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Reading over the comments I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. It’s about what in the US you’d call “due process” and in all the rest

Reading over the comments I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. It’s about what in the US you’d call “due process” and in all the rest of the world you’d call “rule of law.” Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. Encourage you when these issues arise to think of them in the rule of law context, rather than free speech, in order to have a more robust conversation with frameworks that have an appeal and applicability across nearly every nation and government.

Icathian 4y ago
I think this better encapsulates what I was going for with my comment. For whatever it's worth, I strongly agree.
yomkippur 4y ago
_vvaw 4y ago
What was the actual threat? Was it posted on Kiwi Farms, or transmitted via another channel?
- dmix 4y ago
  +1, what was the thing that changed today vs a week ago? If this is going to eventually become precedent (despite what is said this is now the new basis from which other decisions are made) other site owners and future one’s should have an idea of what exactly wasn’t dealt with. Cloudflare’s reach is extensive and becoming a critical part the internet so there’s plenty at stake here. The lack of transparency by Google, Facebook, etc is the worst part of this whole top-level internet moderation trend.
  - lupire 4y ago
    https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/2022-alleged-kiwi-farms-swattings-on-keffals-and-marjorie-taylor-greene https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/2022-alleged-kiwi-...
    - _vvaw 4y ago
      Neither of those incidents took place in the last 48 hours, or have been definitively attributed to Kiwi Farms.
    - dmix 4y ago
      August 5 was a month ago and the MTG SWATing was obviously an anti-Kiwifarms troll… > Officials said they received a second call from the suspect, using a computer-generated voice, saying they were upset about Greene’s view on transgender youth rights. https://myfox8.com/news/crime/what-is-kiwifarms/ https://myfox8.com/news/crime/what-is-kiwifarms/
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- _vvaw 4y ago
  Kiwi Farms is back on an alternate domain. Posters in the Keffals thread believe the fake bomb threat was to blame for Cloudflare’s reaction. The account which made the post barely had any other activity on the site. The post itself was removed quickly by moderators. If it’s true that an obvious fake bomb threat which was swiftly removed was the cause for this action, Cloudflare has some hard explaining to do to its remaining customers. Fake anonymous posts and an ideological Twitter mob can apparently DoS your entire operation with Cloudflare. If the threat was something else, I and other customers would love to learn exactly what it was.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    IF the above is true, it sounds more like a convenient excuse to do what you’ve wanted to do all along.
  - unraveller 4y ago
    The bomb threat could have originated from a disgruntled cloudflare employee on cloudflare network/hardware, I wonder then if they'd take themselves down? Probably not, different strokes for different folks.
loteck 4y ago
Turns out there's no such thing as neutrality. Connecting content to the world is a choice your team approves or declines. You can complain about scalability of that decision all you want. Cloudflare is not neutral, and will never be. You're an active participant and you have to deal with your responsibility.
- jbarciauskas 4y ago
  Yes. Also gray areas do exist. This isn't one of them.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Is the phone company responsible for connecting content? How about your internet service provider? At what level does someone become responsible? This is a question for the law, not for the mob. The internet, thanks to a completely fucked up legal regime (section 230), is currently very gray. Facebook and Twitter, which are commonly used to facilitate large-scale violent riots and play host to far more doxxing and cyberbullying than kiwifarms could ever hope to, get a pass despite being the main facilitator of that communication. In contrast, infrastructure services like Cloudflare (and even AWS) have been subject to intense pressure to drop other sites where people say bad things. Under this theory, we need to be taking Facebook and Twitter offline immediately. And maybe also the phone company too.
  - loteck 4y ago
    At all levels, and Cloudflare isn't exempted from that. Social media platforms already routinely decline to host content via moderation.
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      So is it your position that the phone company should disconnect anyone that they believe is saying mean things about people? Mainstream social media also largely does not moderate nearly well enough to uphold the standard that you are applying to Cloudflare.
    - 4y ago
dogecoinbase 4y ago
bobsmooth 4y ago
dart200 4y ago
how do you know it wasn't just trolls trying to get KF taken down?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- coldacid 4y ago
  More importantly, does he even care if that were the case? (All signs point to no.)
justacomment100 4y ago
Every website gets threats. The Stoneman Douglas shooter wrote a YouTube comment about how he wanted to be a school shooter, just weeks before his attack, which went unmoderated. Kiwifarms immediately deleted the threatening post. Why hold small discussion forums to such a higher standard? They deleted the post in minutes; so you expect them to delete violating posts faster than YouTube?
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat If one patron starts beating another to a pulp, the bartender breaking up the fight does not signify a failure of the rule of law or law enforcement. You stepped in to help. It would be nice if you were given official air cover to do so. But I and most Americans prefer a system where the government has extra hoops to jump through to halt even dangerous speech.
- anonymouse008 4y ago
  Nice metaphor - were the digital offenses becoming actual acts of violence in person?
  - freeone3000 4y ago
    Yes.
- lupire 4y ago
  The governments have had years to deal with kiwifarms and its criminal users, and failed.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    The criminals are the ones impersonating KF users. They swatted a government official in their attempt to get rid of the site. Giving in to them is allowing domestic terrorism.
- Tao3300 4y ago
  The bartender example is so wrong that it has wrapped around into rightness. What really happens is that the bartender signals the cooler to throw out said patrons to settle it some place where it isn't their liability. It goes to the street, who knows where and what they'll do to each other. And that's pretty much what cloudflare is doing here, saying "you can't do this in here" and now we get to see where the chips fall.
RedReality 4y ago
What threat exactly? How do we know it wasn't a false flag by someone wanting to take the site offline?
lario9 4y ago
[dead]
cft 4y ago
So then why did you become the liability decision maker on behalf of your customer, if you were not required by the law? After many sales emails that we ignored, your sales guy found and called me on my personal cell when I was on vacations in Mexico City, trying to push a 5000/mo DDoS mitigation contract, and i explained to him that we are happier paying 100k/year to a net neutral company VeriSign (now down to 27k), than offloading the legal liability decisions on our behalf to your Majesty Matthew Prince. While it makes sense to use CF for a booter DDoS-for-hire outfit accepting Monero, any legitimate company that has real money and jobs at stake should not use CF.
notatoad 4y ago
>rather than free speech i encourage anybody who is calls themselves a "free speech advocate" to consider what kiwifarms has been doing to "free speech". their intimidation campaigns have been doing a lot more to harm the cause of free speech than this decision by cloudflare is. if you really believe in free speech, you understand that trans people deserve free speech too, and kiwifarms harrasment campaigns have been harming their free speech. free speech is for everybody, not just the people who have opinions you agree with, and being openly trans is a form of speech.
- BrainVirus 4y ago
  Why should I take this argument on good faith when literally this same argument has been repeatedly used in attempts to deplatform comedians, popular politicians, writers, journalists and tons of ordinary people?
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Were said comedians, popular politicians, writers, and journalist calling for immediate violent acts and intimidation of others. If yes, then I believe they should be censored. If no, , then they should not. Authoritarians will use both arguments at the same time, they have no problem with hypocrisy. They will threaten you with violence, and demand their violence be published, while with the slights of those they do not like demand censorship. Calls for violence must not be tolerated, for if they are civil society cannot exist.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
- cowtools 4y ago
  - lupire 4y ago
    Coordinating real world afk harassment and physical attacks. https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/2022-alleged-kiwi-farms-swattings-on-keffals-and-marjorie-taylor-greene https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/2022-alleged-kiwi-...
dmw_ng 4y ago
Watching company employees consistently pop up on critical threads (not fingering CF here, many including at least Stripe come to mind as frequently occurring too) feels a lot like gaming the forum. Vetted messages like this from a recognizable source will often end up pinned to the top of the thread, but I don't really think they overly contribute to the conversation in most cases, and I find myself wishing there was some rule against it. Not to say there shouldn't be a place for official responses, just that it's kinda tiring to see crowdpleasing justifications during times of stress displacing the thoughts of other potentially less biased folk on the Internet discussing the problem at hand. (The counterargument would be that the status quo provides unparalleled public access to top-level staff, I'll leave that angle for someone else to explore ;)
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  It's pretty easy to, you know, scroll down. Companies in this position are damned if they do, damned if they don't. I for one at least appreciate thoughtful, substantive responses from company leadership in company-specific threads, and I'm happy that at least on HN we are more likely to be given a real, substantive response than the corporate drivel that is shoveled to most other media outlets.
- afavour 4y ago
  I have to disagree with this. These folks are best positioned to give us actual information. 90% of the rest is just opining.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - john-radio 4y ago
    I don't have any huge problem with eastdakota's comment here, and I think I agree with Cloudflare's action (I listened to a Behind the Bastards podcast recently that covered an individual who was bullied until they committed suicide by kiwifarms, so I understand the stakes) but - there is nothing in their comment that presents "actual information"; it does not present any facts; it just presents the perspective that their legal team would like all of us to take on their action. dmw_ng's criticism is entirely fair.
initplus 4y ago
Kiwifarms should have been dealt with by the traditional legal system years ago. It is honestly shocking to me that the operator has never been charged. The site has been engaging in mass harassment for years and is responsible for multiple suicides. When the legal system fails, people turn to vigilante justice, and we get this mess instead. People feel so strongly that Kiwifarms should be taken offline that they engage in illegal behavior themselves.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  The site and the person who host it (there is no legal entity involved here - just a person) have not done anything other than facilitating speech, which is heavily legally protected. The users of the site have done a lot, though. The proper action would be to go after the users who do bad things, and bury the site operator in subpoenas to find these bad actors.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  > and is responsible for multiple suicides. I've suffered some cases of extreme, acute depression in my life, and I was lucky that I had some support that prevented my depression from killing me. That said, I'm really uncomfortable with the language that somebody else can be, as you put it, "responsible" for someone's suicide. One of the things that is really driven home in therapy for depression (that is, after you're no longer in a suicidal state) is that you alone are responsible for your actions; you're not merely at the whim of your circumstances. The harassment from Kiwifarms is/was reprehensible, but harassment alone, at that level, is enough to draw a social and legal response without pretending they are responsible for someone else's suicide.
  - zerocrates 4y ago
    There is some recent precedent for criminal responsibility for someone else's suicide: the (in)famous case of Conrad Roy and Michelle Carter. She was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for encouraging him to commit suicide over texts and phone calls.
    - 4y ago
philippejara 4y ago
Ok, can we know what was this great threat then that suddenly made you change your position in just a few days? Furthermore, do you believe that someone who is issuing a threat on a public platform is going to not act it out because you took it away? If anything it just sounds like it would make them even more incensed to do it, just makes absolutely no sense to frame it as some immediacy issue.
- eastdakota 4y ago
  Yes, as noted in the post if you read to the end, I am very concerned about that.
  - convery 4y ago
    So, can we get any details on what was actually said on the forum rather than just "escalating threats"?
    - frickenhamster 4y ago
      From what I heard there was a false flag bomb threat
      - kspacewalk2 4y ago
        If true, an ingenious way to de-cloudflare someone, which will be used many times again.
        frickenhamster 4y ago
        It has to be done in conjunction with protests by a politically protected group
        kspacewalk2 4y ago
        Whatever do you mean, an imminent threat to life is an imminent threat to life. Say, does Hacker News use Cloudflare?
donkarma 4y ago
mrbt 4y ago
It’s nonsense this has anything to do with the law. This solely happened because of mainstream media pressure and significant clients moving or threatening to move away from Cloudflare and the board deciding they don’t need the bad press and loss of customers and nothing else. You provide a service and like every service provider you have a TOS/AUP. The issue is the Acceptable Use Paragraph is clear as long as the content isn’t Copyright or CSE then it’s fine as you will absolve yourself of any responsibility. No other CDN/WAF tolerates nationalists who threaten people, Cloudflare does. No other CDN/WAF makes the reporting process essentially doxing yourself to the threatening website. Cloudflare does. No other CDN/WAF intentionally puts all the most vile sites on dedicated CDN hosts so they get DDoSed while the normal customers don’t. It’s purely so then when the vile sites get DDoSes then they use those learnings to improve the controls for all customers. Much like providing security guards for a Proud Boys rally. It’s an intentional business decision to provide those services. You could chose not to. But you don’t.
- gjvnq 4y ago
