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"Do you really want that? What if you can't take down the website? Daily Stormer is really interesting; we shut off service for it, but you can go to Google and

"Do you really want that? What if you can't take down the website? Daily Stormer is really interesting; we shut off service for it, but you can go to Google and read it." I don't even know what type of content is on Daily Stormer but I presume it is controversial. I find this quote just a tad disingenuous. I understand Cloudflare is well within its rights to decide there are certain companies they won't work with, but to say this causes no harm whatsoever isn't entirely true. There are very few CDNs that can withstand a DDOS attack, and certainly very rare for a small publishing company to have that capability in-house. If the content you want is under a DDOS attack and unavailable because no CDN will carry it, then yeah, that would kind of suck. One can always publish to various P2P platforms that are highly DDOS-resistant, but now the audience has some more work to get to it; it's a barrier. Not an impassable one, but a barrier nonetheless. For the record, I like Cloudflare, but I also really love free speech. The quote struck me as overly minimizing.

mhuffman 7y ago
> I find this quote just a tad disingenuous. Everything about Cloudflare is disingenuous! Remember the bullshit they pulled with Tor and then tried to blame it on Tor being a DDOS vector (defying all logic). I have more than once got into a debate about how many bags of dicks that Cloudflare sucks, only to find out near the end that the person was a Cloudflare employee and just kept that point to themselves the whole time. I really wish some company would overtake them in that sector and send them packing, just on principle.
dsr_ 7y ago
It's literally Nazis.
- 55555 7y ago
  It's literally not literally Nazis.
  - pedrocx486 7y ago
    Daily Stormer isn't a Neo-nazi site you say? Ok then.
    - 55555 7y ago
      I didn't mean that and for the record I abhor the views espoused on that website, which I have only viewed a few times.
  - dsr_ 7y ago
    Oh, no. I'm not having that. The Daily Stormer is absolutely, actual, non-metaphorical Nazis. Here's the first paragraph of the wikipedia entry: The Daily Stormer is an American neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and Holocaust denial commentary and message board website that advocates for the genocide of Jews.[2][3][4][5] It considers itself a part of the alt-right movement.[6] Its editor, Andrew Anglin, founded it on July 4, 2013, as a faster-paced replacement for his previous website Total Fascism. The website also publishes its content in Spain and Latin America, Italy and Greece. In conclusion: Nazis.
anarchodev 7y ago
It's a neo-nazi/white nationalist forum. It's still active I believe behind Tor, but not nearly as accessible, far fewer people actually participating. We're in an era where young men radicalize each other on message boards like these until one of the truly unhinged members heads to a synagogue to murder people worshiping. As we've seen so many times in the past year, they'll often post before they do it, leaving behind a manifesto and a crowd egging them on to get a "high score." I wish this was actually an outlier and not very common, but unfortunately if you monitor these forums you'll see men working up the courage to commit a mass murder of their own every single day. In my opinion we should try to put as many barriers we can in front of these types of communities, and it sucks that cloudflare is still working with some of them.
- cobbzilla 7y ago
  yeah that is pretty controversial stuff! I guess for me this falls into that fringe category of stuff that really should best be only found by those truly seeking it, so I’m morally OK with barriers without total censorship. But I’d also like to think more about how to help those people who get sucked into such things. The more private it becomes, maybe the harder it is to see & help? All that said I still stand by my original comment, there is a chilling effect on free speech, not to be so glibly dismissed.
  - anarchodev 7y ago
    So first of all yes, free speech is important. If it were to be curtailed along political lines, my work would be cut long before any of these platforms. But free speech isn't quite relevant here. The first amendment does not provide a right to a platform or an audience. Would they eventually find other outlets? Of course. But if your ideology is regularly getting people killed I absolutely want you to be handing out fliers at the mall, not sending out links to your anonymous discord or 8chan. Getting help for these troubled men is a priority, but right now there simply isn't a mechanism for it -- we help those who seek it in America. Finding out who these posters are in the first place is a chore on its own and has been more effectively accomplished by networks of antifascists than by our well-funded intelligence departments, to give you some perspective. So I think that goal will come with more resource allocation to this particular problem, once it's acknowledged. And the current administration does not acknowledge it.

mhuffman 7y ago

> I find this quote just a tad disingenuous. Everything about Cloudflare is disingenuous! Remember the bullshit they pulled with Tor and then tried to blame it on Tor being a DDOS vector (defying all logic). I have more than once got into a debate about how many bags of dicks that Cloudflare sucks, only to find out near the end that the person was a Cloudflare employee and just kept that point to themselves the whole time. I really wish some company would overtake them in that sector and send them packing, just on principle.

dsr_ 7y ago

It's literally Nazis.

55555 7y ago
It's literally not literally Nazis.
- pedrocx486 7y ago
  Daily Stormer isn't a Neo-nazi site you say? Ok then.
  - 55555 7y ago
    I didn't mean that and for the record I abhor the views espoused on that website, which I have only viewed a few times.
- dsr_ 7y ago
  Oh, no. I'm not having that. The Daily Stormer is absolutely, actual, non-metaphorical Nazis. Here's the first paragraph of the wikipedia entry: The Daily Stormer is an American neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and Holocaust denial commentary and message board website that advocates for the genocide of Jews.[2][3][4][5] It considers itself a part of the alt-right movement.[6] Its editor, Andrew Anglin, founded it on July 4, 2013, as a faster-paced replacement for his previous website Total Fascism. The website also publishes its content in Spain and Latin America, Italy and Greece. In conclusion: Nazis.

anarchodev 7y ago

It's a neo-nazi/white nationalist forum. It's still active I believe behind Tor, but not nearly as accessible, far fewer people actually participating. We're in an era where young men radicalize each other on message boards like these until one of the truly unhinged members heads to a synagogue to murder people worshiping. As we've seen so many times in the past year, they'll often post before they do it, leaving behind a manifesto and a crowd egging them on to get a "high score." I wish this was actually an outlier and not very common, but unfortunately if you monitor these forums you'll see men working up the courage to commit a mass murder of their own every single day. In my opinion we should try to put as many barriers we can in front of these types of communities, and it sucks that cloudflare is still working with some of them.

cobbzilla 7y ago
yeah that is pretty controversial stuff! I guess for me this falls into that fringe category of stuff that really should best be only found by those truly seeking it, so I’m morally OK with barriers without total censorship. But I’d also like to think more about how to help those people who get sucked into such things. The more private it becomes, maybe the harder it is to see & help? All that said I still stand by my original comment, there is a chilling effect on free speech, not to be so glibly dismissed.
- anarchodev 7y ago
  So first of all yes, free speech is important. If it were to be curtailed along political lines, my work would be cut long before any of these platforms. But free speech isn't quite relevant here. The first amendment does not provide a right to a platform or an audience. Would they eventually find other outlets? Of course. But if your ideology is regularly getting people killed I absolutely want you to be handing out fliers at the mall, not sending out links to your anonymous discord or 8chan. Getting help for these troubled men is a priority, but right now there simply isn't a mechanism for it -- we help those who seek it in America. Finding out who these posters are in the first place is a chore on its own and has been more effectively accomplished by networks of antifascists than by our well-funded intelligence departments, to give you some perspective. So I think that goal will come with more resource allocation to this particular problem, once it's acknowledged. And the current administration does not acknowledge it.