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“Here’s a bunch of great things about CloudFlare R2 - and please buy my book about it” leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Also, has CF improved their stance aroun

“Here’s a bunch of great things about CloudFlare R2 - and please buy my book about it” leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Also, has CF improved their stance around hosting hate groups? They have strongly resisted pressure to stop hosting/supporting hate sites like 8chan and Kiwifarms, and only stopped reluctantly.

gjsman-1000 2y ago
I don’t have to support 8chan or KiwiFarms to say that Cloudflare has absolutely no role in policing the internet. The job of policing the internet is for the police. If it’s illegal, let them investigate.
- asteroidburger 2y ago
  There is a difference between policing the internet and supplying resources and services to known bad actors. Their job isn’t to investigate and punish harassment and criminal behavior, but they certainly don’t have to condone it via their support.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    > known bad actors If they are known bad actors, let the police do the job of policing the internet. Otherwise, all bad actors are ultimately arbitrarily defined. Who said they are known bad actors? What does that even mean? Why does that person determining bad actors get their authority? Were they duly elected? Or did one of hundreds of partisan NGOs claim this? Who elected the NGO? Does PETA get a say on bad actors? Be careful what you wish for. In some US States, I am sure the attorney general would send a letter saying to shut down the marijuana dispensary - they're known bad actors, after all. They might not win a lawsuit, but winning the support of private organizations would be just as good. > they certainly don’t have to condone it via their support Wow, what a great argument. Hacker News supports all arguments here by tolerating people speaking and not deleting everything they could possibly disagree with. Or maybe, providing a service to someone, should not be seen as condoning all possible uses of the service. Just because water can be used to waterboard someone, doesn't mean Walmart should be checking IDs for water purchasers. Just because YouTube has information on how to pick locks, does not mean YouTube should be restricted to adults over 21 on a licensed list of people entrusted with lock-picking knowledge.
- johnklos 2y ago
  Bull. Cloudflare protects these organizations. Cloudflare goes far above and beyond what most other companies do, and I personally can't wait to see Cloudflare held liable for content they host for which they ignore legitimate complaints. Imagine if I were to call your phone every hour, on the hour, and my position was that it's not illegal until someone reports it as a crime and the police or a court contacts me to tell me to not do it. That's Cloudflare. They're assholes, and insisting that they're not responsible for anything, any time, until there's a court order is just them being assholes.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    > Cloudflare goes far above and beyond what most other companies do Is this reflective of Cloudflare, or instead reflective of other companies’ willingness to play judge, jury, and executioner? I like knowing my business on Cloudflare won’t be subject to extrajudicial punishment regardless of the grounds. > They're assholes Being an asshole is your constitutional right.
    - johnklos 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - gjsman-1000 2y ago
        I’m entitled because if someone accuses me of illegal activity, I want it to take place in a court before a judge and jury, with a lawyer present, due process, and equal protection under the law. Screw that, authoritarian.
        johnklos 2y ago
        You're quite hostile! So if your hosting provider accuses you of an illegal activity, you want your hosting provider to have to take you to court. That makes perfect sense. Your idea isn't bad, but execution is. If we had to go to court for literally every little tiny thing, society would fall apart. If a neighbor is blasting their stereo at 1am, we'd file a petition in court, because we can no longer go over and simply ask them, because literally everything is anonymous. See, it's the lack of basic comprehension that I don't respect about you. You want to be anonymous AND you want protection that requires court orders to do anything. If we had that, to that extreme, then anyone could make anyone else' life hell. Someone could start harassing you, and the methods and means they use to harass you would be 100% protected, and you could never get them to stop unless / until you go to court to sue them, or you convince a district attorney to bring charges. That's untenable, yet you'll happily overlook that because you either don't understand this, or you choose to ignore this as a possibility even though we see evidence of people constantly trying to do these same things. There's a reason that literally every illegal activity in the world doesn't lead to a trial. You're just pretending that reason doesn't exist.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jgalt212 2y ago
Has AWS improved their stance around hosting resource draining robots.txt defying scrapers and spiders? Every large company does business with many people / orgs I don't like. I'm not defending or attacking AWS or CF, but merely stating the deeper you dig the more objectionable stuff you'll find everywhere. There are shades of gray of course, but at the end of the day we're all sinners.
- jjeaff 2y ago
  I don't have a judgement in this particular case. But I really hate the nobody is perfect argument, especially considering the current political climate. We are all sinners, but we are not all equally bad sinners. Some are deplorable and some are just imperfect and there are a million shades of grey in between. And I don't know where to draw the line, but I can at least make a judgement if you are obviously far, far over that line.
  - chaoskitty 2y ago
    I agree. It's often used as a way to dismiss concerns about a party's actions, as though all bad actions are equally bad, which is ridiculous.
  - jgalt212 2y ago
    fair enough, I posit the hosted nazis are very bad, but their actually impact is very small b/c there are so few of them. The hosted bots, on their own, are not very bad, but there are so many of them that their negative impact is very large.