  > It’s nonsense this has anything to do with the law. Actually, if they processed data from any European person they would be required to follow GDPR. And if they processed data from any Brazilian they would be required to follow LGPD. Any significant deliberate blindness towards privacy, defamation, and hate speech laws are unlawful acts that must be punished according to the Law. Idealy by extraditing the website administrators so they can they can face criminal charges over their misconduct.
- serpv357 4y ago
  >It’s nonsense this has anything to do with the law. >This solely happened because of mainstream media pressure and significant clients moving or threatening to move away from Cloudflare and the board deciding they don’t need the bad press and loss of customers and nothing else. Exactly. I didn't know KiwiFarms existed before it was in the news and trending everywhere, so I don't know a lot about what really went on there in the past years. What concerns me more general with this situation. There is a lot of power in the hands of people able to rile up the mob to de-platform whoever the current very-bad-person of the day is. With the outrage on social media platforms, and then the media pressure from those reporting on the outrage, companies just do the safe, self-interested thing and acquiesce, branding it as some noble act. It's wrong that whether someone can have a platform, or use a service, or hold a job, is determined not by some kind of objective TOS, but rather whether or not an online mob is demanding their scalp. It's arbitrary, unjust, and has and will harm harmless people.
layer8 4y ago
> we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. By making that call regardless, I don’t think you’ve increased the likelihood of law enforcement (or other appropriate parties) stepping up to deal with such cases in a timely manner in the future. Maybe rather the opposite, which would be unfortunate.
Ralo 4y ago
I remember many years ago with lulzsec, where cloudflare refused to shutdown their services. Whether what they did was moral or not, it was a still a crime and I imagine it was because they agreed with the message.
- tete 4y ago
  To the best of my knowledge nobody's life was threatened or endangered. I'd compare it to a website shutting down someone's account because they send a meme where they might not have the rights, which is illegal, which also isn't usually resulting in a ban. Now where you draw the line is a philosophical question.
joecool1029 4y ago
>Our decision today Your decision today. You took ownership before for the arbitrary decisions to remove DS and 8Chan, take ownership now and do not try to backpedal. You are Cloudflare's leader. >That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. You failed to take ownership of this issue either way. Your response suggests you can't understand the responsibility that you continue to have and are trying to shirk it. My suggestion is, find someone who is willing to be compensated to have this responsibility if it burdens you so. That's part of a leader's job.
- xupybd 4y ago
  It's not an infrastructures job to enforce morality outside of the law. That is a dangerous place to get to. Due process has incredible value. It allows us to live free lives while also punishing and preventing crimes.
  - not2b 4y ago
    Someone who is the target of an organized violence campaign by kiwifarms can't live a free life.
    - xupybd 4y ago
      That is a great argument as to why law enforcement needs to be empowered and resourced to deal with this stuff. I'll back any effort to do that.
    - cowtools 4y ago
      They seemingly can if they just stop posting every waking moment of their life on the internet so it can be scooped up and analyzed by kiwifarm trolls.
      - thebradbain 4y ago
        Why should an individual doing nothing wrong HAVE to change their own behavior simply to stop being harassed? That’s not a solution, that’s going into hiding. Also, considering people doxxed her address and kept showing up / swatting her, I doubt that would even be a short term solution at all, other than emboldening the harassers.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
stepupmakeup 4y ago
Forgive me if my understanding is wrong, but if someone were to host a message board or similar site with UGC and have it backed by Cloudflare, and a troll makes posts and threads threatening disasters on multiple occasions even though the site's administration removes them with haste, would Cloudflare also deny service to them? Basically take the current situation but instead of Kiwi Farms, replace it with "Grandma's Cat Forum".
- nostrebored 4y ago
  This is exactly the determination. The post being spread around as evidence of harm was by a user with four posts, all within the last week, all on this thread, despite being a member for two years. If I were trying to get a website deplatformed at least the approach is clear and easy.
  - Cyberdog 4y ago
    Where can I find these posts?
    - convery 4y ago
      You can search their profile on kiwifarms dot ru to get all information you want.
      - Cyberdog 4y ago
        Whose profile?
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - isitmadeofglass 4y ago
      You can’t. For your protection we have censored the proof that justifies why we were right to censor it…
allovy 4y ago
smlx 4y ago
Imagine I own a bunch of billboards around town. A customer comes to me with cash and wants to display someone's personal details and a message encouraging harassment on my billboards. Do I have to wait for law enforcement to stop me from displaying their content? Or can I, as a private company, make a judgement call and decline their business? I think the answer here is pretty obvious and your attempt at passing the buck is pathetically weak.
- dmatech 4y ago
  Now suppose they own the billboard themselves but you're the power company they use to light up that billboard. Do you cut their power?
  - alphabettsy 4y ago
    Maybe, what difference does it make? It’s a billboard.
  - ghostDancer 4y ago
    They can contract with a different company.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
verisimilitudes 4y ago
danShumway 4y ago
> Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. Does Cloudflare wait for a court order before taking action when it detects a DDoS attack or when it suspects that a client is malicious? The law is by design reactionary. In this case, I don't mean that in a bad way; what I mean is that the law is designed to respond to criminals, not to preempt them. If all of your moderation decisions, even in cases that go beyond hate speech or bigoted content into straight-up abuse of infrastructure and direct targeting of individuals -- if you need that to be reliant on a court then you are giving up the ability to prevent abuse and you can only respond to that abuse. Do you worry about due process when someone's site is getting knocked offline by automated requests, or is your primary worry about protecting your customers? What's even worse is that by abjugating your responsibility to protect your customers even in cases where there are clear threats, and by encouraging the law to become even faster and more trigger-happy to compensate, you encourage the creation of censorship engines that are even more dangerous than the ones that you are in charge of. We should have better laws around doxing and threatening people online, but even once we get better laws, Cloudflare is still going to have a part to play in detecting targeted attacks. No just law is going to be fast enough or nuanced enough to make these decisions for you. You can't get rid of your responsibility to such a degree that you won't need to make moderation decisions even about non-ideological and purely abusive content like doxing forums. And by refusing to recognize your role in that process, you allow people to be completely driven offline and censored in the exact same ways that your company is dedicated to preventing. It's no different than allowing a DDoS attack on one of your clients to continue because you haven't specifically heard from a judge yet that you should stop it.
anigbrowl 4y ago
I disagree somewhat. rule of law' sounds like such a neat, objective solution to social problems, but in practice it centralizes a vast amount of decision-making in organs of state (courts and to a lesser extent, public prosecutors. This in turn drastically shapes incentives, because of the cost of litigation and highly variable access to legal infrastructure: as we all know, police have no formal duty to protect despite having vast levels of legal immunity from consequences when they make bad decisions. Hence the pressure campaign on your firm, because exerting leverage through market forces and PR strategies is simply more effective than begging some state authority to intervene. Of course, it hurts you somewhat insofar as it's harder for you to sell a service to anyone and everyone when people see that you're willing to revoke access in some cases. but then you were willing to do that already, eg to pre-empt perceived legal risks from FOSTA/SESTA. I think sites like Kiwifarms have a right to exist, but on the other hand they don't have any particular right to DDOS protection. If a site is so chronically unpopular that it's constantly getting kicked out of nice infrastructure perhaps the operators need to reconsider their security stance or reflect on the basis of said unpopularity. Of course, DDOS attacks can be engineered rather than being an expression of organic network sentiment, but then so can mitigation strategies.
kiwifarmafan 4y ago
allovx 4y ago
wikitopian 4y ago
In the case of the Daily Stormer, it was free speech and you very clearly and directly made the incorrect call. I'm a big fan of your thoughtful speeches while you grapple with these sticky situations. But why not just invest some pocket change in helping solve TOR's name resolution problem so that removal from the clearnet isn't the death sentence it currently is? There's a simple and obvious solution to this which doesn't interfere with your principles or your business model: a crypto-driven system for assigning human readable addresses to onion addresses. With that in place and included in the tor browser and in a simple browser plugin for other browsers, you can focus on fighting DDOS attacks on clearnet sites instead of being the reluctant referee of the world's communication.
- pornel 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - deleted 4y ago
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  - concordDance 4y ago
    There are at least five orders of magnitude more people who are called Nazis than there are actual people who hold all the main Nazi ideals and beliefs today.
    - ds300 4y ago
      Are you keeping a spreadsheet with venn diagrams?
- pixl97 4y ago
  You are free to make a decentralized crypto-driven platform filled with nazi's. What you're ignoring is there are very valid reasons these platforms don't exist. They become deplorable crapsack worlds that 'normies' will not visit. It is never going to have any mainstream popularity. "Oh, you're on that nazi child porn software". And it requires a massive amount of moderation to ensure such a form does not become a complete hellhole (see failures of NNTP). When you pull your crypto driven system out of the light, you are going to have to fight what lives in the dark. If you screwed up the protocol of your system and it's taken over, well it's gone, you exist outside the law and there are no means to get it back. Do a bunch of trolls with stolen crypto generation means exist on your network and flood out all the legitimate users, well too bad. Civil society exists between the authoritarians that want dominion over everything and those that embrace chaos and would leave the world in ruin. It is a delicate and imperfect balance, but where it exists allows humanity to flourish.
Cyberdog 4y ago
> Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. > That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. This is the logic of vigilantes. I'm not saying what you have done is on the same level as vigilante murder or anything, but don't try to justify it as something high-and-mighty. You've once again terminated a customer on a whim. And that's your right, but stop trying to make this out to be anything more than that.
- thebradbain 4y ago
  KF can (and does) say whatever they want. That does not give its users the right to doxx an individual or threaten them or otherwise illegally harass them via extra-judicial measures. It’s that simple. It’s also in Cloudflare’s very own terms of service that KF agreed to when they signed up
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Are you sure "doxxing" is illegal in all US jurisdictions, as well as the jurisdiction it is hosted in? If it's for the purpose of harassments it may be illegal. Remember California DOJ released (doxxed) online the name and address of all California CCW holders, including judges and other sensitive holders (DV victims, etc). At least California seems to think it's peachy.
    - thebradbain 4y ago
      It’s illegal in California, where they’re headquartered. In their version of the law, intent matters: “…You intended to cause that person to reasonably fear for their or their family’s safety.” [1] Regardless, federally in the US, doxxing can be considered a form of harassment, which is generally illegal. [1] https://www.aerlawgroup.com/blog/fact-or-fiction-doxing-someone-can-get-you-arrested/ https://www.aerlawgroup.com/blog/fact-or-fiction-doxing-some...
atdrummond 4y ago
Josh has received no contact from federal law enforcement. He has never not complied with their requests and is open about every request he does receive. He does this by creating a post notifying the community of the post and how he responded. He’s also pro-active in both deleting and reporting any posts that advocate violence, whether that’s a bombing, shooting or stalking. There is no credible evidence of any physical violence or deaths resulting from KiwiFarms. Chloe Sagal stated in her farewell messages that her pain came from negative comments made about, and to, her by fellow members of the broader LBGTQIA+ community. Byuu/Near faked his death, as he did not appear on any Japanese or US death lists. He also has been seen by other developer expats in the time that has passed since his purported suicide. There is no evidence for the claims being made in the drive to cancel this website. I say this as someone who has never posted there and personally find much of it reprehensible to my ethics and politics.
BrainVirus 4y ago
Unelected technocrats taking the law into their own hands and using arbitrary judgment calls to manipulate infrastructure is not an improvement on the current legal system. Especially when they are making promises they don't keep and when they then try to gaslight people into thinking this has nothing to do with external political pressure.
- pornel 4y ago
  The law is on Cloudflare's side. It's a private company free to choose who they do business with. If you would like Cloudflare to be legally obliged to act like a utility or public infrastructure, lobby for actual laws to regulate it.
mchusma 4y ago
I'd like to honestly better understand why, if there is a threat of violence, law enforcement cannot act.
- banannaise 4y ago
  They don’t care about threats of violence unless they’re targeted at law enforcement itself or at people they consider important.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- herbst 4y ago
  To be fair the far majority of threads on Kiwifarms did not call to act at all. I am no regular visitor but so far I never saw someone calling for violence or anything. Rather the opposite was a common message along 'enjoy the content but don't interact with them'
throw7 4y ago
"Our decision..." who are you?
- the_only_law 4y ago
  - Shank 4y ago
    eastdakota is CloudFlare's CEO. That is his real Hacker News account. It even says this on his profile.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > "Our decision..." who are you? https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=eastdakota https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=eastdakota > CEO & co-founder of CloudFlare
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
systemvoltage 4y ago
