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Blocking Kiwifarms

blog.cloudflare.com

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Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#931

Post by xdmr »

SapporoChris wrote: post #871
xdmr wrote: post #767

CF could have said to KF "For various reasons we no longer wish to do business with you. In 24 hours we will stop redirecting to your servers. Please make appropriate arrangements." Had they done this, they would not have actually been censoring KF. They would also have been behaving like a responsible service provider by not cutting off service without notice. Instead, they seem to have made the decision to do this…

Cloudflare: "... we believe are potential criminal acts and imminent threats to human life that were posted to the site." No, Cloudflare isn't obligated to continue to provide services to support "potential criminal acts and imminent threats to human life". Perhaps if KiwiFarms had better moderated their content and discouraged such behavior this could have been avoided.

My point is not that they had an obligation to continue to have a business relationship with KF, but that if they chose to terminate the relationship, they had an obligation to do so in a responsible way.

> Over the last two weeks, we have proactively reached out to law enforcement in multiple jurisdictions highlighting what we believe are potential criminal acts and imminent threats to human life that were posted to the site.

In other words, they had plenty of time to give KF notice and terminate the relationship. This didn't even have to stop them from contacting law enforcement. But they did something else instead.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#932

Post by pnf »

eastdakota wrote: post #391

Reading over the comments I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. It’s about what in the US you’d call “due process” and in all the rest of the world you’d call “rule of law.” Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be…

The issue is about "free speech" AND "due process" AND the "rule of law". In the US, the law is emphatic that the government shall not infringe upon the free speech of the individual except under very limited circumstances. People on HN insisting that these are private corporations doing private things are painfully naive "useful idiots" or shills for the government. Zuckerberg just admitted that the FBI and intelligence services applied pressure on Facebook to suppress information that would harm the campaign of the candidate who ended up winning the last presidential election. That is fact. The "requests" from government are ALWAYS going to be couched in the language of risk and helping law enforcement. And what would the consequences of a media company's refusal to comply be? What corporate executive wants to find out?

There is already US case law prohibiting this. At scale, governments prefer to act through "private" enterprise. Such enterprises are "state actors" suppressing speech. That is why government prefers monopoly capitalism. Who wouldn't rather have just one or a few partners to manage?

Of course this is a free speech issue, but it's much more. Cloudflare's volte face is super sus. Even if it's the case that no direct government agents were involved this time, the astroturfed pressure campaigns run by state sponsored NGO money are just the privatized surveillance and secret police state hard at work.

The deep issue is that US politicians and citizens are abandoning "rule of law" expectations in domestic politics. These free speech issues are the visible manifestation of a shift in the structure of power in US politics to an unapologetic administrative uni-party, accelerating in real time. Arguing the ludicrous details of this Kiwifarms blocking is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#933

Post by vintermann »

kanbara wrote: post #824
chroma wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech isn't about speech. It's about hearing. There are people who want to read or listen to what others have to say, and often for reasons besides agreement with the author's statements. By silencing someone, you are preventing others from reading what they want to read or hearing what they want to hear. I certainly don't agree with the posts and comments on kiwifarms, but I want to understand what they…

providing hateful content spreads hate. clinging to some idea that absolute freedom of speech allows us to be moral and just is quite frankly bs when the spread of fascist / terrorist / homophobic / racist propaganda contributes to the destruction of democracy and the very freedoms we hold dear

> providing hateful content spreads hate.

You talk as if hate is a kind of mind-virus which must be defeated with quarantine.

For one thing, this is illiberal. You're not respecting people as your equals if you want to stop hatred by preventing them from reading things that can make them hate.

But more importantly, if it's that way, we have lost already. The tools you want to fight these evils with, work just as well in the enemy's hands, if not better.

We need a way to fight propaganda which works better for us than for them.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#934

Post by voganmother42 »

HereIGoAgain wrote: post #912

Just remember everyone, the precedence this sets.. All you have to do to get a site taken down is create an account and make a ridiculous threat, even if the post is taken down in less than 30 minutes and the user banned, the site is still guilty. And never forget that keffals has gone on record saying that their enemies (KF) is irredeemably evil because of the mean things they say, and thus no tactic against them is…

But the site is still up…

All you have to do to is…use other providers, you are not entitled nor required to work with this service.

Remember, all you have to do to get kicked out a wendys is to take your shirt off, wave it around your head like a helicopter and start shouting - the humanity!

