[HN Gopher] Blocking Kiwifarms
___________________________________________________________________
Blocking Kiwifarms
Author : deepdriver
Score : 198 points
Date : 2022-09-03 22:17 UTC (42 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.cloudflare.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.cloudflare.com)
| SirPatrickMoore wrote:
| trasz wrote:
| Good to see at least the tanking share prices can convince
| Cloudflare owners to change their deeply held moral beliefs :D
| wyager wrote:
| > Feeling attacked, users of the site became even more
| aggressive. 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
|
| What are they talking about? From what I've seen, this is
| somewhere between grossly exaggerated and completely fictional.
| Did they see someone post the "300 confirmed kills" copypasta and
| think it was serious?
| SirPatrickMoore wrote:
| cosmodisk wrote:
| Never heard of kiwifarms before but after having a quick read on
| it, I don't see any reasons why any provider of any sorts would
| deal with them. Not sure how screwed up in their heads people
| need to be to engage in this kind of shit.
| Sansos wrote:
| Nahtnah wrote:
| Surprised at the number of people on here arguing against this
| because of 'censorship' who by their own words pretty clearly
| frequent the site...
| smcl wrote:
| I think those who are arguing against it either don't know
| quite how extreme KiwiFarms is, or strongly agree with the
| hatred, doxing and SWATting of minorities and vulnerable
| people that their members do.
| Nahtnah wrote:
| I suppose you're right, and a bunch of them seem to be
| throwaways, or perhaps people who only made an account to
| defend their site (I'm basically on a throwaway too). Sad
| they fell into the same persecution complex thing people
| seem to get trapped in... like you're really defending the
| site where they welcomed the Christchurch shooter's
| manifesto? You really think you're doing something? That's
| what you want to fight for?
| ericzawo wrote:
| Hope the tech elite who naysay journalism take note that it
| wasn't the 3 suicides, or the swatting, or the death threats or
| the stalking or the harassment that compelled Matthew Prince to
| stop hosting kiwifarms.
|
| It was the heat from negative PR that did it.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I don't think it matters if you're the host (ethically) if you're
| responsible for facilitating access.
| debacle wrote:
| I am a free speech absolutist, but I read the Wikipedia page on
| this site and it seems bad. "Crimes were committed," "People lost
| their lives" bad. Unjustifiably bad.
|
| That said, is anyone willing to steelman this website? Could this
| possibly be construed as just a big misunderstanding?
| wyager wrote:
| > but I read the Wikipedia page on this site and it seems bad
|
| Full-time Wikipedia editors are pretty much the mortal enemy of
| KF users. It is 100% guaranteed that the wikipedia article for
| KF is going to make it look as bad as possible.
|
| > is anyone willing to steelman this website
|
| I'm not a user, but I've gone on there a few times when it's
| come up in the news. It's literally just a website to track the
| antics of insane/destructive/etc people on the internet. A lot
| of those types of people are terminally online weirdos who are
| going to have a lot of influence on twitter, wikipedia, in SV
| tech companies, etc.
| Takeitalldown wrote:
| [deleted]
| kache_ wrote:
| bullshit corpo speak
|
| if you're infrastructure, act like it
| ShowsAlone wrote:
| hkt wrote:
| Not working with fascists (yes, really) makes me much happier
| about cloudflare. They have their problems but they're not
| totally amoral.
| dougp1399 wrote:
| sroghorhgr wrote:
| [deleted]
| thepasswordis wrote:
| I'll admit I was totally ignorant to this entire situation. In
| the last few days I've read through some of the content that KF
| was hosting.
|
| I'll say this: the behavior of the people who are apparently
| behind the campaign to get them removed is _abhorrent_. Well
| beyond anything I would have imagined in my worst nightmares.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| You're OK with Kiwifarms killing this person and several others
| and being proud of it. Maybe you aren't as ignorant as you
| claim?
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments/o91umv/rip_byu...
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| And that's exactly why they wanted KF deplatformed.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| This is probably a worst case scenario for Cloudflare here. I'm
| generally in favor of them and I agree with their abuse policy
| they posted the other day.
|
| But now twice Cloudflare has posted they won't moderate content,
| and then two days later done... exactly that while posting that
| they don't like doing it.
|
| For folks concerned about abusive and harmful internet behavior,
| Prince has made it clear he doesn't feel responsible to take
| action and will avoid doing so as much as possible. And for folks
| concerned about free speech and censorship, Prince has made it
| clear he can be pushed around with enough pressure (regardless
| what the post says, it's how it will be read).
|
| Cloudflare could've arguably taken either position with some
| level of righteousness, but by essentially caving to both, he
| proves himself to neither.
| Spergy999 wrote:
| [deleted]
| deepdriver wrote:
| > However, the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site and specific,
| targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours to the
| point that we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and
| immediate threat to human life unlike we have previously seen
| from Kiwifarms or any other customer before.
|
| I have been monitoring the Keffals thread on Kiwi Farms. I
| haven't seen any real-life threats anywhere close to the extreme
| extent Prince mentions. I am very curious if we'll ever get to
| know what specific threats were involved here. Perhaps they were
| made off-site and attributed to Kiwi Farms. It's possible Kiwi
| users were behind such threats, and I'm simply unaware as a new
| observer. It's also impossible for me as an observer to tell.
|
| From what I've seen alone, I think Cloudflare made the wrong
| decision. I've summarized what I've seen on Kiwi Farms in recent
| comments visible on my profile. They've mostly been aggressively
| flagged for some reason. If you have showdead and want a steelman
| pro-speech perspective you can read them.
| smcl wrote:
| > to the extreme extent he mentions
|
| Hey just FYI - Keffals is "she", so "to the extent _she_
| mentions ".
| sroghorhgr wrote:
| deepdriver wrote:
| I was referring to Matthew Prince, author of the linked
| statement. I have edited to clarify this.
|
| I also believe in immutable biological sex, for the record.
| smcl wrote:
| Ah come on just own what you said :)
| bombcar wrote:
| The immediate and credible threats are so credible you ...
| can't see them.
| happycube wrote:
| I read the beginning as "the commercial threat to Cloudflare
| from continuing to host Kiwifarms."
|
| That said, they should've done it a while ago.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Kiwi Farms is internet trolls taken to extreme. The harassment
| doesn't stay in the virtual world.
| https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/15657972205318144...
| deepdriver wrote:
| crotho wrote:
| Kiwi farms has lead to the deaths of multiple people.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms#Suicides_of_harassm...
| octochoron wrote:
| deepdriver wrote:
| It's a bit more complicated, as I've tried to understand and
| explain. This is a case of the worst people on the Internet
| fighting. Trans streamers who send sketchy hormones to
| underage kids behind parents' backs vs. versus the very worst
| trolls from 4chan and 8chan. Doxing and SWATing has been
| practiced by both sides. The owner of KF and his mom have
| been doxed; two mentally unwell trans women with weapons
| showed up on his doorstep. Severe mental illness has
| contributed to suicides which one side wants to blame on the
| other, rightly or wrongly. I don't fully understand the
| history, but what I've seen of the Keffals story has been
| alarming.