Will you also ban violent threats from the left to Andy Ngo? He has been thoroughly documenting it. And published a NYT bestseller “Unmasked”, a written account of how violence from the extreme left is being ignored. I’d like to see equal treatment, that’s the least worst option. I want extreme objectivity at the highest level. Edit: I’m questioning OBJECTIVITY and Andy Ngo is just a fucking example. Find some hypothetical antifa forum, the point is about standards.
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Which specific sites that Cloudfare hosts or provides services to would you like to see cut off, y’know for equal treatment.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    Yea they’re scattered around. Just hypothetically, I want promise that at the very least we are not in a ideological hell hole. The details of this is irrelevant IMO, let me repeat the argument I’m posing: Is there an objective standard that can be applied across the political spectrum? We should be concerned that there is a political hijacking. That sits extremely unwell with me. We need to condemn all violence otherwise any actions by Cloudflare are just politics and frankly, terrifying.
    - bronson 4y ago
      So, which sites? If they are scattered around, please post a couple links? Arguing pure hypotheticals is rarely productive.
      - systemvoltage 4y ago
        > Arguing pure hypotheticals is rarely productive. Posing hypotheticals is exactly how to test the limits of the system. It is a key component of the legislative and law making process. The entire field of law, millions of lawyers think about hypotheticals on a daily basis to analyze, write and interpret the law. Humans have evolved to have a dedicated frontal lobe whose job is to predict hypothetical scenarios and conduct cost/benefit/planning analysis. As a software engineer, I write hypothetical inputs to create unit tests so my system doesn't break. Thinking about hypotheticals is basically fundamental to all things in life and the universe.
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nematode_tech 4y ago
- amachefe 4y ago
  > Vigilantism isn't a great thing, but what choice do we have when authorities allow hate sites like Kiwifarms to stay online? After all, as Yonatan Zunger famously wrote, tolerance is not a moral precept. In conclusion, vigilantism is fine if done against someone you dont like... cool
  - nematode_tech 4y ago
    Whom I personally like is irrelevant. We're talking about public safety here. We opened a Pandora's box of hate and violence when we created the internet. The state, which is ordinarily charged with protecting the public from danger, has failed to respond to the threat, justifying its inaction with references to 18th century texts written before the steam engine became practical. If the state refuses to act, we as technologists must. For the good of society, we have to cut off access to hate --- not only at the DDOS prevention level, but at the browser, the network, and even operating system level. To stand by and do nothing while violent speech floods our communication channels is to be complicit in this speech. For example: why is the Tor project facilitating the spread of hate by keeping Kiwifarms accessible? The Tor project's mission of preserving user privacy does not include facilitating access to harassment material.
    - serpv357 4y ago
      I can't tell if your posts are parodies or not. This "cut[ting] off access to hate" through the entire technology stack would just function to limit people's free access to inconvenient information. Think of the Russian state. It may decide that any expression of Ukrainian identity is inherently hateful, and censor it using this system. Do we want to bring such a thing to the West? When the truth is deemed hateful and violent, such a system will be used to uphold an empire of lies. And I'm sure there will be a "backdoor" for regime-approved hate targeting its foes to slip right through ;) >We opened a Pandora's box of hate and violence when we created the internet With the advent of the internet, people's ability to easily communicate with each other was drastically increased. We opened up the ability for us to collaboratively see beyond the official narratives handed down through the media, government spokesmen, and educational institutions. Such a thing is of course abominable to those who desire centralized control over the demos, truth be damned, but I am grateful for it. Technologists should instead oppose anything like what you describe, and build technologies that thwart the efforts of those who wish to limit our ability to communicate with each other.
djanlermats2020 4y ago
There was one threat which was immediately removed by the moderators. Why is it your business to take down an entire site because one user on it broke the rules and was stopped by the site moderators?
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assetlabel 4y ago
Did blocking the content save anybody's life? If so, how? If you don't know, can you even articulate a theory in which blocking content could save a life imminently threatened? I don't dispute that a life was threatened and murder may have been imminent, I'm taking that for granted. I just don't understand how this action could have any effect upon that course of events. Murder is a physical-world thing, not an online content thing. Further explanation would be appreciated.
- andywood 4y ago
  Of course not. It wasn't an actual threat, though it sounded like one. The mods handled it as soon as they became aware.
- pixl97 4y ago
  I'm not sure where you're getting these ideas from, but not taking every threat seriously is a serious failing of internet forums over the long term. (the next paragraph is an example and not real, do not take any intent from it, which in itself may be ironic considering the argument I'm making). If I call out "We should kill assetlabel because I do not like their politics", in itself it is not a serious threat, as I don't know you and cannot act on it. But it would be a mistake to tolerate the statement, even in a 'joking' manner (you can see in my previous post the 'joking' manner is commonly used by fascists to downplay serious threats). Again, the issue with allowing this behavior is it normalizes it. Now we step it up, what if 4 people repeat this same threat, 10, 20, 100? With each person repeating the line the chances of someone knowing you and acting on this behavior increases greatly. Any such threat must be moderated, and sites must have a history moderating such behaviors and not tolerating them. In the early days of the internet being anonymous was somewhat easy, and in the later days of the internet it is nearly impossible, and more worryingly you must continue to remain anonymous in the future after such threats are made against you as you have no idea how long someone may harbor aggression over the situation. Based the early days of the internet we've normalized violence and threats and carried it on much too long as it has consequences in the real world.
wyager 4y ago
> the risk created by the content What risk? Can you please share details? From my perspective, it seems like this is a thin excuse, and there was not actually a credible risk that you were mitigating.
- e844dbe8fb 4y ago
causality0 4y ago
Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. Post the screenshot then. Show us what changed between when CF said "KF is acting within the bounds of the law and will remain online" and today. Refusing service to customers you find contemptible is completely reasonable. Continuing to service customers out of a sense of fairness even though you find them contemptible is also reasonable. Pretending that you have a sense of fairness that keeps all legal entities online and abandoning it to protect your bottom line is hypocritical and cowardly. Being a company that protects the vulnerable is every bit as honorable as being a company that stands for freedom of expression. Today Cloudflare proves it is neither.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  If you go on Twitter, 90% of the replies aren't happy with Cloudflare's action. They want Cloudflare to do more and blaming CEO for why it took so long. https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1566188237986893824 https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1566188237986893824 Just shows how the activists are hammering Cloudflare CEO into submission. These people want complete abandonment of Freedom of Speech/Expression despite of what CEO is saying in this thread that it isn't about FoS/FoE. I am just terrified of what holds for our future. We used to celebrate speech as progressives back in the 90's and used to defend it with fierce opposition to any supression. They say, freedom and liberty are one generation away, if the newer generation wants CCP-style authoritarianism, they will get it.
  - mike_d 4y ago
    Maybe centralizing a measurable percentage of the internet onto a single provider to the point they are frequently in this situation wasn't a great idea. Consider this next time you consider Cloudflare. Not because of what decision they made, but because they are trying to make themselves the pipe that connects any two points on the internet.
    - causality0 4y ago
      I dearly wish there was public-sector internet that was governed by the same rules as the post office. Stay within the law and nothing happens to you, violate the law and get arrested.
andywood 4y ago
"the threat" Ever think the feds have half a brain among them, and know there's no threat? I know how gullible people are in these culture-warish times, but I still hope you've lost credibility with some significant fraction of us. Maybe those of us old enough to remember when the average techy was libertarian and opposed censorship. The Farms is right back up, by the way. But at least now you can wash your hands of it. Don't think Twitter will stop coming at you though. You need to understand those people want to punish and teach.
asah 4y ago
I'd like to have seen some transparency, e.g. post redacted examples of the content that caused this conclusion.
wbl 4y ago
Actually it's about the fact that you don't want to spend the money to enforce an AUP, like just about every other ISP does. Instead you want someone else to make the that system for you. Every printer gets to decide if they want to print Mein Kampf, and most decide that they won't. Movie theaters get to decide if they want to show dirty movies. Liberal society recognizes human interactions beyond the merely legal. What you're saying is you're fine hosting harassment until it gets bad enough for a court to finally intervene and order it offline. But Kiwifarms was already banned in New Zealand for hosting a snuff film showing innocent people getting slaughtered for their religion. I'm not sure what exactly you wanted: a US court issuing an order that would almost certainly be unconsitutional prior restraint? An obscenity prosecution? Society has decided that it's your choice what kinds of speech the company you control enables, and you've decide to tell us that you're going to pretend it isn't. Well, it is. Those sites are up on Cloudflare, because you want them to be, and nothing you say is going to change that reality.
tsujamin 4y ago
> That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. sure, but I presume CF makes the decision of whether or not to facilitate access to/sell services to other undesirable bits of the internet all the time without requiring law enforcement intervention. * Does CF wait for LE or a court case to block or drop malware distribution or command&control channels from their cache/NS/1.1.1.{2+} resolvers? * Would CF wait until LE intervenes to drop a known, demonstrated CP host? * Would CF continue to cache pirated material until a court stepped in even if approached by an alleged copyright holder? * Would any of the above actors have a right of appeal with CF?
dijonman2 4y ago
It does set a dangerous precedent and will have a chilling effect. You could have done this silently. Blogging about this is disgusting. It is not your job to be the police. You should let the authorities do their job.
cbtacy 4y ago
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Longlius 4y ago
Tell me then - why does Cloudflare still offer its services to drug dealers? To sites run by terrorist groups like ISIS? To outright criminal scamming operations? I have no faith in your principles. From my perspective, the only principle you have is your share price. That's fine, of course. I don't expect you to stick your neck out or risk your business. But don't pretend like this is some principled stand.
- peppermint_tea 4y ago
  Seconded. People go to the TOS, arguing about what constitute hosting etc. I don't believe in cloudflare principles either. Seems like they only grew "responsible" when it attracted negative public attention in the last days/weeks. this looks like PR, damage/image control to me. we do not have a good solution for partial censorship on the internet right now (always the same issues, who can decide to take out a website who implement it, due process, vpn moderation etc) for me, having principles regarding content removal at this point is pretty much black and white, either you are totally against censorship (without due process), or you are ok with it. Cloudflare actions denote they don't hold any of the principles above even if they know all about the selective content removal complexities. P.S: Interrestingly, the Department of Homeland Security seems to be able to seize various domains quite easily.
- deleted 4y ago
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- depr 4y ago
  Do you think their stocks would drop in value if they removed drug dealers and other illegal ventures?
  - dcow 4y ago
    Heh, you don’t get 20% of the internet without that content, so…
eternalban 4y ago
We do not call "rule of law" "due process" in US. Due process is the tempering of the application of law ("Rule of Law") by the state. You start off clouding matters (npi). > traditional rule of law systems. As opposed to what, "modern and innovative corporate rule of law systems"? INAL but I am pretty sure there are all sort of legal actions that can be taken before the entire "due process" is completed. You are aware, Mr. Prince, that people can be arrested and put in jail ("Rule of Law") and have a court date at a much later date ("Due Process")? [p.s. for hn]: It's not that I give a fig about wikifarms (which was TIL for me). But this posturing by Cloudflare and framing this as a responsible action in context of 'a broken legal system' (aka "traditional") is too much. Yes, let's have CEOs of SV companies apply the "Rule of Law" for us. While you are at it, why don't you 'edit' the content that you are 'fronting'? "Traditional editorial systems" are also desperately in need of the wise guidance of CEOs and corporations! /s
ok123456 4y ago
You're not a law enforcement organization. You don't have the ability to investigate and determine whether or not the threat is genuine or if it's an agent provocateur. Banning them creates a hazard, since now to get an opponent banned from the service, they can create content that reaches to this level. It's a Layer 8 DDOS.
- vintermann 4y ago
  What I don't get is how online forums with free registration have been a thing for WELL over 30 years now, yet some people think that the possibility that people make accounts to deliberately post things to get the forum sanctioned is still viewed as some insane conspiracy theory - and you a monster, if you suggest the good guys would ever do such a thing "to themselves".
  - OrangeMonkey 4y ago
    You are in a thread where most folks are celebrating convincing a fire dept to stop protecting a house (while holding matches behind their back). Everyone knows what you are saying is possible but nooone will admit it.
bebopcowboy 4y ago
wahnfrieden 4y ago
- skissane 4y ago
  Do you have any evidence to support your claims that Cloudflare donated money to Westboro Baptist Church? Unless you have good evidence, your claims are slander.
  - richbell 4y ago
    Forgive me, but it's technically libel. Slander is spoken, libel is written.
    - skissane 4y ago
