Oh, wow. I had no idea the CEO of cloudflare was so unprofessional.
Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines
711–720 of 1001 posts
Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines
#712Earlier quoted context omitted.
> financing a company that thinks it is above the law I've never liked arguments like this, because laws are often complex, unreasonable, and unjust, and all of us (both individuals and companies) routinely use our best judgment to decide which laws to flout and which to follow, and when, where, and why to do so.
I share that perspective. Being an international company is a challenging thing regards law. You have to operate in best intent, and judges respect that. And sure, some laws and most likely this one, are stupid. I always take GDPR as an example. Annoying as fuck, but a good regulation. Well written, well executed and hits its goal. However, disrespecting and being tone deaf in communication is wrong, ignoring the int…
> And sure, some laws and most likely this one, are stupid. I always take GDPR as an example. Annoying as fuck, but a good regulation. Well written, well executed and hits its goal.
It's funny people normally use GDPR as an example of a law so poorly written and implemented that the sites of the very EU governments that passed it are still not in compliance a decade later.
Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines
#713I'm not sure I have ever seen such an unprofessional communication from the CEO of Cloudflare, irrespective of a poorly written Italian law.
The fine was also peanuts for a company the size of Cloudflare.
Given the current political climate I think the tone he is using will turn a lot of Europeans off: Open threats against citizens of an EU country (turning off free cyber protections) and general 'American Exceptionalism' attitude and brown nosing of the current administration.
He is within his rights to pull out of a market, but this is an example of the now-becoming-classic Trumpism of smugly shouting pretty extreme open threats to bully your way into getting what you want (and screw everyone else who isn't America).
It honestly makes me want to add it to the list of American tech companies willing to sabotage Europe for disproportionate reasons. (Currently X, Microsoft) and start planning strategies to decouple from them, if not outright replace.
Perhaps this is a knee-jerk reaction, but I was not expecting this from Cloudflare.
Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines
#714Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The NUCLEAR threat regarding the 2026 Winter Olympics (Milano-Cortina) is the real leverage here. He’s bypassing the regulator and putting a gun to the government’s head regarding national prestige and infrastructure security. Kind of wild that a private company has that kind of power, both in terms of being one of the few that can offer this service and they can make threats at this level.
> 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.
Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines
#715does he not understand that countries are...countries? "quasi-judicial" is so childish of a thing to say, of all people by a CEO. I don't even care about the details of the law, what is he aiming to achieve here by disrespecting their government as a foreigner and accusing them of "censorship". Makes wish they'd fine him just for that tweet alone. You do what a country tells you to do as a foreigner, or you leave. Th…
I mean it's quasi-judicial because it's not a court what else would you call it?
Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines
#716Let'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…
> In Europe we are under daily attack from Russian accounts that spread massive amounts of desinformation, deep fakes, just emotional appeals with the goal of destroying liberal democracy.
The disinformation campaigns have always been there, the reason they're growing roots in the mind of the average European is because the EU is spending it's razor thon political capital on things Chat Control, Digital Omnibus which are wildly unpopular.
Isn't it a bit ironic that in order to protect "liberal democracy" you need to reach out for authoritarian suppression?
Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines
#717Given the La Liga situation in Spain with Cloudflare you can't really say he is wrong. But his MAGA comments make me ashamed to be a Cloudflare customer.
> But his MAGA comments make me ashamed to be a Cloudflare customer.
Asking the federal government for help dealing with other nation clearly a massive part of the federal government's role = MAGA now?
Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines
#718Let'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…
> In Europe we are under daily attack from Russian accounts that spread massive amounts of desinformation, deep fakes, just emotional appeals with the goal of destroying liberal democracy. The disinformation campaigns have always been there, the reason they're growing roots in the mind of the average European is because the EU is spending it's razor thon political capital on things Chat Control, Digital Omnibus which…
The average person in Europe does neither care about chat control, nor have they heared more about tgan one or two surface-level news articles. Russian propaganda being more and more effective and these actions are not related.
Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines
#719Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can accuse the US politicians of a lot but hiding in the shadows is probably the last thing you can say about the current USA administration.
Isn't this the same government that started a secret war against Venezuela without any authorization?
Secret? You can say a lot about the USA in Venezuela but secret isn't it and of course it was authorized congress explicitly granted the president the powers to do it.