|
| The point I've been trying to make is that KF as a platform
| at least has strong policies against offline harassment, and
| Keffals (their current nemesis) has an extensive documented
| history of child-endangering behavior, such as hooking minors
| up with life-altering drugs without involving parents or
| doctors. If KF users were really behind these SWATings in an
| organized way, I'm not sad to see the site gone. I am however
| worried that the point about Keffals will be lost, and that
| this was in some sense the purpose of the exercise. What this
| person was up to on their drug distribution website and
| Discord full of sexualized minors is monstrous.
|
| All the data that was dug up on Keffals has been archived. I
| guess it's up to real journalists to take that ball from
| here, if any will.
| oinwoinfoiw wrote:
| Kiwifarms has a strict "do not interact with the people
| being discussed" policy. Anyone who does is immediately
| scorned for it and often banned. It's not uncommon for
| people outside of the forum to swat others and blame it on
| the forums, though.
| deepdriver wrote:
| This is correct, and easily verifiable with a quick look
| at the actual website.
|
| It is also entirely possible that users coordinate
| harassment out-of-band. I am unable to tell if this is
| what's happening.
| alxjrvs wrote:
| To be clear, "Drug Distribution Website" is a common
| resources list for sourcing HRT when you do not have
| supporting medical access to it. This is a far reach from
| "Distributing Drugs".
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| [deleted]
| pokemod97 wrote:
| https://twitter.com/keffals/status/1566153033586810885?s=20&...
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| phillipcarter wrote:
| bumbum260 wrote:
| subsuboptimal wrote:
| Good. Long overdue.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| Why?
| bumbum260 wrote:
| subsuboptimal wrote:
| Kiwifarms is a site that is implicated in several deaths,
| several swattings, and had knowingly hosted videos of, for
| example, the Christchurch shooting.
|
| It is a hotbed for stochastic terrorism. It should be welcome
| to exist online, but Cloudflare providing it protection
| undermines Cloudflare's own reputation.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| atdrummond wrote:
| ketzerei wrote:
| RichardCNormos wrote:
| Citation needed.
|
| Do you have a source that supports the claim that Kiwifarms
| is the proximate cause of violence?
| subsuboptimal wrote:
| London Ontario police department said that Keffals was
| the target of swatting. Keffals was doxxed by KF, and the
| site has a whole long thread on her. I doubt anyone was
| stupid enough to type out, "let's harass her!" But if you
| can't connect the dots here you've got your head in the
| sand.
| donkarma wrote:
| MBCook wrote:
| The site literally spent its time doxxing people and trying
| to get them to commit suicide.
| StWallSt wrote:
| tsujamin wrote:
| cloudflare's servers were hosting and redistributing abusive
| material and private information non-consensually leading to
| suicides?
|
| KF is still on the internet, they're free to handle their own
| traffic and find a cdn willing to take their (apparently
| blatantly neonazi named) operating company's money
| timmytokyo wrote:
| It's a forum dedicated pretty much entirely to doxxing,
| swatting, stalking and harrassment. It's also where the
| Christchurch New Zealand mass shooter's live stream and
| manifesto were hosted.
| atdrummond wrote:
| Cyberdog wrote:
| It's obviously not the only place they was hosted, or the
| place they were originally posted (I think the manifesto
| originated from 4chan and the stream would have been Twitch
| or YT or some other live-streaming platform - no idea
| which).
| TeeMassive wrote:
| Why do you say the forum itself is "dedicated" to those
| things?
|
| How "hosting" someone posted makes them responsible
| considering section 230 and the 1st A?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| _" It should be noted that no ethically-trained software
| engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad
| procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead
| require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which
| Baghdad could be given as a parameter._"
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Doxxing, yes. But any discussion about harassing people
| will get you banned.
| tstrimple wrote:
| "Here's the personal info on this person that we all hate
| and constantly talk shit about. It includes their address
| and contact information. We're totally putting this out
| here for innocent reasons. We trust you guys won't go
| harass these people now because that's against our
| rules!"
| subsuboptimal wrote:
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Whatever people do by themselves is their own business.
| subsuboptimal wrote:
| Why doxx someone unless you are implying a threat of
| harassment against them?
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Why get a website's ddos protection removed unless you're
| planning on ddosing it?
| gumby wrote:
| Used for meatspace attacks on people they didn't like. It had
| transitioned to the "sticks and stones" stage.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| What is your evidence for that?
| gumby wrote:
| For example:
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/cloudflare-kiwi-
| farms-...
|
| https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/15657972205318
| 144...
| djfobbz wrote:
| I've never used CloudFlare but this move just solidified the fact
| that I will never use them EVER! Really odd timing too since
| "Court Documents reveal Over 50 Biden Administration Employees,
| 12 US Agencies Involved In Social Media Censorship Push" news
| dropped the same day!
|
| Reference: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/over-50-biden-
| administra...
| prvc wrote:
| >We are also not taking this action directly because of the
| pressure campaign.
|
| Haven't been following this story, but it seems they haven't
| considered that whatever antagonists the site has could have
| posted the putatively objectionable content there themselves, due
| to the website's nature as a forum for user-generated content.
| Furthermore, the article throughout seems to suffer from the
| "anthropomorphic fallacy", in failing to acknowledge that it is
| speaking about a web service rather than person, and falsely
| attributing to it emotions and intentions.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| > We have never been their hosting provider
|
| That is simply not how it works. The bits came from Cloudflare.
| Moncefmd wrote:
| By that logic, the ISP's host the internet
| bumbum260 wrote:
| they never were hosting dude
| imglorp wrote:
| How is hosting == CDN?
| jeremyjh wrote:
| Well, they store content from the website, and send it over
| their network to consumers in response to requests.
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| That is not how it works both technically and legally.
| Providing a reverse proxy is not the same as hosting the
| content.
| astrange wrote:
| Cloudflare is a hosting service. It has R2, workers, etc.
|
| And a CDN is a hosting service if you push content there and
| don't set it to expire.
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| In this case cloudflare isn't the host though. They have
| hosting services but kiwifarms only makes use of their ddos
| protection (which is a reverse proxy). That means they
| aren't the actual host.
| stefan_ wrote:
| They are a cache, not some load balancer. To anyone visiting
| their site, the difference is immaterial (otherwise, why
| would it even matter).
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| In this case cloudflare was the ddos protection via reverse
| proxy. That is different from directly hosting the website.
| No backend servers in this case were ever hosted on
| clodflare's network.
| stefan_ wrote:
| You are still talking about proxies. You misunderstand
| what Cloudflare was providing, and you are instead
| talking about "backend servers hosted on clodflare's
| network" as if that was ever their offer.
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| I'm confused by your comment. The issue here is people
| were mad that cloudflare was providing ddos protection
| (via reverse proxy). What are you talking about?
| tomschwiha wrote:
| Did they provide CDN services? Then they store files and I
| would interpret that as hosting.
| ronsor wrote:
| Caching doesn't count as hosting legally. In a literal,
| technical sense, sure, it's temporary hosting, but
| practically it's not.
| prvit wrote:
| According to which laws or court decisions?
| MBCook wrote:
| Except, you know, when they were literally hosting the "site
| is down" pages that contained anti-trans jokes.
| octochoron wrote:
| spoils19 wrote:
| Why should we cancel a site due to some harmless jokes?
