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

411–420 of 1001 posts

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#411

Post by lern_too_spel »

genon wrote: post #324

Absolutely correct. He is also effectively saying that since he can and will remove sites he personally doesn't like, that he personally approves of every other site using Cloudflare. The excuse he uses for terminating TDS is an absolute crock; if TDS genuinely did falsely and sincerely claim that Cloudflare supports them, then Prince could and should have simply asked them to remove that claim. It's an outrage that…

False equivalence. Gay people don't choose to be gay, and gay people aren't harming others. A business can refuse to serve skateboarders, shirtless people, and other people who are being a nuisance; and it can certainly refuse to serve people who bring violence wherever they go.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#412

Post by Spivak »

vaishaksuresh wrote: post #394
genon wrote: post #324

Absolutely correct. He is also effectively saying that since he can and will remove sites he personally doesn't like, that he personally approves of every other site using Cloudflare. The excuse he uses for terminating TDS is an absolute crock; if TDS genuinely did falsely and sincerely claim that Cloudflare supports them, then Prince could and should have simply asked them to remove that claim. It's an outrage that…

>Don't wanna sell cakes to gay people or host pro-Nazi sites? Don't start a business serving the public then. I get what you’re saying and agree with you, but please don’t compare gay people and neo-nazi. They’re not same or even similar.

Right, the distinction is that neo-Nazi's are bad -- hateful, intolerant, divisive, problematic or however you want to put it. I'm uncomfortable saying that it's okay to do these things to the bad guys, even when it's obvious, because in an alternate universe it might be obvious that gays marrying is hateful toward Christians and intolerant of their sacred rituals.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#413

Post by zorpner »

imron wrote: post #298
baldfat wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would want them to do this to ISIS and other terrorists.

And ISIS would want them to do it to the US government and a bunch of other sites. Today you're in luck because the guys with this power are on your side. What happens when they're not?

When ISIS or Nazis are in power, you will not have the right to free speech without being subjected to state violence, regardless of how you kowtow to them now.

The paradox of tolerance applies directly to free speech.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#415

Post by myrandomcomment »

They are a business and they have the right to do this. 100% However they can no longer say they are "content-neutral". Also because they have taken an active step to censor they face the fact that in the future they could be sued for NOT censoring other content as there is now precedent created by this action. If you never censor then you have a clam of safe harbor. Emotionally the CEO is correct. From business point of view this decision opens them up to risk. Long term this was likely unwise.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#416

Post by eyelidlessness »

taneq wrote: post #403
vaishaksuresh wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Don't wanna sell cakes to gay people or host pro-Nazi sites? Don't start a business serving the public then. I get what you’re saying and agree with you, but please don’t compare gay people and neo-nazi. They’re not same or even similar.

That was kind of the point. Non-discrimination, like free speech, is worthless if it only applies to things you approve of.

Nazis are not a protected class.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#417

Post by _euac »

davidreiss wrote: post #383
jacquesm wrote: post #223

I'm not a fan of cloudflare, I think the net would be better without them. That said I think this was the right call to make. Being the CEO of a company carries with it the weight of having the ultimate responsibility for each and every action of the company and to be an unwilling vehicle for the Neo Nazi movement is something that no company should want to aspire to. Where I have a problem is that ostensibly this di…

> and to be an unwilling vehicle for the Neo Nazi movement is something that no company should want to aspire to. Does that also apply to pornography? What about atheism? What about lgbt content? The concerted effort by the pro-censorship crowd to exploit nazis to promote censorship is rather worrying.

> The concerted effort by the pro-censorship crowd to exploit nazis to promote censorship is rather worrying.

This, right here, is a straw-man that I've seen repeated countless times. I am not pro-censorship, but I'm sure as hell not for forcing companies to provide services to Nazis and other scum.

There's a huge, gaping difference between those two things and I'd appreciate it if you stopped conflating them.

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#418

Post by chrissnell »

bqe wrote: post #350

Honest question for people who think this stifles freedom: do you also think taking down ISIS recruitment videos is anti-free speech? Should we not do that either? Online radicalization is real. The challenge of how to deal with that and offer considerable freedom on the Internet will be a challenge for our society.

Yes, both are anti-free speech. It's not that we want people to join these groups, it's that we're rapidly spiraling down the rabbit hole of censorship. IS was using Cloudflare to weaponize beheadings of foreign hostages into propaganda. TDS was, as @octal pointed out on Twitter today [1], a "stupid racist/troll crappostsite". We've lowered the bar significantly here. Of all pathetic things to give into, Cloudflare gave into the outrage over these TDS losers?

[1] https://twitter.com/octal/status/897887095821402112

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#419

Post by imron »

e9 wrote: post #313
imron wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And ISIS would want them to do it to the US government and a bunch of other sites. Today you're in luck because the guys with this power are on your side. What happens when they're not?

That's the point. That's why it's so important to be careful when you screw with free speech on your own without legal means behind it.

Exactly, what happens if the CEO becomes a born-again Christian and decides that LGBT, abortion and bunch of other sites are no longer suitable for hosting on Cloudfare.

"That would never happen" you might say, but history is full of things "that would never happen" happening (plenty of people said the same thing about Trump being elected).

And while I agree a scenario like that would probably never happen, the CEO has set a precedent, and for every similar case people are going to point at this and say "but you did it for those guys, how come not these guys".

Re: Why We Terminated Daily Stormer

#420

Post by jacquesm »

backpropaganda wrote: post #405
ng12 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Sometimes it feels like the internet is a very small place.

I might be too young to understand the significance. Could you tell us why Aurenheimer being weev is interesting?

Weev is a well known troll that seems to have made trolling his life's calling. He's despicable but his crimes are pretty low on the general scale of lawlessness.

To see him involved in yet another controversy stirring the pot isn't all that surprising, it's what he lives for. As far as I'm any judge of this the man is mentally not 100%.

Post reply on HN