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This is a very strange idea of what Free Speech is. The reason Free Speech is related to government is that government has a monopoly on violence. Government ca

This is a very strange idea of what Free Speech is. The reason Free Speech is related to government is that government has a monopoly on violence. Government can turn up with guns at your house and stop you speaking in a way that no other body can. What is happening here is very different. Cloudflare isn't preventing anyone from saying anything. All that is happening is Cloudflare is using it's freedom of association not to associate with this website. This has nothing to do with 8Chan's ability to publish what they want - only their ability to use Cloudflare's services to do so. As the article mentions - because the US has the principle of Free Speech enshrined in law, 8chan has the ability to go and use other services, or to develop the services that Cloudflare provided. This will not impact 8chan's ability to publish whatever they like. Now there is a theoretical point of view, that if a company has a monopoly - it is effectively able to police speech, but that's absolutely not the case here, as is demonstrated in the past by companies going elsewhere to exercise their right. What is being proposed as an understanding of Free Speech is not allowing private individuals from refusing to service to you. This would seem to be mandating someone to act - which is a principle quite far away from any law I've heard of.

Ajedi32 7y ago
Cloudflare may not be a monopoly, but they don't necessarily need to be a monopoly to be able to effectively police speech. A duopoly or oligopoly can be just as effective at that task, provided all competitors have similar rules about what sort of speech they disallow. Now maybe we're not quite at that point yet (after all, the Daily Stormer did eventually find a CDN that would take them), but we may very well be getting close; there are only so many CDNs big enough to effectively shrug off large-scale DDOS attacks after all. You also have to consider how difficult it is to match the quality of service provided by Cloudflare, and the hassle involved in switching to a new CDN. Cloudflare's refusal to service some organizations on the basis of ideology might have a chilling effect on Free Speech, even if it's not an insurmountable barrier. I agree there is a balance between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association. The question is: where do we draw the line?
- themagician 7y ago
  Free Speech doesn’t require a CDN. Lol. It’s not like the First Amendment comes with a 99.999% uptime guarantee. Some of you are so dense. Free speech is about not being dragged off in the middle of the night and sent to a gulag. There’s no fine line here, no slippery slope. Everyone on 8chan is free to continue publishing whatever they want. It just won’t be published over a high availability CDN. It also won’t show up in Times Square.
  - Ajedi32 7y ago
    There is a fine line, and I think that's easily illustrated with a few hypothetical counterexamples. If you truly believe that "free speech is about not being dragged off in the middle of the night and sent to a gulag", and that that's all it's about for you, then would you, for example, be okay with a law stating that social media companies in the US are required to automatically filter any content critical of actions taken by the US military, and not display that content to people inside the US? Yes, that's an extreme example, and yes it'd be illegal under the current US constitution, but it would be consistent with the extremely narrow definition of Free Speech you specified in your previous comment. So, assuming that's not actually where you draw the line, where do you draw it? How much suppression of speech are you willing to tolerate before you would consider it unacceptable?
    - themagician 7y ago
      Your example is the gulag example. If you don’t do what the law says, stormtroopers come in and take you away. Thats a free speech issue, but that’s not what’s happening here. It’s not even close. It’s not a slippery slope. It’s just… nothing. Nothing is happening here. I tolerate zero suppression. But that’s not what’s at issue here. We are talking about a CDN company refusing business of someone they don’t like, because it exposes them to bad PR and likely liability as well. No one is required to publish your content. I can post my dick all over Facebook, and that’s fine, because that’s not suppression of free speech. I can’t walk into CNN and demand airtime under a flag of free speech either. The closest thing we ever had to an issue of free speech on the Internet was when ICANN was handing over domains to the feds over piracy issues. In that case their was a thin line. In that case there was a discussion to be had. Property was being seized by the government and people were being arrested and imprisoned for what some considered speech. Here there is nothing. Just whiny, uneducated people with no concept of what free speech actually refers to.

Ajedi32 7y ago

Cloudflare may not be a monopoly, but they don't necessarily need to be a monopoly to be able to effectively police speech. A duopoly or oligopoly can be just as effective at that task, provided all competitors have similar rules about what sort of speech they disallow. Now maybe we're not quite at that point yet (after all, the Daily Stormer did eventually find a CDN that would take them), but we may very well be getting close; there are only so many CDNs big enough to effectively shrug off large-scale DDOS attacks after all. You also have to consider how difficult it is to match the quality of service provided by Cloudflare, and the hassle involved in switching to a new CDN. Cloudflare's refusal to service some organizations on the basis of ideology might have a chilling effect on Free Speech, even if it's not an insurmountable barrier. I agree there is a balance between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association. The question is: where do we draw the line?

themagician 7y ago
Free Speech doesn’t require a CDN. Lol. It’s not like the First Amendment comes with a 99.999% uptime guarantee. Some of you are so dense. Free speech is about not being dragged off in the middle of the night and sent to a gulag. There’s no fine line here, no slippery slope. Everyone on 8chan is free to continue publishing whatever they want. It just won’t be published over a high availability CDN. It also won’t show up in Times Square.
- Ajedi32 7y ago
  There is a fine line, and I think that's easily illustrated with a few hypothetical counterexamples. If you truly believe that "free speech is about not being dragged off in the middle of the night and sent to a gulag", and that that's all it's about for you, then would you, for example, be okay with a law stating that social media companies in the US are required to automatically filter any content critical of actions taken by the US military, and not display that content to people inside the US? Yes, that's an extreme example, and yes it'd be illegal under the current US constitution, but it would be consistent with the extremely narrow definition of Free Speech you specified in your previous comment. So, assuming that's not actually where you draw the line, where do you draw it? How much suppression of speech are you willing to tolerate before you would consider it unacceptable?
  - themagician 7y ago
    Your example is the gulag example. If you don’t do what the law says, stormtroopers come in and take you away. Thats a free speech issue, but that’s not what’s happening here. It’s not even close. It’s not a slippery slope. It’s just… nothing. Nothing is happening here. I tolerate zero suppression. But that’s not what’s at issue here. We are talking about a CDN company refusing business of someone they don’t like, because it exposes them to bad PR and likely liability as well. No one is required to publish your content. I can post my dick all over Facebook, and that’s fine, because that’s not suppression of free speech. I can’t walk into CNN and demand airtime under a flag of free speech either. The closest thing we ever had to an issue of free speech on the Internet was when ICANN was handing over domains to the feds over piracy issues. In that case their was a thin line. In that case there was a discussion to be had. Property was being seized by the government and people were being arrested and imprisoned for what some considered speech. Here there is nothing. Just whiny, uneducated people with no concept of what free speech actually refers to.