Oh come on, can we stop calling hosting a service as "backing" things. Whatever happened to the idea of providing a service disclaiming of who you're providing a service to?
There was a lot of outrage when a religious bakery refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. The argument was that they should serve every customer, even if they disagree.
But now we're requesting precisely the opposite from Cloudflare.
I debated flagging it but since it’s so egregiously bad it makes for a good meta-discussion.
But reading it at first may seem like they did a complete 180 degree turn and went from banning those kinds of things to outright embracing them. I thought, what are they providing them free service now? That’s some crazy leadership changes at Cloudflare!
This headline is designed to generate outrage. I feel like that's probably against HN rules and it should be changed to something less inflammatory to allow for actual discussion to take place because this is a nuanced issue.
To be clear, the content on this website is abhorrent and there's no nuance there. It should almost certainly be forcibly removed from the internet as hate speech.
The nuance is here: all this outrage is being used to demand that Cloudflare becomes a moral arbiter of the content they host, which is a slippery slope because if they accede here, there will immediately be another demand, and another, all using this case as their example. There's nothing to suggest that Cloudflare, as a company, has any skill as a moral arbiter so it seems like a bad idea to demand that they become such. Other tech companies, notably Facebook, are terrible and inconsistent moral arbiters but at least only censor their own platforms. Cloudflare is in the position of hosting other people's platforms.
In any case, I believe the outrage should be directed at whatever legal jurisdiction has power here. IIRC this is a New Zealand website, in which case, wouldn't it make more sense to direct this energy towards getting NZ to issue a takedown request to Cloudflare?
The problem is in that Cloudflare has already shown through previous actions in dropping 8chan and The Daily Stormer that they are willing to be arbitrators of what is acceptable. So once you're down that slippery slope not removing someone who looks a lot like those two sites translates to tacit approval.
The Daily Stormer claimed that Cloudflare were sympathizers, thereby forcing Cloudflare to terminate their business relationship.
We can make an analogy to defense lawyers. They will represent anyone: murderers, rapists, pop musicians, because they have a belief in that every person deserves representation. But if you start making claims that your defense lawyer is representing you because they agree with you, you’ll quickly be looking for a new lawyer.
> To be clear, the content on this website is abhorrent and there's no nuance there. It should almost certainly be forcibly removed from the internet as hate speech.
When companies play internet police we all suffer. Taking down the site isn't going to suddenly make all of those people posting there not-racist. Having them right out in the open lets us know who they are and what they're up to.
Law enforcement is probably well aware of the site already and keeping a close eye on it (and on any racists in law enforcement who are active participants). If the messed up people on that site ever do escalate from memes and nasty internet comments to actual violence and law-breaking the police will know exactly where to start. Meanwhile, researchers and other people concerned with fighting racism can take advantage of this data as well.
I really can't understand why everyone's first reaction to seeing something they don't like is to sweep it under the rug. You can't fight something if you aren't allowed to see it, and the things you can't see in the shadows are just going to blindside you. We should work to keep evil in the sunlight so that everyone knows exactly what it is, and where it's spreading.
People who want to force sites offline for "hate speech" aren't fighting hate, they're only hindering our ability to fight it.
They're not providing a regulated utility though and it's not like the harassment was occasional and dealt with on the customer end. At this point cloudflare is aware their customer basically exists to provide space for organising that kind of behaviour. And they know they're the provider of choice because they enable that service to exist. That's effectively the same as backing.
Not sure if the headline has been changed since posted on here or if OP editorialised it, but it now reads:
White Supremacists Built a Website to Doxx Interracial Couples — and It's Going to Be Hard to Take Down
I searched with quotes and couldn't find any reference to the title as it appears above apart from this thread and some other Google spam, but suspiciously the Vice article is the first match if I take away the quotation marks.
There has been a non-stop posting of anti-Cloudflare stories--essentially, cancellation attempts--due to Kiwi Farms. I just flag every one and move on. Take your political battles elsewhere.
21 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 64.1 ms ] threadThere was a lot of outrage when a religious bakery refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. The argument was that they should serve every customer, even if they disagree.
But now we're requesting precisely the opposite from Cloudflare.
The key difference: when the baker refused to provide service to a protected class based, they were discriminating.
White supremacists (not a protected class) being refused service is quite different and not at all comparable.
How much longer are you a "protected class?"
I merely pointed out that the given comparison was invalid.
But reading it at first may seem like they did a complete 180 degree turn and went from banning those kinds of things to outright embracing them. I thought, what are they providing them free service now? That’s some crazy leadership changes at Cloudflare!
To be clear, the content on this website is abhorrent and there's no nuance there. It should almost certainly be forcibly removed from the internet as hate speech.
The nuance is here: all this outrage is being used to demand that Cloudflare becomes a moral arbiter of the content they host, which is a slippery slope because if they accede here, there will immediately be another demand, and another, all using this case as their example. There's nothing to suggest that Cloudflare, as a company, has any skill as a moral arbiter so it seems like a bad idea to demand that they become such. Other tech companies, notably Facebook, are terrible and inconsistent moral arbiters but at least only censor their own platforms. Cloudflare is in the position of hosting other people's platforms.
In any case, I believe the outrage should be directed at whatever legal jurisdiction has power here. IIRC this is a New Zealand website, in which case, wouldn't it make more sense to direct this energy towards getting NZ to issue a takedown request to Cloudflare?
We can make an analogy to defense lawyers. They will represent anyone: murderers, rapists, pop musicians, because they have a belief in that every person deserves representation. But if you start making claims that your defense lawyer is representing you because they agree with you, you’ll quickly be looking for a new lawyer.
When companies play internet police we all suffer. Taking down the site isn't going to suddenly make all of those people posting there not-racist. Having them right out in the open lets us know who they are and what they're up to.
Law enforcement is probably well aware of the site already and keeping a close eye on it (and on any racists in law enforcement who are active participants). If the messed up people on that site ever do escalate from memes and nasty internet comments to actual violence and law-breaking the police will know exactly where to start. Meanwhile, researchers and other people concerned with fighting racism can take advantage of this data as well.
I really can't understand why everyone's first reaction to seeing something they don't like is to sweep it under the rug. You can't fight something if you aren't allowed to see it, and the things you can't see in the shadows are just going to blindside you. We should work to keep evil in the sunlight so that everyone knows exactly what it is, and where it's spreading.
People who want to force sites offline for "hate speech" aren't fighting hate, they're only hindering our ability to fight it.
Cloudflare doesn't have any saying in what their customers can do and what not, except the customer violates their ToS.
Law enforcement will request taking down content and Cloudflare will act accordingly. It's not cloudflares job to enforce law.
They helped prevent law enforcement being involved too https://twitter.com/stealthygeek/status/1485731108822077443 - they actually spent money on lawyers to protect that customer.
They're not legally forced to act here. They're just bad people for not doing it.
Really disappointed if all of this is actually true.
White Supremacists Built a Website to Doxx Interracial Couples — and It's Going to Be Hard to Take Down
I searched with quotes and couldn't find any reference to the title as it appears above apart from this thread and some other Google spam, but suspiciously the Vice article is the first match if I take away the quotation marks.
Either way, Vice is hardly a picture of balance.