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Cloudflare is not a public service, the comparison with firefighters is not apt. I’ve been seeing this confusion more and more recently, probably because of th

Cloudflare is not a public service, the comparison with firefighters is not apt. I’ve been seeing this confusion more and more recently, probably because of the size and omnipresence of corporations. I don’t know if this confusion is deliberate to justify certain acts or simply ignorance, but the distinction has to be emphasized. Corporations and public services are completely different beasts, with different legislations, incentives, etc.

splitrocket 4y ago
100% concur. Illinois has to allow the Nazis to march: they are the government. You don't have to allow nazis into your private party, nor do you have to publish their books. You, as an individual, and corporations as entities are emphatically not the government.
- SkyBelow 4y ago
  >Illinois has to allow the Per the existing law, but given the Constitution can be changed, should they have to allow? Arguing they have to because the law currently prevents them from doing otherwise seems a different argument than it being good for government to have such restrictions because the benefits are worth more than the detriments (or vice versa).
- DoctorOW 4y ago
  But see this is where I get tripped up. I don't think laws should dictate morality. So barring the fact that it's the way the law is written in the United States. Why is Illinois morally required to protect speech and Cloudflare, who almost certainly has far greater control (theoretically) over speech not?
  - phillipcarter 4y ago
    This is fast approaching the whole, "why is anyone morally required to do anything?" sort of existential discussion. The US Government has laws in place like this because those were written as founding principles and interpreted in certain ways by our legal system over time. That's only it. But it's all calvinball in the end. Congress could strike the 1A from the constitution, or all our courts could start ruling against the 1A tomorrow. We're just making it up as we go. Now this would likely result in a mass uprising, but that's besides the point. The only reason why this is a thing right now is because CloudFlare(a) is in a position to stop digital protection of Kiwi Farms (and thus force them to fully own the consequences of their speech), and (b) has explicitly chosen not to do anything about it, much to the chagrin of myself and a whole lot of other people. My belief, as is the belief of others, is that Kiwi Farms are violating their TOS and should be removed. That's it. CloudFlare, like Calvin when playing Calvinball, is deciding to make it up as they go, and we aren't happy about that.
    - DoctorOW 4y ago
      I'm genuinely struggling to see how this answers my question. You continually discuss laws when I made it abundantly clear that because laws are, as you put it, Calvinball they are irrelevant to what should be done. > CloudFlare (a) is in a position to stop digital protection of Kiwi Farms So too is Illinois to stop police protection of Nazi activists. I ask again, why SHOULD one organization protect speech and another shouldn't, given our agreement that any specific laws/amendments do not dictate what SHOULD happen?
      - phillipcarter 4y ago
        I think you're losing the plot here. Nothing has any moral obligation to do anything in this universe. Morality doesn't exist. And we're all just making it up as we go. Now that we've established that nothing matters, the reason is because a lot of us feel that Cloudflare should do something about it.
        taxyz 4y ago
        You should entertain the idea that they claim they have a stronger responsibility to the principals of free speech than the communities you claim are harmed by their customers content.
        phillipcarter 4y ago
        You should entertain the idea that they're just ideologues who don't really know what they're doing.
        taxyz 4y ago
        The fact that you think you know what’s best for all parties involved is exactly why we protect/value free speech the way we do in the US.
        DoctorOW 4y ago
        Bloody hell, I am definitely losing the plot. The reason you feel that way is because a lot of other people do? You have absolutely no rationale or thought process for the disparities between organizations x and y except that people are mad at organization y and not organization x?
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    Illinois is not morally required to protect speech. They are prevented from using government powers to restrict or punish speech. If counter protestors show up and shout over the Nazis, Illinois is not morally required to silence the counter protestors so the Nazis can speak. And if Nazis want to gather on private land, Illinois is not morally required to force the private landowner to permit that. The morality of equality is compromised by the practical execution of law. It’s legal for a cop to pull a gun and force you to the ground; it’s not legal for you to do that to me (or vice versa). So we place constraints on when the government can apply those special powers.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  But you as a private individual or company can choose to hold the right to free speech in high regard.
  - BryantD 4y ago
    I hold it in such high regard that I have considered the question of whether or not Kiwifarms inhibits free speech.
