Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines • Hacker News Board

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#61

Post by ben_w » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

Almondsetat wrote: post #38

alpb wrote: post #16

censor from the Internet any sites a shadowy cabal of European media elites deemed against their interests Has he recently gone full conspiracy theorist? (Also what's that cringy chatgpt picture supposed to tell us?) Who is the shadowy cabal of EU elites? If anything EU is purely politicians obedient to USA interests. I'm guessing this is what happens in tech when the tide starts to shift, because tech doesn't have m…

He contradicts himself in the span of a single sentence. How is it possible that this was done solely by Italy (with concerns from the rest of the EU) and yet this is the work of a cabal of European media elites? If this were true, why isn't the entire EU involved?

That's not really a self-contradiction; if we pretend the USA's copyright lobby had made California pass a similar law… well, that might not work, I have no idea if that would be unconstitutional inter-state trade restriction or something in the USA, but for the sake of showing why it's not a self-contradiction can we pretend?

If the US media elites had convinced California to do that, they'd be a "shadowy cabal of [US] media elites", even if there was opposition from the rest of the USA.

Again, don't read too much into if this would actually work in the USA, the EU is not the USA, this isn't that kind of comment.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#62

Post by ben_w » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

testdelacc1 wrote: post #39

thrance wrote: post #7

> I appreciate @JDVance taking a leadership role in recognizing this type of regulation is a fundamental unfair trade issue that also threatens democratic values. And in this case @ElonMusk is right: #FreeSpeech is critical and under attack from an out-of-touch cabal of very disturbed European policy makers. Pretending to take a principled stand against censorship but then randomly throwing flowers to two of the bigg…

He knows the only way he wins this is if the current US Administration goes to bat for him.

At this point, I'm wondering to what extent all this batting is driving the EU calls for digital sovereignty, and to what extent those calls will be turned into actions.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#63

Post by bflesch » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

alanfranz wrote: post #49

Italian here. If somebody wants to read the full document about the fine (in italian) it's here: https://www.agcom.it/sites/default/files/provvedimenti/delib... Part of this doc states: ``` The rights holders also declared, under their own responsibility, providing certified documentary evidence of the current nature of the unlawful conduct, that the reported domain names and IP addresses were unequivocally intended…

I also wonder why he felt emboldened to escalate like this. Maybe he thinks Italy is so small it can be slapped around by a rage post on Twitter?

There's a DNS blocklist from media industry applied by German ISPs and I assume Cloudflare was also asked to block these websites, so why didn't I read a story about Cloudflare making a big stir about the German DNS blocking?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#64

Post by ben_w » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

Covzire wrote: post #33

adrr wrote: post #4

Elon Musk the bastion of free speech who famously banned a twitter account that posted publicly available information.

Besides attempting to get him murdered by a crazy person seeing a chance to be famous, what possible reason does someone have to constantly broadcast the location of his transportation? What difference does knowing where it or he is make in the daily lives of anyone? What long term planning does the information give to people?

In the case of private plane info, to highlight hypocrisy regarding the eco-friendly identity he was at that time seemingly trying to curate.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#65

Post by simianparrot » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

Foxboron wrote: post #47

So blocking Kiwifarms took.. months of activism and loud complaining. Heraled by Matthew as "this is an extraordinary decision for us to make and, given Cloudflare's role as an Internet infrastructure provider, a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with". However a fine that amounts to ~0.7% of the annual revenue and they threaten to block an entire country?

How do you not understand the difference..?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#66

Post by bflesch » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 5:49 PM UTC

t8sr wrote: post #51

elAhmo wrote: post #40

[flagged]

I read the tweet twice and I don’t see any mention of free speech. What he’s describing, when you look past the rhetoric, sounds ridiculous: a single medium sized country is demanding power to institute global blocks of content on the internet? If that’s an accurate description, that’s deeply concerning for the long term viability of the internet.

I cannot believe this is the first time that Cloudflare has been confronted by a local government which asked to perform "global" filtering of content. It is clear for anyone who has worked with bureaucrats that their "global" means "within our jurisdiction". It is extremely weird that he feels emboldened to publicly lash out like this and pull in people who are extremely unpopular in Europe.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#67

Post by miltonlost » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 5:49 PM UTC

t8sr wrote: post #51

elAhmo wrote: post #40

[flagged]

I read the tweet twice and I don’t see any mention of free speech. What he’s describing, when you look past the rhetoric, sounds ridiculous: a single medium sized country is demanding power to institute global blocks of content on the internet? If that’s an accurate description, that’s deeply concerning for the long term viability of the internet.

Read the tweet a 3rd time. Free Speech is mentioned in Paragraph 4 when he's thanking Vance and Musk. It's highlighted in Blue. It's a Hashtag.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#68

Post by simianparrot » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

iamnothere wrote: post #48

bflesch wrote: post #11

Not a good look on that guy to list his "pro-bono" services and threaten to pull them while asking JD Vance for his help. How is he expecting the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics to influence some representative of media right holders who have fined Cloudflare? Is he assuming that just because all of the listed things are Italian they can just make the fine go away?

This is taking place in a larger geopolitical context. He is applying whatever pressure that Cloudflare can apply on its own (not much), and he mentions Vance as a way to call for US administration help at a time when the US is entering an open economic conflict with Europe. Tech and speech regulation is a central feature of that conflict. IMHO this is a time when there are no good players. I support CF’s fight to ke…

The good players are the US on this front. I say this as a European. Europe at large is in a dark place in terms of freedom of speech, the press, and other issues like immigration. And the US might eventually have to be the ones to apply force to hold our leaders accountable, ironic as that is given history.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#69

Post by bflesch » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 5:51 PM UTC

anticristi wrote: post #28

This is great news! Who would have expected Cloudflare to truly contribute to EU digital sovereignty. On a more serious note, I'm surprised Cloudflare wants to pull out of Italy. Being a company which terminates TLS connections for Italy must be a gold mine for the NSA.

Yes, it is good for Europe that US tech leadership comes out in the open and share their twitter ramblings, so nobody can deny that their interests are not aligned with us.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#70

Post by renewiltord » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 5:51 PM UTC

Foxboron wrote: post #47

So blocking Kiwifarms took.. months of activism and loud complaining. Heraled by Matthew as "this is an extraordinary decision for us to make and, given Cloudflare's role as an Internet infrastructure provider, a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with". However a fine that amounts to ~0.7% of the annual revenue and they threaten to block an entire country?

Yeah that makes sense to me. If you come up to me and say “you have to arrest that guy; he’s stealing from me” I have to do a lot of research to make sure that everything is correct.

On the other hand, if I see you steal from me, I don’t have to do a lot of research. I am a first party to the thing. I can be sure.

It’s the difference between a policeman arriving on the scene of an assault and someone actually assaulting the policeman.

The acting party being the affected party simplifies things because you know you’re not a “confused deputy”.