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It's a thoughtful document and I appreciate the time it took to write it. I think there may be a missing factor in their decision-making process. I'll quote th
by BryantD 4y ago
It's a thoughtful document and I appreciate the time it took to write it.
I think there may be a missing factor in their decision-making process. I'll quote the document itself: "We also believe that an Internet where cyberattacks are used to silence what's online is a broken Internet, no matter how much we may have empathy for the ends."
That seems correct to me. It is intuitively understandable how it applies to some people who want Kiwifarms to go away. It is, perhaps, less clear how it applies to Kiwifarms itself, so let's dig into that some.
First: if it's bad to use cyberattacks to silence what's said online, it's presumably also bad to use other forms of attack to silence what's said, online or otherwise.
Second: does Kiwifarms (or sites like instant-stresser.com, noted in another comment) overall have a silencing effect?
That's a hard determination to make! I actually wouldn't want to be in the business of making that decision. You need to have a clear public rubric and evaluation process, you should be very transparent about it, and you should be willing to defend your decisions and not allow your criteria to slip based on pure public opinion. I am heartened by their description of their ability to make that decision for the Daily Stormer and hold to their principles despite attempts to create slippage -- that tells me that, as an organization, Cloudflare is capable of making nuanced decisions.
However, we shouldn't avoid hard decisions just because they're hard, or even because we might make mistakes from time to time. We should do a real risk analysis, evaluate the effect of making mistakes, and compare that to the effect of not making decisions at all.
I'd encourage Cloudflare to go back and consider whether or not the principle of maximizing the ability to speak has implications about providing services to sites which are in the business of making fun of people -- sometimes lethally -- for things they say.
- karcass 4y agoIt is not "less clear" how this applies to Kiwifarms. Their TOS says they "may" remove content that: "Is otherwise illegal, harmful, or violates the rights of others, including content that discloses sensitive personal information, incites or exploits violence against people or animals, or seeks to defraud the public." Kiwifarms doxxing and swatting is documented six ways from Sunday, and it's hardly just keffals.
- BryantD 4y agoTo be perfectly clear about my own bias: I think Kiwifarms is among the worst Web sites on the Internet, I think it's caused immeasurable harm, and I don't want it to exist. However, I am (probably) talking to people who aren't convinced of this as well as people like you and I, and I also strongly understand the desire to form general principles above and beyond a single person making decisions, so I wanted to come at it from a relatively neutral direction.
- ta1235414335 4y ago
- BryantD 4y agoI think that you have to take responsibility when your actions (doxing) result in a higher probability of other actions (swatting). The exact degree of responsibility varies. You believe the same thing. Cloudflare dropping Kiwifarms wouldn’t directly result in Kiwifarms going dark; it’s just a highly predictable outcome. If you don’t think a company is responsible for anything but their direct actions, the argument for providing service to Kiwifarms becomes much weaker.
- banannaise 4y agoIt is deeply weird to read the sentence "We also believe that an Internet where cyberattacks are used to silence what's online is a broken Internet, no matter how much we may have empathy for the ends." as a defense of KiwiFarms.