  - splitrocket 4y ago
    Yup. And if your choice is pro-nazi, the rest of us can decide for ourselves what that means about you. For what it's worth, you can't be just a little bit Nazi. It's like poop in ice cream: if you have ten tons of ice cream and an ounce of poop, if you mix them together, you've just created ten tons of poop.
    - naasking 4y ago
      > It's like poop in ice cream: if you have ten tons of ice cream and an ounce of poop, if you mix them together, you've just created ten tons of poop. In that case your argument fails, because there are regulations for how much rat feces are permitted in processed food, and just FYI, it's NOT zero.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      If everyone who disagrees with you is a Nazi and you believe we should restrict their rights, limit their speech and so on... you may be projecting.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    check the paradox of tolerance
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      Are you ok with prohibiting the spread of Islam? Islam is incompatible with tolerance. Women's rights, depictions of Muhammed, etc. If we accept the paradox of tolerance you must either be anti-Islam or the paradox is broken. The fix is not new and is older than the paradox of tolerance: your rights end where mine begin. You have a right to write and speak what you will - I have a right to not listen. I do not have a right to stop speech I find offensive. Islam has a right to exist and take offense, but it may not use violence or law to get it's way.
DoctorOW 4y ago
Maybe a better one would be privatized health care? What is the standard for who does or doesn't deserve medical care? > I don’t know if this confusion is deliberate to justify certain acts or simply ignorance Also, my guess is ignorance. Cloudflare is essentially restoring a platform on the internet that is difficult to get and keep for small creators. Their posts on this topic strike me as the super libertarian types who take no issue with privatizing public services.
noboostforyou 4y ago
> I don’t know if this confusion is deliberate to justify certain acts I see more than one political group purposefully conflate this in order to push their own agendas. For example, when a private company says that won't tolerate hate they claim "free speech" infringement but when government silences a critic they don't like it's "law and order."
rcoveson 4y ago
There are ways in which they are "completely different beasts" and ways in which they are similar. In that they are both organizations made up of human beings providing important services to the general public, they are the similar. I think that's the similarity that was being emphasized by the analogy. The analogy still works if you imagine private firefighters (the kind you might contract for a farming operation) instead of public firefighters.
- diordiderot 4y ago
  Doctors is a better American analogy than firefighters
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  There are ways in which water and oil are similar. There are also analogies which are of little use. When you reach for a group “made up of human beings” as a similarity, you clinging on the latter.
  - rcoveson 4y ago
    Quote it as written: "organizations made up of human beings providing important services to the general public"; not merely "group made up of human beings." An organization is more specific than a "group." They both provide services to the general public, i.e. they are indiscriminant in who their clients are. This is different from, say, a corporate law firm that might decide to take just a handful of cases at a time and be selective about it. And finally, their services are important, as in livelihood-saving. Of course, firefighters are sometimes life saving, so a better analogy would be firefighters working for agri-business, but "firefighters" still fits better than, say, "AMC theaters" because of the importance of the service offered.
sschueller 4y ago
If a cooperation becomes a de-facto monopoly the rules that apply need to change. If there is no competition you can go to and there is no way around it then the government has to step in.
- krapp 4y ago
  Cloudflare is not a de-facto monopoly. There is plenty of competition. Simply being popular is not having a de-facto monopoly.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    They're not a monopoly right now but they're concerningly large.
activitypea 4y ago
The point here is that Cloudflare's core product, despite being run by a private for-profit company, is as close to an essential service as it gets in the digital world. This is not the same as saying "posting on Twitter is a civil right"
- phillipcarter 4y ago
  So then the answer is for Cloudflare to restructure their company. If they want to be seen as a utility so desperately, make it so! Not having the legal obligations of a utility, while acting like one (i.e., getting to pull the "neutrality" card in the face of public pressure to drop nazis) is not okay.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    Cf themselves are disincentivized to make that change
    - phillipcarter 4y ago
      Yes, exactly. They want all the benefits of being seen as a utility, but none of the obligations of actually being one. That's called being slimy.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
