Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

blog.cloudflare.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 1001 posts

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#41

Post by pcl »

joelrunyon wrote: post #25
bwb wrote: post #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.

Seems like this is debateable at least - considering the ACLU is filing a lawsuit against DC's transit situation for not placing Milo's ads they agreed to post - http://nypost.com/2017/08/10/milo-yiannopoulos-gains-aclu-su... What counts as "spreading"? Do cell phone companies kick off customers with views they disagree with? Where is the line?

That suit is filed against a government agency. Free speech protections in the US constitution are focused on preventing the government from stifling speech. These protections do not apply to private citizens or corporations.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#42

Post by NetStrikeForce »

jlgaddis wrote: post #11

This is a slippery slope, Cloudflare. Once you take it upon yourself to begin moderating and regulating content, you are now -- in my opinion -- obligated to do so consistently. Do you really want that responsibility? My opinion may be unpopular, however. I'm one of those folks that believe that everyone, equally, deserves to be able to express their thoughts, beliefs, and beliefs regardless of whether I agree with t…

Would you hang a sign with a writing of my choice out of your window?

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#43

Post by joelrunyon »

luke3butler wrote: post #6

"Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power." I've been jumping back and forth over the fence on this topic, but this stance is where I've ended up.

I'm struggling to connect these two phrases:

"No one should have that power"

"I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn't be allowed on the Internet"

Seems like a very tricky precedent to set that you can just not allow someone on the internet.

The natural question from this is: how long until this type of power is used against views you support?

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#44

Post by dragonwriter »

aphextron wrote: post #30
bwb wrote: post #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.

(Playing devil's advocate here) But perhaps the web has reached a point where we have to consider it as a public service. And as such should be subject to free speech laws. There is precedent for this with the "equal time rule" for broadcast networks regulated by the FCC which guarantees air time to opposing political candidates during an election. I could easily see an argument to be made for forcing service provide…

> But perhaps the web has reached a point where we have to consider it as a public setvice.

To the extent that some web-related service is essential to effective communication via the web and provided by a monopoly or oligopoly , whether global or within some clear boundaries, that seems to make sense. ISPs certainly fit that. Domain registrars don't. Web hosts don't. CDN’s probably don't.

Any of these could change with evolving market conditions.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#45

Post by toomuchtodo »

RandVal30142 wrote: post #37
toomuchtodo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If eastdakota said it, it's damning, regardless of the later PR scrubbing.

He also said this: >“I realized there was no way we were going to have that conversation with people calling us Nazis,” Prince said. “The Daily Stormer site was bragging on their bulletin boards about how Cloudflare was one of them and that is the opposite of everything we believe. That was the tipping point for me.”

Don't try to market yourself as critical Internet infrastructure if you're going to throw your principals away because someone made you feel icky.

The Pirate Bay and DDOS gangs are okay, but this was the line? The worlds gone sideways.

Edit: I was proud of Cloudflare not turning them off after their domain was deregistered. Now, so disappointed. Freedom of speech is rarely the speech we agree with. Or even speech we find palatable.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#46

Post by joelrunyon »

pcl wrote: post #41
joelrunyon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like this is debateable at least - considering the ACLU is filing a lawsuit against DC's transit situation for not placing Milo's ads they agreed to post - http://nypost.com/2017/08/10/milo-yiannopoulos-gains-aclu-su... What counts as "spreading"? Do cell phone companies kick off customers with views they disagree with? Where is the line?

That suit is filed against a government agency. Free speech protections in the US constitution are focused on preventing the government from stifling speech. These protections do not apply to private citizens or corporations.

Ah - good clarification. Did not know the specific status (if it was actually the agency or a company that provided ads). Thanks.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#47

Post by emsy »

Unless the site was directly breaking the law, I see this move as troubling. It's almost always better not to drive these kind of people to the underground, and I think most HN readers figure why this is. The problem I see is that in the current political climate the general population won't understand that or is unwilling to.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#48

Post by Clubber »

jlgaddis wrote: post #11

This is a slippery slope, Cloudflare. Once you take it upon yourself to begin moderating and regulating content, you are now -- in my opinion -- obligated to do so consistently. Do you really want that responsibility? My opinion may be unpopular, however. I'm one of those folks that believe that everyone, equally, deserves to be able to express their thoughts, beliefs, and beliefs regardless of whether I agree with t…

>I'm one of those folks that believe that everyone, equally, deserves to be able to express their thoughts, beliefs, and beliefs regardless of whether I agree with them.

This was big when I was growing up too. KKK was always used as an example. No one liked what they had to say, but as Americans, we felt we were obligated to protect their ability to say it. You know, principles and all.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#49

Post by matt4077 »

jlgaddis wrote: post #11

This is a slippery slope, Cloudflare. Once you take it upon yourself to begin moderating and regulating content, you are now -- in my opinion -- obligated to do so consistently. Do you really want that responsibility? My opinion may be unpopular, however. I'm one of those folks that believe that everyone, equally, deserves to be able to express their thoughts, beliefs, and beliefs regardless of whether I agree with t…

> My opinion may be unpopular, however. I'm one of those folks that believe that everyone, equally, deserves to be able to express their thoughts, beliefs, and beliefs regardless of whether I agree with them.

Yes, you're one tough maverick for repeating something stated only about 20x in just this thread.

But you're indeed quite brave to pretend not to have seen the 25 answers pointing out that it's also this CEO (and everyone else's) right not to participate in the spreading of hate speech and nazi propaganda.

Also:

"slippery slope" is not an argument, it's a fallacy. Observe: "now, they're only imprisoning the murderers. It's only a matter of time until they'll throw you in jail for walking funny"

> you are now -- in my opinion -- obligated to do so ...

Why? Does eating one apple pie obligate you to eat all the apple pie?

> ... unilaterally

As opposed to bilateral moderation?

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#50

Post by tedunangst »

albertsun wrote: post #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 com…

Bonus question: what is cloudflare's role in either enabling or preventing the ddos attacks that one requires cloudflare to survive?
Post reply on HN