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| What are you talking about? Cloudflare didn't host the
| website. They provided ddos protection via reverse proxy.
| That is different from hosting.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| A CDN caches (= stores) the bits they provide. In other
| words, they are hosting contents on others behalf. I
| can't speak to a legal distinction, but if you torrent
| child pornography, I'm pretty sure you aren't going far
| with a claim that you were "just a CDN".
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| I suggest you look into safe harbor laws when it comes to
| ISPs. They have very broad protection from the
| consequences of their users' actions.
| MBCook wrote:
| My understanding was they were able to configure a simple
| page that was hosted by Cloudflare that was shown
| whenever the origin servers were not accessible. They put
| a joke about trans suicides on it.
|
| Once that joke was pointed out on Twitter, it quickly
| disappeared. Probably because it was incredibly obviously
| against Cloudflare's policies and Cloudflare was the one
| hosting it.
| abraae wrote:
| Every byte that the end user sees came from Cloudflare's
| servers. Try making the case that that's not hosting in a
| court of law.
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| That is a very easy case to make in the US. ISPs have
| incredibility broad safe harbor laws (even more so when
| just providing transit instead of actually hosting like
| this case). They have very broad protection from the
| consequences of their users' actions.
| prvit wrote:
| Technically that's literally how it works.
|
| Legally? Do you have evidence to support that theory?
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| >Technically that's literally how it works.
|
| No it is not. Kiwifarms backend server isn't on
| cloudflare's network. When the backend server sends you
| some bits it hands them off to cloudflare since cloudflare
| is the reverse proxy ddos protection. In this case
| cloudflare is acting as a transit provider instead of
| directly hosting the backend server.
|
| >Legally? Do you have evidence to support that theory?
|
| Look up safe harbor laws in relation to ISPs. They have
| very broad legal protection when it comes to situations
| like this.
| prvit wrote:
| > Kiwifarms backend server isn't on cloudflare's network
|
| What does that even mean in practice? If you only host
| the php forum frontend but mysql runs at another DC then
| you're also not hosting the backend, right?
|
| Cloudflare was hosting Kiwifarms even if they weren't
| hosting the backend.
|
| > Look up safe harbor laws in relation to ISPs. They have
| very broad legal protection when it comes to situations
| like this.
|
| And those same laws don't apply to someone just renting
| out dedicated servers?
|
| If you know more than me, perhaps you can explain to me
| how e.g. US law differentiates between a DC renting out
| dedicated servers and Cloudflare?
| bitwize wrote:
| The network interprets hate as noise and filters it out.
| 0cVlTeIATBs wrote:
| The original quote will likely be the more accurate one.
| krapp wrote:
| [deleted]
| alexb_ wrote:
| >Kiwifarms itself will most likely find other infrastructure that
| allows them to come back online, as the Daily Stormer and 8chan
| did themselves after we terminated them. And, even if they don't,
| the individuals that used the site to increasingly terrorize will
| feel even more isolated and attacked and may lash out further.
| There is real risk that by taking this action today we may have
| further heightened the emergency.
|
| Yeah no shit, of course this is going to happen. It's clearly
| just a way to save face from Cloudflare - though they definitely
| needed to do it as this problem was never going to go away for
| them if they didn't. The entire point of the internet is to be
| uncensorable, and that's not going to change with them dropping
| KiwiFarms. As terrible of a website as it is, it's just going to
| come back up with a provider that has even lower moral standards
| than Cloudflare.
| Cyberdog wrote:
| > this problem was never going to go away for them if they
| didn't.
|
| Sure it was. Another week or two and the angry people would
| have got bored and moved on to some other outrage.
|
| Instead they have been shown that the infrastructure of the
| internet will bend to their will if they make enough noise.
|
| Good job, CF.
| bitwize wrote:
| > The entire point of the internet is to be uncensorable,
|
| It's not the 1990s anymore. Hate is becoming increasingly
| unwelcome on the network, and that includes white-shoe hate
| that directly threatens marginalized communities (e.g., race-IQ
| pseudocience, "gender-critical feminism"). _Lives are on the
| line._
| erpart wrote:
| google234123 wrote:
| So gender-critical feminism should be treated the same way as
| nazies? It's literally a protected philosophy in the UK.
|
| https://amp.theguardian.com/law/2021/jun/10/gender-
| critical-...
|
| What you are advocating for is complete censorship.
| tsujamin wrote:
| > The entire point of the internet is to be uncensorable
|
| I find this interesting, is this the point of the internet, Or
| is this a personal value or feature people overlay on the
| internet? At a history/protocol level I'd be pressed to say the
| internet was designed to be uncensorsble, fault tolerant
| perhaps at best
| fabianhjr wrote:
| > The entire point of the internet is to be uncensorable
|
| That isn't the point, the internet protocol is designed as a
| distributed networking system that was adopted by corporations;
| if you want censorship resistance or privacy that isn't part of
| that specific protocol. (For example check alternatives such a
| CJDNS, GNUnet, Yggdrasil, etc; or application-layer protocols
| such as I2P/TOR)
|
| Additionally the Internet Protocol is not resistant to
| intermediation. (Or in the words of the P2P Foundiation: it is
| not counter-anti-desintermediation:
| https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Counter-Anti-
| Disintermediatio...)
|
| > The idea of disintermediation was central to the emancipatory
| visions of the Internet, yet the landscape today is more
| mediated than ever before. If we are to understand the
| consequences of an increasingly centralized Internet, we need
| to start by addressing the root cause of this concentration.
| Centralization is required to capture profit. Disintermediating
| platforms were ultimately reintermediated by way of capitalist
| investors dictating that communications systems be designed to
| capture profit.
| balentio wrote:
| oh_really_A wrote:
| devwastaken wrote:
| Cloudflare would do better to simply stop making posts every time
| they do something. Every other company bans users every day and
| have learned to stop talking about it. Or the inverse. Regardless
| of what cloudflare does, right or wrong, there will be mobs of
| people responding negatively and positively to it. People love
| drama.
|
| If their policy was "we'll ban anyone we want for whatever
| reason." I'd respect that more because that's the truth.
|
| Further troubling is how this is over what they believe to be
| illigal conduct. It may very well be, but now they're creating a
| precedent that they are capable of detecting and stopping it
| themselves outside the justice system.
|
| This also doesn't stop kiwifarms or it's organizers. If there's
| illigal conduct, or even civil discovery, CF has to give up those
| details. All stopping Ddos support does is allows kiwifarms to
| receive Ddos.
|
| No doubt they'll eventually take to tor and that doesn't have a
| good physical address to serve warrants to.
