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Terminating Service for 8Chan

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Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#181

Post by libria »

bentona wrote: post #20
whatshisface wrote: post #2

Another way to view this would be, "Cloudflare ends support for mass shooting early warning system."

Seems like Cloudflare CEO can't decide whether he wants to truly be content-neutral. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/cloudflares-ceo-... Obviously not supporting these sites, but I think an argument can be made for at least being _consistent_ about whether or not you're going to allow only things you find morally reasonable on your service.

> The problem was that other Cloudflare customers started calling and threatening to cancel their service if Cloudflare didn't cut the Daily Stormer off. "The pressure to take it down just kept building and building," [the CEO] told Ars. [...] "I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet,"

So far he has been a "free speech absolutist" aside from the Daily stormer (economic extremes) and 8chan (public safety extremes). They're just defining what their identity as a cloud provider is. There's nothing morally inconsistent about discovering where your limits and tolerance are.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#182

Post by untog »

roenxi wrote: post #173
untog wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mass shootings (generally) don't kill that many people. They are scary, yes, but not that deadly (statistically) Logic like that is usually applied to forces of nature. Or at least things that provide utility in return for this risk (e.g. cars). Mass shootings don't really fit that mould. "stop telling people things" strikes me as a strange response. We could have a nationwide epidemic of mass shootings flying unde…

> We could have a nationwide epidemic of mass shootings flying under the radar entirely. There are published statistics. They suggest that the focus should be on car safety, driving and worrying about bad habits that have health impacts. We'd know if there was a problem and the evidence is that your greatest enemy is you. It'd be interesting to get statistics on how many of these shootings are linked to drug abuse th…

> They suggest that the focus should be on car safety, driving

And it has been. Look at the data for car death over time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

For decades the government has passed laws and regulations that have forced car manufacturers and owners to prioritise safety over all else: seat belts, air bags, crumple-resistant frames... the list goes on and on. The results have been a massive success. It's an example of effective government.

They could do the same for guns, if they had the political will. The only way they get the political will is if voters demand it. The only way voters demand it is if they are aware of the problem.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#183

Post by madamelic »

FemmeAndroid wrote: post #123
madamelic wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That doesn't mean they must block every potentially bad actor. Unfortunately obligatory "I don't support 8chan". I dislike this idea that people can stomp their feet and demand CloudFlare kick off "bad actors". Who is to say the bad actor of tomorrow won't be the "good actor" of today. CloudFlare and other internet utilities should remain apolitical tools that leave law enforcement to law enforcement (even that is a…

It's for each privately controlled platform to decide. If you want tools that are open for everyone, create a public utility that must comply with the first amendment.

>It's for each privately controlled platform to decide.

Fair enough. People are lame and should just admit what they actually are (not apolitical) rather than hyping themselves up as such.

Humans suck, hah.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#184

Post by busymom0 »

King-Aaron wrote: post #143
colejohnson66 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then when would they become one?

I dunno, when you need cloud storage to live. In the same way you need water, power, gas, and these days communication (ISP, etc). But hosting your files is not crucial to your survival I don't believe.

You don't need ISP to be able to live. Also CloudFlare is NOT hosting them. They were the CDN, content delivery network. They are the messenger which carries the message. They shouldn't be deciding whose message they want to carry. They are forgetting the "don't shoot the messenger" saying.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#185

Post by zaroth »

abtinf wrote: post #146
rdl wrote: post #45

If you build a system that is technically possible for someone to censor, particularly if you make it easy to do (and in fact where not doing so would cost them potentially billions of dollars in market cap in an upcoming IPO, recruiting, sales, vendors, etc), you shouldn’t be at all surprised when they do censor. It is interesting that Cloudflare has only really censored two sites (dailystormer and 8chan) outside of…

Only governments can censor; it is not a concept that applies to private parties. Cloudflare's decision to not continue a business relationship with someone is not censorship in any meaningful sense of the word.

Of course it’s censorship. It’s just not government censorship.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#186

Post by 0x445442 »

King-Aaron wrote: post #56

A lot of not-so-subtle support for 8chan leaking into this thread. Cloudfare aren't a government. They aren't a democracy. I don't know why some people seem to think they should act any differently. If you own a notice board in the real world, and someone put something horrible on it, you would take it down. This is no different.

As long as they can be sued for liable the way any other publisher can I have no problem with them pulling 8chan. If they're going to selectively hide behind section 230 to promote their political agenda then I do, they can't have it both ways and I hope congress clamps down on this.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#187

Post by HNthrow22 »

Worth noting cloudflare leadership has been fighting this war for years and this is just a small battle.

Can you tell us when @Cloudflare will be holding its next "How to Protect Nazi Extremists" workshop? You guys seem to be the experts. 10:25 AM - 14 Aug 2017

The recent string of violence has forced their hand here.

https://twitter.com/ncweaver/status/1124091916520497153

https://twitter.com/klarajk/status/1122625367490146304

https://twitter.com/Riverseeker/status/1122612031234945024

https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1123592717341200384

https://twitter.com/NathanBLawrence/status/10562868097418199....

https://twitter.com/NJDemocrat/status/897147112273608705

https://twitter.com/InvestMib/status/1123308004873515015

https://twitter.com/jwz/status/1124415034610860033

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#188

Post by roywiggins »

tedivm wrote: post #131
Lazare wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've kicked people off their service before for content based reasons (eg, Daily Stormer), so this changes nothing. In any case: > I thought there was some sort of legal distinction if they were totally agnostic to what travels over their wires. Is that not the case? Not as far as I'm aware, no. The closest thing I can think of is if they were discriminating based on people's membership in a protected class, eg, i…

They've also removed sex worker websites (including a forum that was just sex workers talking to each other), but for some reason no one complains about it.

Congress recently added sex work as an exception to CDA 230 protections, and every provider scrambled to nuke everything remotely related.

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#189

Post by busymom0 »

King-Aaron wrote: post #107
sb057 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that a company named Noticeboardflare has practically monopolized protection of noticeboards, and that if you do not have their approval, your noticeboard is impractical to operate.

Well yes, and ultimately noticeboardflare has the right to do whatever the hell they want. And if your noticeboard is inciting nearly weekly mass homicides, maybe the noticeboard you're trying to support is a shitty noticeboard.

> you're trying to support

This isn't about "supporting" someone's views. This is about simply allowing one to speak. Otherwise Google should be held liable for every single illegal thing that happens on their platform (and there are ton of those).

Re: Terminating Service for 8Chan

#190

Post by kart23 »

untog wrote: post #128
sysbin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Given that, this seems like a reasonable exercise of that power, and that's about the best we can hope for. Maybe, this event may become the precedent for all future hosting providers of unpopular opinions and where denial of service attacks become used against these hosting providers. Losing protection from anti-ddos service(s) becomes a process to eliminate the unpopular opinions being expressed. I think this is d…

> Maybe, this event may become the precedent for all future hosting providers of unpopular opinions Maybe it won't! I feel like every time a controversial site gets shut down message boards are flooded with slippery slope arguments, but by and large I haven't seen it ever transpire.

I'd argue reddit is a decent example. They banned some very hateful subs, and then later started banning subs because they 'were not good for advertising' see r/waterniggas.
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