491–500 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So you're saying I have to interact with Nazis? I have no choice? Hardly. That depends. Who are you? Is there a code of ethics that would compel you to interact with someone? Is it damaging to society if there isn't?
What code of ethics doesn't have an exception for Nazis?
A previous blog addressed a similar issue, about ISIS, with a very clear policy. It's worth the read. From Mr. Prince: "> What safeguards do you have in place to ensure that CloudFlare does not support illegal terrorist activity? This question assumes the answer. A website is speech. It is not a bomb. There is no imminent danger it creates and no provider has an affirmative obligation to monitor and make determinatio…
> Your CEO has in the past publicly defended providing services to websites hosting dangerous material. Would his position change if one of his own family was hurt or killed in an incident that could be reliably linked to the [controversial website]?
In a word: no. As a way of proving that point, rather than speculate on a gruesome hypothetical, let's discuss a concrete example. About a year ago, a young hacker broke into my email accounts, rummaged around, and caused a significant amount of damage and embarrassment to me. At the time, the hacker was a CloudFlare user. He even used his CloudFlare-powered site to publish details of the attack. I was furious. It was a direct attack by one of our users specifically targeting me. Despite that, we did not kick him off our network nor should we have.
The reality is that private companies and individuals, unless compelled by law or regulation, have no obligation to facilitate the free speech of others. None. They certainly don't have an obligation to facilitate speech that falsely smears or defames them themselves. Trying to believe or claim that they could do so in all circumstances was naive.
The principle of absolute moral neutrality is simply untenable. Choosing not to choose is itself a choice. Given the existence of repulsive opinion and content, choosing not to exclude it is simply a choice to publish it. It doesn't in any way dodge moral responsibility. It's time companies like this did the truly hard thing and set actual policies they believe in and can follow as a matter of conscience.
Matthew Prince is asking for a conversation to begin on establishing policy for supporting free speech vs. policing a service. Service providers of all kinds have been more-or-less flying by the seat of their pants on this issue, making up policy according to their individual ideals, and a lot of arguments so far have fallen along ideological lines. As more and more people continue to participate in the internet, the…
Yes, if you're drawing a line there will be, by definition, cases close to it, on both sides. But this isn't one of them. And it's not like this is some sort of new problem that we haven't successfully navigated before. Courts have always had to make binary decisions from continuous facts: pornography vs. art, or just naming that single grain of sand that makes this stretch of coast a beach per California regulation 343 etc.
"Free vs nice" is an insidious way to delegitimise the concerns of those actually targeted by torch-wielding nazis. People aren't asking for a "nice" country. They're asking for the freedom to peacefully walk around without the fear of being splattered onto the pavement by the next terrorist's car attack.
I have read many of the threads here, and I think it boils down to this: do businesses (NOT THE GOVERNMENT) have the right to choose what content and customers they serve? Further, does it matter if they are a hosting provider? A network provider? A telephone provider? Can those providers cancel you if the company doesn't like what you say or are? This is tough: I honestly don't know if freedom of speech needs to be…
> do businesses (NOT THE GOVERNMENT) have the right to choose what content and customers they serve? Yes. This is why VISA was instrumental in the 'war on porn' and why every service provider ever has a provision in their contracts stating they can terminate your online presence at their discretion. That's a way for the industry to avoid becoming government regulated, as long as this self regulation takes care of the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you get what I'm saying - comparing two well-known instances from different parts of the political spectrum where businesses try and refuse custom for ideological reasons - why are you pretending I'm comparing gay people to neo-Nazis?
Because you choose to be a neo nazi, you don’t choose to be gay. I’m not talking about denying service. I’m saying one of them did not choose to be what they are.
Cloudflare refuse to withdraw services to ISIS
So actual terrorists are acceptable, but not the website of those guys who killed that one lady last week. Okay.
https://youtu.be/wW5vJyI_HcU?t=45m17s
(quoting CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince below, aka eastdakota on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=eastdakota )
45:52 "Where would you draw the line?"
47:25 "It's really tricky when private organizations act as law enforcement"
47:33 "We try to follow what is due process"
47:56 smart-ass/sick burn re: Krebs's journalism
48:46 "We comply with any court order that we receive" (both takedowns and to not take things down) "unless we feel that it's truly abusive in these cases we [interrupted/unintelligible, maybe: would] ..."
49:00 "There have been some hacking-related sites that we have been asked to take down"
source: HN user kefka https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14654680
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, the distinction is that neo-Nazi's are bad -- hateful, intolerant, divisive, problematic or however you want to put it. I'm uncomfortable saying that it's okay to do these things to the bad guys, even when it's obvious, because in an alternate universe it might be obvious that gays marrying is hateful toward Christians and intolerant of their sacred rituals.
No. The distinction is that neo-nazis chose to follow a hateful ideology. Gay people did not choose to be gay. I’m not supporting denial of service, in fact I think nobody should be denied service. I’m just pointing out that the equivalence is not right.
Did they?
Absolutely correct. He is also effectively saying that since he can and will remove sites he personally doesn't like, that he personally approves of every other site using Cloudflare. The excuse he uses for terminating TDS is an absolute crock; if TDS genuinely did falsely and sincerely claim that Cloudflare supports them, then Prince could and should have simply asked them to remove that claim. It's an outrage that…
Nazis aren't a protected class, yet. Do you think that businesses shouldn't be allowed to discriminate against skateboarders, or people who refuse to wear shirts and shoes? Not that you can't think that, but it's a weird personal ideology that calls for explanation and argument, not some pronouncement of what should or should not be done. I'm pretty sure you can make the argument why gay people, women and racial or r…