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| Their transparency actually makes me sympathetic to the weight
| of the decisions they're making. Their acknowledgement that it
| could make things worse is also very honest and refreshing. I
| hope they continue making these posts especially since they
| control such a massive percentage of internet infrastructure.
| debacle wrote:
| I adore Cloudflare for making this post. It shows they have a
| true commitment to taking freedom of expression about as far as
| they can.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| > We are also not taking this action directly because of the
| pressure campaign.
|
| Given their principled stand just two days ago, this sounds like
| a pretty weak "haha we totally don't cave to pressure, it's just
| coincidence, so don't think pressure campaigns work on us!"
|
| Has Cloudflare proactively blocked any websites without a
| pressure campaign?
| orf wrote:
| Pretty crazy turnaround. I really liked the pretty clear and
| reasoned abuse policy[1] they put out recently, and I don't envy
| the position they are in. On one hand, yes, this specific site is
| terrible. But they are trying _very_ hard to _not_ become the
| arbiters of what is terrible and what isn 't terrible, and I
| respect them for that.
|
| It's not an easy line to take, and other companies like Google
| and Facebook have not made that same choice to stay neutral.
|
| > Some argue that we should terminate these services to content
| we find reprehensible so that others can launch attacks to knock
| it offline. That is the equivalent argument in the physical world
| that the fire department shouldn't respond to fires in the homes
| of people who do not possess sufficient moral character
|
| 1. https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-abuse-policies-
| and-a...
| prvit wrote:
| > I really liked the pretty clear and reasoned abuse policy[1]
|
| Except it's neither. The way they try to brand their caching
| reverse proxy as only a "security service" instead of a
| "hosting service" is absurd and not based on any well reasoned
| logic.
| jacooper wrote:
| How ? They aren't hosting the server and aren't hosting the
| backend itself.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| I genuinely believe that it's entirely possible to be seen as
| _very neutral_ and also just ban nazi sites, troll farms, etc.
| because you choose not to do business with them.
| cowtools wrote:
| I genuinely believe that it's entirely possible to be seen as
| _very neutral_ and also just ban anyone I disagree with or
| who even just annoys me.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Being _neutral_ with Nazis is supporting them, period. We
| 've seen in 1933-45 where staying neutral or appeasing them
| leads to.
|
| Nazis need to be fought everywhere, otherwise their
| cancerous ideology just grows.
| inawarminister wrote:
| I agree with you, we also see the same WRT communists.
|
| Murderous antiquated ideologies should be eradicated from
| the modern world.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Communists are no longer a threat anywhere outside the
| PRC and North Korea.
| inawarminister wrote:
| And the Nazis...? In both cases, the problem is latent
| inside our societies. The dam bursts and revolutionary
| fervor appear until checked away. Not until a large
| amount of innocent victims.
|
| PRC is state capitalist as well, rhetoric
| notwithstanding. They even needed to purge their Marxists
| a few years back.
| seneca wrote:
| > also just ban nazi sites, troll farms, etc. because you
| choose not to do business with them.
|
| This is literally the opposite of neutral.
|
| I don't get this constant need for mental gymnastics. Just
| say you believe in censorship.
| subsuboptimal wrote:
| There can be limits on speech and free speech. There are
| many places where we've agreed there should be limits on
| speech, for instance it's illegal to lie under oath, or to
| threaten someone with physical harm, or to falsely
| advertise.
|
| It's not black and white.
| timmytokyo wrote:
| Is it censorship? Or freedom of association?
| Test0129 wrote:
| Tremendous difference between refusing service and taking
| their money and blocking them. One of them is acceptable for
| a private business, one of them is fraud.
|
| If I was kiwifarms I'd be suing for services not rendered and
| tie them up court for as long as I could. They're huge, so
| they're guaranteed to settle. Easy money.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Are they taking KF money? CF DDoS protection is free.
| jacooper wrote:
| Are they a paying customer in the first place?
| scrollaway wrote:
| "Neutral", maybe, but their stance goes beyond neutral. They
| clearly position themselves as "infrastructure". HNers should
| appreciate this more, as it's often a recurring theme here to
| talk about ISPs as infrastructure.
|
| Infrastructure doesn't privately discriminate, _period_.
| Water /Electricity utilities don't cut the supply to rapists
| and terrorists just because they're rapists and terrorists.
| They cut it when law enforcement ask them to.
|
| This conflicting discussion is better had on this level:
| "Should Cloudflare be considered infrastructure, or not?".
| It's not straightforward.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| > They clearly position themselves as "infrastructure".
| HNers should appreciate this more, as it's often a
| recurring theme here to talk about ISPs as infrastructure.
|
| That's trying to have cake and eat it too. I am highly
| sympathetic to operating like infrastructure, and I would
| _love_ to see regulatory bodies take this up as an issue to
| try and figure out. What I am _not_ sympathetic to is
| having a documented history of _not_ acting like a utility,
| but then puffing up chests and saying that they are a
| utility only when it happens to serve them.
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Its so weird how everyone we don't like is a nazi.
|
| Your opinion appears to be popular though. Through enough
| pressure we have successfully removed ddos protection from a
| site that people on here hope gets ddos'ed.
|
| One day, this conversation and this thread will be
| remembered. How there was a period where everyone celebrated
| corporations silencing individuals or allowing mobs to ddos
| them. What happened to our internet.
| skissane wrote:
| > and also just ban nazi sites, troll farms, etc.
|
| Question: How many nazi sites, troll farms, etc, is
| Cloudflare _still_ providing services to? I bet you the
| answer is not zero.
|
| We can debate the merits of a consistently applied policy of
| "we won't provide our services to nazis/racists/trolls/etc" -
| but it doesn't appear that is Cloudflare's actual policy.
|
| It appears their actual policy is "we will happily provide
| services to anybody, nazis/racists/trolls/etc included -
| until the social media heat gets too hot for us to handle, at
| which point we will drop the individual site which is the
| target of that controversy, but continue offering our
| services to all the other sites like it"
| ThaDuke wrote:
| Zerkes wrote:
| [deleted]
| mkl95 wrote:
| This is one of those problems where if you cut off one head two
| more will grow back. Even if Kiwifarms was shut down completely,
| there may be dozens of spinoffs being created at the moment. If
| this problem is ever solved, the solution will have little to do
| with technology.
| [deleted]
| Test0129 wrote:
| Actually terrifying.
|
| Regardless of the content or how bad it was it's what this
| represents that is terrifying. It's simple to always laugh and
| say "good" when obvious bad actors are effected. Hell, domestic
| spying and drone strikes "only effected bad people". Right up
| until they didn't.
|
| To allow a single company, government, etc the _ability_ to
| exercise total control is a dangerous thing. I 've long waited
| for cloudflare to overstep their governance and start censorship.
| Surely, we will see many more websites go down now that pandora's
| box is open. Maybe it will even swing with the tides of whoever
| is in power, or whoever in congress is getting their palms
| greased.
|
| Instead of simply turning off their service and sending them
| packing the letter appears to imply kiwifarm will continue to pay
| for their services until they move. This is censorship, and
| kiwifarms could have an unironic day in court over it. At the
| very least, they will be able to sue cloudflare for services not
| provided.
|
| EDIT: Will one of the crybullies please reply to my post to tell
| me where I am wrong other than "kiwifarms bad" before downvoting
| me.
| chrisan wrote:
| Didn't downvote but a single company is not going to control
| this. They will be back with someone else.
| MBCook wrote:
| They've lost numerous hosts already. Very few companies want
| to be associated with this kind of thing. So as they were
| discovered they tend to get dropped.
|
| They can keep trying all they want. There are surely people
| who are willing to work with them.
|
| But no one is REQUIRED to help them.
| stevemk14ebr wrote:
| There's a logical fallacy called the slippery slope. It's not
| an effective thinking strategy. Cloudflare simply chose not to
| protect a site full of bullies. As is their right. They hardly
| silenced anyone.