      Thank you for reminding me – I knew that, but had forgotten. I will try to remember next time.
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phantom_of_cato 4y ago
> Encourage you when these issues arise to think of them in the rule of law context, rather than free speech That's a clever way of spinning the issue. But no amount of spinning can change the fact that you are clearly using doublespeak. Contrary to what you say in the post, this clearly isn't in the spirit of the policy you had promised [1], or even had advertised just a few days ago. [2] You are mostly just giving in to pressure. I can't blame you for that, given that I have to use a pseudonym here myself. Otherwise, if this was just a matter of different principles, you would also kick out media websites who regularly dox people, or publish dumps of hacked websites, etc. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares-ceo-has-a-plan-to-never-censor-hate-speech-again/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares-ceo-... [2]: https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-abuse-policies-and-approach/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-abuse-policies-and-a...
strangattractor 4y ago
Kiwifarmers can call each other on the phone, stand on a soapbox in a park, print pamphlets and distribute them. They are still free to say whatever they want to whomever they want without fear of a Government throwing them in jail unless they break the law. Anonymous posts simply allow Kiwifarmers to say things they would likely never say to your face. Cloudflare simply chose to not allow their paid for service to support this behavior. Big deal.
xdmr 4y ago
Did Cloudflare give KF notice that it intended to take this action and enable them to avoid service disruption? Or did Cloudflare intend that KF should experience service disruption?
- convery 4y ago
  KF admins Telegram: "Cloudflare's decision to block the site was done without any discussion. The message I've received is a vague suspension notice. The message from Matthew Prince is unclear. If there is any threat to life on the site, I have received no communication from any law enforcement."
  - xdmr 4y ago
    Sure, but KF hasn't specifically clarified whether the block was without _notice_ as opposed to just without _discussion_. And even if KF had specifically claimed that there was no notice given, I still want to ask CF to confirm or deny this. I may be suspicious of CF, but I don't want to turn around and trust KF's statements unconditionally. Also, I've attacked CF for this [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32709749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32709749] and I would want to change what I said if I was wrong.
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tomp 4y ago
“The law doesn’t work so I’m gonna be the law.” - every evil person ever
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fivre 4y ago
> we shouldn’t be the ones making that call Well, who should? Is anything with the authority going to or even inclined to in the slightest? Cloudflare has maintained a lobbying/policy department since quite early on, but I'd argue that the post from the 31st wasn't so much that there _should_ be policy against this than that there simply isn't. Given the coming EU DSA or, hell, the comical farce that is/was Texas HB20, it seems clear that further government regulation of online speech is coming in some capacity. How is Cloudflare discussing these issues with lawmakers? Are they taking the approach that existing law and enforcement mechanisms are fully sufficient, or are they arguing that there is a common strain between KiwiFarms, 8chan, and the Daily Stormer that has demonstrated a known pathway between speech and violence that needs some sort of updated legal framework?
suchire 4y ago
> we shouldn’t be the ones making that call So you believe that your company shouldn’t be constrained by morality? This is why I look skeptically at hiring any engineering and product leaders from Cloudflare at any company in which I work
pseudo0 4y ago
How do you intend to generalize this case to other websites with user-generated content? Because the precedent set today is that a single threatening user-generated comment is enough to pull Cloudflare security services for the entire site, regardless of how quickly the website performs their own moderation, as long as it stays up long enough to be screenshotted and passed around on Twitter. That's basically carte blanche to deny service to any website with user generated content whenever you want. Cloudflare's post the other day seemed like a very reasonable framework for making decisions on issues like this, but Cloudflare's actions today just severely undercut your credibility on this issue.
- nora-puchreiner 4y ago
  It is generalized: CF dropped 8chan and archive.is few years ago. I wonder that KiwiFarms worked for so long and that Gab.com is still on CF.
mccorrinall 4y ago
While I agree with you that the content on kiwifarms is not covered by free speech, you should not play law enforcement and wait for a court order instead.
chroma 4y ago
Freedom of speech isn't about speech. It's about hearing. There are people who want to read or listen to what others have to say, and often for reasons besides agreement with the author's statements. By silencing someone, you are preventing others from reading what they want to read or hearing what they want to hear. I certainly don't agree with the posts and comments on kiwifarms, but I want to understand what they believe and why. Also, there is a diamond in that dung heap of a website. Kiwifarms users archive tons of stuff, and those archives are very valuable. Moreover, I cannot help but notice the double standard you've created. You still provide services to godhatesfags.com. Hell, cloudflare provides DDoS protection for ISIS content. How can you say that kiwifarms is too dangerous when you're ensuring that copies of Inspire and Dabiq are available for extremists to read? If you want to talk about dangerous content, go after the people who claim that they want to murder innocent people and have done so many times in the past. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspire_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspire_(magazine) 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabiq_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabiq_(magazine)
- deleted 4y ago
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- kanbara 4y ago
  providing hateful content spreads hate. clinging to some idea that absolute freedom of speech allows us to be moral and just is quite frankly bs when the spread of fascist / terrorist / homophobic / racist propaganda contributes to the destruction of democracy and the very freedoms we hold dear
  - chroma 4y ago
    OK, apply that logic to the Bible and the Qur'an. Both endorse slavery. Both encourage believers to hate gays and to treat women as chattel. Countless followers have dedicated their lives to the tenets in these books, and in many cases they end up harming others because of it. Are you going to ban those books? If not, why not?
    - 4y ago
WORMS_EAT_WORMS 4y ago
I always appreciate your stance (as you have tried to maintain for many years) on the importance of trying to be neutral. It is kind of funny that your latest argument / blog was your best and just a week ago… So thank you. Anyone capable of reading between the lines here doesn’t fault you or believe the “new threats story”. But that’s okay. Media pressure, bad PR, ESG scores, losing customers, and the bigger HR problem of employees/ engineers becoming deranged and unfocused is not worth the trade off. It casts a pretty shadow over the real and good company stuff. Thanks for being reasonable and understanding this is just not the way things should be. Hopefully you can quietly lobby for clearer legal guidance or a better measured shift in the public conversation. Until then… here’s to the next one! See you back here in 6-12 months all over again, haha.
trasz 4y ago
>Reading over the comments I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. Indeed it’s not - you have no problems with censoring your critics. It’s about you being bad actors (https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=32705613 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=32705613) but now pretending not to, because share prices started to tank.
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
For context, @eastdakota on HN is Matthew Prince, the CEO/founder of Cloudflare.
dcow 4y ago
The problem is: how do you determine that nobody else was taking this seriously? I don't know anything about Kiwifarms, so I may simply look foolish asking this, but: how do you know there was an imminent emergency? Did you conduct your own independent investigation? Or was this a response to some alarming Twitter outrage? Those are the type of questions on my mind. Essentially, did you do all the things one would reasonably expect of law enforcement who are equip to handle emergencies in a situation like this? You are right, the simple idea of vigilante corporations makes my skin crawl. The double standards, of sort, are pretty logically inconsistent and frustrating. You’re saying, “Cloudflare acknowledges that policing the internet is not an appropriate responsibility for a platform provider, but we’re gonna do it anyway because the rest of society doesn't have its act together.” I guess I am to some extent expecting a citation on that last part so I can verify your claims are serious and not just corporate knee jerk. Finally, let’s assuming there is indeed an emergency and the you are 100% spot on with your mitigation strategy. Crisis averted. Then what happens? Is this permanent? Once the immediate emergency is over, would you be comfortable reinstating Kiwifarms as a customer? There are some “don’t be Google” vibes here that make me uncomfortable too. In a fair environment, once an emergency is dealt with and justice served, we go back to normal. I find it hard to believe you’d be amenable to that type of resolution because I’m used to corporate decisions being final and essentially unable to be appealed. Or, at least they’re final until Twitter starts griping about the new injustice such a final outcome has caused. You may not want the mantle but, by choosing to act, you are, at least for now, picking it up. Yes, this is way more nuanced than “free speech”. I hope you’re ready…
- unraveller 4y ago
  if CloudFlare is hiring in their precrime division I want to apply. I like the idea of not waiting for the law to act (or fail) at its own pace.
- andrepd 4y ago
  >Or was this a response to some alarming Twitter outrage? People have died. Byuu/Near comitted suicide after an harassment campaign that lasted years and included death threats, doxing, and harassment both online and irl. Free speech in my book is about protecting people like Near from being harassed into silence or death, more than it is about enabling said harassment campaigns.
floodyberry- 4y ago
"hi I'm a liar and we only did something because the bad press started to go mainstream. fuck trans people"
ekianjo 4y ago
> Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. So you are fine to bypass the laws on your own? How practical.
yieldcrv 4y ago
Twitter mob wants more I have no idea why and this piecemeal information leak looks bad You’re just going to wind up like Facebook where their content moderation completely missed the fanning of genocide in Myanmar and that actual outcome, all the “immediate threats” not just one person getting doxxed Rule of law? I have no clue what distinction you’re making, as it is neither a legal free speech or rule of law issue. Leave the communication to the lawyers?
patrec 4y ago
> could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. > Encourage you when these issues arise to think of them in the rule of law context To get this straight: your position is that this is not about free speech because something clearly illegal happened and you acted purely to expedite matters since law enforcement was too slow to react and there was material danger. So you are then tying your reputation to there being eventual legal consequences for what happened in recent days on Kiwi Farms?
- deleted 4y ago
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Jerry2 4y ago
Matthew, you don't give a damn about free speech. You've proven it numerous times. Quit pretending that you do.
pid-1 4y ago
Another often (purposely?) forgotten freedom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association
- troon-lover 4y ago
Aeolun 4y ago
I don’t necessarily disagree, but what does banning them from Cloudflare achieve? Is it just that the company feels unconfortable providing them any kind of service given the nature of the currently posted content? Because banning them should have no effect on their ability to generate/serve that content, maybe make it a bit more expensive (though I see that their site is still blocked, so maybe immediately disabling Cloudflare isn’t an option for them either)
pnf 4y ago
The issue is about "free speech" AND "due process" AND the "rule of law". In the US, the law is emphatic that the government shall not infringe upon the free speech of the individual except under very limited circumstances. People on HN insisting that these are private corporations doing private things are painfully naive "useful idiots" or shills for the government. Zuckerberg just admitted that the FBI and intelligence services applied pressure on Facebook to suppress information that would harm the campaign of the candidate who ended up winning the last presidential election. That is fact. The "requests" from government are ALWAYS going to be couched in the language of risk and helping law enforcement. And what would the consequences of a media company's refusal to comply be? What corporate executive wants to find out? There is already US case law prohibiting this. At scale, governments prefer to act through "private" enterprise. Such enterprises are "state actors" suppressing speech. That is why government prefers monopoly capitalism. Who wouldn't rather have just one or a few partners to manage? Of course this is a free speech issue, but it's much more. Cloudflare's volte face is super sus. Even if it's the case that no direct government agents were involved this time, the astroturfed pressure campaigns run by state sponsored NGO money are just the privatized surveillance and secret police state hard at work. The deep issue is that US politicians and citizens are abandoning "rule of law" expectations in domestic politics. These free speech issues are the visible manifestation of a shift in the structure of power in US politics to an unapologetic administrative uni-party, accelerating in real time. Arguing the ludicrous details of this Kiwifarms blocking is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
>I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. Says the people blocking access. >the risk created by the content What risk? Fearmongering is always the first defense of those who wish to limit free speech. "Something will happen if we don't." Can I get a crystal ball like yours from amazon? >no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. What threat? >Encourage you when these issues arise to think of them in the rule of law context, rather than free speech, Free speech should trump the rule of law. When it doesn't you end up with tyranny.
Veen 4y ago
> Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. Do you not see how concerning (not to mention arrogant) it is when a corporation decides to act because it believes the law is inadequate. When individuals do this, we call it vigilantism.
e844dbe8fb 4y ago
concordDance 4y ago
> Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. Given kiwifarms most definitely remains up[1] (all your action did was let them be DDOSed for an hour or two) and this imminent dealy threat has not materialized, will you invite them back to your infrastructure? Or was this just an excuse and you were unhappy about the bad PR? [1] https://kiwifarms.ru/threads/matthew-prince-lied.128900/ https://kiwifarms.ru/threads/matthew-prince-lied.128900/

