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

Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

blog.cloudflare.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 1001 posts

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#271

Post by Natsu »

robert_foss wrote: post #168
systemvoltage wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, we have a justice system based on what we agreed as a society. The rule of law. If you want to prohibit speech to white supremacists, fine, let’s pass a law and if it doesn’t hold constitutional muster, go ahead convince everyone to amend the constitution. But since our founding fathers made this process difficult on purpose, let’s take a different approach: that’s what social justice is. It is anti-democrati…

I do believe hate speech is illegal already. Certainly online harassment leading to someone committing suicide is. KF is a platform that facilitates these activities.

> I do believe hate speech is illegal already.

Not in the USA, no.

https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-...

> Certainly online harassment leading to someone committing suicide is.

Harassment can be, but here "harassment" means making threats of violence, not just criticizing someone. That falls under "true threats":

https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats

Note that the older "fighting words" doctrine is probably obsolete and even then only applies to face-to-face conversation. For more on that see the prior link to Popehat.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#272

Post by whalecancer »

chc wrote: post #263
mmmpop wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

That was not my definition. Kiwi Farms will post their target's private info, the private info of everyone their target knows, send death threats to their target and their family, report false crimes to try and get SWAT teams to kill their target, etc. Ben Shapiro doesn't seem like a good person and I suspect he is probably sympathetic to many terrorists, but he is not himself a terrorist as far as I know.

No post body was provided.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#273

Post by pessimizer »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #9
namelessoracle wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you actually read their article, it seems they are saying that 8chan WASNT defensible to them and was a mistake for them to do so.

I did read the article. I read it twice. Once prior to commenting, once with someone I showed it to. I think you're misinterpreting my comment. I stated this: "but I don't see how KF is defensible whilst 8chan et al aren't" This meant: I don't understand how they can invoke the removal of 8chan and a neo-Nazi site, yet retain KF.

But if they "invoked" the removal of 8chan to say that they shouldn't have done it, I don't understand the relevance. Since you simply changed defended to "invoked," it seems that you're also aware that they aren't defending removing "8chan et al."

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#274

Post by computerfriend »

jasonshaev wrote: post #80
seneca wrote: post #43

It's interesting watching the responses roll in here. What CF is laying out here was essentially the standard viewpoint of western society until something like 10 years ago. "I disagree with what you say, but I'll protect your right to say it" is a basic tenant of liberalism. If you find that shocking, you should examine why that is.

"Protect your right to say it..." from _the government_. There has never been a reasonable expectation that private businesses are or should be required to allow all speech. Doing so prevents the business from exercising their own first amendment protections.

Nobody is talking about 1A. Freedom of speech is a principle. That there are laws codifying it is incidental.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#275

Post by wyre »

pjc50 wrote: post #262
SrslyJosh wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believed that KF was performing "investigative journalism", you wouldn't be posting this with a throwaway.

If people really believed that doxxing was harmless, they'd be posting under their real names and addresses.

Except using an alias online is a large part of internet culture. There are also a lot of people that do use their real names online.

I’m not telling strangers, in-person or online, my address.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#276

Post by mjr00 »

nightpool wrote: post #223
mjr00 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess what? They do. FTA: > Our decision to disable access to content in hosting products fundamentally results in that content being taken offline, at least until it is republished elsewhere. Hosting products are subject to our Acceptable Hosting Policy. Under that policy, for these products, we may remove or disable access to content that we believe: [...] Is otherwise illegal, harmful, or violates the rights of ot…

The article says that providing CDN and DDOS protection services for KiwiFarms doesn't constitute hosting. The GP commenter clearly disagrees. I'll be honest: it really does seem like a distinction without a difference to me. If Cloudflare stopped doing business with Kiwifarms, it wouldn't be online. Kiwifarms is doing a great deal of harm to the world by being online. At the end of the day, Cloudflare has a moral re…

Thank you, this is a more interesting argument than the people reacting emotionally without reading the article.

Assuming we all agree that KF is reprehensible, the question is where is the line of moral obligation to stop supporting them. In the most reductive case, you could argue that anyone selling food or water to white supremacists is supporting white supremacy. Or that firefighters who put out a fire at a white supremacist's house are supporting white supremacy. But I don't think people generally consider that to be providing support, whereas they would consider, say, hosting a conference and paying white supremacists to speak at it as supporting white supremacists. So where is the exact line where it becomes "support"? It's ambiguous.

Cloudflare is in an unenviable position of being exactly on the line where moral obligation rests, further complicated by providing different products around hosting and DDOS mitigation. IMO, there is a clear distinction between hosting content and providing DDOS mitigation services, as the article suggests. And just as you wouldn't want your electric company unilaterally deciding that you were a white supremacist and cutting your power, I agree with CF's stance that they shouldn't be making extrajudicial decisions about which customers to use their DDOS protection.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#277

Post by f38zf5vdt »

3sGPqEu59EGDFUn wrote: post #234
chc wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The group they're trying to target here is a terrorist group. Not even in a metaphorical sense. It's people who try to harass random transgender people to the point of suicide or murder.

If they are a terrorist group (or otherwise doing something "wrong"), then the appropriate means to deal with that is courts and law enforcement, not a CDN.

IANAL. KF appears to me to be woefully in violation of US Federal law since it is a forum more or less dedicated to cyberstalking.

> The federal law concerning cyberstalking is 18 U.S.C. § 2261A(2). It provides that it’s unlawful for any person to engage in a course of conduct through electronic communication that makes another individual reasonably fear death or serious bodily harm to themselves or another (including a pet or service animal). The behavior may also be illegal if it causes or could cause “substantial emotional distress.” A course of conduct means two or more acts suggesting that the individual has or will continue the behavior.

https://www.duimiamilawyer.com/blog/2020/12/is-there-a-feder...

The decision of investigators to turn a blind eye to it over the past decade is curious.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#278

Post by paulmd »

yanderekko wrote: post #188
robert_foss wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do believe hate speech is illegal already. Certainly online harassment leading to someone committing suicide is. KF is a platform that facilitates these activities.

>Certainly online harassment leading to someone committing suicide is. Documenting people's lives is not harassment.

Which jurisdiction are you speaking about? Do you have legal qualifications to dispense this advice?

The US is rather unique in their absolutist view of free speech and other countries don't work the same way. Generally, for example, this would be a violation of UK law.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#279

Post by ryneandal »

_-david-_ wrote: post #119
driverdan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KF actively pushes people to commit suicide. People have died because of them.

So does Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and every large platform. There is so much harassment, doxing, and other disturbing behavior on all the platforms.

And each of those platforms you've mentioned have explicit rules AGAINST harassment, doxxing, swatting, and other reprehensible behavior KF engages in.

Sure, it may be posted, but lots of it is removed as soon as it is identified and/or reported.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#280

Post by jasonshaev »

computerfriend wrote: post #274
jasonshaev wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Protect your right to say it..." from _the government_. There has never been a reasonable expectation that private businesses are or should be required to allow all speech. Doing so prevents the business from exercising their own first amendment protections.

Nobody is talking about 1A. Freedom of speech is a principle. That there are laws codifying it is incidental.

If I reword my reply to:

"There has never been a reasonable expectation that private businesses are or should be required to allow all speech. Doing so prevents the business from exercising their own freedom of speech protections."

it still holds. Freedom of speech does not mean that a company should be compelled or required to host speech it disagrees with.

Post reply on HN