
Cloudflare has dropped the Daily Stormer - runesoerensen
https://twitter.com/mattsheffield/status/897873969897975808
======
r1ch
Very interesting. Cloudflare have always positioned themselves as a neutral
network provider and have not policed the content they serve. Many not so nice
parts of the web such as DDoS-for-hire sites are protected by Cloudflare - I
wonder if this signals a more general change in attitude?

~~~
x1798DE
Yeah, this is downright shocking to me. They make a free speech argument when
it comes to censoring criminal commercial content, but political content
they're OK with shutting down? Seems exactly backwards from what most
companies do.

Not that I want them messing with _any_ content, but it's quite self-evident
that nazi ideology isn't somehow so insanely viral that it needs to be kept
away from people rather than rightly ridiculed on its "merits". If you're fine
with a hands off approach when it comes to people actively conspiring to DDoS
people, you should be fine with nazis saluting each other and sucking Hitler's
ghastly member or whatever it is they get up to.

~~~
reitanqild
_They make a free speech argument when it comes to censoring criminal
commercial content, but political content they 're OK with shutting down? _

We're talking about nazism here. Nazism is a crime in a number of countries.

Europeans hate nazis since we are reminded everywhere about what they did last
time.

This is coming from someone that thinks other would classify him as clearly
right-leaning i.e. values individual freedom, conservative economic policies
etc. Actually it gets better because I see nazism (short for national
socialism) as just an criminally evil form of normal socialism (strong
national state, very little individial freedom).

~~~
x1798DE
Well, Cloudflare is a US company where no political ideologies are criminal,
and I'm personally of the opinion that if your political order is so fragile
that it can't survive the free expression of some reprehensible ideas, you've
got bigger problems than "those people are saying something awful."

Either way, like I said - I was actually _fine_ with them being a dumb pipe. I
don't think they should be acting as an arm of the law in the first place, I
was just making the point that most companies usually don't make a principled
stand on free speech with respect to actual crimes with identifiable victims
(e.g. DDoS or even copyright infringement), but then censor someone based on
their political ideology / incorrect beliefs.

~~~
aaomidi
Read about the paradox of tolerance. At some point you need to draw the line.
This line is going to be fuzzy as hell, but if you don't you're going to end
up with a ton of intolerance.

~~~
ASalazarMX
"In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of
intolerance".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance)

------
rdl
Yes -- apparently they dropped every zone from their account, and ended
rebill, so this was an administrative action.

Technically the Cloudflare TOS is written in the normal weasely way:
[https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/](https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/)
TERMINATION "(j) any use of the Service deemed at Cloudflare’s sole discretion
to be prohibited" \-- so it's within their TOS rights.

~~~
iooi
This needs to be higher, if what you're saying is correct, CloudFlare didn't
drop them because of who they are.

Do you have a source?

~~~
rdl
You misunderstand. It was that Cloudflare administratively closed the account,
rather than that the account-holder or a third party did it.

~~~
lurker69
Cloudflare also kicks people off when they get ddos'd for too long. Two days
ago whe GoDady booted them, and Jester was running campaign against Daily
Stormer, CloudFlares statement was that they wont bot them based on brigading
flagging.

~~~
lurker69
I stand corrected:

Andrew Auernheimer · @weev

A Cloudflare executed says they ditched us because "email on this is massive."
So much for an anti-DDoS company. The only traffic you have to send them just
has to be in the form of valid SMTP, and they'll kill your site.

[https://gab.ai/weev/posts/10791974](https://gab.ai/weev/posts/10791974)

------
joecot
When I saw Daily Stormer had relocated to a .ru address, I noticed that the
first thing displayed upon opening the site was a full screen notice that
Cloudflare was checking my browser.

I understand Cloudflare generaly trying to be a neutral provider, but if the
first thing people will see when gawking at a Neo-Nazi hate site is your logo
in the center of the screen, it's not a big surprise that Cloudflare decided
keeping them would be bad for their PR.