| pelorat wrote:
| KW is not blocked, they are just not hidden behind a CDN
| anymore.
| smcl wrote:
| I don't think you quite understand how awful Kiwi Farms is
| Test0129 wrote:
| I legitimately don't care.
| brighamyoung wrote:
| Not even about racism and white nationalism?
| ThaDuke wrote:
| schleck8 wrote:
| Then speak for yourself and don't equate your disinterest
| to any moral standard.
| makeee wrote:
| How is this censorship? They are a company and can do business
| with whoever they please. They are drawing the line at imminent
| threats to human life. The site has already led to the deaths
| of multiple people:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms#Suicides_of_harassm...
| philswift wrote:
| donkarma wrote:
| snausages wrote:
| When/where was it disproven that Near died?
| donkarma wrote:
| tstrimple wrote:
| Somehow it's Freedom when a company refuses to make a cake
| for a gay couple, but Tyranny if a company providing hosting
| and DDOS protection services decide not to work with a
| company who explicitly violates their terms of service.
| [deleted]
| subsuboptimal wrote:
| Drone strikes and domestic spying have always had huge literal
| and figurative blast radiuses. Ask someone who is on the no fly
| list because they have the exceedingly common name of Mohammad.
|
| Comparing the removal of 3 sites, all associated with terrorism
| and lone wolves, from one commercial provider to the atrocity
| that is imperial US might is an absurd juxtaposition.
| [deleted]
| crazytalk wrote:
| BgSpnnrs wrote:
| pelorat wrote:
| Sansos wrote:
| dougp1399 wrote:
| smcl wrote:
| This wasn't "larping drama" - KF members went to pretty severe
| lengths to not just dox people but to show up at their houses
| and SWAT them etc.
| donkarma wrote:
| [deleted]
| balentio wrote:
| That is a law enforcement warrant matter--not a cloudflare
| policing matter.
| StWallSt wrote:
| Ekaros wrote:
| I hope this sort of action makes Cloudflare to lose any sort of
| legal protections it has and being fully responsible for any and
| all content hosted on their servers. They choose to be a
| publisher. Let legal system to treat them as one then. I'm all
| for jailing any and all workers there for what ever offence they
| distribute.
| Icathian wrote:
| There were no good choices for Cloudflare here, and everyone
| across the internet who jams their fingers in their ears and
| shouts their position repeatedly is just contributing to the
| problem.
|
| Private companies should not be the de facto moderators of free
| speech in our society. They are forced into that position by
| woefully inadequate governance by legal authorities operating
| multiple decades behind the current landscape.
|
| Given that they should never be in this position, Cloudflare is
| choosing between "platforming the bad guys" and "censoring free
| speech". They have navigated this imperfectly, but have done
| better than most would, I think.
|
| I truly hope that those unsatisfied with this outcome (which I
| suspect will be literally everybody) can take this as an
| opportunity to go help pressure their respective governments to
| figure out what the hell should be done, systematically, about
| hate speech on the internet. It's only 25 years overdue at this
| point.
| DennisAleynikov wrote:
| Yeah there was no winning move here. The pressure from both
| sides was too great
| bjustin wrote:
| I think Cloudlfare's choice to block them is fine and CF was
| probably fine allowing their use of the service before, given
| the damage to their reputation they apparently considered
| acceptable.
|
| Historically, you needed money or influence or both to make a
| "bad" (or in this case, actually bad) message widely available.
| What we're seeing with Cloudflare and other companies choosing
| not to do business with some people is like a correction a bit
| back toward the past, after an hard swing toward unchecked,
| potentially widespread reach of speakers who wouldn't have been
| heard much before.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| > I truly hope that those unsatisfied with this outcome (which
| I suspect will be literally everybody) can take this as an
| opportunity to go help pressure their respective governments to
| figure out what the hell should be done, systematically, about
| hate speech on the internet. It's only 25 years overdue at this
| point.
|
| This is a very good takeaway, as it is a complex problem. But I
| think in the interim, it's perfectly fine for private companies
| with no legal obligation to keep sites like these operating to
| just choose not to do business with them.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| The problem is who defines what is hate - don't trust a govt to
| make that - they are the last people I would trust.
|
| We have no solution in this age - it was easy in the older days
| when consensus was reached within a village on what was bad for
| the community and you got either got tarred and feathered or
| thrown out.
| donohoe wrote:
| Private companies should not be the de facto moderators
| of free speech
|
| Hate speech and organizing to harass and other IRL hate acts is
| not 'free speech'. That was the major point.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Hate speech and organizing to harass and other IRL gate
| acts is not free speech_
|
| "Free speech" is a philosophy. It makes no sense to describe
| a particular expression of speech as free or not. Hate speech
| is speech. Whether one should be free to make it is another
| question.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| KerrAvon wrote:
| This strategy will not ultimately survive contact with law
| enforcement. They need to stop doxxing.
| millzlane wrote:
| Spreading rumors about them and interacting with friends,
| family, and known associates is fair game. Also posting
| their public contact information is also fair game.
| robocat wrote:
| I presume users on kiwifarms (KF) use
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
| techniques to publish private information elsewhere (such
| as private addresses) so that the information can then
| legally be reposted on KF. Coordination-of-information
| has an accomplice role in some of the illegal activities
| "reported" by KF.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| I will admit the lengths KF users go to dox people is
| pretty ridiculous.
| bb010g wrote:
| I see that policy works extremely well in cases like
| <https://twitter.com/keffals/status/1566153033586810885>.
| As long as you give all the information necessary for
| someone interested to interact in a harmful way, it's fine,
| but you have to frame it in a way that doesn't suggest
| harassment. Just speculate about all the locations they
| could possibly be having lunch, and trust that nobody will
| harass them.
| Icathian wrote:
| I do think, if there was competent legal governance in this
| space, that's the conclusion they would have reached. I think
| you understand my larger point, regardless.
| cowtools wrote:
| >Hate speech in the United States cannot be directly
| regulated by the government due to the fundamental right to
| freedom of speech protected by the Constitution. While "hate
| speech" is not a legal term in the United States, the U.S.
| Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that most of what would
| qualify as hate speech in other western countries is legally
| protected free speech under the First Amendment.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_Stat.
| ..
| schleck8 wrote:
| We know. US Americans have made very loud and clear they
| tolerate hooked crosses and Nazi shouts in their streets,
| everyone has seen those images by now.
| spoils19 wrote:
| Look at the economy of countries who censor similar
| things and tell me who's on top.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _The economy of Germany is a highly developed social
| market economy.[24] It has the largest national economy
| in Europe, the fourth-largest by nominal GDP in the
| world, and fifth by GDP (PPP). In 2017, the country
| accounted for 28% of the euro area economy according to
| the International Monetary Fund (IMF).[25]_
|
| Looks OK
| lovich wrote:
| The EU has a similar population size, wide censorship
| laws for this kinda of conduct, and a similar economy
| size. China has a similar economy and must stricter
| speech laws. The US isn't economically special because of
| free speech
| schleck8 wrote:
| Sure, California.
|
| https://www.statista.com/chart/9358/us-gdp-by-state-and-
| regi...
|
| https://www.jta.org/2022/06/02/united-
| states/a-california-ha...