Icathian 4y ago

I think this better encapsulates what I was going for with my comment. For whatever it's worth, I strongly agree.

yomkippur 4y ago

_vvaw 4y ago

What was the actual threat? Was it posted on Kiwi Farms, or transmitted via another channel?

dmix 4y ago
+1, what was the thing that changed today vs a week ago? If this is going to eventually become precedent (despite what is said this is now the new basis from which other decisions are made) other site owners and future one’s should have an idea of what exactly wasn’t dealt with. Cloudflare’s reach is extensive and becoming a critical part the internet so there’s plenty at stake here. The lack of transparency by Google, Facebook, etc is the worst part of this whole top-level internet moderation trend.
- lupire 4y ago
  https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/2022-alleged-kiwi-farms-swattings-on-keffals-and-marjorie-taylor-greene https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/2022-alleged-kiwi-...
  - _vvaw 4y ago
    Neither of those incidents took place in the last 48 hours, or have been definitively attributed to Kiwi Farms.
  - dmix 4y ago
    August 5 was a month ago and the MTG SWATing was obviously an anti-Kiwifarms troll… > Officials said they received a second call from the suspect, using a computer-generated voice, saying they were upset about Greene’s view on transgender youth rights. https://myfox8.com/news/crime/what-is-kiwifarms/ https://myfox8.com/news/crime/what-is-kiwifarms/
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
_vvaw 4y ago
Kiwi Farms is back on an alternate domain. Posters in the Keffals thread believe the fake bomb threat was to blame for Cloudflare’s reaction. The account which made the post barely had any other activity on the site. The post itself was removed quickly by moderators. If it’s true that an obvious fake bomb threat which was swiftly removed was the cause for this action, Cloudflare has some hard explaining to do to its remaining customers. Fake anonymous posts and an ideological Twitter mob can apparently DoS your entire operation with Cloudflare. If the threat was something else, I and other customers would love to learn exactly what it was.
- bombcar 4y ago
  IF the above is true, it sounds more like a convenient excuse to do what you’ve wanted to do all along.
- unraveller 4y ago
  The bomb threat could have originated from a disgruntled cloudflare employee on cloudflare network/hardware, I wonder then if they'd take themselves down? Probably not, different strokes for different folks.

loteck 4y ago

Turns out there's no such thing as neutrality. Connecting content to the world is a choice your team approves or declines. You can complain about scalability of that decision all you want. Cloudflare is not neutral, and will never be. You're an active participant and you have to deal with your responsibility.

jbarciauskas 4y ago
Yes. Also gray areas do exist. This isn't one of them.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
Is the phone company responsible for connecting content? How about your internet service provider? At what level does someone become responsible? This is a question for the law, not for the mob. The internet, thanks to a completely fucked up legal regime (section 230), is currently very gray. Facebook and Twitter, which are commonly used to facilitate large-scale violent riots and play host to far more doxxing and cyberbullying than kiwifarms could ever hope to, get a pass despite being the main facilitator of that communication. In contrast, infrastructure services like Cloudflare (and even AWS) have been subject to intense pressure to drop other sites where people say bad things. Under this theory, we need to be taking Facebook and Twitter offline immediately. And maybe also the phone company too.
- loteck 4y ago
  At all levels, and Cloudflare isn't exempted from that. Social media platforms already routinely decline to host content via moderation.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    So is it your position that the phone company should disconnect anyone that they believe is saying mean things about people? Mainstream social media also largely does not moderate nearly well enough to uphold the standard that you are applying to Cloudflare.
  - 4y ago

dogecoinbase 4y ago

bobsmooth 4y ago

dart200 4y ago

how do you know it wasn't just trolls trying to get KF taken down?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
coldacid 4y ago
More importantly, does he even care if that were the case? (All signs point to no.)

justacomment100 4y ago

Every website gets threats. The Stoneman Douglas shooter wrote a YouTube comment about how he wanted to be a school shooter, just weeks before his attack, which went unmoderated. Kiwifarms immediately deleted the threatening post. Why hold small discussion forums to such a higher standard? They deleted the post in minutes; so you expect them to delete violating posts faster than YouTube?

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat If one patron starts beating another to a pulp, the bartender breaking up the fight does not signify a failure of the rule of law or law enforcement. You stepped in to help. It would be nice if you were given official air cover to do so. But I and most Americans prefer a system where the government has extra hoops to jump through to halt even dangerous speech.

anonymouse008 4y ago
Nice metaphor - were the digital offenses becoming actual acts of violence in person?
- freeone3000 4y ago
  Yes.
lupire 4y ago
The governments have had years to deal with kiwifarms and its criminal users, and failed.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
  The criminals are the ones impersonating KF users. They swatted a government official in their attempt to get rid of the site. Giving in to them is allowing domestic terrorism.
Tao3300 4y ago
The bartender example is so wrong that it has wrapped around into rightness. What really happens is that the bartender signals the cooler to throw out said patrons to settle it some place where it isn't their liability. It goes to the street, who knows where and what they'll do to each other. And that's pretty much what cloudflare is doing here, saying "you can't do this in here" and now we get to see where the chips fall.

RedReality 4y ago

What threat exactly? How do we know it wasn't a false flag by someone wanting to take the site offline?

lario9 4y ago

[dead]

cft 4y ago

So then why did you become the liability decision maker on behalf of your customer, if you were not required by the law? After many sales emails that we ignored, your sales guy found and called me on my personal cell when I was on vacations in Mexico City, trying to push a 5000/mo DDoS mitigation contract, and i explained to him that we are happier paying 100k/year to a net neutral company VeriSign (now down to 27k), than offloading the legal liability decisions on our behalf to your Majesty Matthew Prince. While it makes sense to use CF for a booter DDoS-for-hire outfit accepting Monero, any legitimate company that has real money and jobs at stake should not use CF.

notatoad 4y ago

>rather than free speech i encourage anybody who is calls themselves a "free speech advocate" to consider what kiwifarms has been doing to "free speech". their intimidation campaigns have been doing a lot more to harm the cause of free speech than this decision by cloudflare is. if you really believe in free speech, you understand that trans people deserve free speech too, and kiwifarms harrasment campaigns have been harming their free speech. free speech is for everybody, not just the people who have opinions you agree with, and being openly trans is a form of speech.

BrainVirus 4y ago
Why should I take this argument on good faith when literally this same argument has been repeatedly used in attempts to deplatform comedians, popular politicians, writers, journalists and tons of ordinary people?
- pixl97 4y ago
  Were said comedians, popular politicians, writers, and journalist calling for immediate violent acts and intimidation of others. If yes, then I believe they should be censored. If no, , then they should not. Authoritarians will use both arguments at the same time, they have no problem with hypocrisy. They will threaten you with violence, and demand their violence be published, while with the slights of those they do not like demand censorship. Calls for violence must not be tolerated, for if they are civil society cannot exist.
- hackerlight 4y ago
cowtools 4y ago
- lupire 4y ago
  Coordinating real world afk harassment and physical attacks. https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/2022-alleged-kiwi-farms-swattings-on-keffals-and-marjorie-taylor-greene https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/2022-alleged-kiwi-...

dmw_ng 4y ago

Watching company employees consistently pop up on critical threads (not fingering CF here, many including at least Stripe come to mind as frequently occurring too) feels a lot like gaming the forum. Vetted messages like this from a recognizable source will often end up pinned to the top of the thread, but I don't really think they overly contribute to the conversation in most cases, and I find myself wishing there was some rule against it. Not to say there shouldn't be a place for official responses, just that it's kinda tiring to see crowdpleasing justifications during times of stress displacing the thoughts of other potentially less biased folk on the Internet discussing the problem at hand. (The counterargument would be that the status quo provides unparalleled public access to top-level staff, I'll leave that angle for someone else to explore ;)

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
It's pretty easy to, you know, scroll down. Companies in this position are damned if they do, damned if they don't. I for one at least appreciate thoughtful, substantive responses from company leadership in company-specific threads, and I'm happy that at least on HN we are more likely to be given a real, substantive response than the corporate drivel that is shoveled to most other media outlets.
afavour 4y ago
I have to disagree with this. These folks are best positioned to give us actual information. 90% of the rest is just opining.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- john-radio 4y ago
  I don't have any huge problem with eastdakota's comment here, and I think I agree with Cloudflare's action (I listened to a Behind the Bastards podcast recently that covered an individual who was bullied until they committed suicide by kiwifarms, so I understand the stakes) but - there is nothing in their comment that presents "actual information"; it does not present any facts; it just presents the perspective that their legal team would like all of us to take on their action. dmw_ng's criticism is entirely fair.

initplus 4y ago

Kiwifarms should have been dealt with by the traditional legal system years ago. It is honestly shocking to me that the operator has never been charged. The site has been engaging in mass harassment for years and is responsible for multiple suicides. When the legal system fails, people turn to vigilante justice, and we get this mess instead. People feel so strongly that Kiwifarms should be taken offline that they engage in illegal behavior themselves.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
The site and the person who host it (there is no legal entity involved here - just a person) have not done anything other than facilitating speech, which is heavily legally protected. The users of the site have done a lot, though. The proper action would be to go after the users who do bad things, and bury the site operator in subpoenas to find these bad actors.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> and is responsible for multiple suicides. I've suffered some cases of extreme, acute depression in my life, and I was lucky that I had some support that prevented my depression from killing me. That said, I'm really uncomfortable with the language that somebody else can be, as you put it, "responsible" for someone's suicide. One of the things that is really driven home in therapy for depression (that is, after you're no longer in a suicidal state) is that you alone are responsible for your actions; you're not merely at the whim of your circumstances. The harassment from Kiwifarms is/was reprehensible, but harassment alone, at that level, is enough to draw a social and legal response without pretending they are responsible for someone else's suicide.
- zerocrates 4y ago
  There is some recent precedent for criminal responsibility for someone else's suicide: the (in)famous case of Conrad Roy and Michelle Carter. She was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for encouraging him to commit suicide over texts and phone calls.
  - 4y ago

philippejara 4y ago

Ok, can we know what was this great threat then that suddenly made you change your position in just a few days? Furthermore, do you believe that someone who is issuing a threat on a public platform is going to not act it out because you took it away? If anything it just sounds like it would make them even more incensed to do it, just makes absolutely no sense to frame it as some immediacy issue.

eastdakota 4y ago
Yes, as noted in the post if you read to the end, I am very concerned about that.
- convery 4y ago
  So, can we get any details on what was actually said on the forum rather than just "escalating threats"?
  - frickenhamster 4y ago
    From what I heard there was a false flag bomb threat
    - kspacewalk2 4y ago
      If true, an ingenious way to de-cloudflare someone, which will be used many times again.
      - frickenhamster 4y ago
        It has to be done in conjunction with protests by a politically protected group
        kspacewalk2 4y ago
        Whatever do you mean, an imminent threat to life is an imminent threat to life. Say, does Hacker News use Cloudflare?

donkarma 4y ago

mrbt 4y ago

It’s nonsense this has anything to do with the law. This solely happened because of mainstream media pressure and significant clients moving or threatening to move away from Cloudflare and the board deciding they don’t need the bad press and loss of customers and nothing else. You provide a service and like every service provider you have a TOS/AUP. The issue is the Acceptable Use Paragraph is clear as long as the content isn’t Copyright or CSE then it’s fine as you will absolve yourself of any responsibility. No other CDN/WAF tolerates nationalists who threaten people, Cloudflare does. No other CDN/WAF makes the reporting process essentially doxing yourself to the threatening website. Cloudflare does. No other CDN/WAF intentionally puts all the most vile sites on dedicated CDN hosts so they get DDoSed while the normal customers don’t. It’s purely so then when the vile sites get DDoSes then they use those learnings to improve the controls for all customers. Much like providing security guards for a Proud Boys rally. It’s an intentional business decision to provide those services. You could chose not to. But you don’t.

gjvnq 4y ago
> It’s nonsense this has anything to do with the law. Actually, if they processed data from any European person they would be required to follow GDPR. And if they processed data from any Brazilian they would be required to follow LGPD. Any significant deliberate blindness towards privacy, defamation, and hate speech laws are unlawful acts that must be punished according to the Law. Idealy by extraditing the website administrators so they can they can face criminal charges over their misconduct.
serpv357 4y ago
>It’s nonsense this has anything to do with the law. >This solely happened because of mainstream media pressure and significant clients moving or threatening to move away from Cloudflare and the board deciding they don’t need the bad press and loss of customers and nothing else. Exactly. I didn't know KiwiFarms existed before it was in the news and trending everywhere, so I don't know a lot about what really went on there in the past years. What concerns me more general with this situation. There is a lot of power in the hands of people able to rile up the mob to de-platform whoever the current very-bad-person of the day is. With the outrage on social media platforms, and then the media pressure from those reporting on the outrage, companies just do the safe, self-interested thing and acquiesce, branding it as some noble act. It's wrong that whether someone can have a platform, or use a service, or hold a job, is determined not by some kind of objective TOS, but rather whether or not an online mob is demanding their scalp. It's arbitrary, unjust, and has and will harm harmless people.

layer8 4y ago

> we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. By making that call regardless, I don’t think you’ve increased the likelihood of law enforcement (or other appropriate parties) stepping up to deal with such cases in a timely manner in the future. Maybe rather the opposite, which would be unfortunate.

