtgx 9y ago

Yes, before we know it, Cloudflare will also get in trouble for "facilitating fake news" or "not doing something about it." The internet is trending towards becoming a cluster of walled gardens. Whether or not that will make a "better internet" than the one we have/had, it remains to be seen, but I'm inclining towards believing it won't. It could make it better for some things, but I think it could make it much worse for other things (freedom of speech, defending controversial ideas like gay marriage, or national security whistleblowers, etc).

R_haterade 9y ago

The Jordan Peterson point is a good one. His point has been for quite a while that if you're a young man, and you're unhappy with your life, the way to fix that is to work on fixing your life, not joining some far-right movement. Google really worked at cross-purposes with its own agenda there.

paulddraper 9y ago
Holy s---! I never knew what could happen by bring a stickler for traditional English. (Adds a whole new depth to 'grammar Nazi') Thanks for the massive wakeup call... I'm going to have to move to less capricious ways to use the internet.
throwawayknecht 9y ago
> His point has been for quite a while that if you're a young man, and you're unhappy with your life, the way to fix that is to work on fixing your life, not joining some far-right movement. Weird, then, how as soon as something went wrong with his life, he joined a far-right movement. (And seems to be very well-compensated financially for doing so.)
- eradicatethots 9y ago
  It doesn’t seem like this is true from his Wikipedia page. Don’t see any movements listed here. Don’t think havi views that a far right movement supports is the same as joining and supporting that movement, and I don’t think it’s fair to label him that way.
  - cabaalis 9y ago
    I fear your belief is in the minority. Increasingly, choosing a side and holding it is becoming required.
    - musage 9y ago
      For people who disqualify themselves as honest thinkers. Numbers don't change that.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

gaius 9y ago

Cloudflare set up a limit to what they allow or not so now they will have to fight where that limit is. It can become death by a thousand papercuts. Twitter also enforces its policies very selectively, and seems to be getting away with it so far, but they are walking a tightrope. E.g. now violating the ToS is OK if it's "newsworthy" etc. Or how "Kill all X" will get you banned for some values of X but not others.

MikusR 9y ago
I think Twitter has not claimed they are content agnostic. That's the difference.
- NaliSauce 9y ago
  There used to be a time when twitter tried to brand itself as "the free speech wing of the free speech party"[1]. Obviously they have changed their stance by quite a bit. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/21/twitter-free-speech-champion-selective-censor https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/21/twitter-f...
tehwebguy 9y ago
Twitter is a joke. I keep reporting accounts that call black people "nic gurr" to avoid being caught dropping actual N bombs and they are almost never banned. I guess Daily Active User KPI is more important! Edit - For anyone wondering about Trump's place on Twitter, he's not going anywhere. Twitter is extremely proud of his account and is using him in advertising in Japan: http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-ads-featuring-donald-trump-appear-in-japan-2017-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-ads-featuring-donald-...
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > I keep reporting accounts that call black people "nic gurr" to avoid being caught dropping actual N bombs and they are almost never banned. This is a war you'll never win, though. People will keep inventing new combinations of characters as you ban the previously used ones.

jwineinger 9y ago

> we shouldn't tolerate the intolerant Doesn't this make us intolerant by definition?

deleted 9y ago

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