~~~
jhanschoo
On the other hand, it seems to me that minimum censorship is vital to
CloudFlare's partnerships and business. It probably has many datacenters
located in questionable regimes, and any hint that it performed moral
discrimination would probably attract attention from govts. wanting to
pressure censorship on CloudFlare, which would be an avoidable drain of
resources.

------
imanewsman
I wrote a bit yesterday about Cloudflare's previous stance on this issue,
which has always been that the company does not think it's its place to pick
and choose whom it does business with:

[https://qz.com/1053689/cloudflare-is-the-one-tech-company-
st...](https://qz.com/1053689/cloudflare-is-the-one-tech-company-still-
sticking-by-neo-nazi-websites-like-daily-stormer/)

So far, Cloudflare has not made a statement or confirmed in any way that it
has dropped Daily Stormer or any other website based on its content. If it
does, I expect the confirmation will first come from Cloudflare's official
blog:

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/)

The action would represent a major philosophical shift in the company's
approach to these kinds of issues, and all we have to go on so far is a
screenshot of a non-descriptive email, posted on a Gab.ai account that
_appears_ to be run by the editor of a neo-Nazi website.

[https://gab.ai/AndrewAnglin](https://gab.ai/AndrewAnglin)

I'm not suggesting that Cloudflare has or hasn't done anything, just that we
don't have a ton of information on this yet.

------
tpush
Personally, I think what these sites are doing now(dropping support for
websites that distribute nazi propaganda) is the moral thing to do.

However, I am bit worried that this seems to happen in response to social
media shit storms and not because the people in charge of these companies
actually just acquired a moral backbone.

Most of the people I subscribe to on Twitter are (American-) left leaning, and
in the past when I saw similar shit storms happening (e.g. GamerGate, Milo Y.
etc.) I always thought "Good! What these people are doing is awful, so they
had it coming." But the recent James Damore thing got me a bit worried. I
wasn't fully on board on what was the dominant narrative on Twitter and the
like, and was a bit horrified with what conviction I saw people who were
espousing a different viewpoint were treated.

I guess I worry that corporations and people now bow so easily over social
media pressure that in the future they could be easily pressured to do
something that morally repugnant or some such.

Or maybe that's just how society has always been, and social media just
exacerbates it.

------
TheAdamAndChe
Using social pressure to silence certain viewpoints is a terrible precedent to
make. Social consensus is a terrible benchmark on whether or not something is
bad. It was once consensus that black people were inferior to whites. It was
once consensus that socialists were the enemy, and tons of people were pushed
out of the labor market for it[1].

Internet corporations bowing to social pressure to silence certain viewpoints
is abhorrent. It's starting with Nazis, but chances are good that it won't end
there[2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism)

[2]
[https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392](https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392)

~~~
gremlinsinc
how bout we just silence rhettoric directed at broad groups...regardless of
who says it..oh that's pretty much everything that comes out of a Nazi's
mouth...so yeah..warranted.

Also -- Nazi's aren't far from a terrorist organization should these companies
also allow ISIS and Taliban sites to recruit new members on their servers?
Because - - censorship!

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
> how bout we just silence rhettoric directed at broad groups

By that definition, we should silence any discussion of Democrats, or
Republicans, or blacks, or latinos, or whatever "broad group" you'd like to
suppress discussion of at the moment.

An actual good argument is that we should suppress views that may lead to
terrorism. I'm pretty sure it would be easy to argue that Nazi viewpoints can
be pretty terroristic. But then where do we draw the line? How do we as a
society decide what is allowed and what isn't without opening up the system to
exploitation by an authoritarian regime?

------
nieksand
Does this active intervention based on site content put Cloudflare's DMCA safe
harbor protection at risk?

Given the 9th Circuit's shenanigans I'm not sure the answer is a definite
"no".

[http://www.focusonthedata.com/2017/05/federal-appeals-
court-...](http://www.focusonthedata.com/2017/05/federal-appeals-court-
weakens-dmca-safe-harbor-protection-moderated-online-content/)

~~~
duskwuff
Of course not. Choosing whether to retain or terminate a customer does not
qualify as moderating content.

