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Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

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Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#411

Post by Hamuko »

ExpertAdvisor01 wrote: post #264
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?

Actually, the fine amounts to over 200% of Italy-sourced revenue ($17 million fine vs. $8 million in revenue in 2024). Why would you continue doing business in Italy?

How much revenue did Kiwifarms bring in?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#412

Post by bakies »

miningape wrote: post #173
bakies wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_banning_in_the_United_Sta... > Participants: Republican lawmakers in red states oh weird, it's the opposite of what you said.

Politics isn't the exclusive hobby of the united states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/the-spd-parties... And by the way, in the same wikipedia link you posted, there's documentation of Democrats also banning books.

What book banning are you referencing, then? it's all very vague

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#413

Post by aforwardslash »

tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote: post #381
aforwardslash wrote: post #361

Regardless of whether the law is absurd or not (I honestly have no idea, but we've seen some crazy stuff lately in the EU), its kinda precious that a CEO only complains about it when his company is fined. I'm certain it is also quite reassuring for any paying Cloudflare customer that the company strategy is driven by the CEO Twitter rants; That if by some reason doesn't want to play ball with local laws (as draconian…

What is an example of a crazy law from EU?

https://fightchatcontrol.eu

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#414

Post by Hamuko »

richwater wrote: post #376
jimnotgym wrote: post #211

I'm dead against Privacy Shield, but if it gets Cloudflare out of Europe then maybe it was worth it? BTW, before I read this Xweet I was a Cloudflare fan.

> BTW, before I read this Xweet I was a Cloudflare fan. The CEO of a US tech company asking the Vice President for help with censorship caused you to immediately flip you opinion? And not only flip your opinion, but practically embrace complete censorship of the internet if that means Cloudflare leaving Europe? ..yikes.

Why is he asking for Elon for help too?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#415

Post by selfmodruntime »

oytis wrote: post #305
selfmodruntime wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Western Europe is not an authoritarian dystopia by any measure People are locked up in the Germany and the UK because they criticize the government, its politicians or their policies. I live in Germany.

Who is locked up for criticizing the government in Germany? You can be fined for insulting a government official, and I think it's a bad law and should be retracted, but a) insulting is not the same as criticizing and b) I've never heard of a single person locked up because of it - you'd basically need to deliberately refuse paying the fine for that

188 Criminal Code Insult, defamation and slander directed against persons in political life[1]:

(1) If an insult (§ 185) is committed against a person involved in the political life of the people, either publicly, at a meeting or by disseminating content (§ 11 (3)), for reasons related to the position of the offended person in public life, and if the act is likely to significantly impede their public activities, the penalty shall be imprisonment for up to three years or a fine. The political life of the people extends to the local level.

(2) Under the same conditions, defamation (§ 186) shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to five years, and slander (§ 187) with imprisonment from six months to five years.

This law is commonly criticized by free speech activists in Germany, as well as liberal parties like Die Linke and FDP. It was updated to be even harsher by our last government. David Bendels received a sentence of 7 months for posting an edited insulting picture of Nancy Faeser, Germany's last minister for interior affairs. The case sparked an international outcry and got a lot of press coverage [2]. Note that ironically the doctored image showed Faeser holding a sign with the message "I hate freedom of speech".

[1]: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__188.html [2]: https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/germany-insult...

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#416

Post by t0mas88 »

wmf wrote: post #157
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...

It's about copyright. Seizing domain names (registered outside Italy of course) can't be done in 30 minutes which is what the football overlords want.

What is it with Southern Europe and the football overlords? Spain is blocking half the internet, Italy is fighting Cloudflare. What's up? Are football leagues big political donors?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#417

Post by jacquesm »

nkmnz wrote: post #334
jacquesm wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you are falling into the trap of thinking that if a person is busy deconstructing what used to be one of the larger democracies in the world that their other words are going to be taken at face value, which obviously is not going to happen. We're not discussing Pol Pot's views on cooking either, even though he might have had some valuable insight. Bringing up Vance and Musk in polite conversation to bolster your…

To be fair, he's not bringing them up as intellectual support for his argumentative base – he's bringing them up as support for acts of retaliation. This is mostly about power and we've lost 30% in power vs. the US in just ~12 years because we've fucked up our economy.

Maybe 'the economy' is not the only valid yardstick to compare countries by?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#418

Post by Hamuko »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #327
npodbielski wrote: post #35

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

You can accuse the US politicians of a lot but hiding in the shadows is probably the last thing you can say about the current USA administration.

Isn't this the same government that started a secret war against Venezuela without any authorization?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#419

Post by swlkr »

jayofdoom wrote: post #402
swlkr wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My conspiracy theory is that the EU is actively trying to create their own cloud through regulation after seeing the economic success from china's internet companies after the great firewall.

This is called "digital sovereignty", and it has been a major topic for OpenInfra foundation and other open source cloud foundations. Open source, and open cloud software, is the way to ensure your data can stay inside your own borders and be governed by your local laws. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvz2PcHq0yY is one example of folks talking about this, but realistically you can find talks from OpenStack/OpenInfr…

I love this. digital sovereignty sounds so cool too

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#420

Post by jacquesm »

DenisM wrote: post #395
everfrustrated wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many European CDN providers. Cloudflare is nowhere near as critical to the internet as HN crowd would suggest.

If a company choses Cloudflare they would have great service everywhere except Italy. If they chose a service with lower quality / reach, they will suffer degraded service across the board. If they try to use more than one CDN that’s a lot of hassle. It’s not clear which way the decisions will go in reality. Past experience suggests that tech companies eventually accommodate local laws, trading complexity of explaini…

A lot depends on the next couple of months and the US's continued belligerence against - former? - allies. If that isn't toned down, and drastically so then I expect there to be many more consequences than just for CDN providers.
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