Ralo 4y ago

I remember many years ago with lulzsec, where cloudflare refused to shutdown their services. Whether what they did was moral or not, it was a still a crime and I imagine it was because they agreed with the message.

tete 4y ago
To the best of my knowledge nobody's life was threatened or endangered. I'd compare it to a website shutting down someone's account because they send a meme where they might not have the rights, which is illegal, which also isn't usually resulting in a ban. Now where you draw the line is a philosophical question.

joecool1029 4y ago

>Our decision today Your decision today. You took ownership before for the arbitrary decisions to remove DS and 8Chan, take ownership now and do not try to backpedal. You are Cloudflare's leader. >That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. You failed to take ownership of this issue either way. Your response suggests you can't understand the responsibility that you continue to have and are trying to shirk it. My suggestion is, find someone who is willing to be compensated to have this responsibility if it burdens you so. That's part of a leader's job.

xupybd 4y ago
It's not an infrastructures job to enforce morality outside of the law. That is a dangerous place to get to. Due process has incredible value. It allows us to live free lives while also punishing and preventing crimes.
- not2b 4y ago
  Someone who is the target of an organized violence campaign by kiwifarms can't live a free life.
  - xupybd 4y ago
    That is a great argument as to why law enforcement needs to be empowered and resourced to deal with this stuff. I'll back any effort to do that.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    They seemingly can if they just stop posting every waking moment of their life on the internet so it can be scooped up and analyzed by kiwifarm trolls.
    - thebradbain 4y ago
      Why should an individual doing nothing wrong HAVE to change their own behavior simply to stop being harassed? That’s not a solution, that’s going into hiding. Also, considering people doxxed her address and kept showing up / swatting her, I doubt that would even be a short term solution at all, other than emboldening the harassers.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

stepupmakeup 4y ago

Forgive me if my understanding is wrong, but if someone were to host a message board or similar site with UGC and have it backed by Cloudflare, and a troll makes posts and threads threatening disasters on multiple occasions even though the site's administration removes them with haste, would Cloudflare also deny service to them? Basically take the current situation but instead of Kiwi Farms, replace it with "Grandma's Cat Forum".

nostrebored 4y ago
This is exactly the determination. The post being spread around as evidence of harm was by a user with four posts, all within the last week, all on this thread, despite being a member for two years. If I were trying to get a website deplatformed at least the approach is clear and easy.
- Cyberdog 4y ago
  Where can I find these posts?
  - convery 4y ago
    You can search their profile on kiwifarms dot ru to get all information you want.
    - Cyberdog 4y ago
      Whose profile?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - isitmadeofglass 4y ago
    You can’t. For your protection we have censored the proof that justifies why we were right to censor it…

allovy 4y ago

smlx 4y ago

Imagine I own a bunch of billboards around town. A customer comes to me with cash and wants to display someone's personal details and a message encouraging harassment on my billboards. Do I have to wait for law enforcement to stop me from displaying their content? Or can I, as a private company, make a judgement call and decline their business? I think the answer here is pretty obvious and your attempt at passing the buck is pathetically weak.

dmatech 4y ago
Now suppose they own the billboard themselves but you're the power company they use to light up that billboard. Do you cut their power?
- alphabettsy 4y ago
  Maybe, what difference does it make? It’s a billboard.
- ghostDancer 4y ago
  They can contract with a different company.
LawTalkingGuy 4y ago

verisimilitudes 4y ago

danShumway 4y ago

> Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. Does Cloudflare wait for a court order before taking action when it detects a DDoS attack or when it suspects that a client is malicious? The law is by design reactionary. In this case, I don't mean that in a bad way; what I mean is that the law is designed to respond to criminals, not to preempt them. If all of your moderation decisions, even in cases that go beyond hate speech or bigoted content into straight-up abuse of infrastructure and direct targeting of individuals -- if you need that to be reliant on a court then you are giving up the ability to prevent abuse and you can only respond to that abuse. Do you worry about due process when someone's site is getting knocked offline by automated requests, or is your primary worry about protecting your customers? What's even worse is that by abjugating your responsibility to protect your customers even in cases where there are clear threats, and by encouraging the law to become even faster and more trigger-happy to compensate, you encourage the creation of censorship engines that are even more dangerous than the ones that you are in charge of. We should have better laws around doxing and threatening people online, but even once we get better laws, Cloudflare is still going to have a part to play in detecting targeted attacks. No just law is going to be fast enough or nuanced enough to make these decisions for you. You can't get rid of your responsibility to such a degree that you won't need to make moderation decisions even about non-ideological and purely abusive content like doxing forums. And by refusing to recognize your role in that process, you allow people to be completely driven offline and censored in the exact same ways that your company is dedicated to preventing. It's no different than allowing a DDoS attack on one of your clients to continue because you haven't specifically heard from a judge yet that you should stop it.

anigbrowl 4y ago

I disagree somewhat. rule of law' sounds like such a neat, objective solution to social problems, but in practice it centralizes a vast amount of decision-making in organs of state (courts and to a lesser extent, public prosecutors. This in turn drastically shapes incentives, because of the cost of litigation and highly variable access to legal infrastructure: as we all know, police have no formal duty to protect despite having vast levels of legal immunity from consequences when they make bad decisions. Hence the pressure campaign on your firm, because exerting leverage through market forces and PR strategies is simply more effective than begging some state authority to intervene. Of course, it hurts you somewhat insofar as it's harder for you to sell a service to anyone and everyone when people see that you're willing to revoke access in some cases. but then you were willing to do that already, eg to pre-empt perceived legal risks from FOSTA/SESTA. I think sites like Kiwifarms have a right to exist, but on the other hand they don't have any particular right to DDOS protection. If a site is so chronically unpopular that it's constantly getting kicked out of nice infrastructure perhaps the operators need to reconsider their security stance or reflect on the basis of said unpopularity. Of course, DDOS attacks can be engineered rather than being an expression of organic network sentiment, but then so can mitigation strategies.

kiwifarmafan 4y ago

allovx 4y ago

wikitopian 4y ago

In the case of the Daily Stormer, it was free speech and you very clearly and directly made the incorrect call. I'm a big fan of your thoughtful speeches while you grapple with these sticky situations. But why not just invest some pocket change in helping solve TOR's name resolution problem so that removal from the clearnet isn't the death sentence it currently is? There's a simple and obvious solution to this which doesn't interfere with your principles or your business model: a crypto-driven system for assigning human readable addresses to onion addresses. With that in place and included in the tor browser and in a simple browser plugin for other browsers, you can focus on fighting DDOS attacks on clearnet sites instead of being the reluctant referee of the world's communication.

pornel 4y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- concordDance 4y ago
  There are at least five orders of magnitude more people who are called Nazis than there are actual people who hold all the main Nazi ideals and beliefs today.
  - ds300 4y ago
    Are you keeping a spreadsheet with venn diagrams?
pixl97 4y ago
You are free to make a decentralized crypto-driven platform filled with nazi's. What you're ignoring is there are very valid reasons these platforms don't exist. They become deplorable crapsack worlds that 'normies' will not visit. It is never going to have any mainstream popularity. "Oh, you're on that nazi child porn software". And it requires a massive amount of moderation to ensure such a form does not become a complete hellhole (see failures of NNTP). When you pull your crypto driven system out of the light, you are going to have to fight what lives in the dark. If you screwed up the protocol of your system and it's taken over, well it's gone, you exist outside the law and there are no means to get it back. Do a bunch of trolls with stolen crypto generation means exist on your network and flood out all the legitimate users, well too bad. Civil society exists between the authoritarians that want dominion over everything and those that embrace chaos and would leave the world in ruin. It is a delicate and imperfect balance, but where it exists allows humanity to flourish.

Cyberdog 4y ago

> Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. > That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. This is the logic of vigilantes. I'm not saying what you have done is on the same level as vigilante murder or anything, but don't try to justify it as something high-and-mighty. You've once again terminated a customer on a whim. And that's your right, but stop trying to make this out to be anything more than that.

thebradbain 4y ago
KF can (and does) say whatever they want. That does not give its users the right to doxx an individual or threaten them or otherwise illegally harass them via extra-judicial measures. It’s that simple. It’s also in Cloudflare’s very own terms of service that KF agreed to when they signed up
- notch656a 4y ago
  Are you sure "doxxing" is illegal in all US jurisdictions, as well as the jurisdiction it is hosted in? If it's for the purpose of harassments it may be illegal. Remember California DOJ released (doxxed) online the name and address of all California CCW holders, including judges and other sensitive holders (DV victims, etc). At least California seems to think it's peachy.
  - thebradbain 4y ago
    It’s illegal in California, where they’re headquartered. In their version of the law, intent matters: “…You intended to cause that person to reasonably fear for their or their family’s safety.” [1] Regardless, federally in the US, doxxing can be considered a form of harassment, which is generally illegal. [1] https://www.aerlawgroup.com/blog/fact-or-fiction-doxing-someone-can-get-you-arrested/ https://www.aerlawgroup.com/blog/fact-or-fiction-doxing-some...

atdrummond 4y ago

Josh has received no contact from federal law enforcement. He has never not complied with their requests and is open about every request he does receive. He does this by creating a post notifying the community of the post and how he responded. He’s also pro-active in both deleting and reporting any posts that advocate violence, whether that’s a bombing, shooting or stalking. There is no credible evidence of any physical violence or deaths resulting from KiwiFarms. Chloe Sagal stated in her farewell messages that her pain came from negative comments made about, and to, her by fellow members of the broader LBGTQIA+ community. Byuu/Near faked his death, as he did not appear on any Japanese or US death lists. He also has been seen by other developer expats in the time that has passed since his purported suicide. There is no evidence for the claims being made in the drive to cancel this website. I say this as someone who has never posted there and personally find much of it reprehensible to my ethics and politics.

