This is a truly wonderful example of corporate communication that should be taught on university communications courses.
Because it is absolutely the worst example of not even bothering to lie to CYA I have ever read.
Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach
761–770 of 1001 posts
Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach
#762Really disappointed to learn that Cloudflare contributes disproportionately to hate speech and misinformation https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/19292/1906... Seems like KF is not an isolated incident but a trend which has been established for some years now
The thing about KF is that it does violate their regulations:
> including content that discloses sensitive personal information
It must be a case of somebody knowing somebody, or somebody high up being a member of KF.
Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach
#763Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hosting and DDoS protection are different services. Think of them like a landlord (hosting) vs fire department (ddos) situation - one of them can morally refuse their services to people that they think are doing wrong/illegal/immoral things, the other one doesn't. Not that I agree or disagree with this argument - just wanted to point out what their reasoning seems to be.
> Think of them like a landlord (hosting) vs fire department (ddos) situation This is kind of a ridiculous comparison. A real-world landlord is a private individual extracting rent from their tenants while a real-world fire department is a publicly funded institution with a duty to protect everyone. Cloudflare offers both its hosting and DDOS services as a private company. They aren't morally obligated to provide any…
But that's the point! CF sees this aspect of the policy as acting like a public utility.
Is that so wrong? Isn't that better than the alternative? Maybe, if we lived in a world where the government provided CDNs and DDoS mitigation and DNS zone file hosting and resolution and such, then its a reasonable argument to say: We have an entity beholden to Higher Laws which we can hold responsible, and marginalized voices have recourse when they're failed by private infrastructure.
We don't live in that world, and its not on the radar. Sure, private companies aren't beholden to Free Speech laws. But maybe its better that some opt-in to a standard higher than "if Jassy hasn't had his coffee this morning we better have an extra on-call SRE". Or, more commonly: when deplatforming decisions are made either by a blackbox AI written by engineers who left 2 years ago, or Twitter outrage.
Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach
#764Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to be treating all political conflict as terrorism. Couldn't you say the same about people who organize on Kiwifarms and flood social media with specious allegations of bad character or nefarious actions? For that matter, the site has been heavily associated with doxxing and swatting.
No, as I've posted below. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberterrorism#Defining_cybert...
The Technolytics Institute defines cyberterrorism as
The premeditated use of disruptive activities, or the threat thereof, against computers and/or networks, with the intention to cause harm or further social, ideological, religious, political or similar objectives. Or to intimidate any person in furtherance of such objectives.
The National Conference of State Legislatures, an organization of legislators created to help policymakers in the United States with issues such as economy and homeland security defines cyberterrorism as:
The use of information technology by terrorist groups and individuals to further their agenda. This can include use of information technology to organize and execute attacks against networks, computer systems and telecommunications infrastructures, or for exchanging information or making threats electronically.
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Just taking the first two, they could easily be extended to Kiwifarms, where information on individuals is compiled and shared in public fashion and discourse revolves around how such people deserve to be harrassed. I haven't been following the Keffals episode in particular but Kiwifarms already had a reputation for facilitating and fostering personal harassment.
Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach
#765Earlier quoted context omitted.
To use the analogy in the blog post: renting out a building to drug dealers is different from having firefighters save the drug dealers from a fire.
That analogy is obviously manipulative. A DDoS is not going to kill anyone unlike a fire (or swatting evidently).
Kiwi Farms recently DDoSed a suicide prevention hotline.
So you are factually wrong.
Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach
#766I don’t understand why CF insists on protecting platforms that obviously spew hate. Not being their ddos load balancer doesn’t mean they’re gone from the internet (how pompous would one have to be to think that… maybe CF is…) but it just gives them an opportunity to find ddos protection from somewhere else and washes the hands of CF of being handmaids to hate and terror and all that is shit in this world. They took a stand on free speech absolutism when they shouldn’t have.
Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach
#767It'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…
Hosting and DDoS protection are different services. Think of them like a landlord (hosting) vs fire department (ddos) situation - one of them can morally refuse their services to people that they think are doing wrong/illegal/immoral things, the other one doesn't. Not that I agree or disagree with this argument - just wanted to point out what their reasoning seems to be.
They are both caching, which is hosting. We'll leave out that DDoS protection is a PII nightmare, and that CloudFlare is essentially spyware. For now.
Their reasoning is the best that they could come up with under pressure. Which is to say - lol.
Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach
#768Earlier quoted context omitted.
Call the cops, file restraining orders, and get a good therapist. Assholes and trolls are still going to exist regardless of what any platform does. You can’t have what you want by trying to pressure cloudflare, it won’t make a positive difference. Do something real instead of advocating for something toothless and symbolic.
How exactly do you file a restraining order against an unknown group of unnamed people? It seems like a very privileged victim-blaming POV.
No post body was provided.
Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach
#769I may be missing a trick here, but what - exactly - gives Cloudflare - a company that provides web services - the moral authority to flatly claim:
"that is a dangerous precedent, and one that is over the long term most likely to disproportionately harm vulnerable and marginalized communities."
... and use that as a defense for inaction?
It's like saying "Oh, well I can't give the poor money, they might spend it on drugs."
Since they claim that their own moral compass aligns with those asking them to fire a customer, what precedent - exactly - would be set? Are they relying upon the notion that the moral tides might sway, and that the vulnerable and marginalized communities might become those under fire next? Why- given their moral standing- would they be complicit?
This doesn't add up. It feels like they're only paying lip service to a corporate moral stance that lacks any real substance (if it exists at all), and requires that they do nothing in public that might upset their customers/shareholders. It's rote, corporate apolitical cowardice. Morals sacrificed upon the alter of profit.
In conclusion it seems to me that claiming to know better than the marginalized and vulnerable people clamoring for action is a really deeply condescending take. Coupled with the narcissism dripping from the fire service analogy this all serves to do them rather less justice than just... saying nothing, or sticking with "free speech absolutism".
And... that's quite a feat, for something that only really intended to say "Sowwy, taking too visible a political stance is bad for business but we pinky pwomise we're tooootally on your side."
Re: Cloudflare's abuse policies and approach
#770It'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 public library may not want to curate Neo-Nazi books, but the police should not refuse to protect a Neo-Nazi from murder.
Now do the scenario where the police help the Neo-Nazis commit the murders, but will not protect the library.
Because that's CloudFlare.