        Why not go a step further and call the incentives and the ones who prop them up slimy?
    - robryk 4y ago
      What change would that be? I don't know of anything they could do to make themselves a utility besides behaving like one and publicly starting that they intend to do so.
      - wahnfrieden 4y ago
zzyzxd 4y ago
> Cloudflare is not a public service Do we consider stuff like DNS, BGP to be public service? I mean, Cloudflare can affect everyone who uses Internet.
- phillipcarter 4y ago
  That could be an interesting discussion! Cloudflare should lead the charge and restructure their company to be legally considered a utility.
bakugo 4y ago
> Cloudflare is not a public service, Isn't it, though? I see people are still desperately clinging to this "websites aren't public services" narrative but as the years go by it's becoming increasingly clear that it just isn't entirely true. The whole logic behind the "it's a private space/service so they can deny service to whoever they want" argument is that, if a user is denied service, they can seek service from an alternative provider elsewhere, usually without much difficulty. If the other providers also don't want to provide the service, fair enough. But this isn't really the case in the modern web because you often don't have alternatives. If you are denied service by cloudflare, you can't just go to another cloudflare down the street. Same with many other major online services that are effectively monopolies in their field.
- nightpool 4y ago
  > If you are denied service by cloudflare, you can't just go to another cloudflare down the street ... Why not? Fastly, AWS, CDN77, Google, etc all still exist.
  - bakugo 4y ago
    Which of those provide a similar feature set to cloudflare for the same price? Even ignoring the fact that none of them have a free plan, they all cost significantly more than cloudflare's base paid plan and almost certainly provide less. I can't even see Fastly's prices without signing up.
    - sfe22 4y ago
      That means cloudflare is such a good company for offering cheap and good service, yet somehow we find a way to attack them because their competition is not “as good”. What a shame that this company that is not supporting their competitors?
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  > Isn't it, though? Nope. Do we elect the board? Do they charge mandatory taxes in the currency only they can emit and will they have an armed force arest you if you don't pay? > But this isn't really the case in the modern web because you often don't have alternatives. Facebook and Google really are a monopoly in the West and that's a problem with must deal with. Cloudflare, thankfully, is far from being a monopoly anywhere but in our tech bubble.
tambourine_man 4y ago
To be clear, I think Cloudflare should take the offending site down because it is, IMO, the right thing to do. Just don't justify whatever decision you make by conflating public and private services.
Melatonic 4y ago
I think this brings up an important topic though that we need to grapple with as a society - at what point do we recognize that we NEED public services related to the internet? Something similar to basic Cloudflare but run as a public service by the government that is free to all might be a good thing to have. If there are majorly amoral actors that use it we should be going after them for their crimes (from a legal sense) which other parts of the government can of course aid with.
- krapp 4y ago
  >Something similar to basic Cloudflare but run as a public service by the government that is free to all might be a good thing to have. Until the government decides your content no longer deserves protection because of your politics or religion or whatever. This is the same problem as government "regulating" social media companies and forcing them to publish certain kinds of speech against their will, which people also seem to want. Inevitably it boils down to an end-run around the First Amendment, as it gives government direct control over speech at a far greater scale than any corporation, backed up by a monopoly on violence.
  - Melatonic 4y ago
    I do not think that the government needs to be the ONLY source of this public service. Cloudflare of course can still exist as a private company. The government would just provide a "free" public service to those that need it.
pvillano 4y ago
Even an arsonist should be rescued and treated for burns. They should also be arrested, tried, and inprisoned. Only combined do public services execute the moral values of the people. An arsonist should also probably not be sold gas. A gas station has a moral obligation to sell gas without discriminating by race, etc. A gas station does not have a moral obligation to sell gas to arsonists. I'd be suspicious if a gas station made a press release about how they'll sell gas to anyone but also donate to charity to "make things even". Sounds like they want arsonists to know where they can buy gas.
unethical_ban 4y ago
The right to speech is strong, at least in the United States, at least for now. Seeing how vital the Internet is for participation in society, it is my opinion that the baseline for "duty to serve" is that everyone has the right to a modicum of hosting and the ability to have their site accessible. That means a FQDN, SSL certificate, and network connectivity. Should it be a legal requirement? I'm not yet convinced. But I don't think CF is wrong to host orgs they morally oppose.

