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Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

blog.cloudflare.com

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Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#2
> Our terms of service reserve the right for us to terminate users of our network at our sole discretion. The tipping point for us making this decision was that the team behind Daily Stormer made the claim that we were secretly supporters of their ideology.

So CloudFlare draws the line of freedom of speech when they feel attacked by words, but it's OK if the content they defend is used to attack and slander others?

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#3
This section is troubling.

> In a not-so-distant future, if we're not there already, it may be that if you're going to put content on the Internet you'll need to use a company with a giant network like Cloudflare, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, or Alibaba.

For context, Cloudflare currently handles around 10% of Internet requests.

Without a clear framework as a guide for content regulation, a small number of companies will largely determine what can and cannot be online.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#4
>“This was my decision. This is not Cloudflare’s general policy now, going forward,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince told Gizmodo. “I think we have to have a conversation over what part of the infrastructure stack is right to police content.”

(from internal email)

>Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision. It was different than what I’d talked talked with our senior team about yesterday. I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. I called our legal team and told them what we were going to do. I called our Trust & Safety team and had them stop the service. It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company.

http://gizmodo.com/cloudflare-ceo-on-terminating-service-to-...

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#5
Interesting read. The consequences of this will be important.

I always thought the balkanization of the internet would occur because of world governments not because of tech leaders personal feelings or corporate influence.

I expect tech leaders to be dragged in front of the senate real soon.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#7

This section is troubling. > In a not-so-distant future, if we're not there already, it may be that if you're going to put content on the Internet you'll need to use a company with a giant network like Cloudflare, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, or Alibaba. For context, Cloudflare currently handles around 10% of Internet requests. Without a clear framework as a guide for content regulation, a small number of com…

And yet, everyone trying to work against this gets immediately downvoted on HN, because everyone considers the work of these companies just so convenient.

It’s classical short-term vs. long-term thinking, and it’s damaging not just to privacy, but also to the startup economy as a whole.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#10
Free speech does not mean a company has to take part in spreading it :).

Free speech is about your right to speak without the government locking you up, or censoring those who choose to broadcast/spread it. But nothing about free speech says someone else has to listen or spread it for you, companies included.

The line is drawn at calling for violence though, which is pretty fucking tricky to navigate.

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