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

Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 1001 posts

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#271

Post by badsectoracula »

spicyjpeg wrote: post #218
easyThrowaway wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to point out that AGCOM once decided to put out an "Economically Relevant Instagram Influencers Register". They're not really... let's say, 'on the ball' for understanding how the internet works. It's a bit of a running joke in Italy that their decisions are often anachronistic or completely misunderstanding of the actual technology behind the scenes. And for the most part they just deliberate, they have…

If we truly want to point out the ridiculousness of Italian tech regulations, the influencers' registry, the temporary ChatGPT ban from a few years back or even the new AI regulations cannot hold a candle to the 22-year-old war on... arcade games . A poorly written regulation from 2003 basically lumped together all gaming machines in a public setting with gambling, resulting in extremely onerous source code and serve…

I guess they were inspired by a very similar law in Greece from 2002[0] where in an attempt to outlaw illegal gambling done in arcades a poorly written law outlawed all games (the article mentions it was in was in public places but IIRC the law was for both public and private and the government pinky promised that they'll only act on public places). I remember reading that some internet cafes were raided by the police too :-P.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_3037/2002

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#272

Post by jacquesm »

That's a pretty bad take. This whole situation came into existence because CF has positioned itself as a convenient choke point. The Italian government is dumb, but 'eastdakota' is being dumber here. JD Vance and Musk are about as poisonous to international relations as it gets and bringing them up in relation with Europe making and enforcing its own laws - no matter how misguided - makes me think you should probably focus on the beam in your own eye first.

As for the rest of the threats: please do. Europe needs less, not more dependencies on USD and US companies. We'll figure it out, or not.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#273

Post by oytis »

subsistence234 wrote: post #265
qsort wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Italian. I think everybody sucks here? Most Italian authorities like this one are chock full of incompetents, and I'm almost sure they're just caving in to some soccer broadcaster or some crap like that. He might very well be fully correct on the fact of the matter. Still, the rhetoric of the post is frankly disgusting. No, I'm not taking lessons in democracy from JD Vance, thank you very much. No, I don't think…

[flagged]

Western Europe is not an authoritarian dystopia by any measure. Economic growth or lack of thereof is absolutely irrelevant here

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#274

Post by arjie »

exceptione wrote: post #223
renewiltord wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italy is much more powerful than Cloudflare is. The only sensible thing for him to do is to rush to who will protect him. If the Italian authorities would protect him from capricious use of DNS blocking requests from La Liga or Serie A or whoever he would rather go there but they won’t. It’s an old story. You make a guy’s life hard and the next thing you know he’s working with your enemies even though he’d rather be…

Your context window is too small, you ignored all my input. Besides, I hope this isn't yet a minority stance on here, a democratic state is hopefully more powerful than a company, yes, indeed. The mode of a state captured by the biggest enterprises isn't really something we should run to, right? What mr. twitter account could have done is vent all his outrage, without normalizing all that other shit. Then he has medi…

Sports organizations in most countries have widespread latitude that are afforded to few other companies.

Whether this is crony capitalism or simply protecting one of the largest domestic industries, Italy will likely side with the industry that is responsible for 0.5% of their GDP over some foreigner who can easily be justified as trying to spread piracy. It’s hard to honestly believe that this is some democracy vs corporation war. At best it is two corporation groups (a powerful Italian sports and broadcasting one and a weak US tech one) attempting to recruit state power (respectively the powerful Italy vs. the much more powerful US) to their cause.

European nations also have a long and storied history of communications control and they haven’t really changed very much on that front (as recent Chat Control attempts have shown). It will be unsurprising that they exercise their muscle to practice before they do so for a significant event.

Naturally, any proponent of such schemes will gladly hope that organizations affected use ineffective means. In general, I prefer that my opponents also don’t harm me and instead fail to achieve their goals. It’s pretty natural to ask others to play by some rules while simultaneously choosing to add escape hatches for oneself.

As an example from a different sphere: Russia, having invaded Crimea, preferred a peaceful end to the war and that Ukraine respond not militarily but through ineffective diplomatic overtures to other countries.

One always wants others to follow norms while being free to not do so oneself. That usually helps one win. Wrapping such isolated demands for rigor in polemic is a sufficiently standard strategy that it’s identifiable as such.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#276

Post by jimnotgym »

0xy wrote: post #201
npodbielski wrote: post #35

"EU shadow cabal" funny considering that he then mentions running for help to US politicians.

Probably because the admin has been vocal and proactive about extraterritorial overreach by European countries hellbent on global censorship programs. The UK has thrown thousands of people in jail for speech on social media, as has Germany. Both of those countries also attempt to censor speech OUTSIDE of their own countries too. https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/20...

> proactive extraterritorial overreach

They are certainly very active in the subject, although judging by the last week, they are not really against it in every case

>The UK has thrown thousands of people in jail for speech on social media

That is just not true, is it. No matter how many times you say it

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#278

Post by selfmodruntime »

subsistence234 wrote: post #248
tomp wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, so is this about censorship, or about copyright? If the latter, I don't see why CloudFlare is complaining about "global" censorship. The US would simply seize the domains (which they have done so many times before), but I guess Italy doesn't have that power...

There's no accountability or due process. According to this brilliant law, if some crony with write-privilege adds your website to a list, the whole world has to ban your website within 30 minutes no questions asked.

Germany has an equivalent within the CUII, which is also a censorship branch of the government with no judicial oversight.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#279

Post by selfmodruntime »

qsort wrote: post #135
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…

Also Italian. I think everybody sucks here? Most Italian authorities like this one are chock full of incompetents, and I'm almost sure they're just caving in to some soccer broadcaster or some crap like that. He might very well be fully correct on the fact of the matter. Still, the rhetoric of the post is frankly disgusting. No, I'm not taking lessons in democracy from JD Vance, thank you very much. No, I don't think…

> No, I'm not taking lessons in democracy from JD Vance, thank you very much

You are falling into a trap where you can not recognize a true point because it is made by someone you disagree with. I don't condone Vance or the Trump admin. He is right about European governemnt's attacks on free speech.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#280

Post by UqWBcuFx6NV4r »

> We believe Italy, like all countries, has a right to regulate the content on networks inside its borders. But they must do so following the Rule of Law and principles of Due Process. I really couldn’t care less about your legal philosophy, mate. I understand that you’re used to corporations setting the rules, and I’m sure that it brought you such great joy to write a little post where you got to flex about being well-connected with your country’s morally corrupt administration. However, your views on whether or not a country had a right to self-regulation, have zero impact on your obligation to comply. You don’t get to parachute in and set your own terms. Do you really think that your childish threats of ‘pulling your free plan’ and ‘not opening an office’ will have the intended effect? I genuinely can’t work out why someone didn’t tap this kid on the shoulder and suggest that he tone his rant down a bit.

The US is a sick, sick country. Nowhere else does anyone have the misplaced confidence to act this insanely stupid.

Post reply on HN