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Cloudflare Email Service: private beta

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Re: Cloudflare Email Service: private beta

#561

Post by sneak »

ivell wrote: post #463
sneak wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Discrimination in hiring with regard to personal viewpoints (ie adult decisions, not built-in traits) is one of the best ways we have to shape society for the better. As private entities, we have freedom of association - including freedom to shun certain groups. Use it!

Once we start that, we cannot control if it is going to shape the society for the better or worse. Should feminists be prevented from joining a company? How about pro-choice rights activists? And one persons better society would be totally different from the other person's better society. We should aim to reduce discrimination not encourage it for select causes.

> Should feminists be prevented from joining a company?

Depends on the views of those doing the hiring.

Should you be allowed to not hire racists?

You are literally arguing against freedom of association. We get to choose with whom we do business! That is our right, as well as the status quo today.

I don’t hire smokers or ex cops, as I think they are unintelligent and assholes, respectively.

If it were legal I would never hire a practicing theist or anyone ex-military, as they are signs to me of low intelligence and poor moral character.

You have the right as a free person to discriminate against any non-protected group in service of your company and business.

Someone’s opinions are fair game for evaluation. Think Windows is better than Linux on servers? Keep moving. Think being a culture warrior in the US is a prudent move? Same deal.

All other things being equal, I prioritize people who have lived in multiple countries over people who haven’t. This necessarily means I am discriminating against those who have not.

There are a million attributes we can use to make hiring decisions. It’s not only legal, it’s prudent.

Re: Cloudflare Email Service: private beta

#562

Post by sneak »

myrmidon wrote: post #503
sneak wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Discrimination in hiring with regard to personal viewpoints (ie adult decisions, not built-in traits) is one of the best ways we have to shape society for the better. As private entities, we have freedom of association - including freedom to shun certain groups. Use it!

In my view, this whole stance is completely indefensible, and it frankly shocks me every time I hear this from the progressive side of the political spectrum. You want to introduce additional discrimination at every workplace in order to get rid of viewpoints you don't agree with?! This is honestly closer to Nazi ideology than the actual Nazi would probably be that you want to discriminate against. How would you ever…

Please continue to tell me how my refusing to hire cigarette smokers, functioning alcoholics, Floridians, people who don’t read books, or people who are overtly rabid about US patriotism is the same as embracing Nazi ideology. I’m quite curious about your logic here.

Re: Cloudflare Email Service: private beta

#563

Post by Gormo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #356
Gormo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. And the dynamics of inter-branch checks and balances within the US federal government aren't directly relevant to the question of whether the federal government as a whole is a reliable institution in the first place (nb: it isn't).

> the dynamics of inter-branch checks and balances within the US federal government aren't directly relevant to the question of whether the federal government as a whole is a reliable institution in the first place You don’t see a reliability difference between a self-moderating and unmoderated system? Do you see any value in QC?

> You don’t see a reliability difference between a self-moderating and unmoderated system?

I don't see there being a distinction between the two in the real world. An institutional system's behavior largely determined by the incentive structures that actually exist on the ground, irrespective of initial intentions or de jure rules.

An institutional system that is expected to self-moderate is one where the motivations that inform its primary behavior are the same ones ultimately informing its self-moderation -- i.e. it's functionally equivalent to an unmoderated system, just more pretextual rationalization.

> Do you see any value in QC?

Sure. But I don't see much value in a QC process that's administered by the same people or judged against the same metrics as the thing it's QCing.

I'd love the equivalent of QC to be applied to both legislation and administrative rule-making in our current system. Maybe with the Loper Bright decision, the courts will gradually resume responsibility for doing this properly. But the capricious and arbitrary nature of the current administration is revealing the extent to which checks and balances are already eroded, and just what an uphill battle that's likely to be.

The entire political system in its current state is riddled with perverse incentives, and the mechanisms of external accountability are totally broken. Even with inter-branch checks and balances, the federal government in its current form is simply not trustworthy.

Re: Cloudflare Email Service: private beta

#564

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #372
stingraycharles wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, the internet was worse without Cloudflare, so as long as they provide a good service for their customers, I’m fine with it. This is one of those. Google is in a perfect position to compete but they don’t, so it’s not like Cloudflare is a monopoly or something. At least they’re not selling ads using your data.

"To be honest, the internet was worse without Cloudflare, so as long as they provide a good service for their customers, I'm fine with it." Cloudflare not only blocking IA but asking for money on behalf of the website operator, as a "service" https://web.archive.org/web/20250920180605if_/https://www.th...

Not restricted to CF

https://web.archive.org/web/20250826113041if_/https://www.in...

Re: Cloudflare Email Service: private beta

#565

Post by zahlman »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #395
godelski wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, remember that time that Cloudflare didn't take down a Nazi website because they didn't want to be arbiters of the internet but then everyone accused Cloudflare of supporting Neo Nazis. That this led to boycotts so they ended up taking down the site and wrote a blog post being like "fine, but this is dumb" That didn't really have to do with the law. You could segue it was a free market action. Though there were…

Or the time they knowingly employed a Nazi

This is a serious accusation. What exactly is your evidence that they did any such thing? I can find nothing relevant in a search, only stories about the Neo-Nazi sites getting blocked.

