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Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

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Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#742

Let's be a bit more honest here, I think the Italian law is badly defined, but I also think the american perspective is wrong. We (all tech people everywhere me included) argued for a lot of time for free speech on the internet, but the result currently is that we built a system that is free speech for Russian and Chinese bots and actors. In Europe we are under daily attack from Russian accounts that spread massive a…

Well, we cry "freedom of speech" when Russia/China/adversary shuts our propaganda-pushing media or tools out.

Freedom of speech for me, not for thee, eh?

I don't want my politicians deciding what is good or bad on the internet. I'm an adult, and I can decide for myself.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

an account created 5 minutes ago

HN should put the IP addresses that comments from brand new accounts are posted from right beside the name. I bet you'd be able to plot some pretty interesting maps from that.

Maybe the first two octets but HN does not block proxies, VPS nodes, servers, etc... The site would have to block such things for new accounts and store the IP used to create the account for that information to be useful assuming residential shady VPN's were not used. I doubt that level of change would occur here given the topic of dark mode comes up often.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#745

Let's be a bit more honest here, I think the Italian law is badly defined, but I also think the american perspective is wrong. We (all tech people everywhere me included) argued for a lot of time for free speech on the internet, but the result currently is that we built a system that is free speech for Russian and Chinese bots and actors. In Europe we are under daily attack from Russian accounts that spread massive a…

How is Cloudflare refusing to comply with DNS censorship even remotely related to propaganda campaigns conducted by the geopolitical opponent of your personal choosing?

Not only does it seem like you've gone off topic to push a personal agenda, you're presenting a false dichotomy. We could (if we wanted to) wall our networks off along national boundaries while still preserving freedom of speech within our enclave. I don't think that would be a good idea nor do I think the execution of such an initiative would be likely to go smoothly but the example serves to illustrate that there's a huge potential solution space.

Personally what I don't understand is why Cloudflare didn't stop offering access to 1.1.1.1 from Italian addresses. At the end of the day picking a direct fight with the government of a jurisdiction you operate in seems extremely unwise. I fail to see the upside for them here.

Actually assuming they don't intentionally operate 1.1.1.1 from within Italy how is it CF's problem if Italians access it? Shouldn't this be on the Italian telecoms to filter traffic to this dastardly "illegal" foreign resolver?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#746

Let's be a bit more honest here, I think the Italian law is badly defined, but I also think the american perspective is wrong. We (all tech people everywhere me included) argued for a lot of time for free speech on the internet, but the result currently is that we built a system that is free speech for Russian and Chinese bots and actors. In Europe we are under daily attack from Russian accounts that spread massive a…

Well, we cry "freedom of speech" when Russia/China/adversary shuts our propaganda-pushing media or tools out. Freedom of speech for me, not for thee, eh? I don't want my politicians deciding what is good or bad on the internet. I'm an adult, and I can decide for myself.

> I don't want my politicians deciding what is good or bad on the internet. I'm an adult, and I can decide for myself.

The issue isn't whether politicians are deciding what's good or bad.

The issue is that, in Europe, foreign actors with explicit ill intent are deciding a ton of the content your neighbours are watching/reading, day in day out, on the internet. AI has made this easier and even more scalable than before. This content is being used to influence or outright decide elections. Elections of more politicians that are "deciding what's good or bad", eh. Such as politicians deciding that Russia is good.

What the actual fuck do we do to defend ourselves, pray tell? The whole "let them have critical thinking" doesn't work, we are under active war and citizens who don't know better are specifically targeted. And besides, we are not gonna take lessons from the country that yelled high and mighty for years they're the land of the free, and let itself fall into complete autocracy & dictatorship. In the US, those same citizens are the useful tools repeating state propaganda, two steps removed from "Just Following Orders".

And full context: I agree with Matt and support Cloudflare's stance here. But people can quit it with cheap retorts like "Freedom of speech for me, not for thee". It's not that simple.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#747
The americans get here a dose of their own medicine. An IT related law with global reach. One of the first of this kind was actually created by the US itself with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act Now they complain that other countries do the same to them. Somehow I can't feel sorry for them.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#748

Let's be a bit more honest here, I think the Italian law is badly defined, but I also think the american perspective is wrong. We (all tech people everywhere me included) argued for a lot of time for free speech on the internet, but the result currently is that we built a system that is free speech for Russian and Chinese bots and actors. In Europe we are under daily attack from Russian accounts that spread massive a…

Well, we cry "freedom of speech" when Russia/China/adversary shuts our propaganda-pushing media or tools out. Freedom of speech for me, not for thee, eh? I don't want my politicians deciding what is good or bad on the internet. I'm an adult, and I can decide for myself.

> Well, we cry "freedom of speech" when Russia/China/adversary shuts our propaganda-pushing media or tools out.

That "cyring" must have been awfully quiet, I didn't hear anything at least.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#750

Let's be a bit more honest here, I think the Italian law is badly defined, but I also think the american perspective is wrong. We (all tech people everywhere me included) argued for a lot of time for free speech on the internet, but the result currently is that we built a system that is free speech for Russian and Chinese bots and actors. In Europe we are under daily attack from Russian accounts that spread massive a…

Well, we cry "freedom of speech" when Russia/China/adversary shuts our propaganda-pushing media or tools out. Freedom of speech for me, not for thee, eh? I don't want my politicians deciding what is good or bad on the internet. I'm an adult, and I can decide for myself.

The current methods of subverting speech involve the opposite of control.

They involve overwhelming the channels.

The play is to influence at m scale, millions of individual choices, just like yours.

Your position is no longer the entirety of the defense we need for free speech online.

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