splitrocket 4y ago

100% concur. Illinois has to allow the Nazis to march: they are the government. You don't have to allow nazis into your private party, nor do you have to publish their books. You, as an individual, and corporations as entities are emphatically not the government.

SkyBelow 4y ago
>Illinois has to allow the Per the existing law, but given the Constitution can be changed, should they have to allow? Arguing they have to because the law currently prevents them from doing otherwise seems a different argument than it being good for government to have such restrictions because the benefits are worth more than the detriments (or vice versa).
DoctorOW 4y ago
But see this is where I get tripped up. I don't think laws should dictate morality. So barring the fact that it's the way the law is written in the United States. Why is Illinois morally required to protect speech and Cloudflare, who almost certainly has far greater control (theoretically) over speech not?
- phillipcarter 4y ago
  This is fast approaching the whole, "why is anyone morally required to do anything?" sort of existential discussion. The US Government has laws in place like this because those were written as founding principles and interpreted in certain ways by our legal system over time. That's only it. But it's all calvinball in the end. Congress could strike the 1A from the constitution, or all our courts could start ruling against the 1A tomorrow. We're just making it up as we go. Now this would likely result in a mass uprising, but that's besides the point. The only reason why this is a thing right now is because CloudFlare(a) is in a position to stop digital protection of Kiwi Farms (and thus force them to fully own the consequences of their speech), and (b) has explicitly chosen not to do anything about it, much to the chagrin of myself and a whole lot of other people. My belief, as is the belief of others, is that Kiwi Farms are violating their TOS and should be removed. That's it. CloudFlare, like Calvin when playing Calvinball, is deciding to make it up as they go, and we aren't happy about that.
  - DoctorOW 4y ago
    I'm genuinely struggling to see how this answers my question. You continually discuss laws when I made it abundantly clear that because laws are, as you put it, Calvinball they are irrelevant to what should be done. > CloudFlare (a) is in a position to stop digital protection of Kiwi Farms So too is Illinois to stop police protection of Nazi activists. I ask again, why SHOULD one organization protect speech and another shouldn't, given our agreement that any specific laws/amendments do not dictate what SHOULD happen?
    - phillipcarter 4y ago
      I think you're losing the plot here. Nothing has any moral obligation to do anything in this universe. Morality doesn't exist. And we're all just making it up as we go. Now that we've established that nothing matters, the reason is because a lot of us feel that Cloudflare should do something about it.
      - taxyz 4y ago
        You should entertain the idea that they claim they have a stronger responsibility to the principals of free speech than the communities you claim are harmed by their customers content.
        phillipcarter 4y ago
        You should entertain the idea that they're just ideologues who don't really know what they're doing.
        taxyz 4y ago
        The fact that you think you know what’s best for all parties involved is exactly why we protect/value free speech the way we do in the US.
      - DoctorOW 4y ago
        Bloody hell, I am definitely losing the plot. The reason you feel that way is because a lot of other people do? You have absolutely no rationale or thought process for the disparities between organizations x and y except that people are mad at organization y and not organization x?
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  Illinois is not morally required to protect speech. They are prevented from using government powers to restrict or punish speech. If counter protestors show up and shout over the Nazis, Illinois is not morally required to silence the counter protestors so the Nazis can speak. And if Nazis want to gather on private land, Illinois is not morally required to force the private landowner to permit that. The morality of equality is compromised by the practical execution of law. It’s legal for a cop to pull a gun and force you to the ground; it’s not legal for you to do that to me (or vice versa). So we place constraints on when the government can apply those special powers.
vorpalhex 4y ago
But you as a private individual or company can choose to hold the right to free speech in high regard.
- BryantD 4y ago
  I hold it in such high regard that I have considered the question of whether or not Kiwifarms inhibits free speech.
- splitrocket 4y ago
  Yup. And if your choice is pro-nazi, the rest of us can decide for ourselves what that means about you. For what it's worth, you can't be just a little bit Nazi. It's like poop in ice cream: if you have ten tons of ice cream and an ounce of poop, if you mix them together, you've just created ten tons of poop.
  - naasking 4y ago
    > It's like poop in ice cream: if you have ten tons of ice cream and an ounce of poop, if you mix them together, you've just created ten tons of poop. In that case your argument fails, because there are regulations for how much rat feces are permitted in processed food, and just FYI, it's NOT zero.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    If everyone who disagrees with you is a Nazi and you believe we should restrict their rights, limit their speech and so on... you may be projecting.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  check the paradox of tolerance
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Are you ok with prohibiting the spread of Islam? Islam is incompatible with tolerance. Women's rights, depictions of Muhammed, etc. If we accept the paradox of tolerance you must either be anti-Islam or the paradox is broken. The fix is not new and is older than the paradox of tolerance: your rights end where mine begin. You have a right to write and speak what you will - I have a right to not listen. I do not have a right to stop speech I find offensive. Islam has a right to exist and take offense, but it may not use violence or law to get it's way.