Re: Cloudflare Email Service: private beta

#566

Post by zahlman »

array_key_first wrote: post #555
_heimdall wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'll try to take this from the top. > Yes they do - as I've said, you can't invoke politics as a shield. That isn't the issue at hand. You are describing using ones political views against them simply for them holding those views, not someone being an asshole and attempting to justify it as a political act. > Most companies don't want to hire people they think are assholes. Sure, though they would base that on…

Your identity as an asshole versus your actions as an asshole are really not too different. It doesn't matter much. If I know you have political views X, you already fucked up. This is a tree falling in the forest problem. You're claiming that somehow, magically, people are being discriminated by their political beliefs without ever acting on them or saying them. Okay how? How is that possible? If I know your politic…

> If I know you have political views X, you already fucked up. This is a tree falling in the forest problem.

Yes, that's the exact point the other person is making. The resulting consequences are, and should be, a consequence of that fuck-up, and not a consequence of the value of X.

Re: Cloudflare Email Service: private beta

#567

Post by zahlman »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #527
_heimdall wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you arguing for a system where employers consider your political views before hiring you? And no this is not an attempt to in anyway belittle what Nazi German did during WWII. Assuming the employee you are referring to has never been engaged in such acts, though, that feels like a very slippery slope.

Yes. Naziism is terrorism. People lose their jobs for publicly supporting terrorism. The employee was self-proclaimed "Nazi" (including to quote, "I'm a nazi", posted publicly while working there) per views and advocacy. They also took over leadership of "GNAA" from Weev (a Nazi with Nazi tattoos etc.) while employed at Cloudflare (I won't type out what it stands for here)

Even Wikipedia does not describe that organization (I assume you don't mean the Greater Nashville Apartment Association...) as itself an extremist organization. (It is also described as defunct.) By its very nature, statements by its members (which you have not evidenced) cannot be taken at face value. Auernheimer's views are his own. The only identification I can find of a possibly other leader of the organization (who you have not named) leads to nothing that confirms any detail of your story - not the supposed Nazism of that person (assuming it's the right person), nor employment at Cloudflare, nor any knowledge on their part.

In short, I can find no good reason to believe this.

Re: Cloudflare Email Service: private beta

#569

Post by close04 »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #559
close04 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you put a Nazi and a Jewish person in a room every day Today's Nazis have more diversified targets for discrimination. Concentrated antisemitism was a side effect of the personal issues of the most famous Nazi exponent in history, but they're more about racial supremacy. Today they might be Islamophobic more then antisemitic. To answer to your question, their thoughts and views don't matter in the office, the…

What counts as acting? This employee was openly self proclaimed Nazi, member of groups that spread explicitly Nazi ideology online, and the leader of a hate organization (previously led by Weev, the Stormfront administrator, who handed over the president position to them). I don’t understand quick defense of this.

> What counts as acting?

Acting is doing something, as opposed to saying something. One of them counts as freedom of speech and hint, it's the one you quickly attacked. It's when you go to work and do your job as per the contract which can demand you not express certain opinions in the office but not in your private life.

> I don’t understand quick defense of this.

You are like those people who gagged Kimmel because they didn't like what he was saying. You will quickly defend firing people just for saying they support abortion rights (which is illegal in many states), or LGBTQ+ rights. You playing the "you defend Nazis" card works both ways. Just like you taking away freedom of speech works both ways. I wonder if choosing a German name was intentionally ironic.

I don't have to like a guy or his opinions to defend a bigger principle.

Re: Cloudflare Email Service: private beta

#570

Post by myrmidon »

sneak wrote: post #562
myrmidon wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, this whole stance is completely indefensible, and it frankly shocks me every time I hear this from the progressive side of the political spectrum. You want to introduce additional discrimination at every workplace in order to get rid of viewpoints you don't agree with?! This is honestly closer to Nazi ideology than the actual Nazi would probably be that you want to discriminate against. How would you ever…

Please continue to tell me how my refusing to hire cigarette smokers, functioning alcoholics, Floridians, people who don’t read books, or people who are overtly rabid about US patriotism is the same as embracing Nazi ideology. I’m quite curious about your logic here.

I'm not throwing around the Nazi analogy lightly here:

Discrimination against outgroups/dissenters/opposition was basically the central domestic tenet under the Nazi Regime ("Gleichschaltung"), aiming to root out opposition and dissent in any form. A lot of this happened long before setting up extermination camps.

In my view, every person is free to pick who they work or associate with, but hiring discrimination achieves little and opens the door for extremely harmful abuses of this very mechanism.

People are not really gonna stop drinking, smoking or rabidly patrioting just because you won't hire them, they're just gonna hate "your" class of people more, and behave the same way towards groups they don't like.

A society where every progressive person refuses to hire rednecks is also a society where every redneck refuses to hire colored people, immigrants, LGBT people/advocates, feminists.

Not only that, but the majority of society was very obviously wrong about the merit of a lot of viewpoints in the past, and the system you advocate for would have a much harder time admitting/fixing such mistakes in viewpoint valuation (slavery, apartheid, sexism, religious intolerance, racial discrimination, LGBT discrimination just to name a few).

I'm quite happy to continue this discussion, but "what are the similarities of this to Nazi tenets" is the least interesting aspect to me.

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