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Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

blog.cloudflare.com

201–210 of 1001 posts

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#201
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.

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

I see you're not a big fan of net neutrality.

This is also the same line of reasoning that has been applied to deny service to gay couples and people of color. You can't discriminate based on ideological or social factors, however ludicrous someone's position may be.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#203
This is well done statement. He is acknowledging that he himself has no idea what the right way to go about it is and at the same time running his company the way he believes it should be run.

As much as I don't like cloudflare because it does create security issues (you are afterall proxying traffic through them) I have to respect the CEO's position on this. And it isn't easy.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#204
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nazi's aren't a protected class. I don't have to sell you server space. But I also don't have the right to knock down your own server, should you set one up on the public internet.

So what if no ISP wants to give them inet?

Sounds like a nice libertarian free-market solution.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#205

A sensible business decision by Cloudflare, and a fine moral stand to take. There is nothing positive to be gained by servicing such neo-Nazi websites, and Cloudflare is under no obligation to keep them as customers. Similarly, the Daily Stormer is free to take their custom to a provider who turns a blind eye to or supports their toxic ideology.

Yet they don't block ISIS.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, absolutely not.

The site could, in theory, sue Cloudflare for failing to provide the services they paid for. That is, they could do so if they paid anything for the services they received (they didn't). And it's only if Cloudflare didn't have a "we reserve the right to discontinue services at any time for any reason at our sole discretion" clause in their ToS (they do).

Of course they can sue. Anybody can sue anybody else for whatever fancy they have. But that's not the same as winning that suit.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#207
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

Wow! What's up is down and down is up. I assume you are vehemently on the side those wedding cake bakers who refused to make a gay wedding cake, then? Once a private communications provider becomes recognized as communications infrastructure, they lose the right to police content that goes through their infrastructure. For example, my ISP, even though it participates in "spreading" my ideas, has no say in the matter.…

> What's up is down and down is up. I assume you are vehemently on the side those wedding cake bakers who refused to make a gay wedding cake, then?

The issue of limited discrimination protections on specified axes for public accommodations is a thorny one especially when it comes to expressive acts; there's plenty of room for debate on what axes should be protected, but a general non-discrimination rule for political ideology has never been seriously suggested, and would arguably run afoul of the first amendment.

> If you can argue that some random wedding cake bakers are part of "critical wedding baking infrastructure and must therefore be compelled to make a gay cake,"

That's not the legal basis; a specific protection from sexual orientation discrimination in public accommodations (in state law in the state in question) is.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#208
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This response always strikes me as a huge cop-out. The phrase "free speech" can refer not just to the legal first amendment right but also to the more general societal principle. Nobody has claimed or will claim that Cloudflare's actions here violate the first amendment. The "free speech" discussion is not about whether they can do this, but whether they should .

It's sort of disconcerting to admit this but recent events have me reevaluating the utility of unvarnished free speech as a societal value. Taken to it's extremity, it's given us corporate personhood via Citizens United, and the codification of the principle that you (private or corporate personage) are entitled to speak freely at whatever volume you can afford to, including explicitly politicized speech. But more ab…

What you and a lot of us are experiencing right now is what Karl Popper called "The Paradox of Tolerance".

Total free speech as an ideal (not as a legal framework) creates a paradox where it implores people to tolerate the speech of groups that actively intend to destroy free speech (both legally and ideally), such as fascist groups.

There's a decent video explanation here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH_JRcatCTk

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#210

There is some monkey-business here. Anyone knows why a PR company hired "protesters" to the event in the first place? (and why HN tries to hide this link when posted as submission?) https://charlotte.craigslist.org/tfr/d/actors-and-photograph...

Did something happen in Charlotte I didn't hear about?
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