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This is great news. There will be lots of people who are frustrated by this. They may say that Cloudflare shouldn't remove content unless they are legally req

This is great news. There will be lots of people who are frustrated by this. They may say that Cloudflare shouldn't remove content unless they are legally required. Or that a CDN like Cloudflare is a platform layer, deep in the stack, and that it shouldn't be making decisions based on content. That they are a essentially a utility, and that they should provide the the same service to everyone. But at the end of the day, companies are run by people. And those people should consider the positive and negative concequences of the services they provide. It is the moral thing to do. It is the right thing to do. It is the courageous thing to do. That doesn't mean they must block every potentially bad actor. And they don't need to block based explicitly on content. Here, the line was drawn at "platforms that have demonstrated they directly inspire tragic events and are lawless by design." But when situations arise that cause decision makers at an organization to re-consider providing their services to their customers, they should take that opportunity to re-evaluate. They should ask, "Do we want to be hosting this?" In this case, they said "No." Maybe some other customers will leave, afraid of being kicked off next. They should take that into account. If you think your service is sufficiently like 8Chan, you should probably leave Cloudflare. Or if you think Cloudflare's decision was arbitrary and that worries you, you should leave. But maybe others will be happy that their CDN doesn't need to be associated with hosting 8Chan's content. I know I feel that way. Maybe the goodwill you receive will lead to more financial success. But you'll probably never know. In all likelihood, so long as your customers aren't leaving in droves after you kick someone off your platform, you'll never know if the decision was the right financial decision. You'll probably never know if it was a net positive or negative on your balance sheet. But you might sleep better at night. And maybe sites that enable the propagate hate will find it a little bit harder to survive. And I think that's great.

madamelic 7y ago
>That doesn't mean they must block every potentially bad actor. Unfortunately obligatory "I don't support 8chan". I dislike this idea that people can stomp their feet and demand CloudFlare kick off "bad actors". Who is to say the bad actor of tomorrow won't be the "good actor" of today. CloudFlare and other internet utilities should remain apolitical tools that leave law enforcement to law enforcement (even that is a slippery slope, but I'd much prefer an open internet that isn't open to individual whims of what is right and wrong)
- FemmeAndroid 7y ago
  It's for each privately controlled platform to decide. If you want tools that are open for everyone, create a public utility that must comply with the first amendment.
  - madamelic 7y ago
    >It's for each privately controlled platform to decide. Fair enough. People are lame and should just admit what they actually are (not apolitical) rather than hyping themselves up as such. Humans suck, hah.
  - moate 7y ago
    Create and maintain "the Great American Message Board" the same way the government funds PBS. Sounds like a great idea to me. Sad fact is, you can't expect any platform to do anything, assuming that it's not illegal for them to do and cost of doing it is less than the cost of not doing it. If you're a platform, and your people say we'll lose 100 million if we do thing X or we'll lost 20 million if we do thing Y, the correct choice is do thing Y. You're still losing, but you're losing less. Welcome to capitalism in the internet outrage era. Burning Nikes and demanding that Chik-fil-a not open on your campus are the decisions megacorps PR departments have to deal with. They don't care about you, singular human, and your views. They care about the net effect on their bottom line.
smithproxy 7y ago
> Or if you think Cloudflare's decision was arbitrary and that worries you, you should leave. I am not entirely sure whether this statement carries moral judgment of those who see it as arbitrary or not. Would you mind clarifying if you intend to pass judgment or not? Edit: It seems I communicated my point poorly. My last sentence is not intended as a swipe at the parent poster. It's simply a request for clarification. I desired to understand parent's point rather than mischaracterize it.

madamelic 7y ago

>That doesn't mean they must block every potentially bad actor. Unfortunately obligatory "I don't support 8chan". I dislike this idea that people can stomp their feet and demand CloudFlare kick off "bad actors". Who is to say the bad actor of tomorrow won't be the "good actor" of today. CloudFlare and other internet utilities should remain apolitical tools that leave law enforcement to law enforcement (even that is a slippery slope, but I'd much prefer an open internet that isn't open to individual whims of what is right and wrong)

FemmeAndroid 7y ago
It's for each privately controlled platform to decide. If you want tools that are open for everyone, create a public utility that must comply with the first amendment.
- madamelic 7y ago
  >It's for each privately controlled platform to decide. Fair enough. People are lame and should just admit what they actually are (not apolitical) rather than hyping themselves up as such. Humans suck, hah.
- moate 7y ago
  Create and maintain "the Great American Message Board" the same way the government funds PBS. Sounds like a great idea to me. Sad fact is, you can't expect any platform to do anything, assuming that it's not illegal for them to do and cost of doing it is less than the cost of not doing it. If you're a platform, and your people say we'll lose 100 million if we do thing X or we'll lost 20 million if we do thing Y, the correct choice is do thing Y. You're still losing, but you're losing less. Welcome to capitalism in the internet outrage era. Burning Nikes and demanding that Chik-fil-a not open on your campus are the decisions megacorps PR departments have to deal with. They don't care about you, singular human, and your views. They care about the net effect on their bottom line.

smithproxy 7y ago

> Or if you think Cloudflare's decision was arbitrary and that worries you, you should leave. I am not entirely sure whether this statement carries moral judgment of those who see it as arbitrary or not. Would you mind clarifying if you intend to pass judgment or not? Edit: It seems I communicated my point poorly. My last sentence is not intended as a swipe at the parent poster. It's simply a request for clarification. I desired to understand parent's point rather than mischaracterize it.