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Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

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Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#141

Post by dragonwriter »

doubleshame wrote: post #131
matt4077 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" It's not, actually. Fire is much better, and even alcohol is preferable. That's why there's very little open-air surgery. > It is not wise to pretend that an opinion that you do not want just simply does not exist. Reality doesn't support this idea. Every single country except the US has more stringent limits on what's acceptable speech. Yet among democratic countries, only the U…

Sure, fire is good when you're dealing with them roaches, but kill them as you will, does nothing for the ideas, which sunlight is good for. Yes, the US actually does have excellent lines on what's acceptable speech. In my not-professional judgement, it's speech that is the proximate cause of violence and incites it, and the daily stormer is outside of that. If you're talking about the US, you'd let the courts decide…

> If you're talking about the US, you'd let the courts decide, and not corporations.

In the US, you let corporations decide how to exercise their right of free expression just as much as anyone else.

Freedom of speech means you are permitted to seek collaborators to help you spread your speech, not that others are obligated to disregard their own views to help promote yours. That kind of entitlement would violate the free speech rights of the forced collaborators.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#143

Post by laumars »

jdavis703 wrote: post #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?

I don't think that's fair because defamation of character could be applied here. What would you prefer they do, sue the Daily Stormer while continuing to distribute their content? Cutting off their services seems a far more rational approach.

At the end of the day Cloudflare are just exercising their own freedoms to accept the business they choose to. The Daily Stormer will (if they haven't already) just switch to another provider so it's not like they're being censored (well, not in any effective way) and everyone is now clear where Cloudflare's position is with regards to The Daily Stormer while very little time was wasted with expensive lawyers. On balance I think this seems a pretty fair outcome for all parties involved.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#144

Post by thaumaturgy »

tedunangst wrote: post #50
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?

Do they enable any? I don't recall hearing about that.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#145

Post by int_19h »

luke3butler wrote: post #21
sulam wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's overstating the case. There are plenty of ways for that content to get on the internet that don't involve CloudFlare.

Booting them off cloudflare caused downtime at best.

The site of the nature and reputation such as Daily Stormer will remain offline in perpetuity without DDoS protection. It wouldn't even take botnets - you could easily sign up enough volunteers to run the client.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#146

Post by klodolph »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #26

I get the whole "companies can choose not to host whatever they want" argument, but in order to do anything on the internet, you have to interact with companies. If I want to run my own website, I need an IP address at the minimum, and ISPs are free to cut off my internet service if they don't like what I'm hosting. In a public setting, if people don't like what I'm saying, they can't force me to be quiet (generally)…

This is an argument over which companies should be designated as "common carriers". If ISPs are common carriers, they can't shut you off just because they don't like what you're hosting. The argument I hear is often that ISPs should be classified as common carriers. The difference between an ISP and a search engine is material. The search engine is, by its very nature, interpreting and ranking content. The ISP is what gets you online so you can use search engines or host pages.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#147

Post by dragonwriter »

jquery wrote: post #24
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.

You're confusing free speech with the first amendment. Free speech is a cultural value says that controversial speech shouldn't be censored, rather it should be debated, condemned, or ignored. The first amendment guarantees the government will uphold this value. You are perfectly correct that private companies can throw the value of free speech in the dumpster if the CEO wakes up in a bad mood.

> Free speech is a cultural value says that controversial speech shouldn't be censored

No, free speech (and the related freedoms of press, religion, and association) is a cultural value that says every member of society should be free to choose which ideas they will promote and which people they will associate with, applying their own values.

That absolutely includes choosing which ideas from other people they will participate in spreading, which, yes, is censorship (but not public censorship), but remains absolutely central to the ideal of free speech.

Freedom of speech is not entitlement to have others cooperate in spreading your speech.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#148

Post by rpearl »

doubleshame wrote: post #19

It is very important to distinguish something like Facebook blocking an account / Medium taking down a blog from a domain registrar refusing to cooperate. You are free to create a room where only some ideologies are allowed, but it's dangerous to play the same game with the ability to create the rooms . First the domain registrars, then networks say that they don't want to peer, and then we end up with a fragmented i…

> "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" > "Isolation only promotes extremism"

Is it? Several wars have been fought over this particular ideology. Massive amounts of resources were expended with the sole goal of stamping it out. The goal then was to eradicate it, because this sort of ideology is the stuff that eats civilizations. We don't have an obligation to amplify it. There is no reasoning with it.

In the hypothetical there's a potential censorship issue which we can address when we get to it. But where's the line? The site called for and celebrated murder and terrorism. On a daily basis they spew actual neo-nazi propaganda. Why, exactly, should we let that be echoed unchecked? We're not even talking about a public entity/government stifling the nazi speech, but rather we're asking whether we should without thinking allowing them to use someone else's private resources to spread their message.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#149

Post by wumpus »

c3534l wrote: post #91
colejohnson66 wrote: post #26

I get the whole "companies can choose not to host whatever they want" argument, but in order to do anything on the internet, you have to interact with companies. If I want to run my own website, I need an IP address at the minimum, and ISPs are free to cut off my internet service if they don't like what I'm hosting. In a public setting, if people don't like what I'm saying, they can't force me to be quiet (generally)…

› if Google doesn't like a website, it can derank it If Google actually does that, they're asking for an anti-trust suit.

Google does this all the time, has been sued a few times, and has yet to lose.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#150

Post by int_19h »

doubleshame wrote: post #132
thinkfurther wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sunlight in this case would be doing for Nazis what they themselves won't do because they're unable -- recognize them for who they are and act accordingly. > In the echo chamber of extremism, there is now no moderating thought This is not how any of this works.

We are NOT fighting the people here, we're fighting the ideas. I don't think we should ever forget this.

We're absolutely fighting people. There was a man behind the wheel of that car, you know - it wasn't an abstract idea that drove it into the crowd.
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