The case you're citing was a very different situation. Postings on the
LiveJournal community in question, including the ones containing the
infringing content, were being actively approved by LiveJournal employees and
volunteers. This situation wouldn't have applied to most LiveJournal
communities -- ONTD is a special case, as it's sponsored directly by LJ -- and
certainly cannot apply to a web host or ISP.

------
forapurpose
Cloudflare has been accused of actively supporting hate groups, not just being
a dumb, neutral pipe for them:

[https://www.propublica.org/article/how-cloudflare-helps-
serv...](https://www.propublica.org/article/how-cloudflare-helps-serve-up-
hate-on-the-web)

Excerpt (from May): _Cloudflare, a prominent San Francisco outfit, provides
services to neo-Nazi sites like The Daily Stormer, including giving them
personal information on people who complain about their content._

EDIT: Also: _In a post, the site’s [Daily Stormer 's] architect, Andrew
Auernheimer, said he had personal relationships with people at Cloudflare, and
they had assured him the company would work to protect the site in a variety
of ways — including by not turning over data to European courts. Cloudflare
has data centers in European countries such as Germany, which have strict hate
speech and privacy laws.

Company officials offered differing responses when asked about Auernheimer’s
post. Kramer, Cloudflare’s general counsel, said he had no knowledge of
employee conversations with Auernheimer. Later, in an email, the company said
Auernheimer was a well-known hacker, and that as a result at least one senior
company official “has chatted with him on occasion and has spoken to him about
Cloudflare’s position on not censoring the internet._

~~~
ceejayoz
"Actively supporting" is an inaccurate characterization of that article. It
alleges they were _such_ a dumb, neutral pipe that their processes sent the
personal contact information of complainants to the perpetrators.

Dumb, sure, but active support? No.

~~~
forapurpose
Please see my update to my comment, which I think went up after your comment.

~~~
ceejayoz
I don't doubt weev knows a person or two at CloudFlare, but it sounds like
he's relaying their default position - they don't generally moderate content
and fight court orders aimed at their users.

------
yflu
Free speech necessarily does have limits, obviously, otherwise I could claim
my ddosing your web server or my uploading of CP was simply me expressing my
free speech.

Does my free speech only end when my actions infringe other laws? Or should my
free speech overrule the consequences other laws? People want to claim free
speech is a moral perogative, not just some words written into a Constitution,
but you can't mix unlimited free speech with the real world, at some point,
idealism has to give.

And I won't say GoDaddy, Google or Cloudflare necessarily should be the ones
to draw that line, but someone has to. Something had to give after
Charlottesville, and we're see that here.

------
RandVal30142
A site to watch is Rootbocks.

They have been the fundraising site of choice for white nationalists & Nazis
involved in violence. The latest fundraiser is from the Nazis involved in the
murder of Heather Heyer[1]. One of those attending has cheered stabbings
before[2], calling it a war they were engaged in. His name is Matthew
Heimbach, he is a Nazi, and he has already been in legal trouble for
assaulting someone at a Trump rally[3].

Rootbocks recently lost their original host[4] after people realized kicking
Nazi's asses was as easy as contacting unknowing companies to detail who their
customers were[5].

After searching around for new hosts they appeared to of moved to a different
domain, now using Rootbocks.co instead of .com until they are able to migrate
the .com domain.

These types are to be treated like sites pushing malware, their hosts are to
be contacted and pressured before their IP space can be tainted by clusters of
Nazis & others promoting terrorism and violent attacks. If clickfraud is
serious enough to pressure hosts into removing users then Nazis urging the
purging of 'Jews and genetic filth' via violent means surely counts.

[1] [https://rootbocks.com/projects/unite-right-legal-defense-
fun...](https://rootbocks.com/projects/unite-right-legal-defense-fund/)

[2] [http://archive.is/ZBOOa](http://archive.is/ZBOOa)

[3] [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-nationalist-leader-
pleads-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/white-nationalist-leader-pleads-
guilty-in-trump-rally-case/)

[4]
[https://twitter.com/RootbocksDotCom/status/89721410991314124...](https://twitter.com/RootbocksDotCom/status/897214109913141249)

[5]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15024767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15024767)

------
jstalin
I have no problem with this since they're a private company and they can do
that with their own services. Dropping an easy target like some racist idiots
is one thing... yet Cloudflare apparently has no problem hosting Ripoff
Report, a company whose business model is entirely about defaming people
online and then extorting them to remove the content. This shittiest of shitty
companies that has real-world devastating consequences for people does a lot
more damage than some clowns on a racist forum.

------
aw3c2
Where can we report other sites to Cloudflare that we feel they should stop
supporting with their services for ethical reasons?