DoctorOW 4y ago

Maybe a better one would be privatized health care? What is the standard for who does or doesn't deserve medical care? > I don’t know if this confusion is deliberate to justify certain acts or simply ignorance Also, my guess is ignorance. Cloudflare is essentially restoring a platform on the internet that is difficult to get and keep for small creators. Their posts on this topic strike me as the super libertarian types who take no issue with privatizing public services.

noboostforyou 4y ago

> I don’t know if this confusion is deliberate to justify certain acts I see more than one political group purposefully conflate this in order to push their own agendas. For example, when a private company says that won't tolerate hate they claim "free speech" infringement but when government silences a critic they don't like it's "law and order."

rcoveson 4y ago

There are ways in which they are "completely different beasts" and ways in which they are similar. In that they are both organizations made up of human beings providing important services to the general public, they are the similar. I think that's the similarity that was being emphasized by the analogy. The analogy still works if you imagine private firefighters (the kind you might contract for a farming operation) instead of public firefighters.

diordiderot 4y ago
Doctors is a better American analogy than firefighters
tambourine_man 4y ago
There are ways in which water and oil are similar. There are also analogies which are of little use. When you reach for a group “made up of human beings” as a similarity, you clinging on the latter.
- rcoveson 4y ago
  Quote it as written: "organizations made up of human beings providing important services to the general public"; not merely "group made up of human beings." An organization is more specific than a "group." They both provide services to the general public, i.e. they are indiscriminant in who their clients are. This is different from, say, a corporate law firm that might decide to take just a handful of cases at a time and be selective about it. And finally, their services are important, as in livelihood-saving. Of course, firefighters are sometimes life saving, so a better analogy would be firefighters working for agri-business, but "firefighters" still fits better than, say, "AMC theaters" because of the importance of the service offered.

sschueller 4y ago

If a cooperation becomes a de-facto monopoly the rules that apply need to change. If there is no competition you can go to and there is no way around it then the government has to step in.

krapp 4y ago
Cloudflare is not a de-facto monopoly. There is plenty of competition. Simply being popular is not having a de-facto monopoly.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  They're not a monopoly right now but they're concerningly large.

activitypea 4y ago

The point here is that Cloudflare's core product, despite being run by a private for-profit company, is as close to an essential service as it gets in the digital world. This is not the same as saying "posting on Twitter is a civil right"

phillipcarter 4y ago
So then the answer is for Cloudflare to restructure their company. If they want to be seen as a utility so desperately, make it so! Not having the legal obligations of a utility, while acting like one (i.e., getting to pull the "neutrality" card in the face of public pressure to drop nazis) is not okay.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Cf themselves are disincentivized to make that change
  - phillipcarter 4y ago
    Yes, exactly. They want all the benefits of being seen as a utility, but none of the obligations of actually being one. That's called being slimy.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago
      Why not go a step further and call the incentives and the ones who prop them up slimy?
  - robryk 4y ago
    What change would that be? I don't know of anything they could do to make themselves a utility besides behaving like one and publicly starting that they intend to do so.
    - wahnfrieden 4y ago

zzyzxd 4y ago

> Cloudflare is not a public service Do we consider stuff like DNS, BGP to be public service? I mean, Cloudflare can affect everyone who uses Internet.

