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Think about it in a non-web structure: Should someone be able to send a letter about "Killing all the Jews and make all black people slaves" and the New York Ti

Think about it in a non-web structure: Should someone be able to send a letter about "Killing all the Jews and make all black people slaves" and the New York Times HAS to print it and distribute it to all its subscribers? Or do you think the NYT (as a private enterprise) can decide what messages they distribute on their platform? (this is a different question than whether or not the NYT has a moral responsibility to not distribute hateful messages)

FiniteField 4y ago
A better analogy would be this: You run a business that, while pretty unethical, is fairly soundly legal (as evidenced by winning multiple lawsuits and not being taken offline by a court order). An aggrieved person incites a mob that attempts to burn down (DDoS, etc) the business. Thankfully for the business, it has a deal with the local, privatized fire department (CloudFlare) that mitigates most of the ongoing arson attacks. The mob protests outside the fire department's front door for them to drop the business as a customer, with the obvious intent to destroy the business once the protection is removed.
_-david-_ 4y ago
I don't think you can compare NYT to Cloudflare. Cloudflare basically has no limit on the number of sites they can support, a newspaper has limited space. They are just providing CDN services not editorial services like a newspaper does. The average person probably does not even know that a website is using Cloudflare so the association is significantly less than a newspaper
- snarf21 4y ago
  Cloudflare has already made an editorial statement in the past: [https://www.wired.com/story/cloudflare-daily-stormer/ https://www.wired.com/story/cloudflare-daily-stormer/] Visa and Mastercard won't processes payments from dispensaries even though they have (effectively) no limit on the number of transactions they can support. Visa and Mastercard threatened to cut-off OnlyFans unless they dropped "explicit content".
  - mhuffman 4y ago
    >Visa and Mastercard won't processes payments from dispensaries even though they have (effectively) no limit on the number of transactions they can support. >Visa and Mastercard threatened to cut-off OnlyFans unless they dropped "explicit content". I also, think that this should not be allowed, although the first one is a little more murky, due to possibly moving money across state lines where marijuana is illegal. However, at the end of the day no one is stopping you from using cash, which is an inconvenient, but reasonable alternative. If a few large scale web infrastructure companies team up, you are fucked, there is no reasonable alternative.
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    >Cloudflare has already made an editorial statement in the past I know that Cloudflare previously did this. I don't think they should be taking an editorial stance like that. My point is that it is not typical to have a CDN taking an editorial stance. It is expected that a newspaper will. >Visa and Mastercard won't processes payments from dispensaries even though they have (effectively) no limit on the number of transactions they can support. I think weed is still illegal at the federal level? Visa and MasterCard could easily be accused of facilitating a felony. This seems clear cut to me. Is Visa and MasterCard doing this in countries where weed is completely legal? >Visa and Mastercard threatened to cut-off OnlyFans unless they dropped "explicit content". Visa and MasterCard claimed they were doing it because banks require there to be proper validation against child porn. This is not Visa and MasterCard directly. Regardless, who is to blame in this situation, they are not taking an editorial stance. They are saying that OnlyFans is facilitating child porn which is against the law. I don't know about OnlyFans, but before getting threatened by Visa, PornHub clearly wasn't doing enough. They appear to have knowingly kept multiple child porn videos up even after being informed multiple times that they were child porn. Perhaps onlyfans is better than pornHub, but I doubt it. Regardless, you can't really compare on of the most heavily regulated industries with one of the least. It is not clear to me that KiwiFarms is actually violating the law or not removing illegal content. Do you have any examples of Kiwi Farm facilitating criminal behavior like PornHub and probably OnlyFans were doing?
mhuffman 4y ago
I think your analogy is wrong way round. Should the mail have to take the letter to the NYT without opening it and making sure that the content is culturally appropriate, is the proper question. And I argue yes! If something in that mail turns out to be a death threat and something that the very end receiver have a problem with they can deal with it.

FiniteField 4y ago

A better analogy would be this: You run a business that, while pretty unethical, is fairly soundly legal (as evidenced by winning multiple lawsuits and not being taken offline by a court order). An aggrieved person incites a mob that attempts to burn down (DDoS, etc) the business. Thankfully for the business, it has a deal with the local, privatized fire department (CloudFlare) that mitigates most of the ongoing arson attacks. The mob protests outside the fire department's front door for them to drop the business as a customer, with the obvious intent to destroy the business once the protection is removed.

_-david-_ 4y ago

I don't think you can compare NYT to Cloudflare. Cloudflare basically has no limit on the number of sites they can support, a newspaper has limited space. They are just providing CDN services not editorial services like a newspaper does. The average person probably does not even know that a website is using Cloudflare so the association is significantly less than a newspaper

snarf21 4y ago
Cloudflare has already made an editorial statement in the past: [https://www.wired.com/story/cloudflare-daily-stormer/ https://www.wired.com/story/cloudflare-daily-stormer/] Visa and Mastercard won't processes payments from dispensaries even though they have (effectively) no limit on the number of transactions they can support. Visa and Mastercard threatened to cut-off OnlyFans unless they dropped "explicit content".
- mhuffman 4y ago
  >Visa and Mastercard won't processes payments from dispensaries even though they have (effectively) no limit on the number of transactions they can support. >Visa and Mastercard threatened to cut-off OnlyFans unless they dropped "explicit content". I also, think that this should not be allowed, although the first one is a little more murky, due to possibly moving money across state lines where marijuana is illegal. However, at the end of the day no one is stopping you from using cash, which is an inconvenient, but reasonable alternative. If a few large scale web infrastructure companies team up, you are fucked, there is no reasonable alternative.
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  >Cloudflare has already made an editorial statement in the past I know that Cloudflare previously did this. I don't think they should be taking an editorial stance like that. My point is that it is not typical to have a CDN taking an editorial stance. It is expected that a newspaper will. >Visa and Mastercard won't processes payments from dispensaries even though they have (effectively) no limit on the number of transactions they can support. I think weed is still illegal at the federal level? Visa and MasterCard could easily be accused of facilitating a felony. This seems clear cut to me. Is Visa and MasterCard doing this in countries where weed is completely legal? >Visa and Mastercard threatened to cut-off OnlyFans unless they dropped "explicit content". Visa and MasterCard claimed they were doing it because banks require there to be proper validation against child porn. This is not Visa and MasterCard directly. Regardless, who is to blame in this situation, they are not taking an editorial stance. They are saying that OnlyFans is facilitating child porn which is against the law. I don't know about OnlyFans, but before getting threatened by Visa, PornHub clearly wasn't doing enough. They appear to have knowingly kept multiple child porn videos up even after being informed multiple times that they were child porn. Perhaps onlyfans is better than pornHub, but I doubt it. Regardless, you can't really compare on of the most heavily regulated industries with one of the least. It is not clear to me that KiwiFarms is actually violating the law or not removing illegal content. Do you have any examples of Kiwi Farm facilitating criminal behavior like PornHub and probably OnlyFans were doing?

mhuffman 4y ago

I think your analogy is wrong way round. Should the mail have to take the letter to the NYT without opening it and making sure that the content is culturally appropriate, is the proper question. And I argue yes! If something in that mail turns out to be a death threat and something that the very end receiver have a problem with they can deal with it.