> 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.
That's not what happened here. They made an appropriate decision.
It's not a difficult to say, "while we have no policies that restrict lawful content, we reserve the right to not service those who host and promulgate content that explicitly creates emergency threats to human life."
People and their companies aren't computers who have to allow everything to meet some absurd MVP product definition of false fairness.
To be even clearer, in this case it’s not even really quite clear that this was legal content at all! Coordinated stalking of people!
Of course you could say “the legal system should handle it”. But what serious company says “let’s wait for a court to maximize our legal exposure”. The guy cited hard cases. This seems pretty easy!
And of course, why does Cloudflare proactively take down other sites that have anything to do with sex work but require a billion justifications for sites like this?
Because we’re a U.S.-based company subject to SESTA and the one site in question we took down affirmatively told us they were violating SESTA. SESTA is a very bad law. But, if you’re violating it, don’t wave that fact in the face of your infrastructure providers who are liable under the law for providing service to you. We continue to work to overturn or repeal SESTA.
We never told you we were violating SESTA. We never waved it in your face. You could have given us some warning, but you didn't.
Until you show evidence on your work to overturn/repeal SESTA, I'm going to call bullshit on that.
Cloudflare knowingly fronts many other sites that are clearly violating SESTA, so obviously you don't think it's that big of a liability as you claim to be.
Not to mention your Head of Sales reached out to us offering Cloudflare services a year after kicking Switter off when we mentioned we were dealing with DDOS attacks as an escort directory.
I do understand that Cloudlfare can't just violate SESTA/FOSTA.
That being said, the communication and messaging around those decisions were clearly different than what's happened with Kiwi Farms. I'm not expecting Cloudflare to violate the law, but my goodness is it really obvious to me that taking down Kiwi Farms was a much harder decision for you than taking down those sex sites.
This kind of feeds into my long-running criticism of how Cloudflare handles adult content in general. You launched a DNS filtering service that accidentally censored the GLAAD website -- and to be clear, my beef is not that Cloudflare made a mistake and I'm not implying that any of that censorship was intentional. My beef is that I can't imagine you making that same mistake around bigoted content. I firmly believe that if you were launching a DNS filter for hate speech, you would have done more testing before you launched it. You would have been scared enough about that filter that you would have made sure it wouldn't accidentally censor a mainline political blog.
But to this day, 1.1.1.3 filters adult content but not sites that are dedicated to hate speech. Kiwi Farms wasn't blocked from 1.1.1.3. That may not be intended as a statement, but it sure reads as one. It is impossible for me to look at those decisions and not come away with the conclusion that you are more comfortable censoring explicit material than you are censoring violent speech.
And it does make it harder for me to believe you when you claim that taking an absolutist position towards platforming even organized doxing sites is protecting marginalized groups. Because you're already launching your own services that make it easier for network operators to attack those marginalized groups; they're not seeing the same level of consideration that doxing sites are getting.
I lost a lot of respect for Cloudflare's "free speech protects everyone" argument when 1.1.1.3 launched. You can't simultaneously argue to me that we have to care about the principles of speech when it comes to banning a doxing site, and also that technically your sex-specific DNS censorship service is optional so it has no implications for free speech and it's just fine.
Cloudflare will ignore reports of DDOS-for-Hire websites that are illegal almost everywhere in the world, including the US. So, you see yourself as free to ignore laws when you feel like it?
I was thinking “if I was your lawyer” and didn’t type it. Then hit enter and saw my message, and edited it. The problems of getting in flamewars while making breakfast!
I would recommend to anyone to follow the advice of their lawyers regarding posting to hacker news! But it’s mainly a joke
EDIT: and to the original post, I was being way too glib. I do kinda believe what I say but there are less agressive ways of saying it. Again, breakfast posting, but legitimately touchy subject for obvious reasons and I should keep my cool.
> to be under oath and claim nobody at your company was like “maybe this site is coordinating illegal activity” and you said “nah” and continued to provide services for them?
I think Cloudflare did the right thing. But I'd fight for a CEO's right to make calls about user-generated content without worrying about liability because someone suspected something.
I suppose the contention here is that at one point you’re looking at a website, are told its modus operandi, see a lot of the content it hosts… and at one point 230 starts being less relevant.
Like if you have multiple incidents with the same site at one point you need to actually acknowledge that these incidents are here! You might still declare “it’s ok though” but honestly that arguments way easier with something like Reddit compared to something “single-use” like KF.
Obviously not a lawyer, but it feels possible to argue this in a securities fraud case
Is that a rhetorical question or a sincere one? Legal liability. American law has lots of direct liability for Cloudflare under SESTA/FOSTA for being involved in sex work websites. There's not equivalent liability for hate websites.
It is rhetorical. CF admits that they have contacted law enforcement several times about contact in kiwi farm. They clearly get the hosting of the “problematic” content. They understand how that site is used. That seems like an admission of guilt to me!
Anyone who wants to be a bit of an activist investor: who at the company is putting the company at needless legal risk?
As far as I'm aware, KF didn't come with the kind of direct liability under US law that sex work content does. I welcome the chance to learn that I'm wrong here!
This seems like the correct thing. They realise the content is dodgy.
Report to law enforcement repeatedly hoping that they look at it and give them a legal reason to shut them down.
If they shut things down as a private company, so long as the customer is not in breach of the service contract and the content is not illegal, couldn’t they mount a defence?
This sounds like a reasonable strategy. I don’t understand this need for private justice.
> And of course, why does Cloudflare proactively take down other sites that have anything to do with sex work but require a billion justifications for sites like this?
It’s almost certainly cultural more than anything else. Sex workers are regarded negatively by vastly larger proportions of most communities, while hate groups are incredibly partisan. Not that it justifies the distinction, if anything it should be a clarion call to humanize and decriminalize sex work.
> It's not a difficult to say, "while we have no policies that restrict lawful content, we reserve the right to not service those who host and promulgate content that explicitly creates emergency threats to human life."
And if everyone did that, its the exact same as government censorship minus any sort of due process or redress ability.
There's this weird idea that government censorship is abhorent but private censorship is somehow without sin, even when the results are basically identical.
They can't directly remove your physical freedom but corporations especially when acting in unison can remove most of your economic freedom. If enough precedents are set where large service providers deny service to groups and individuals at the behest of the mob, eventually it will become politically and financially expedient for these providers to pre-emptively deny service to a whole basket of people.
It's somewhat amusing that corporate run dystopias were always imagined as a product of unfettered libertarian policy in science fiction and film but we may very well slide into one being pushed the whole way by the very people who decried such policies in their youth during the 80s and 90s.
It's not difficult to say, but it can be difficult to live at any meaningful scale. That invites endless pressure campaigns and similarly endless accusations of acting arbitrarily, capriciously, or with insert-bias-or-agenda-here. None of those are free to handle in any responsible or timely fashion. Never mind what happens should a genuine mistake be made.
It puts the company in the same position as Facebook in regards to moderation. It's endless, expensive, and your work is never good enough. Not a desirable position for most.
It's not a difficult to say, "while we have no policies that restrict lawful content, we reserve the right to not service those who host and promulgate content that explicitly creates emergency threats to human life."
People and their companies aren't computers who have to allow everything to meet some absurd MVP product definition of false fairness.