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Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

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Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#91
post #79

some good takes in this response but complementing jd and elon was absolutely not necessary

One must be thankful to him for removing the illusion that Cloudflare is some benevolent, neutral US company fighting for a more secure internet.

My risk acceptance is not big enough to have all Cloudflare-secured websites in my country to go offline just because someone from my country has a Twitter fight with a member of the US administration or with the Cloudflare leadership.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#92

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…

> So, I'm not sure anybody verified that what the right holders claimed was actually true.

Yup, this will be weaponized by the MPAA/RIAA

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#93
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." I think this clearly shows the hubris of Cloudflare CEO. Cloudflare is simply not important enough in Europe, and he unnecessarily provided a scapegoat "evil US tech company" for European media and politicians to slaughter. In terms of corporate politics it's not clever for him to attach his name to this…

Cloudflare should just block Italy altogether.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#94
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

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Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#95
post #78
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. To private entities (news outlets) who, according to this law, get to decide what websites to ban without a court order or any due process

The exact same thing is implemented in Germany already (DNS-level block), and I did not see Cloudflare CEO rage posting on Twitter about it.

Has Germany tried to fine Cloudflare over it?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#96
post #85
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the German filters only apply to ISPs in Germany, they have no effect on users in foreign countries. Moreover, Cloudflare is obviously not an ISP.

Do you think the Italian bureaucrats really want to ban something in France or Germany? The Cloudflare CEO is clearly misinterpreting something that was lost in translation, which is the bureaucrats stating "Cloudflare must prevent access to XY from everywhere". For bureaucrats "everywhere" means "in my jurisdiction". I cannot believe that the Cloudflare CEO is trying to nitpick around a single word that he so clearl…

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Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#97
post #74
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If the German filters only apply to ISPs in Germany, they have no effect on users in foreign countries. Moreover, Cloudflare is obviously not an ISP.

the filters the Italian authorities complain about also only apply in italy.

It's likely a process thing, Italy has had website bans since forever, but the new regulation applies _without going through a judge_. Some copyright holders can say "this website is infringing" and ISPs, CDNs etc.. are required to shut them down immediately.

A similar system was introduced in Spain, with the same problems, for the same reason (football $$$).

EDIT: to be clear, CF argues that they need to block the DNS globally, and that's unreasonable. The Italian authority argues that they have the skills to do a local block and are just being uncooperative.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#98
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…

It might not be a conspiracy theory. Europeans have serious media skeletons in there closet. Consider La Liga in Spain. When football matches are on they have a blank check to block whatever they want wherever they want. Genuinely they take down all of cloudflare and all kinds of shit. I think they were even DNS banning everyone on .tv TLD. Its wild how much legal power they have. This was brought up on hacker news o…

Don't forget Robert Maxwell...

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#99

The interesting part is that neither the AGCOM nor Cloudflare quite understand how each other really work. Also they both believe they got more leeway than they truly have. AGCOM is an institutional apparatus, they operate separately, but not independently, from whatever leftwing or rightwing government in charge for the most part (past Berlusconian interests aside) and everything they do is entirely subject to not g…

Well put. Several nuances are most likely lost in translation. Nevertheless the Cloudflare CEO took it as an opportunity to out himself as a buffoon and harming Cloudflare's international reputation.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#100

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…

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