BrainVirus 4y ago

Unelected technocrats taking the law into their own hands and using arbitrary judgment calls to manipulate infrastructure is not an improvement on the current legal system. Especially when they are making promises they don't keep and when they then try to gaslight people into thinking this has nothing to do with external political pressure.

pornel 4y ago
The law is on Cloudflare's side. It's a private company free to choose who they do business with. If you would like Cloudflare to be legally obliged to act like a utility or public infrastructure, lobby for actual laws to regulate it.

mchusma 4y ago

I'd like to honestly better understand why, if there is a threat of violence, law enforcement cannot act.

banannaise 4y ago
They don’t care about threats of violence unless they’re targeted at law enforcement itself or at people they consider important.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
herbst 4y ago
To be fair the far majority of threads on Kiwifarms did not call to act at all. I am no regular visitor but so far I never saw someone calling for violence or anything. Rather the opposite was a common message along 'enjoy the content but don't interact with them'

throw7 4y ago

"Our decision..." who are you?

the_only_law 4y ago
- Shank 4y ago
  eastdakota is CloudFlare's CEO. That is his real Hacker News account. It even says this on his profile.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> "Our decision..." who are you? https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=eastdakota https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=eastdakota > CEO & co-founder of CloudFlare

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

systemvoltage 4y ago

Will you also ban violent threats from the left to Andy Ngo? He has been thoroughly documenting it. And published a NYT bestseller “Unmasked”, a written account of how violence from the extreme left is being ignored. I’d like to see equal treatment, that’s the least worst option. I want extreme objectivity at the highest level. Edit: I’m questioning OBJECTIVITY and Andy Ngo is just a fucking example. Find some hypothetical antifa forum, the point is about standards.

the_only_law 4y ago
Which specific sites that Cloudfare hosts or provides services to would you like to see cut off, y’know for equal treatment.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  Yea they’re scattered around. Just hypothetically, I want promise that at the very least we are not in a ideological hell hole. The details of this is irrelevant IMO, let me repeat the argument I’m posing: Is there an objective standard that can be applied across the political spectrum? We should be concerned that there is a political hijacking. That sits extremely unwell with me. We need to condemn all violence otherwise any actions by Cloudflare are just politics and frankly, terrifying.
  - bronson 4y ago
    So, which sites? If they are scattered around, please post a couple links? Arguing pure hypotheticals is rarely productive.
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      > Arguing pure hypotheticals is rarely productive. Posing hypotheticals is exactly how to test the limits of the system. It is a key component of the legislative and law making process. The entire field of law, millions of lawyers think about hypotheticals on a daily basis to analyze, write and interpret the law. Humans have evolved to have a dedicated frontal lobe whose job is to predict hypothetical scenarios and conduct cost/benefit/planning analysis. As a software engineer, I write hypothetical inputs to create unit tests so my system doesn't break. Thinking about hypotheticals is basically fundamental to all things in life and the universe.

deleted 4y ago

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deleted 4y ago

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nematode_tech 4y ago

amachefe 4y ago
> Vigilantism isn't a great thing, but what choice do we have when authorities allow hate sites like Kiwifarms to stay online? After all, as Yonatan Zunger famously wrote, tolerance is not a moral precept. In conclusion, vigilantism is fine if done against someone you dont like... cool
- nematode_tech 4y ago
  Whom I personally like is irrelevant. We're talking about public safety here. We opened a Pandora's box of hate and violence when we created the internet. The state, which is ordinarily charged with protecting the public from danger, has failed to respond to the threat, justifying its inaction with references to 18th century texts written before the steam engine became practical. If the state refuses to act, we as technologists must. For the good of society, we have to cut off access to hate --- not only at the DDOS prevention level, but at the browser, the network, and even operating system level. To stand by and do nothing while violent speech floods our communication channels is to be complicit in this speech. For example: why is the Tor project facilitating the spread of hate by keeping Kiwifarms accessible? The Tor project's mission of preserving user privacy does not include facilitating access to harassment material.
  - serpv357 4y ago
    I can't tell if your posts are parodies or not. This "cut[ting] off access to hate" through the entire technology stack would just function to limit people's free access to inconvenient information. Think of the Russian state. It may decide that any expression of Ukrainian identity is inherently hateful, and censor it using this system. Do we want to bring such a thing to the West? When the truth is deemed hateful and violent, such a system will be used to uphold an empire of lies. And I'm sure there will be a "backdoor" for regime-approved hate targeting its foes to slip right through ;) >We opened a Pandora's box of hate and violence when we created the internet With the advent of the internet, people's ability to easily communicate with each other was drastically increased. We opened up the ability for us to collaboratively see beyond the official narratives handed down through the media, government spokesmen, and educational institutions. Such a thing is of course abominable to those who desire centralized control over the demos, truth be damned, but I am grateful for it. Technologists should instead oppose anything like what you describe, and build technologies that thwart the efforts of those who wish to limit our ability to communicate with each other.

djanlermats2020 4y ago

There was one threat which was immediately removed by the moderators. Why is it your business to take down an entire site because one user on it broke the rules and was stopped by the site moderators?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

assetlabel 4y ago

Did blocking the content save anybody's life? If so, how? If you don't know, can you even articulate a theory in which blocking content could save a life imminently threatened? I don't dispute that a life was threatened and murder may have been imminent, I'm taking that for granted. I just don't understand how this action could have any effect upon that course of events. Murder is a physical-world thing, not an online content thing. Further explanation would be appreciated.

andywood 4y ago
Of course not. It wasn't an actual threat, though it sounded like one. The mods handled it as soon as they became aware.
pixl97 4y ago
I'm not sure where you're getting these ideas from, but not taking every threat seriously is a serious failing of internet forums over the long term. (the next paragraph is an example and not real, do not take any intent from it, which in itself may be ironic considering the argument I'm making). If I call out "We should kill assetlabel because I do not like their politics", in itself it is not a serious threat, as I don't know you and cannot act on it. But it would be a mistake to tolerate the statement, even in a 'joking' manner (you can see in my previous post the 'joking' manner is commonly used by fascists to downplay serious threats). Again, the issue with allowing this behavior is it normalizes it. Now we step it up, what if 4 people repeat this same threat, 10, 20, 100? With each person repeating the line the chances of someone knowing you and acting on this behavior increases greatly. Any such threat must be moderated, and sites must have a history moderating such behaviors and not tolerating them. In the early days of the internet being anonymous was somewhat easy, and in the later days of the internet it is nearly impossible, and more worryingly you must continue to remain anonymous in the future after such threats are made against you as you have no idea how long someone may harbor aggression over the situation. Based the early days of the internet we've normalized violence and threats and carried it on much too long as it has consequences in the real world.

wyager 4y ago

> the risk created by the content What risk? Can you please share details? From my perspective, it seems like this is a thin excuse, and there was not actually a credible risk that you were mitigating.

e844dbe8fb 4y ago

causality0 4y ago

Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. Post the screenshot then. Show us what changed between when CF said "KF is acting within the bounds of the law and will remain online" and today. Refusing service to customers you find contemptible is completely reasonable. Continuing to service customers out of a sense of fairness even though you find them contemptible is also reasonable. Pretending that you have a sense of fairness that keeps all legal entities online and abandoning it to protect your bottom line is hypocritical and cowardly. Being a company that protects the vulnerable is every bit as honorable as being a company that stands for freedom of expression. Today Cloudflare proves it is neither.

systemvoltage 4y ago
If you go on Twitter, 90% of the replies aren't happy with Cloudflare's action. They want Cloudflare to do more and blaming CEO for why it took so long. https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1566188237986893824 https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1566188237986893824 Just shows how the activists are hammering Cloudflare CEO into submission. These people want complete abandonment of Freedom of Speech/Expression despite of what CEO is saying in this thread that it isn't about FoS/FoE. I am just terrified of what holds for our future. We used to celebrate speech as progressives back in the 90's and used to defend it with fierce opposition to any supression. They say, freedom and liberty are one generation away, if the newer generation wants CCP-style authoritarianism, they will get it.
- mike_d 4y ago
  Maybe centralizing a measurable percentage of the internet onto a single provider to the point they are frequently in this situation wasn't a great idea. Consider this next time you consider Cloudflare. Not because of what decision they made, but because they are trying to make themselves the pipe that connects any two points on the internet.
  - causality0 4y ago
    I dearly wish there was public-sector internet that was governed by the same rules as the post office. Stay within the law and nothing happens to you, violate the law and get arrested.

andywood 4y ago

"the threat" Ever think the feds have half a brain among them, and know there's no threat? I know how gullible people are in these culture-warish times, but I still hope you've lost credibility with some significant fraction of us. Maybe those of us old enough to remember when the average techy was libertarian and opposed censorship. The Farms is right back up, by the way. But at least now you can wash your hands of it. Don't think Twitter will stop coming at you though. You need to understand those people want to punish and teach.

asah 4y ago

I'd like to have seen some transparency, e.g. post redacted examples of the content that caused this conclusion.

wbl 4y ago

Actually it's about the fact that you don't want to spend the money to enforce an AUP, like just about every other ISP does. Instead you want someone else to make the that system for you. Every printer gets to decide if they want to print Mein Kampf, and most decide that they won't. Movie theaters get to decide if they want to show dirty movies. Liberal society recognizes human interactions beyond the merely legal. What you're saying is you're fine hosting harassment until it gets bad enough for a court to finally intervene and order it offline. But Kiwifarms was already banned in New Zealand for hosting a snuff film showing innocent people getting slaughtered for their religion. I'm not sure what exactly you wanted: a US court issuing an order that would almost certainly be unconsitutional prior restraint? An obscenity prosecution? Society has decided that it's your choice what kinds of speech the company you control enables, and you've decide to tell us that you're going to pretend it isn't. Well, it is. Those sites are up on Cloudflare, because you want them to be, and nothing you say is going to change that reality.

tsujamin 4y ago

> That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be the ones making that call, and no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. sure, but I presume CF makes the decision of whether or not to facilitate access to/sell services to other undesirable bits of the internet all the time without requiring law enforcement intervention. * Does CF wait for LE or a court case to block or drop malware distribution or command&control channels from their cache/NS/1.1.1.{2+} resolvers? * Would CF wait until LE intervenes to drop a known, demonstrated CP host? * Would CF continue to cache pirated material until a court stepped in even if approached by an alleged copyright holder? * Would any of the above actors have a right of appeal with CF?

dijonman2 4y ago

It does set a dangerous precedent and will have a chilling effect. You could have done this silently. Blogging about this is disgusting. It is not your job to be the police. You should let the authorities do their job.

cbtacy 4y ago

[flagged]

Longlius 4y ago

Tell me then - why does Cloudflare still offer its services to drug dealers? To sites run by terrorist groups like ISIS? To outright criminal scamming operations? I have no faith in your principles. From my perspective, the only principle you have is your share price. That's fine, of course. I don't expect you to stick your neck out or risk your business. But don't pretend like this is some principled stand.

peppermint_tea 4y ago
Seconded. People go to the TOS, arguing about what constitute hosting etc. I don't believe in cloudflare principles either. Seems like they only grew "responsible" when it attracted negative public attention in the last days/weeks. this looks like PR, damage/image control to me. we do not have a good solution for partial censorship on the internet right now (always the same issues, who can decide to take out a website who implement it, due process, vpn moderation etc) for me, having principles regarding content removal at this point is pretty much black and white, either you are totally against censorship (without due process), or you are ok with it. Cloudflare actions denote they don't hold any of the principles above even if they know all about the selective content removal complexities. P.S: Interrestingly, the Department of Homeland Security seems to be able to seize various domains quite easily.
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depr 4y ago
Do you think their stocks would drop in value if they removed drug dealers and other illegal ventures?
- dcow 4y ago
  Heh, you don’t get 20% of the internet without that content, so…

eternalban 4y ago

We do not call "rule of law" "due process" in US. Due process is the tempering of the application of law ("Rule of Law") by the state. You start off clouding matters (npi). > traditional rule of law systems. As opposed to what, "modern and innovative corporate rule of law systems"? INAL but I am pretty sure there are all sort of legal actions that can be taken before the entire "due process" is completed. You are aware, Mr. Prince, that people can be arrested and put in jail ("Rule of Law") and have a court date at a much later date ("Due Process")? [p.s. for hn]: It's not that I give a fig about wikifarms (which was TIL for me). But this posturing by Cloudflare and framing this as a responsible action in context of 'a broken legal system' (aka "traditional") is too much. Yes, let's have CEOs of SV companies apply the "Rule of Law" for us. While you are at it, why don't you 'edit' the content that you are 'fronting'? "Traditional editorial systems" are also desperately in need of the wise guidance of CEOs and corporations! /s

ok123456 4y ago

You're not a law enforcement organization. You don't have the ability to investigate and determine whether or not the threat is genuine or if it's an agent provocateur. Banning them creates a hazard, since now to get an opponent banned from the service, they can create content that reaches to this level. It's a Layer 8 DDOS.

vintermann 4y ago
What I don't get is how online forums with free registration have been a thing for WELL over 30 years now, yet some people think that the possibility that people make accounts to deliberately post things to get the forum sanctioned is still viewed as some insane conspiracy theory - and you a monster, if you suggest the good guys would ever do such a thing "to themselves".
- OrangeMonkey 4y ago
  You are in a thread where most folks are celebrating convincing a fire dept to stop protecting a house (while holding matches behind their back). Everyone knows what you are saying is possible but nooone will admit it.

bebopcowboy 4y ago

wahnfrieden 4y ago

skissane 4y ago
Do you have any evidence to support your claims that Cloudflare donated money to Westboro Baptist Church? Unless you have good evidence, your claims are slander.
- richbell 4y ago
  Forgive me, but it's technically libel. Slander is spoken, libel is written.
  - skissane 4y ago
    Thank you for reminding me – I knew that, but had forgotten. I will try to remember next time.