| unethical_ban wrote:
| We tolerate it legally, but a majority of society
| certainly does not tolerate it morally nor agree with the
| content.
| spacephysics wrote:
| What is hate speech?
| Hamuko wrote:
| Yes it is. Freedom of speech is the principle of being able
| to express your ideas and opinions. And hate speech is just
| that.
|
| Obviously no country has absolute freedom of speech, but for
| example the First Amendment has no hate speech exemptions.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Hate speech is often about saying other people ought not be
| able to express their ideas and opinions, and that the most
| effective way to bring about this result is for them to not
| be not alive any more.
|
| Eliminationist rhetoric is a subset of hate speech overall,
| but it certainly exists and is trivially easy to discover.
| It's odd to me that none of the self-professed 'free speech
| absolutists' ever seems to engage with this point.
| google234123 wrote:
| To be fair, there is the entire concept of cancel culture
| which basically is all about organizing to harass people and
| is basically supported by every large platform.
| lovich wrote:
| canceling someone is about their professional or political
| connections. Kiwifarms eggs people on to kill their
| targets. They are not equivalent
| topynate wrote:
| It is in America, for the most part. You can absolutely
| organize to harass people if the harassment is in the form of
| verbal abuse, for instance. Cloudflare is saying that
| something happened in the last few days on KF that was a
| genuine "emergency". I don't think this is just an excuse,
| actually - Price seems unusually committed to honesty about
| this sort of thing. I presume people were organizing specific
| violent acts on KF, which is not "free speech" even in
| America.
| nostrebored wrote:
| Completely conjecture. Why do you assume good will from
| companies?
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| If hate speech is not free speech, then they who define what
| is hate speech, define what you can or cannot say.
|
| If there's defamation, harassment, or incitement to violence,
| we should deal with that in an open court with juries of our
| peers, not in some dark board room.
| jchw wrote:
| The problem isn't that nobody understands that free speech is
| not limitless, the problem is that literally nobody wants to
| be in the business of defining the exact boundaries of
| allowed speech and how to enforce it; there is no perfect
| answer. Cloudflare was taking the position that it's not
| their job, and they're not alone as far as internet services
| go. There are, in fact, other _hosts_ that do basically the
| same thing, see Nearlyfreespeech for example.
|
| My point isn't to weigh in on this specific decision, but I
| want the rhetoric around this stuff to evolve away from
| pretending that defining the boundaries of what speech should
| be protected is super easy and objective. It's really not,
| and it never will be.
| dagmx wrote:
| Is it censoring free speech when the goal of the speech is to
| actively harm people? I'm not sure of any nation that has no
| caveats to their idea of free speech
| spacephysics wrote:
| Calls for acts of violence already hasn't been legal. Hate
| speech is outside of that scope, otherwise we wouldn't have
| another term for that (all calls for violence could be hate
| speech, but not all hate speech is calls for violence)
|
| Therefore what is hate speech? Are words violence in and of
| themselves?
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _Calls for acts of violence already hasn't been legal._
|
| Pretty sure calls for acts of violence is legal in the
| United States unless that call for violence is intended to
| produce an imminent lawless action.
| notriddle wrote:
| > unless that call for violence is intended to produce an
| imminent lawless action
|
| So it's fine to call for violence, as long as the
| violence in question would be legal if it were acted
| upon?
|
| That makes so much sense, it seems like it would go
| without saying. If the violent act itself was legal (like
| a war, or an organized boxing match), why wouldn't it be
| legal to solicit or petition for it?
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _So it's fine to call for violence, as long as the
| violence in question would be legal if it were acted
| upon?_
|
| No. It's fine to call for violence as long as your call
| is not designed to provoke and cause imminent lawless
| action. Brandenburg advocated for "revengeance" against
| the government if their demands were not met, and that
| was protected speech. Hess v. Indiana also affirms that
| advocating for lawless action is protected speech.
| nixgeek wrote:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/373
|
| Not entirely sure you're correct on this one?
| Ferrotin wrote:
| Calls for violence are legal in the United States.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Is declining to participate by re-transmitting such speech
| even censorship? You can't force a company to take you as a
| customer, being a shit head isn't a protected class.
| dagmx wrote:
| Agreed, being dropped from cloud flare isn't censorship.
| It's refusing to actively provide resources to them in
| their pursuit to harm people.
| worldofmatthew wrote:
| CLoudflare makes it nearly impossible to operate without
| a large network by knownly allowing DDOS-for-Hire
| services to illegally use its services.
| nightski wrote:
| Also agreed, but I think in some ways there are a few
| companies that have too much control or influence over
| the internet as a whole.
| angrycontrarian wrote:
| ksrm wrote:
| Precisely. Is targeted harassment free speech? More so than
| it limits the speech of others?
| mjr00 wrote:
| > There were no good choices for Cloudflare here
|
| 100%. To me this isn't really about KF (which clearly sucks and
| should be offline, but through actual legal processes), this is
| a matter of, "When does internet infrastructure end and content
| moderation begin?" As I mentioned in a previous discussion[0],
| Cloudflare finds itself right at the blurred edge of this line,
| made more complicated by CF providing both hosting, which is
| generally seen as content, and DDOS mitigation, which is more
| ambiguous.
|
| The same people who cheer this decision wouldn't be happy if,
| say, DNS servers refused to resolve mega.io because it hosts
| illegal pornography. Or if their ISP started blocking PTP or
| nyaa.si for copyright infringement. This is to say nothing, of
| course, of any suspect political interference in internet
| infrastructure, which we already see around the world[1].
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32664488
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/22/pakistans-former-pm-khan-
| say...
| cowtools wrote:
| I think the internet is just irrecoverably broken in a way such
| that technical problems like DDoS or NN escalate to social
| problems. We should not even be having these discussions in the
| first place: It should be infeasible for attackers to conduct
| DDoS. It should be infeasible for ISPs to surveil their users.
| The internet as we know it was designed to facilitate
| communications between non-antagonistic peers, that design is
| no longer suitable for use by democratic society at large.
|
| https://secushare.org/broken-internet
| austenallred wrote:
| The notion that government should be in charge of effectively
| eliminating speech we don't like so that private companies
| don't have to is _far worse_ than the current state of things.
| hbrundage wrote:
| It's a fundamental issue though -- there's no "figuring it out"
| that a government can do that won't either censor or
| facilitate. 25 years has been long enough to find tactical
| policy changes that make it easier, but there aren't any, which
| is why nothing has happened. The choice we have to make is
| either de-shrine free speech above all else or entrench hatred,
| and it's bogus that we haven't picked the thing that doesn't
| kill people yet.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _de-shrine free speech above all else or entrench hatred_
|
| False dichotomy. We have always punished some speech ( _e.g._
| fraud) while sanctifying others (political speech).
| hbrundage wrote:
| Practical dichotomy -- that's why this thread exists. You
| either platform it or you don't, and you're either
| legislated to do so or not. What middle ground do you see
| that allows this degree of free speech without platforming
| hate?
| krapp wrote:
| The middle ground that already exists - the right of free
| speech doesn't guarantee an audience, and the right to
| assembly doesn't guarantee a platform. Censorship is
| permitted within the marketplace of ideas as an
| inevitable consequence of the fact that coerced speech
| cannot be considered free, but the government is far more
| limited.