~~~
reitanqild
Please reserve this for actual nazis unless you want everyone to report
anything from PETA and Greenpeace to who knows.

~~~
lurker69
There are AntiFa, BLM and even ISIS sites on Cloudflare.

~~~
reitanqild
As much as I think antifa are criminals they aren't conspiring to kill all of
us.

~~~
lurker69
They sure have less humor on their web pages than Daily Stormes has.

And dont forget antifa painted graffiti in Berkeley saying "Liberaly get the
bullet too"

Oh and New Jersey DHS recently declared them domestic terrorist group.

~~~
hsod
what does humor have to do with it?

------
mnm1
For Cloudflare, this is more about PR than morality. The company wants to
attract business and kicking these nazis off will make Cloudflare seem like a
good company in the eyes of many, while only nazis will see it in a negative
light. Retaining DS will do the opposite. There are many more non-nazis than
nazis, so from a business perspective it makes sense. Occasionally, business
goals and morals do align.

------
wnevets
And with net neutrality being attacked ironically by trump, ISPs might start
doing the same.

------
milankragujevic
This just seems weird given their previous stances, but it’s their network so
it’sfine they did it, but they have lost all protections of an ISP and became
a curator. I stopped using them, and I can’t pretend that I would’ve
contributed anything to their bottom line, but I know my future clients won’t
either.

~~~
ceejayoz
> they have lost all protections of an ISP and became a curator

YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, etc. ban people without losing their safe harbor
provisions. Not sure why you'd think it's any different in CloudFlare's
situation.

~~~
milankragujevic
Maybe not legally but obviously morally at least in my eyes. I think we should
protect all content, but I’m not saying it’s illegal for them to drop Stormer.

~~~
Frondo
Private businesses refusing to do business with Nazis? Great!

When did this become a moral gray area?

~~~
Boothroid
The problem is that if the political winds were blowing the other way it could
be your favoured group whose beliefs are deemed beyond the pale. We set a
dangerous precedent when we outlaw speech we don't like.

~~~
croon
The thing is, if my favoured group specifically revolved around oppression of
groups of people (ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, what have you), I
would deserve it.

This isn't a tough definition. I'm fine with republicans hating "lefties",
broncos hating raiders, xbox hating playstation. When hate is directed at non-
chosen traits, that's the red line.

Am I crazy? I feel like I am with all this defense of literal nazis (flags,
signs, salute, speech and all).

~~~
Frondo
What gets me is that Nazi ideology is itself violent.

This isn't a disagreement about taxes or social programs, it's an ideology
that led to the Holocaust.

Last weekend's terrorist attack on the anti-racist protest, leading to the
murder of one anti-racist, tells us exactly where this is going again.

That's what makes all the "well free speech" stuff seem so hollow and stupid
to me--we _know_ what's at the other end of the Nazi road, and it's nowhere we
want to go.

~~~
reitanqild
Agree.

You could also argue this from the "shouting fire in a crowed room" argument -
free speech doesn't protect that.

Actually spreading nazi ideologogy is even more dangerous.

------
lurker69
cloudflare also kicks people off when they get ddos'd for too long

------
sdwisely
context appears to be: Cloudflare removing The Daily Stormer, some kind of far
right website?

note: not particularly keen to research what it is, just going off what I can
gather from the twitter comments.

~~~
zorpner
The site is a hate site for neo-Nazis. In the wake of the recent Nazi march,
they were kicked off their previous registrar (GoDaddy), then off Google, and
settled on Cloudflare. A lot of folks (myself included) assumed that CF would
allow them to remain, as they have with many sites in the past. However, it
appears that something has convinced them that it's not worth it to be the
facilitator of a mouthpiece for genocide.

