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Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

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Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#91

Post by smolder »

R_D_Olivaw wrote: post #40
antonvs wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's funny that as soon as anything European (not even related to EU one bit) Living in the US, I've noticed many Americans don't really make distinctions like that. They see "EU" as a kind of shorthand for "Europe", or something along those lines. Even the fact that the UK is no longer in the EU doesn't affect this - it's still part of what Americans think of as "the EU".

Hell, watch an American's face when you explain to them that "America" doesn't ONLY refer to the united states. See the gears grind to a halt when they are reeducated on the concepts of "Central AMERICA" and "South AMERICA".

US education covers that much pretty well. Just not so much the geography of specific countries that belong to south america, europe, asia, and africa.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#92

Post by RobotToaster »

Previously the WTO ruled that USA had imposed illegal trade barriers against Antigua that violate the GATS treaty by attempting to criminalise any website in any country that takes wagers from Americans[0]. I'm pretty sure any site blocking effort would violate the same treaty, but those cases can't be taken to the WTO due to the USA blocking appointments to the WTO appellate body since 2019 [1]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua#Online_gambling

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appellate_Body

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#93

Post by RobotToaster »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #86
ACCount37 wrote: post #38

I'm no fan of Cloudflare, but they're completely in the right on that. Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Because if it's allowed to exist, it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests, and becomes a tool of overreach and abuse. We've seen that happen over and over again. If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

so for example Germany should not be allowed to block neo-nazi sites? illegal gambling sites in country X must be allowed if they are legal in country Y - Y being America I guess. >it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests I believe the term for this is legislated by the laws of particular lands and regions. Essentially Cloudflare tells U.S Government to set the rules for rest of world please.

> illegal gambling sites in country X must be allowed if they are legal in country Y - Y being America I guess.

Other way around, actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua#Online_gambling

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#94

Post by reisse »

For God's sake, Cloudflare is the last effin company to speak about site blocking. I can only quote myself from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45059003 :

> In my opinion, Cloudflare does a lot more censoring than all state actors combined, because they singlehandedly decide if the IP you use is "trustworthy" or "not", and if they decided it is not, you're cut off from like half of the Internet, and the only thing you can do is to look for another one. I'd really like if their engineers understood what Orwellian mammoth have they created and resign, but for now they're only bragging without the realization. Or at least if any sane antitrust or comms agency shred their business in pieces.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#96

Post by shevy-java »

That's actually an interesting take. I have not thought about it from that point of view. It's kind of strange how people in the same government come up with orthogonal decisions - the left hand doesn't know what the right hand does and vice versa.

Clouflare actually does have a point. If you censor xyz, then you may also censor some businesses that are legitimate and pay taxes.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#97

Post by pyrale »

iamnothere wrote: post #51
pyrale wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it. ...But, of course, US corporations enforcing the same kind of censoring is a-OK, because corporations are people and their censorship is free speech. I'll be open to your posititon the day Boticelli's Venus doesn't get censored on FB because there's a pair of tits somewhere on the painting.

Whataboutism. I am no fan of CF or current US trade policy, but I’ll take whatever wins we can get when it comes to internet freedom.

There is no win in using this administration to strong-arm other countries into giving tech corps some sort of extraterritoriality.

Yes, Spain is screwing up. But it is the responsibility of Spanish electors to fix the mess. Any alternative involving the US department of State should be fought.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#98

Post by radiator »

ACCount37 wrote: post #49
tiahura wrote: post #13

Backbone operators in the US should not be allowed to connect to networks that connect to low trust countries.

This boneheaded idea of "just block the Bad Countries from our Good Web" needs to die a miserable death. Countries like Russia or China spend billions on controlling the flow of information on their own land. Countries like Iran go out of their way to blackhole the traffic whenever any disruptions or political violence happens in the country, and for every Nepal, where this backfired terribly, there's a dozen cases o…

I find the notion that propagandists only control the flow of information in countries like Russia, China, Iran - but they don't in the West - misguided at best.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#99

Post by nozzlegear »

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #84
ACCount37 wrote: post #38

I'm no fan of Cloudflare, but they're completely in the right on that. Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Because if it's allowed to exist, it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests, and becomes a tool of overreach and abuse. We've seen that happen over and over again. If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

> Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Isn't that exactly what Cloudflare is, in part? They happily block "malicious" traffic

They block traffic reaching your website, not the other way around. For a poor, nitpickable analogy: they keep the bad guys out of your home, but they don't want to take away homes from the bad guys.

Re: Cloudflare tells U.S. govt that foreign site blocking efforts are trade barriers

#100

Post by immibis »

pjc50 wrote: post #85
ACCount37 wrote: post #38

I'm no fan of Cloudflare, but they're completely in the right on that. Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. Because if it's allowed to exist, it ends up subsumed by political and corporate interests, and becomes a tool of overreach and abuse. We've seen that happen over and over again. If US Trade Office can be leveraged to destroy internet censorship efforts in other countries, then so be it.

> Infrastructure for blocking websites simply shouldn't exist. I think people have forgotten how extreme a position this is: the idea that once something is on the internet, national law simply ceases to apply and governments should have absolutely zero control over obscene material, IP infringment, harassment, libel, foreign propaganda, money laundering, fraudulent financial services, gambling, and so on - simply be…

Nobody's saying the government shouldn't be able to go after the owner of the site and force them to shut it down. It definitely shouldn't be done by third parties though.
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