|
| If Kiwifarms wants to continue "this degree of free
| speech" it's up to them to find someone willing to
| tolerate their bullshit.
| ketzerei wrote:
| krapp wrote:
| > The choice we have to make is either de-shrine free speech
| above all else or entrench hatred, and it's bogus that we
| haven't picked the thing that doesn't kill people yet.
|
| Most of us never enshrined free speech above all else. It was
| never controversial that free speech had limits, that sites
| had the right to moderate content and ban accounts, or that
| businesses could refuse service to anyone. Prior to 2016,
| something like this would not have even been newsworthy.
| nostrebored wrote:
| Government censorship doesn't kill people?
|
| Painting this issue as black and white is just wrong. Both
| sides have immense ramifications for the world.
| Accountability for censoring bodies and people on these
| platforms is not easily solved.
| creddit wrote:
| "Moderators of free speech" - an interesting idea.
| serverholic wrote:
| The government shouldn't do anything about hate speech. Full
| stop.
| tarakat wrote:
| But it _should_ do something about how 2-3 giant corporations
| have become effective gatekeepers of online speech.
| zaphar wrote:
| On the one hand, I would have supported Cloudflare in
| continuing to provide service to Kiwifarms as someone not
| employed there if that was their conviction.
|
| On the other hand, If I were the CEO, Owner, whatever of
| Cloudflare I would have cut ties with kiwifarms a long time ago
| on the grounds the site promotes truly immoral and
| reprehensible content and I wouldn't want any resources I
| control going toward helping them do so for my own conscience
| to be at ease.
| ketzerei wrote:
| ksrm wrote:
| Not just immoral and reprehensible, the campaigns of targeted
| harassment they undertake limit the victims' speech. If you
| care about people being able to freely express themselves,
| today is a good day. I don't know why the free speech
| defenders miss this (I do know).
| colechristensen wrote:
| >Private companies should not be the de facto moderators of
| free speech in our society. They are forced into that position
| by woefully inadequate governance by legal authorities
| operating multiple decades behind the current landscape.
|
| When you have an algorithm that suggests things to people, you
| are a de facto publisher and whatever you do, you're choosing
| what to promote. In that case you have a responsibility to
| choose wisely, though it is a hard problem. Hard enough that in
| many cases algorithmic suggestions need to be avoided.
|
| When you are a specialist with few customers there's no problem
| with picking who you work with.
|
| When you provide infrastructure for large numbers of
| organizations though, you must be very hesitant to moderate who
| you serve, for many reasons. For the most part, if what you're
| serving doesn't break laws in jurisdictions you respect, they
| should be left to operate as they will. There is a narrow band
| around that of "maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't". There
| are real problems with expanding this to moderate the topic of
| shouting for the day.
| notriddle wrote:
| > When you have an algorithm that suggests things to people,
| you are a de facto publisher and whatever you do, you're
| choosing what to promote.
|
| But CloudFlare _doesn't_. That's why they position themselves
| as a common carrier.
| [deleted]
| tenpies wrote:
| > figure out what the hell should be done, systematically,
| about hate speech on the internet.
|
| I honestly wish there were some organization focused on the
| causes of hate speech rather than censoring hate speech.
|
| What caused this? Why are Kiwifarm users so hateful? One does
| not just hate out of the blue, especially not to the degree of
| the actions they've taken (judging from their Wikipedia
| article).
|
| Then there's the other end of this: To walk a thorny world,
| don't pave the world, wear sandals.
|
| How can anyone be harassed online to end their life? Were there
| not enough settings, blocklists, and such to keep the
| harassment away? Were they unable to access the services that
| would have helped them better handle the harassment that did
| get through?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _How can anyone be harassed online to the degree that there
| were not enough settings_
|
| They were showing up at peoples' houses and SWATting them.
| This isn't a problem technology can solve.
| fallingupwards wrote:
| tenpies wrote:
| I don't think technology even has a role to play here.
| After all, hate speech began the minute we developed
| language.
| scythe wrote:
| >However, the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site and specific,
| targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours to the
| point that we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and
| immediate threat to human life unlike we have previously seen
| from Kiwifarms or any other customer before.
|
| If this is true, couldn't they be a little more descriptive? What
| happened _in the last 48 hours_ that hasn 't been happening for
| the last eight years?
| serf wrote:
| >The policy we articulated last Wednesday remains our policy.
|
| >have our cake and eat it too.
|
| I don't get this corporate reverse speak.
|
| They literally went against the policies stated on Wednesday and
| then plainly say "But this violation of that policy doesn't
| reflect on our policies overall."
|
| I get that Kiwifarms is hated, that doesn't make black turn to
| white and up turn to down.
|
| Cloudflare reneged on everything they said Wednesday, there isn't
| two ways about it.
|
| They are self-stated as 'internet infrastructure', and this is
| definitely a censorship tactic.
|
| It looks like it's time for a government to step in with over-
| sight, since they want to be an infrastructure player.
| MBCook wrote:
| As I remember the policy they posted had exceptions for sites
| that were dangerous/etc. I think what they did today is
| completely consistent.
|
| What I DON'T get is why they didn't think the site was
| dangerous last week. When I read their policy it seems to
| clearly state they wouldn't work with a group like kiwifarms,
| and yet they posted a whole post explaining why they were.
|
| I agree it's a flip-flop, I guess I see it from the other side.
| spamizbad wrote:
| KF swatted a member of congress, which is technically new
| territory for them. Cloudflare lobbies congress.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| I think Cloudflare did think it was a dangerous site, but
| they would really prefer not having the responsibility of
| being the arbiter of what can and cannot be hosted, as well
| as all of the negative publicity that comes with being so. At
| the same time, I believe they believe that current legal
| process surrounding how things like this are handles are so
| woefully underdeveloped that turning a blind eye is not being
| neutral, it's being irresponsible.
|
| Taking downs sites like this hurts the view of infrastructure
| neutrality, so I'm sure it's not done lightly, even when
| someone goes against their policy.
| dangrossman wrote:
| They listed that exception for their hosting services, while
| saying there would be no such exception when it comes to
| security services.
|
| https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-abuse-policies-
| and-a...
| prvc wrote:
| >It looks like it's time for a government to step in with over-
| sight
|
| Which government on Earth is going to enforce a principle of
| neutrality instead of its own particular censorship agenda?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _We are also not taking this action directly because of the
| pressure campaign._
|
| Oh, guess it's those one of those Cloudflare Coincidences (tm).