phillipcarter 4y ago
That could be an interesting discussion! Cloudflare should lead the charge and restructure their company to be legally considered a utility.

bakugo 4y ago

> Cloudflare is not a public service, Isn't it, though? I see people are still desperately clinging to this "websites aren't public services" narrative but as the years go by it's becoming increasingly clear that it just isn't entirely true. The whole logic behind the "it's a private space/service so they can deny service to whoever they want" argument is that, if a user is denied service, they can seek service from an alternative provider elsewhere, usually without much difficulty. If the other providers also don't want to provide the service, fair enough. But this isn't really the case in the modern web because you often don't have alternatives. If you are denied service by cloudflare, you can't just go to another cloudflare down the street. Same with many other major online services that are effectively monopolies in their field.

nightpool 4y ago
> If you are denied service by cloudflare, you can't just go to another cloudflare down the street ... Why not? Fastly, AWS, CDN77, Google, etc all still exist.
- bakugo 4y ago
  Which of those provide a similar feature set to cloudflare for the same price? Even ignoring the fact that none of them have a free plan, they all cost significantly more than cloudflare's base paid plan and almost certainly provide less. I can't even see Fastly's prices without signing up.
  - sfe22 4y ago
    That means cloudflare is such a good company for offering cheap and good service, yet somehow we find a way to attack them because their competition is not “as good”. What a shame that this company that is not supporting their competitors?
tambourine_man 4y ago
> Isn't it, though? Nope. Do we elect the board? Do they charge mandatory taxes in the currency only they can emit and will they have an armed force arest you if you don't pay? > But this isn't really the case in the modern web because you often don't have alternatives. Facebook and Google really are a monopoly in the West and that's a problem with must deal with. Cloudflare, thankfully, is far from being a monopoly anywhere but in our tech bubble.

tambourine_man 4y ago

To be clear, I think Cloudflare should take the offending site down because it is, IMO, the right thing to do. Just don't justify whatever decision you make by conflating public and private services.

Melatonic 4y ago

I think this brings up an important topic though that we need to grapple with as a society - at what point do we recognize that we NEED public services related to the internet? Something similar to basic Cloudflare but run as a public service by the government that is free to all might be a good thing to have. If there are majorly amoral actors that use it we should be going after them for their crimes (from a legal sense) which other parts of the government can of course aid with.

krapp 4y ago
>Something similar to basic Cloudflare but run as a public service by the government that is free to all might be a good thing to have. Until the government decides your content no longer deserves protection because of your politics or religion or whatever. This is the same problem as government "regulating" social media companies and forcing them to publish certain kinds of speech against their will, which people also seem to want. Inevitably it boils down to an end-run around the First Amendment, as it gives government direct control over speech at a far greater scale than any corporation, backed up by a monopoly on violence.
- Melatonic 4y ago
  I do not think that the government needs to be the ONLY source of this public service. Cloudflare of course can still exist as a private company. The government would just provide a "free" public service to those that need it.

pvillano 4y ago

Even an arsonist should be rescued and treated for burns. They should also be arrested, tried, and inprisoned. Only combined do public services execute the moral values of the people. An arsonist should also probably not be sold gas. A gas station has a moral obligation to sell gas without discriminating by race, etc. A gas station does not have a moral obligation to sell gas to arsonists. I'd be suspicious if a gas station made a press release about how they'll sell gas to anyone but also donate to charity to "make things even". Sounds like they want arsonists to know where they can buy gas.

unethical_ban 4y ago

The right to speech is strong, at least in the United States, at least for now. Seeing how vital the Internet is for participation in society, it is my opinion that the baseline for "duty to serve" is that everyone has the right to a modicum of hosting and the ability to have their site accessible. That means a FQDN, SSL certificate, and network connectivity. Should it be a legal requirement? I'm not yet convinced. But I don't think CF is wrong to host orgs they morally oppose.