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phantom_of_cato 4y ago

> Encourage you when these issues arise to think of them in the rule of law context, rather than free speech That's a clever way of spinning the issue. But no amount of spinning can change the fact that you are clearly using doublespeak. Contrary to what you say in the post, this clearly isn't in the spirit of the policy you had promised [1], or even had advertised just a few days ago. [2] You are mostly just giving in to pressure. I can't blame you for that, given that I have to use a pseudonym here myself. Otherwise, if this was just a matter of different principles, you would also kick out media websites who regularly dox people, or publish dumps of hacked websites, etc. [1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares-ceo-has-a-plan-to-never-censor-hate-speech-again/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares-ceo-... [2]: https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-abuse-policies-and-approach/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-abuse-policies-and-a...

strangattractor 4y ago

Kiwifarmers can call each other on the phone, stand on a soapbox in a park, print pamphlets and distribute them. They are still free to say whatever they want to whomever they want without fear of a Government throwing them in jail unless they break the law. Anonymous posts simply allow Kiwifarmers to say things they would likely never say to your face. Cloudflare simply chose to not allow their paid for service to support this behavior. Big deal.

xdmr 4y ago

Did Cloudflare give KF notice that it intended to take this action and enable them to avoid service disruption? Or did Cloudflare intend that KF should experience service disruption?

convery 4y ago
KF admins Telegram: "Cloudflare's decision to block the site was done without any discussion. The message I've received is a vague suspension notice. The message from Matthew Prince is unclear. If there is any threat to life on the site, I have received no communication from any law enforcement."
- xdmr 4y ago
  Sure, but KF hasn't specifically clarified whether the block was without _notice_ as opposed to just without _discussion_. And even if KF had specifically claimed that there was no notice given, I still want to ask CF to confirm or deny this. I may be suspicious of CF, but I don't want to turn around and trust KF's statements unconditionally. Also, I've attacked CF for this [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32709749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32709749] and I would want to change what I said if I was wrong.

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tomp 4y ago

“The law doesn’t work so I’m gonna be the law.” - every evil person ever

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fivre 4y ago

> we shouldn’t be the ones making that call Well, who should? Is anything with the authority going to or even inclined to in the slightest? Cloudflare has maintained a lobbying/policy department since quite early on, but I'd argue that the post from the 31st wasn't so much that there _should_ be policy against this than that there simply isn't. Given the coming EU DSA or, hell, the comical farce that is/was Texas HB20, it seems clear that further government regulation of online speech is coming in some capacity. How is Cloudflare discussing these issues with lawmakers? Are they taking the approach that existing law and enforcement mechanisms are fully sufficient, or are they arguing that there is a common strain between KiwiFarms, 8chan, and the Daily Stormer that has demonstrated a known pathway between speech and violence that needs some sort of updated legal framework?

suchire 4y ago

> we shouldn’t be the ones making that call So you believe that your company shouldn’t be constrained by morality? This is why I look skeptically at hiring any engineering and product leaders from Cloudflare at any company in which I work

pseudo0 4y ago

How do you intend to generalize this case to other websites with user-generated content? Because the precedent set today is that a single threatening user-generated comment is enough to pull Cloudflare security services for the entire site, regardless of how quickly the website performs their own moderation, as long as it stays up long enough to be screenshotted and passed around on Twitter. That's basically carte blanche to deny service to any website with user generated content whenever you want. Cloudflare's post the other day seemed like a very reasonable framework for making decisions on issues like this, but Cloudflare's actions today just severely undercut your credibility on this issue.

nora-puchreiner 4y ago
It is generalized: CF dropped 8chan and archive.is few years ago. I wonder that KiwiFarms worked for so long and that Gab.com is still on CF.

mccorrinall 4y ago

While I agree with you that the content on kiwifarms is not covered by free speech, you should not play law enforcement and wait for a court order instead.

chroma 4y ago

Freedom of speech isn't about speech. It's about hearing. There are people who want to read or listen to what others have to say, and often for reasons besides agreement with the author's statements. By silencing someone, you are preventing others from reading what they want to read or hearing what they want to hear. I certainly don't agree with the posts and comments on kiwifarms, but I want to understand what they believe and why. Also, there is a diamond in that dung heap of a website. Kiwifarms users archive tons of stuff, and those archives are very valuable. Moreover, I cannot help but notice the double standard you've created. You still provide services to godhatesfags.com. Hell, cloudflare provides DDoS protection for ISIS content. How can you say that kiwifarms is too dangerous when you're ensuring that copies of Inspire and Dabiq are available for extremists to read? If you want to talk about dangerous content, go after the people who claim that they want to murder innocent people and have done so many times in the past. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspire_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspire_(magazine) 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabiq_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabiq_(magazine)

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kanbara 4y ago
providing hateful content spreads hate. clinging to some idea that absolute freedom of speech allows us to be moral and just is quite frankly bs when the spread of fascist / terrorist / homophobic / racist propaganda contributes to the destruction of democracy and the very freedoms we hold dear
- chroma 4y ago
  OK, apply that logic to the Bible and the Qur'an. Both endorse slavery. Both encourage believers to hate gays and to treat women as chattel. Countless followers have dedicated their lives to the tenets in these books, and in many cases they end up harming others because of it. Are you going to ban those books? If not, why not?
  - 4y ago

WORMS_EAT_WORMS 4y ago

I always appreciate your stance (as you have tried to maintain for many years) on the importance of trying to be neutral. It is kind of funny that your latest argument / blog was your best and just a week ago… So thank you. Anyone capable of reading between the lines here doesn’t fault you or believe the “new threats story”. But that’s okay. Media pressure, bad PR, ESG scores, losing customers, and the bigger HR problem of employees/ engineers becoming deranged and unfocused is not worth the trade off. It casts a pretty shadow over the real and good company stuff. Thanks for being reasonable and understanding this is just not the way things should be. Hopefully you can quietly lobby for clearer legal guidance or a better measured shift in the public conversation. Until then… here’s to the next one! See you back here in 6-12 months all over again, haha.

trasz 4y ago

>Reading over the comments I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. Indeed it’s not - you have no problems with censoring your critics. It’s about you being bad actors (https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=32705613 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=32705613) but now pretending not to, because share prices started to tank.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

For context, @eastdakota on HN is Matthew Prince, the CEO/founder of Cloudflare.

dcow 4y ago

The problem is: how do you determine that nobody else was taking this seriously? I don't know anything about Kiwifarms, so I may simply look foolish asking this, but: how do you know there was an imminent emergency? Did you conduct your own independent investigation? Or was this a response to some alarming Twitter outrage? Those are the type of questions on my mind. Essentially, did you do all the things one would reasonably expect of law enforcement who are equip to handle emergencies in a situation like this? You are right, the simple idea of vigilante corporations makes my skin crawl. The double standards, of sort, are pretty logically inconsistent and frustrating. You’re saying, “Cloudflare acknowledges that policing the internet is not an appropriate responsibility for a platform provider, but we’re gonna do it anyway because the rest of society doesn't have its act together.” I guess I am to some extent expecting a citation on that last part so I can verify your claims are serious and not just corporate knee jerk. Finally, let’s assuming there is indeed an emergency and the you are 100% spot on with your mitigation strategy. Crisis averted. Then what happens? Is this permanent? Once the immediate emergency is over, would you be comfortable reinstating Kiwifarms as a customer? There are some “don’t be Google” vibes here that make me uncomfortable too. In a fair environment, once an emergency is dealt with and justice served, we go back to normal. I find it hard to believe you’d be amenable to that type of resolution because I’m used to corporate decisions being final and essentially unable to be appealed. Or, at least they’re final until Twitter starts griping about the new injustice such a final outcome has caused. You may not want the mantle but, by choosing to act, you are, at least for now, picking it up. Yes, this is way more nuanced than “free speech”. I hope you’re ready…

unraveller 4y ago
if CloudFlare is hiring in their precrime division I want to apply. I like the idea of not waiting for the law to act (or fail) at its own pace.
andrepd 4y ago
>Or was this a response to some alarming Twitter outrage? People have died. Byuu/Near comitted suicide after an harassment campaign that lasted years and included death threats, doxing, and harassment both online and irl. Free speech in my book is about protecting people like Near from being harassed into silence or death, more than it is about enabling said harassment campaigns.

floodyberry- 4y ago

"hi I'm a liar and we only did something because the bad press started to go mainstream. fuck trans people"

ekianjo 4y ago

> Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. So you are fine to bypass the laws on your own? How practical.

yieldcrv 4y ago

Twitter mob wants more I have no idea why and this piecemeal information leak looks bad You’re just going to wind up like Facebook where their content moderation completely missed the fanning of genocide in Myanmar and that actual outcome, all the “immediate threats” not just one person getting doxxed Rule of law? I have no clue what distinction you’re making, as it is neither a legal free speech or rule of law issue. Leave the communication to the lawyers?

patrec 4y ago

> could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. > Encourage you when these issues arise to think of them in the rule of law context To get this straight: your position is that this is not about free speech because something clearly illegal happened and you acted purely to expedite matters since law enforcement was too slow to react and there was material danger. So you are then tying your reputation to there being eventual legal consequences for what happened in recent days on Kiwi Farms?

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Jerry2 4y ago

Matthew, you don't give a damn about free speech. You've proven it numerous times. Quit pretending that you do.

pid-1 4y ago

Another often (purposely?) forgotten freedom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association

troon-lover 4y ago

Aeolun 4y ago

I don’t necessarily disagree, but what does banning them from Cloudflare achieve? Is it just that the company feels unconfortable providing them any kind of service given the nature of the currently posted content? Because banning them should have no effect on their ability to generate/serve that content, maybe make it a bit more expensive (though I see that their site is still blocked, so maybe immediately disabling Cloudflare isn’t an option for them either)

pnf 4y ago

The issue is about "free speech" AND "due process" AND the "rule of law". In the US, the law is emphatic that the government shall not infringe upon the free speech of the individual except under very limited circumstances. People on HN insisting that these are private corporations doing private things are painfully naive "useful idiots" or shills for the government. Zuckerberg just admitted that the FBI and intelligence services applied pressure on Facebook to suppress information that would harm the campaign of the candidate who ended up winning the last presidential election. That is fact. The "requests" from government are ALWAYS going to be couched in the language of risk and helping law enforcement. And what would the consequences of a media company's refusal to comply be? What corporate executive wants to find out? There is already US case law prohibiting this. At scale, governments prefer to act through "private" enterprise. Such enterprises are "state actors" suppressing speech. That is why government prefers monopoly capitalism. Who wouldn't rather have just one or a few partners to manage? Of course this is a free speech issue, but it's much more. Cloudflare's volte face is super sus. Even if it's the case that no direct government agents were involved this time, the astroturfed pressure campaigns run by state sponsored NGO money are just the privatized surveillance and secret police state hard at work. The deep issue is that US politicians and citizens are abandoning "rule of law" expectations in domestic politics. These free speech issues are the visible manifestation of a shift in the structure of power in US politics to an unapologetic administrative uni-party, accelerating in real time. Arguing the ludicrous details of this Kiwifarms blocking is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago

>I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. Says the people blocking access. >the risk created by the content What risk? Fearmongering is always the first defense of those who wish to limit free speech. "Something will happen if we don't." Can I get a crystal ball like yours from amazon? >no one else who should was stepping up in spite of being aware of the threat. What threat? >Encourage you when these issues arise to think of them in the rule of law context, rather than free speech, Free speech should trump the rule of law. When it doesn't you end up with tyranny.

Veen 4y ago

> Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. Do you not see how concerning (not to mention arrogant) it is when a corporation decides to act because it believes the law is inadequate. When individuals do this, we call it vigilantism.

e844dbe8fb 4y ago

concordDance 4y ago

> Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. Given kiwifarms most definitely remains up[1] (all your action did was let them be DDOSed for an hour or two) and this imminent dealy threat has not materialized, will you invite them back to your infrastructure? Or was this just an excuse and you were unhappy about the bad PR? [1] https://kiwifarms.ru/threads/matthew-prince-lied.128900/ https://kiwifarms.ru/threads/matthew-prince-lied.128900/