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Cloudflare blocks kiwifarms.
|
| The crowds at Hacker News filled with technologists cheers -
| Hooray, a website we do not like has its ddos protection taken
| down.
|
| I do so deeply wonder for what reason so many people were hoping
| they would remove the ddos protection. I am sure its a stumper.
|
| I, for one, do hope the FBI finds people involved in ddos'ing
| websites and they are given their day in court. I also hope that
| it won't be people from HN or this thread - but I bet there will
| be.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| There are no bad tactics only bad targets.
| worldofmatthew wrote:
| Cloudflare bans websites for unproven claims but is perfectly
| happy to provide protection for ddos-for-hire websites that so
| happen to help their bottom line by generating a reason for
| people to use DDOS protection for which Cloudflare is one of very
| few options that does not have a fixed limit.
|
| Cloudflare has to be in bed with the US government, otherwise it
| would have been shutdown for ignoring illegal activity (ddos-for-
| hire) that's been reported to them (aka ignoring complaints is
| meant to remove your S.230 protection).
| Cyberdog wrote:
| They muffed it. They were proving to the world how reliable they
| could be and repairing the damage from the Stormfront debacle,
| and again they just showed how prone to caving to pressure they
| can be. What a joke.
|
| I will never use CF for anything I want kept online in the face
| of angry people.
| [deleted]
| schleck8 wrote:
| spamizbad wrote:
| I'm guessing KF members organizing the swatting a US
| congresswoman (albeit a controversial one) was probably the
| straw the broke the camel's back. Hard to lobby congress (Which
| Cloudflare does) when you protect a forum actively swats its
| members.
| redballoon6 wrote:
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| So you just unquestioningly believe everything you read
| online, huh?
| atdrummond wrote:
| Neither KF nor its members swatted MTG. It was absolutely
| done to place blame on KF and doesn't even comport with the
| image those who dislike the site paint - that KF is a
| radical, right wing forum designed to harass minorities and
| political opponents.
| Cyberdog wrote:
| Prove your accusation, please. That the person that made that
| call not only said they were KF, but a certain account from
| KF, should be evidence to anyone who thinks about it for two
| seconds that that was almost certainly a false flag.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| For those not in the know what makes the StormFront situation
| such a debacle and how is it similar?
| schleck8 wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormfront_(website)
| Cyberdog wrote:
| Both times, people organized a social media campaign to try
| to get CF to drop services for a site they disliked, and both
| times CF first refused in the interest of free speech, safe
| harbor, let law enforcement handle it, etc, then flipped like
| a switch and dropped their services when the mob didn't go
| away fast enough.
|
| Now you can hate Stormfront's message (I do), and you can
| hate what people are allowed to say and do on Kiwi Farms, and
| in that light you can feel that CF's actions are just fine.
| But just be aware that if _your_ site becomes the next pariah
| of the internet some way or some how, CF is prone to drop
| your services as well.
|
| And it's their right to do so, of course, but the way they're
| saying stuff like "The policies we articulated last Wednesday
| remain our policies" and that this is a special case are
| rather ridiculous. How many more times will this happen
| before it stops being a particularly special case?
| ketzo wrote:
| "Hate the message" is a huge oversimplification.
|
| People don't want Stormfront gone for aesthetic reasons.
| They want Stormfront and similar sites gone _because they
| encourage physical violence against certain peoples._
|
| It is, IMO, a _huge_ strawman to say that people just
| "don't like" these sites.
| ketzo wrote:
| The Stormfront decision is, IMO, not remotely a debacle and
| much more easily defensivly.
|
| Stormfront was _hosted_ using Cloudflare, and Cloudflare gave
| them the boot.
|
| If you are not familiar with Stormfront, they actively
| promote violent white supremacy and Nazi ideologies.
| donkarma wrote:
| 71bw wrote:
| ffwszgf wrote:
| Cloudflare can do whatever it wants but I wish they were honest
| about it.
|
| The claim that there has been some "dangerous escalation" in the
| past 2 weeks is nonsense. If anything the owner has been
| monitoring the thread more proactively and making sure people
| follow the law. This is included not allowing the creation of new
| accounts and reminding everyone that their data will be turned
| over to the authorities should it be requested.
|
| The only thing that picked up steam in the last two weeks is the
| campaign to drop Cloudflare and the media attention on the
| situation. That's why they caved in. It got big enough to reach
| Bloomberg/wsj/congress. Just be honest about it.
| scythe wrote:
| They didn't say that there was "dangerous escalation" in the
| past two weeks. They said that there was a pressure campaign
| over the last two weeks, and they also said that they didn't
| want to comply with this campaign.
|
| They, crucially, said that there was dangerous escalation over
| the past 48 hours, i.e., since Thursday. Given that most of us
| have jobs, we might not have noticed. But _what changed in 48
| hours_ that led Cloudflare to contact law enforcement?
| dmix wrote:
| 100% they are trying to have their cake and eat it too. First
| you pretend you care about free speech for a week and
| gesticulate in public. Then you come up with some extraordinary
| circumstance so it doesn't seem like it's the new normal.
| crazytalk wrote:
| slothsarecool wrote:
| Just adding some light to the escalations; there were bomb and
| shoot threats over the last few days. The userbase on the site
| upped the tone of their "jokes"/threats after the last blog
| post and thats what caused the final suspension.
| altcognito wrote:
| > The claim that there has been some "dangerous escalation" in
| the past 2 weeks is nonsense.
|
| I don't believe you have the same information as cloudflare and
| assuming good faith I believe them when they say there are
| legitimate threats to body and person.
|
| They have a responsibility to their investors to insure that
| their brand isn't used to coordinate violence.
|
| Dont just shrug your shoulders while a small group invites
| violence because "that's just too bad" We all have a
| responsibility to discern what is valuable speech and what is
| corrosive. Mentally ill people exist, and they are more than
| happy to use these forums, and they are often used in these
| forums as tools.
| trasz wrote:
| Cloudflare are known bad actors,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=32705613. There's no
| reason to assume good faith here.
| wyager wrote:
| > I don't believe you have the same information as cloudflare
|
| Yes he does - the activity of KF posters is public.
|
| The amount of bullshitting going on here is insane. People
| are just making things up wholesale.
| dmix wrote:
| Then they should provide at least some basic details.
| Trusting them to be honest is silly. This sort of thing needs
| transparency.
| jyrkesh wrote:
| > I don't believe you have the same information as cloudflare
| and assuming good faith I believe them when they say there
| are legitimate threats to body and person.
|
| I don't believe that Cloudflare gathered the same volume of
| info that many others have about KF. OP's point is that
| behavior as bad or worse than what's been going on (yes,
| including super detailed doxxing, swatting, death threats,
| and the like) have all been going on for YEARS on KF, and
| Cloudflare paid no mind until a larger campaign got going.
|
| Full disclosure: I'm actually disappointed that they made the
| decision to cut them off. Not because I'm pro-KF at ALL, it
| is absolutely abhorrent. But I do tend to peruse extremist
| circles on both sides to understand the radicalism a little
| better, and generally think that keeping these folks
| relegated to unseen areas is net-negative.
|
| But to the original point, I think it's disingenuous to
| suggest that this decision wasn't primarily catalyzed by the
| PR calculus of more people being in the "shut it down" camp
| than the "leave it up" camp (which makes sense to me, as soon
| as the spotlight is cast, most people are going to say it's
| disgusting and should be taken down).
| digitaLandscape wrote:
| oinwoinfoiw wrote:
| 345435345435 wrote:
| nilsbunger wrote:
| Seems to me it would be better for Cloudflare to keep serving
| Kiwifarms, and cooperate with government requests for access logs
| / etc. Then at least our law enforcement would have data to help
| with finding threat actors.
| phillipcarter wrote:
| Boy, this sure would have been a lot easier if they just dropped
| Kiwi Farms with little fanfare the instant it was clear they were
| using CF. I bet they'd have been able to even keep the perception
| that they're a super neutral platform, too.
| [deleted]
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