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Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

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Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#791

Post by iamkonstantin »

SkiFire13 wrote: post #714
isodev wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kind of wild that a private company has that kind of power Also kind of wild that it’s a private US company pushing their current political views on another sovereign state. Cloudflare as a political tool of leverage is a level of dystopia we really should try not to unlock.

I can assure you that a lot of Italians agree with Cloudflare on this topic.

I think the parent is trying to say that whatever issues Italy may have internally, it's not up to Cloudflare to comment or enact solutions on their own.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#792

Post by scrollaway »

nxm wrote: post #761
scrollaway wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 befor…

into complete autocracy & dictatorship....ummm you mean a democratically elected president & government? Plus these hyperboles don't really resonate anymore as they've been used for every little thing people don't like. It's still a democracy even if you don't like the outcome.

[flagged]

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#793

Post by tankenmate »

budududuroiu wrote: post #737
dependsontheq wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes we need to restrict the freedom of non citizens to influence our debates. And we need to have rules how digital platforms can influence our internal debates, we had this rules for TV and newspapers. That's not suppression thats's defense.

How do you restrict the freedom of non-citizens without restricting the freedom of citizens too? My parents and grandparents didn't fight against the Romanian authoritarian regime for reading of confidential communications to come back under a EU banner instead. The EU is more of a threat to itself than Russia is, the only reason the "Russian propaganda" has teeth is because the current bureaucrat class in the EU Cou…

"The EU is more of a threat to itself than Russia is"; it can be easily argued that this is only the case if democracy has little value because in Russia democracy does indeed have little value (let alone life, etc).

"Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"

So the EU and the EC are big lumbering organisation that make poor decisions; but then people make poor decisions day in day out. But just because you *feel* disaffected doesn't mean the system is inherently wrong (unless of course you believe that politics' primary, if not only, purpose is to make you "feel good(tm)").

It's probably far more accurate to say that wealth inequality is the EU's biggest threat and that "the elites" (which is more than just senior politicians and bureaucrats) don't feel the pain of inequality and so aren't internally motivated to do much about it (culture eats strategy for breakfast, etc etc).

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#794

Post by mlrtime »

torginus wrote: post #708
enricotal wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also another Italian here. For context, the "Piracy Shield" mentioned in the order is basically a legislative hacksaw authorized by the regulator (AGCOM) primarily to protect Serie A football rights. Soccer rules Italy more than the Vatican.. It’s a mess technically: it mandates ISPs and DNS providers to block IPs/domains within 30 minutes of a report, with zero judicial oversight. It’s infamous locally for false pos…

I don't get how censorship of this kind is even technically feasible? I can rent a vpn on AWS, then connect to a stream hosted in Kazakhstan. You can't take down a website there, and you certainly can't rangeban AWS ips.

Which stream, asking for a friend :)

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#795

Post by vladvasiliu »

tankenmate wrote: post #790
vladvasiliu wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, the PM isn't exactly the status quo, I wasn't replying to that. Rather, I was responding to this specific bit, emphasis mine:

> You should not be able to gain a position of power and then go on a crowded stage to claim that vaccines cause autism. This is intolerable. We are attacking the foundations of society.

Not sure when the strawman is. "The foundations of society", for me, means "the way things are". Which can be vaccines, sure, or any kind of general policy which has been showed to have a positive effect on society, but it can also be all kinds of things taken for granted which aren't necessarily rooted in reason.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#796

Post by Nextgrid »

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…

> we are under daily attack from Russian accounts

We would go a long way if our communication platforms weren't intentionally amplifying the most controversial voices for the sake of maximizing ad revenue.

Back in the day the Russians needed to spend money to buy influence. Now they can just make their propaganda engaging enough and Western companies will happily host it and promote it for free.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#797

Post by mlrtime »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #603
kavaruka wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only right owners can report websites, the Piracy Shield is essentially a tool in the hands of “Serie A Soccer League” and DAZN.

How is the rights holder verified in 30 minutes?

I'm always reminded of this: https://youtu.be/y9SygP4BDxE?si=DoulFlfNWlGrDxnW&t=185

"Just look at me, tell me I'm not Kramer"

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#798

Post by debugnik »

miki123211 wrote: post #619
asa400 wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the consequences of outsourcing this (and other capabilities) to the private sector. Many governments simply don’t have the skill and political will to invest in these kinds of capabilities, which puts them at the mercy of private actors that do. Not saying this is good or bad, just trying to describe it as I see it.

Governments just can't come to grips with how much money software engineers make. Paying a contractor $x million? Yeah no problem, projects are projects, they cost what they cost. Does that $x million pay for 5x fewer people than it would in construction or road repair? We don't know, we don't care, this is the best bid we got for the requirements, and in line with what similar IT projects cost us before. Paying a ju…

> Paying a junior employee $100k?

In Southern Europe? More like $30k gross.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#799

Post by StrLght »

Related: EU commission has also criticized AGCOM for Privacy Shield [0].

> The Commission would also like to emphasize that the effective tackling of illegal content must also take into due account the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information under the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU

[0]: https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-shield-concerns-prompt-eu-co...

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#800

Post by mlrtime »

kaoD wrote: post #428
t0mas88 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As usual, cronyism. In Spain's case Telefonica (largest telecom, used to be state owned) is private but has a large State participation and the government literally appointed the latest CEO. Guess who sells the largest football games as part of their expensive TV package? Guess who asked a judge to order the other telecoms to also block Cloudflare IPs?

If this is true, and seems likely. There is some satisfaction seeing corrupt cronyism agencies getting slapped with a hard "NO" when they are used to getting what they want.
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