------
thriftwy
I wonder if Stormer should push to e.g. ZeroNet. Which is a cool project I
should check out more often. Unfortunately, there's not much content of any
kind.

------
doubleshame
Is this a reliable source?

~~~
stevenh
No. It's a guy with an itchy tweet finger who wants to make headlines first
and ask questions later.

~~~
runesoerensen
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031922)

~~~
stevenh
Matthew Sheffield‏'s belief in the claim was not based on hard evidence at the
time, but rather based entirely on two tweets from white supremacists known
for trolling. He parroted the claim in the off-chance that it might be true.
He's a gambler, not a reliable source.

~~~
runesoerensen
Fair point and I agree that the tweet on it's own didn't sufficiently back up
the claim. I posted the link in response to your comment for other readers who
might stumble on this discussion.

In my case I did research the claim on my own and verified with other sources
prior to submitting, as I certainly don't want to participate in spreading
false information :)

------
dogecoinbase
I'm surprised and impressed by this. Cloudflare has historically been a
company which wants to pretend it's a dumb pipe from content to users, but the
content is coming from them in every way that matters -- in particular, every
method for figuring out how to address problematic content will lead you to
speaking with Cloudflare. At least they supposedly don't pass your contact
info back to their clients anymore.

------
stevenh
Why is Matthew Sheffield asserting this so strongly? Did Cloudflare make a
public statement indicating they deliberately stepped in to drop the site? I
can't find one. The content of the tweet merely makes it seem like the guy's
plan simply expired and he failed to renew it.

If Cloudflare were actually interested in avoiding alt-right dumpster fires,
then I think they would also stop protecting sites like 4chan and 8ch.

~~~
kbenson
I've often wondered how much of 4chan is actually alt-right and how much is
using it as an affect for the lulz?

~~~
DanBC
Also known as the Alf Garnett effect. When you're telling jokes about killing
The Jews you're probably just a nazi, not some edgy ironic satirist.

~~~
lurker69
Joke policing is absolutely wrong and one of best indicators at judging how
authoritarian people are. Everyone who supports this or pretends that jokes
are serious hate speech with intention to suppress someones right for free
speech is worst kind of human.

~~~
kbenson
It's not joke policing to assume some values of an individual based on their
speech. It may make people incorrect, but as long as they are making personal
decisions, comedians alienating audiences is nothing new. As long as the
comedian isn't forced (actually forced, not just incentivized by poor
reactions) to stop telling the joke, no censorhip is taking place, and the
problem is self correcting.

~~~
lurker69
Many consider whole Daily Stormer webpage as satire. Majority of their readers
read it for its creative but controversial humor.

Twitter sat ladies that cry bullied this big IT companies to deny service for
Daily Stormer caused webpage to not be accessible. People who enjoyed this
style of humor cant enjoy it anymore. This is very definition of censorship.

Cat ladies not visiting web page would be enough to not hurt their feelings.
Them going out of their way to prevent others to enjoy this is very
authoritarian and one of reasons why tragedies happen.

~~~
kbenson
> Twitter sat ladies that cry bullied this big IT companies to deny service
> for Daily Stormer caused webpage to not be accessible.

It's no different than a club cancelling a comedy booking because they don't
want that type of comedy at their club, because they don't think their patrons
will support it.

> People who enjoyed this style of humor cant enjoy it anymore. This is very
> definition of censorship.

No, it's not. They can go somewhere else. They can find a different provider,
or publish a pamphlet or go to a street corner. You know what it means as a
comedian when you can't book a club? Not enough people are interested in what
you have to say to make it worthwhile to give you a pulpit, or at least not
enough people to offset the distaste you cause in others. That's not
censorship, that's social pressure.

Censorship is about _ability_ and _rights_. Nobody is restricting the ability
or rights of the daily stormer. It's still legal to post what they want, and
they have avenues to do so (with enough money, they could become their own
host). Freedom of speech is just as much about letting the daily stormer say
what they want as it is letting cloudfare and others decide they don't want to
support it.

