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Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

blog.cloudflare.com

711–720 of 1001 posts

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#711

I find the article hopeful for the future of free speech on the internet. Even though the ability to host content on the net is one thing and lacking access to most platforms (where the users actually are) like youtube, facebook, instagram, tiktok is another. The most important thing nowadays is access to the siloed user bases for people who try to express dissident opinions, not the access to the net as whole, even…

There's a growing amount of shareholders and boards that care about more than direct monetary profits.

They also care about providing value / reducing costs in terms of e.g. sustainability.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've decided they want to be seen as a utility. You undermine your DDOS protection business if you drop controversial customers. They are exact type of customer who need DDOS protection the most.

> They are exact type of customer who need DDOS protection the most. They (KiwiFarms, Daily Stormer) would be better not on the internet. > They've decided they want to be seen as a utility. This isn't how law works - just as you can't say "we don't have a banking license but we'd like to be seen as a bank and provide banking services" you can't say "we're not a utility but we'd like to be seen as one". Note that bei…

>They (KiwiFarms, Daily Stormer) would be better not on the internet.

That's not for you to decide, you're not the manager of the internet.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#713
> Not because the content of those sites wasn't abhorrent — it was — but because security services most closely resemble Internet utilities.

> Just as the telephone company doesn't terminate your line if you say awful, racist, bigoted things, we have concluded in consultation with politicians, policy makers, and experts that turning off security services because we think what you publish is despicable is the wrong policy. To be clear, just because we did it in a limited set of cases before doesn’t mean we were right when we did. Or that we will ever do it again.

Based. It seems that @eastdakota is following through with his plan: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares-ceo-...

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#714
post #388
post #347

In my experience Cloudflare goes too far with offering their security services to everyone. There is a website that's constantly ripping and stealing artistic content from a community I used to be part of. They have an automated process for ripping and reuploading content not meant to be downloadable from small independent artists in this community without informing the artist, obtaining permission or anything. Outra…

This is not a Cloudflare problem. The copyright holders should follow the procedure in the DMCA to protect their content. If they're not willing to spend the time to do so then what can they expect? No one else is going to do their job for them.

And by time, you really mean money. Because if you send a DMCA notice and the hosting company ignores you, the next step is court. Can they afford to get justice? How much does it cost for an indie artist to take a fairly anonymous website host to court? How do you serve a company that's anonymous thanks to Cloudflare?

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#715
> Is otherwise illegal, harmful, or violates the rights of others, including content that discloses sensitive personal information, incites or exploits violence against people or animals, or seeks to defraud the public.

Talk about a catch all term “… or is otherwise harmful …”

I understand there are examples, but this literally leaves the door open to anything they deem harmful. Free speech means enabling potentially “harmful” content. Really depends who seems something “harmful”. Dead naming on Twitter is considered “hate speech”, does that mean an old website that deadnames can be harmful?

Imo just stay out of the regulation business unless someone MAKES you. Otherwise it’s a slippery slope.

Which it appears they realized, after being rather aggressive in their “canceling” of others:

> Just as the telephone company doesn't terminate your line if you say awful, racist, bigoted things, we have concluded in consultation with politicians, policy makers, and experts that turning off security services because we think what you publish is despicable is the wrong policy. To be clear, just because we did it in a limited set of cases before doesn’t mean we were right when we did. Or that we will ever do it again.

My bet is they also opened the door to companies from Russia who would allow said free speech. From a business case, when I saw cloud flare drop customers I recommended everyone I know to move to someone else (at least one large company I know of moved due to this incident). Why risk your business with someone who arbitrarily changes policies and terms?

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#716
post #79

It's rather disappointing that Cloudflare's policy is to not host content that is "illegal, harmful, or violates the rights of others, including content that discloses sensitive personal information, incites or exploits violence against people or animals, or seeks to defraud the public", but they do not apply that same policy to content that they provide DDoS mitigation services for. I don't see why their policies sh…

The policies differ chiefly because of massive difference in revenue

More realistically the policies probably differ because they are different technologies and different use cases with different legal requirements.

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#718

> Not because the content of those sites wasn't abhorrent — it was — but because security services most closely resemble Internet utilities. > Just as the telephone company doesn't terminate your line if you say awful, racist, bigoted things, we have concluded in consultation with politicians, policy makers, and experts that turning off security services because we think what you publish is despicable is the wrong po…

[deleted]

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. So de-platforming Nazis is terrorism now?

If you deplatform a Nazi by murdering them, is it still murder?

Are you implying that if cloudflare kicked a nazi off their services, that would murder them?

Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach

#720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire 'freedom of speech' absolutism bullshit is so incoherent. They host and protect a website only dedicated to muzzling people the userbase disagrees with...

Ding ding ding. There is never sanity in splitting (black and white thinking) and it's characteristic of mental disorder in individuals.

Everything is characteristic of mental disorder when you are out of arguments in an online discussion.
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