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#935

Post by [deleted] »

concordDance wrote: post #801

As far as I can tell this action by cloudfare has not accomplished its stated objectives. The site is still up at another url: https://kiwifarms.ru/threads/fuck-cloudflare.128846/ Additionally, a single deleted post (or even a handful of them) being a cause for attempted removal from the internet seems like a precedent that would kill every host of user generated content, including hackernews and twitter.

[deleted]

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#936

Post by HereIGoAgain »

neonsunset wrote: post #571
BrainVirus wrote: post #414

I just love how the pro-censorship crowd here is faking moderation and exasperated reasonableness, while the rest of us know full well how this game is played. We see it on literally all major social media platforms right now . It started (roughly) with banning Alex Jones and a few others. Why would you be opposed to banning of that screaming crazy person, right? Fast forward just a few years, it's now impossible to…

There are two parts of the issue at hand: 1. By denying people the opportunity to voice and discuss their disagreements in a civil manner by means of deplatforming, targeted harassment (cancel culture) and other forms of witch hunting, it pushes them to participate in platforms and groups they otherwise would never associate with. Think prohibition act and what it did to the ABV of the drinks people were consuming; 2…

The scary part is this whole thing right here is very much about preventing the last part of your post.. Or at the very least asserting dominion over what a newly re-decentralized net would permit. (i.e. a decentralized system forcing the same rules and standards as now) I mean look at how cries of "disinformation" and "hate" are treated already. Look at what the owner of KF was willing to do to keep the site up.. creating his own internet infrastructure. And look how this is turning out. people literally melting down because an infrastructure company won't leave the site open to criminal (DDoS) attacks. A few hundred people are all that it takes to create a shit storm that leads to enforcement of their standards on the rest of society.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#937

Post by HereIGoAgain »

voganmother42 wrote: post #934
HereIGoAgain wrote: post #912

Just remember everyone, the precedence this sets.. All you have to do to get a site taken down is create an account and make a ridiculous threat, even if the post is taken down in less than 30 minutes and the user banned, the site is still guilty. And never forget that keffals has gone on record saying that their enemies (KF) is irredeemably evil because of the mean things they say, and thus no tactic against them is…

But the site is still up… All you have to do to is…use other providers, you are not entitled nor required to work with this service. Remember, all you have to do to get kicked out a wendys is to take your shirt off, wave it around your head like a helicopter and start shouting - the humanity!

Well then what was this all about in the first place? A giant harassment campaign against something the right people didn't like?

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#938

Post by [deleted] »

Longlius wrote: post #717
eastdakota wrote: post #391

Reading over the comments I see everyone thinking this is about “free speech.” It is not. It’s about what in the US you’d call “due process” and in all the rest of the world you’d call “rule of law.” Our decision today was that the risk created by the content could not be dealt with in a timely enough matter by the traditional rule of law systems. That’s a failure of the rule of law on two dimensions: we shouldn’t be…

Tell me then - why does Cloudflare still offer its services to drug dealers? To sites run by terrorist groups like ISIS? To outright criminal scamming operations? I have no faith in your principles. From my perspective, the only principle you have is your share price. That's fine, of course. I don't expect you to stick your neck out or risk your business. But don't pretend like this is some principled stand.

[deleted]

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#939

Post by oxmane »

Something I am curious about is why these things (de-platforming of websites for example) are so US-centric.

What I'm wondering is whether it is because:

1. Only US-based websites and forums get to that level of extremism that is cause for de-platforming. I find this option the hardest to believe (pretty sure there are hideous things in other countries as well).

2. The infra is mostly US-based (Cloudflare, cloud providers, etc.), they are focused or getting their attention drawn specifically to US-centric topics.

3. It happens in other counties as well, but because HN is US-centric I am hearing about the instances that are dealing with US topics.

And specifically I'm currently focusing on democratic countries, where free speech is upheld in some form (obviously government based censorship is happening in authoritarian countries all the time).

So which is it? Why am I not hearing of these cases happening to EU-based, Canada-based, Australia-based or Israel-based forums/websites (mentioning Israel specifically as I'd expect to hear about those in my local echo-chamber)?

Would love to learn about similar cases from other countries.

Re: Blocking Kiwifarms

#940

Post by rubyist5eva »

So let me get this straight. 1. People were trying to cancel kiwi farms 2. Kiwifarms users got mad, I’d argue rightfully, because they were being attacked. 3. Cloudflare doesn’t like Kiwifarms politically so they gave into the mob. 4. Blame the victims because we don’t like them.

Ignoring the fact that cloudflare provides we security services and they decided to just give up on it, this leaves a very sour taste in my month. I won’t be giving cloudflare my business anymore. If Kiwifarms users were engaging in illegal activity then just let enforcement do their job.

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