gjsman-1000 2y ago

I don’t have to support 8chan or KiwiFarms to say that Cloudflare has absolutely no role in policing the internet. The job of policing the internet is for the police. If it’s illegal, let them investigate.

asteroidburger 2y ago
There is a difference between policing the internet and supplying resources and services to known bad actors. Their job isn’t to investigate and punish harassment and criminal behavior, but they certainly don’t have to condone it via their support.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  > known bad actors If they are known bad actors, let the police do the job of policing the internet. Otherwise, all bad actors are ultimately arbitrarily defined. Who said they are known bad actors? What does that even mean? Why does that person determining bad actors get their authority? Were they duly elected? Or did one of hundreds of partisan NGOs claim this? Who elected the NGO? Does PETA get a say on bad actors? Be careful what you wish for. In some US States, I am sure the attorney general would send a letter saying to shut down the marijuana dispensary - they're known bad actors, after all. They might not win a lawsuit, but winning the support of private organizations would be just as good. > they certainly don’t have to condone it via their support Wow, what a great argument. Hacker News supports all arguments here by tolerating people speaking and not deleting everything they could possibly disagree with. Or maybe, providing a service to someone, should not be seen as condoning all possible uses of the service. Just because water can be used to waterboard someone, doesn't mean Walmart should be checking IDs for water purchasers. Just because YouTube has information on how to pick locks, does not mean YouTube should be restricted to adults over 21 on a licensed list of people entrusted with lock-picking knowledge.
johnklos 2y ago
Bull. Cloudflare protects these organizations. Cloudflare goes far above and beyond what most other companies do, and I personally can't wait to see Cloudflare held liable for content they host for which they ignore legitimate complaints. Imagine if I were to call your phone every hour, on the hour, and my position was that it's not illegal until someone reports it as a crime and the police or a court contacts me to tell me to not do it. That's Cloudflare. They're assholes, and insisting that they're not responsible for anything, any time, until there's a court order is just them being assholes.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  > Cloudflare goes far above and beyond what most other companies do Is this reflective of Cloudflare, or instead reflective of other companies’ willingness to play judge, jury, and executioner? I like knowing my business on Cloudflare won’t be subject to extrajudicial punishment regardless of the grounds. > They're assholes Being an asshole is your constitutional right.
  - johnklos 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - gjsman-1000 2y ago
      I’m entitled because if someone accuses me of illegal activity, I want it to take place in a court before a judge and jury, with a lawyer present, due process, and equal protection under the law. Screw that, authoritarian.
      - johnklos 2y ago
        You're quite hostile! So if your hosting provider accuses you of an illegal activity, you want your hosting provider to have to take you to court. That makes perfect sense. Your idea isn't bad, but execution is. If we had to go to court for literally every little tiny thing, society would fall apart. If a neighbor is blasting their stereo at 1am, we'd file a petition in court, because we can no longer go over and simply ask them, because literally everything is anonymous. See, it's the lack of basic comprehension that I don't respect about you. You want to be anonymous AND you want protection that requires court orders to do anything. If we had that, to that extreme, then anyone could make anyone else' life hell. Someone could start harassing you, and the methods and means they use to harass you would be 100% protected, and you could never get them to stop unless / until you go to court to sue them, or you convince a district attorney to bring charges. That's untenable, yet you'll happily overlook that because you either don't understand this, or you choose to ignore this as a possibility even though we see evidence of people constantly trying to do these same things. There's a reason that literally every illegal activity in the world doesn't lead to a trial. You're just pretending that reason doesn't exist.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jgalt212 2y ago

Has AWS improved their stance around hosting resource draining robots.txt defying scrapers and spiders? Every large company does business with many people / orgs I don't like. I'm not defending or attacking AWS or CF, but merely stating the deeper you dig the more objectionable stuff you'll find everywhere. There are shades of gray of course, but at the end of the day we're all sinners.

jjeaff 2y ago
I don't have a judgement in this particular case. But I really hate the nobody is perfect argument, especially considering the current political climate. We are all sinners, but we are not all equally bad sinners. Some are deplorable and some are just imperfect and there are a million shades of grey in between. And I don't know where to draw the line, but I can at least make a judgement if you are obviously far, far over that line.
- chaoskitty 2y ago
  I agree. It's often used as a way to dismiss concerns about a party's actions, as though all bad actions are equally bad, which is ridiculous.
- jgalt212 2y ago
  fair enough, I posit the hosted nazis are very bad, but their actually impact is very small b/c there are so few of them. The hosted bots, on their own, are not very bad, but there are so many of them that their negative impact is very large.