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Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

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Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#781

Post by lostlogin »

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.

> we've lost 30% in power vs. the US in just ~12 years because we've fucked up our economy.

I wonder how many Americans would prefer to live in the US that existed 12 years ago versus the US today.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#782

Post by whilenot-dev »

budududuroiu wrote: post #741
dependsontheq wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

an account created 5 minutes ago

Their point still stands though

It isn't even obvious to me which country GP refers to when they write "i already live in one". No reasonable individual would criticize "liberal politicians" and "electronic dictatorship" without making it absolutely clear where they are coming from. This obfuscation seems like a deliberate choice and makes any standing point balancing on crutches.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#783

Post by vladvasiliu »

kevin061 wrote: post #766
dependsontheq wrote: post #706

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…

I see lots of disagreements here, but I must say I also soured on free speech. I used to think that free speech was necessary and overall a positive for society. Then I saw the Capitol attack in US. The disinformation spread in England about kids stabbed that led to riots. I see disinformation every day, especially from USA, saying Europe has no freedom, that it's overrun with criminals, and people not only believe i…

I agree that people clearly don't use critical thinking 100% of the time and are easily influenced.

But you're basically arguing for not criticizing the status quo.

Many social improvements have been attained by "attacking the foundations of society". How would you like living under some absolute monarchy? How do you think gay people would like to live in a church-run society like 500 years ago?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#784

Post by lostlogin »

nxm wrote: post #762
gpm wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been very clear that the Trump adminstrations definition of freedom of speech, including JD Vance's, is that you should be free to say whatever the Trump administration wants and nothing else. They have consistently prosecuted, threatened, deported, withheld money from, and so on people who say things they do not like.

Similar to what Democrats have done to Trump: https://nypost.com/2024/05/12/us-news/fareed-zakaria-doubts-...

Do you really see it as the same scale?

The judiciary and both houses are allowing some incredible things, far beyond anything from the last administration.

This year has been off to a wild start and it’s well into uncharted territory.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#785

Post by thefounder »

Ikatza wrote: post #757
dependsontheq wrote: post #706

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…

Freedom of speech is binary, there aren't any acceptable degrees of it: either you have it, or you don't. If there is disinformation, the solution is to counter it with actual information, to give the people better tools to identify it (like X's community notes), and to educate the general population so they will have better critical thinking. Restricting freedom of speech is never a solution. How long until dissenti…

>> If there is disinformation, the solution is to counter it with actual information

So what you argue is that we should build good bots to counter the bad bots right? and all this in a "secret" to avoid suspension by the tech companies. This looks like playing stupid games.

The disinformation in this era can basically shadow any kind of legitimate "counter-disinformation". To make the game fair we would first need lockdown the internet content on citizen ID authorization so that we can identify if the free speach spread is actually published by a real person or some chinese bot pretending to be a single European mom with 3 kids.

This is not something anyone wants so I think the current trade off of court orders to take down content is legitimate and the best approach. Cloudflare, the tech companies and US government likes the absolute free speech like everything else (i.e. free market) as long as it serves their interests. I wouldn't be surprised to see Cloudflare proudly repelling some "chinese propaganda attacks" and frame it like a cyber security win instead of anti-free speech action.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#786

Post by sethops1 »

photios wrote: post #772
dependsontheq wrote: post #706

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…

[flagged]

Yes. There are numerous fresh accounts being created to flood this very thread.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#787

Post by kamma4434 »

dependsontheq wrote: post #706

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…

That would be a political perspective. But what we are discussing now is some very rich football clubs who have a right to filter anything on the internet because they say so.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#788

Post by lostlogin »

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 US is entering an open economic conflict with Europe.

Whilst ending swathe of agreements, threatening to end NATO and threatening to attack a NATO territory.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#789

Post by mlrtime »

olivermuty wrote: post #779
photios wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You’re either very gullible or you are the answer to the question you just asked.

Or, OP may agree there are Russian bots, but they aren't "in the room right now" because they are not a major risk. They are not a major risk vs letting a government agency dictate to Cloudflare to take down a site globally.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#790

Post by tankenmate »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #783
kevin061 wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see lots of disagreements here, but I must say I also soured on free speech. I used to think that free speech was necessary and overall a positive for society. Then I saw the Capitol attack in US. The disinformation spread in England about kids stabbed that led to riots. I see disinformation every day, especially from USA, saying Europe has no freedom, that it's overrun with criminals, and people not only believe i…

I agree that people clearly don't use critical thinking 100% of the time and are easily influenced. But you're basically arguing for not criticizing the status quo. Many social improvements have been attained by "attacking the foundations of society". How would you like living under some absolute monarchy? How do you think gay people would like to live in a church-run society like 500 years ago?

"But you're basically arguing for not criticizing the status quo.", but that wasn't what was argued ("You should be able to insult and criticise the Prime Minister."), but more your interpretation of what was said. You're making a strawman argument.
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