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>has never terminated a customer or taken down content due to political pressure https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.clou

>has never terminated a customer or taken down content due to political pressure https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ No comment on whether or not the termination was justified.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago
> Our terms of service reserve the right for us to terminate users of our network at our sole discretion. By political pressure they mean pressure from a political entity, that is, a government. That's what I'm assuming anyways, I'd love for a Cloudflare representative to confirm.
- robertcope 8y ago
  "The tipping point for us making this decision was that the team behind Daily Stormer made the claim that we were secretly supporters of their ideology." Seems pretty clear to me?
  - JakeTheAndroid 8y ago
    I worked for Cloudflare when this happened, and this is the correct answer.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
O5vYtytb 8y ago
Maybe it should read "external political pressure"?
- naaaaak 8y ago
  If we have to parse these things with our own suppositions to make them true, the canary is already dead.
mrguyorama 8y ago
I am hesitant to conflate actual neo-nazis with actual politics
- malnourish 8y ago
  They are actual politics, regardless of your or my beliefs. They vote, and if there are enough of them, someone will cater to them. To willfully ignore them is to ignore a sad reality, they will continue to grow unabated; to meaningfully engage them is to platform a disingenuous group (not to mention giving their beliefs acknowledgement). It seems to be a catch-22 to me.
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    I'm arguing that people wanting the removal of a hate group who's largest purpose is the purge of specific ethnic groups is not a political matter, but a humanitarian one, therefore taking down Stormfront was not due to political pressure
  - rc_kas 8y ago
    The child porn guy also votes. Are you going to call that political too?
    - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
      My now deceased great aunt married when she was 13 to a man of 33. Now, we'd be screaming "PEDO" from the rooftops while calling for castration and prison, or even execution. What actually happened, was marrying when you were 13 as a female was the norm. It was OK. She had 4 children.. And if you asked her, had a wonderful life. But in a fairly short time, social norms went from "Puberty means you're an adult, or darn near one" to 'pushing up the definitions of adulthood up to 21 year olds'. And in this case, the social norms were also backed by loads of well-meaning laws that end up being abhorrent in practice (how dare two 17 year olds sext pictures, but they can have as much sex as they want). If you didn't learn from 2016, laws and words matter. A lot.
rdiddly 8y ago
Yeah technically they terminated that one with no pressure.
naaaaak 8y ago
Top comment gets it right: > No debate needed. You terminated due to political pressure and gave up one of your warrant canaries. That Cloudflare continues to include this clause shows how worthless the other clauses are. Maybe their warrant canaries have already been violated and that case was their way of telling us?
updateYourMind 8y ago
It was justified.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Neonazis/Daily Stormer was a canary. I think back to the Skokie Nazi trial on how this should have played out. The Constitution wasn't for protecting when times and situations were good, but when they were off the rails and terribad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am... Cloudflare tried to be this impartial "we're only a data delivery agent - we make no ethics claims of anyone who uses our service - we're a common carrier like service".... Except when it came down to the hard decisions, they sided in smashing the canary into tiny pieces.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  Cloudflare are still providing services to a lot of politically noxious sites. What The Stormer did was claim that since Cloudflare accepted them as customers, Cloudflare must have been sympathetic to their ideology and secretly Nazis themselves. The Stormer made a pretty big deal out of this, potentially doing severe damage to Cloudflare's reputation and driving away customers. If The Stormer had kept their mouth shut and not made a big public thing out of it, Cloudflare would probably still be providing services to them. Instead, they forced Cloudflare's hand by claiming them as ideological allies.

Cthulhu_ 8y ago

> Our terms of service reserve the right for us to terminate users of our network at our sole discretion. By political pressure they mean pressure from a political entity, that is, a government. That's what I'm assuming anyways, I'd love for a Cloudflare representative to confirm.

robertcope 8y ago
"The tipping point for us making this decision was that the team behind Daily Stormer made the claim that we were secretly supporters of their ideology." Seems pretty clear to me?
- JakeTheAndroid 8y ago
  I worked for Cloudflare when this happened, and this is the correct answer.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

O5vYtytb 8y ago

Maybe it should read "external political pressure"?

naaaaak 8y ago
If we have to parse these things with our own suppositions to make them true, the canary is already dead.

mrguyorama 8y ago

I am hesitant to conflate actual neo-nazis with actual politics

malnourish 8y ago
They are actual politics, regardless of your or my beliefs. They vote, and if there are enough of them, someone will cater to them. To willfully ignore them is to ignore a sad reality, they will continue to grow unabated; to meaningfully engage them is to platform a disingenuous group (not to mention giving their beliefs acknowledgement). It seems to be a catch-22 to me.
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  I'm arguing that people wanting the removal of a hate group who's largest purpose is the purge of specific ethnic groups is not a political matter, but a humanitarian one, therefore taking down Stormfront was not due to political pressure
- rc_kas 8y ago
  The child porn guy also votes. Are you going to call that political too?
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    My now deceased great aunt married when she was 13 to a man of 33. Now, we'd be screaming "PEDO" from the rooftops while calling for castration and prison, or even execution. What actually happened, was marrying when you were 13 as a female was the norm. It was OK. She had 4 children.. And if you asked her, had a wonderful life. But in a fairly short time, social norms went from "Puberty means you're an adult, or darn near one" to 'pushing up the definitions of adulthood up to 21 year olds'. And in this case, the social norms were also backed by loads of well-meaning laws that end up being abhorrent in practice (how dare two 17 year olds sext pictures, but they can have as much sex as they want). If you didn't learn from 2016, laws and words matter. A lot.

rdiddly 8y ago

Yeah technically they terminated that one with no pressure.

naaaaak 8y ago

Top comment gets it right: > No debate needed. You terminated due to political pressure and gave up one of your warrant canaries. That Cloudflare continues to include this clause shows how worthless the other clauses are. Maybe their warrant canaries have already been violated and that case was their way of telling us?

updateYourMind 8y ago

It was justified.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

Neonazis/Daily Stormer was a canary. I think back to the Skokie Nazi trial on how this should have played out. The Constitution wasn't for protecting when times and situations were good, but when they were off the rails and terribad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am... Cloudflare tried to be this impartial "we're only a data delivery agent - we make no ethics claims of anyone who uses our service - we're a common carrier like service".... Except when it came down to the hard decisions, they sided in smashing the canary into tiny pieces.

KozmoNau7 8y ago
Cloudflare are still providing services to a lot of politically noxious sites. What The Stormer did was claim that since Cloudflare accepted them as customers, Cloudflare must have been sympathetic to their ideology and secretly Nazis themselves. The Stormer made a pretty big deal out of this, potentially doing severe damage to Cloudflare's reputation and driving away customers. If The Stormer had kept their mouth shut and not made a big public thing out of it, Cloudflare would probably still be providing services to them. Instead, they forced Cloudflare's hand by claiming them as ideological allies.