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Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

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Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#761

Post by nxm »

scrollaway wrote: post #746
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we cry "freedom of speech" when Russia/China/adversary shuts our propaganda-pushing media or tools out. Freedom of speech for me, not for thee, eh? 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.

> 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.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#762

Post by nxm »

gpm wrote: post #391
selfmodruntime wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, I'm not taking lessons in democracy from JD Vance, thank you very much You are falling into a trap where you can not recognize a true point because it is made by someone you disagree with. I don't condone Vance or the Trump admin. He is right about European governemnt's attacks on free speech.

It has been very clear that the Trump adminstrations definition of freedom of speech, including JD Vance's, is that you should be free to say whatever the Trump administration wants and nothing else. They have consistently prosecuted, threatened, deported, withheld money from, and so on people who say things they do not like.

Similar to what Democrats have done to Trump: https://nypost.com/2024/05/12/us-news/fareed-zakaria-doubts-...

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#763

Post by jimnotgym »

0xy wrote: post #587
jimnotgym wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> proactive extraterritorial overreach They are certainly very active in the subject, although judging by the last week, they are not really against it in every case >The UK has thrown thousands of people in jail for speech on social media That is just not true, is it. No matter how many times you say it

https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-kingdom/freedom-net/... "Internet freedom declined in the United Kingdom during the coverage period due to a reported increase in criminal charges for online speech" "A separate report from The Telegraph found that 292 people had been charged for spreading false information and “threatening communications” under the Online Safety Act between when it came into effect in 2023 and…

292 is not thousands though, is it? Making the statement a barefaced lie.

That is before we go into the actual cases of what those people did. I'm concerned about it too, and am able to freely engage with my political representatives over it. They listen and discuss it, because we are a functioning democracy. But hyping it up and lieing about it doesn't help the discussion. Please don't do what everyone else does next and post about one specific case that on a cursory examination seems troubling, I won't be drawn into it.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#764

Post by babarock »

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…

I think this is moving the goal post. Cloudflare isn't challenging the need to restrict access to some websites, it is challenging who has the right to decide. Quoting the tweet:

> We believe Italy, like all countries, has a right to regulate the content on networks inside its borders. But they must do so following the Rule of Law and principles of Due Process.

I live in Italy, I'm a citizen. I don't feel any safer having the internet regulated by a bunch of bureaucrats than I do state actors and bots.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#765

Post by fc417fc802 »

coffeefirst wrote: post #655
TurdF3rguson wrote: post #393

Wow that guy does not sound like what in my head a Cloudflare CEO sounds like. Win stupid prizes? Bro...

Seriously. If only he had a professional comms team who could help him craft a message that didn't read like... that.

I got the impression that he might be trying to imitate Trump's communication style as part of his appeal to the US administration throwing its weight behind him here. Particularly given the image attachment at the end. It's difficult to imagine that nobody qualified double checked this before he posted it.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#766

Post by kevin061 »

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…

I see lots of disagreements here, but I must say I also soured on free speech. I used to think that free speech was necessary and overall a positive for society. Then I saw the Capitol attack in US. The disinformation spread in England about kids stabbed that led to riots. I see disinformation every day, especially from USA, saying Europe has no freedom, that it's overrun with criminals, and people not only believe it, but vote accordingly. This has to stop. Humans weren't trained to use rationality and reasoning every second of their life. Reason costs a lot of cognitive power so the brain implements a hundred shortcuts. For example: if you see something appear frequently, you assume it to be true. This is good for avoiding poisonous plants, but it's terrible when you go in Twitter and you're spammed with the same lies day and night. It's messing with us. Enough is enough. Free speech with guardrails.

You should be able to insult and criticise the Prime Minister.

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. People are not rational actors. Not you, and not me. We are very simple animals.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#767

Post by fc417fc802 »

> It's impossible for either a government or parliamentary body to tell to an indipendent authority what to do and what not to do

What did Borghi mean by this? Isn't that the equivalent of a US senator publicly stating that the FCC is outside of the US federal government's ability to reign in?

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#769

Post by ahmetomer »

I respect and agree with Cloudflare's right to pursue the decisions that Matthew Prince outlined — even if it is used as retaliation or a threat. What has completely turned the tone of the message for me is appealing to Elon Musk & JD Vance for democratic values and free speech.

I can't really take it seriously when free speech and democracy are pretended to be important only when the interests of the political figures of the US admin or of Elon Musk are at stake. Those values are supposed to be enjoyed by everyone and followed through on, no matter whose agenda and interests they may harm (or improve) as a result. At this point, they are tools (or weapons) that are appealed to when one's interests (or opinions, or feelings) are threatened.

If we listen to JD Vance and Elon Musk, we get the idea that it's the leftists and brown immigrants and democrats and woke people who are making everything worse, inciting violence and terror, are a block to prosperity and advancement, a threat to Western civilization. And thus, free speech is important to only further repeat and consolidate these points. The other way around cannot be entertained even as a possibility. They are exempt, for they are free of such flaws and imperfections.

It is a difficult balance to keep between universal values, such as democracy and free speech, and one's own interests, such as political and financial. I would want to see more honesty than a pretense of complete devotion to these values. No one is. I am not, for that matter.

I don't buy into Matthew Prince's appeal to free speech and democracy, but I am open to happily changing my mind in an incident where Cloudflare consequently takes an action that would harm the interests of said figures in a meaningful (not symbolic) way.

Re: Cloudflare CEO on the Italy fines

#770

Post by lostlogin »

Ikatza wrote: post #757
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…

Freedom of speech is binary, there aren't any acceptable degrees of it: either you have it, or you don't. If there is disinformation, the solution is to counter it with actual information, to give the people better tools to identify it (like X's community notes), and to educate the general population so they will have better critical thinking. Restricting freedom of speech is never a solution. How long until dissenti…

> Freedom of speech is binary, there aren't any acceptable degrees of it: either you have it, or you don't.

That seems to be the American definition.

We don’t all have binary systems for our views and politics, and some of our democracies are doing better than than US despite our apparent lack of free speech.

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