I don’t know the backstory but Cloudflare arguing for an open internet is super ironic, presumably he means they want the be the one to close it off and are upset that someone else is ruining their monopoly on it.
> I appreciate @JDVance taking a leadership role in recognizing this type of regulation is a fundamental unfair trade issue that also threatens democratic values. And in this case @ElonMusk is right: #FreeSpeech is critical and under attack from an out-of-touch cabal of very disturbed European policy makers.
Pretending to take a principled stand against censorship but then randomly throwing flowers to two of the biggest threats to freedom of expression is deeply hypocritical, and makes it really hard to take his reaction seriously. And let's not forget that really vile AI image that is sure to alienate all Italians against Cloudflare.
Not a good look on that guy to list his "pro-bono" services and threaten to pull them while asking JD Vance for his help.
How is he expecting the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics to influence some representative of media right holders who have fined Cloudflare? Is he assuming that just because all of the listed things are Italian they can just make the fine go away?
I agree with the CEO, while also feeling a bit nauseous at the MAGA Musk suck-up at the end - I suppose this is the game you have to play with this current administration.
I do appreciate reading a PR, from a CEO, that's not unsalvageably tone deaf. At the first half, I was wondering what the point of this was, given if Italy thinks this is something they're allowed to apply across the globe. That instantly makes this a political issue they probably need to be talking to the State Department about. Then I got to the 2nd half, and was impressed that I wasn't immediately annoyed by the ass kissing.
I assume Cloudflare has a great PR team because this feels like a master class in rhetoric. Given how you're expected to solicit help these days.
Rhetoric aside, it'll be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out. Italy seems to have taken out a hammer, and their d.... well, I'm just gonna hope the Internet wins this one.
censor from the Internet any sites a shadowy cabal
of European media elites deemed against their interests
Has he recently gone full conspiracy theorist? (Also what's that cringy chatgpt picture supposed to tell us?) Who is the shadowy cabal of EU elites? If anything EU is purely politicians obedient to USA interests. I'm guessing this is what happens in tech when the tide starts to shift, because tech doesn't have morals, it's all just about money. Start praising the new administration no matter what they do, until they're not popular and start praising the next thing. Looking forward to his back-to-woke pivot in 2 years.
Another reason to dump an american big tech firm and switch to Bunny.net for example. Better a democratic based error than an american greed based CEO.
This is great news! Who would have expected Cloudflare to truly contribute to EU digital sovereignty.
On a more serious note, I'm surprised Cloudflare wants to pull out of Italy. Being a company which terminates TLS connections for Italy must be a gold mine for the NSA.
In case people can’t/don’t want to read something on X, here is the statement:
Yesterday a quasi-judicial body in Italy fined @Cloudflare $17 million for failing to go along with their scheme to censor the Internet. The scheme, which even the EU has called concerning, required us within a mere 30 minutes of notification to fully censor from the Internet any sites a shadowy cabal of European media elites deemed against their interests. No judicial oversight. No due process. No appeal. No transparency. It required us to not just remove customers, but also censor our 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver meaning it risked blacking out any site on the Internet. And it required us not just to censor the content in Italy but globally. In other words, Italy insists a shadowy, European media cabal should be able to dictate what is and is not allowed online.
That, of course, is DISGUSTING and even before yesterday’s fine we had multiple legal challenges pending against the underlying scheme. We, of course, will now fight the unjust fine. Not just because it’s wrong for us but because it is wrong for democratic values.
In addition, we are considering the following actions: 1) discontinuing the millions of dollars in pro bono cyber security services we are providing the upcoming Milano-Cortina Olympics; 2) discontinuing Cloudflare’s Free cyber security services for any Italy-based users; 3) removing all servers from Italian cities; and 4) terminating all plans to build an Italian Cloudflare office or make any investments in the country.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. While there are things I would handle differently than the current U.S. administration, I appreciate @JDVance taking a leadership role in recognizing this type of regulation is a fundamental unfair trade issue that also threatens democratic values. And in this case @ElonMusk is right: #FreeSpeech is critical and under attack from an out-of-touch cabal of very disturbed European policy makers.
I will be in DC first thing next week to discuss this with U.S. administration officials and I’ll be meeting with the IOC in Lausanne shortly after to outline the risk to the Olympic Games if @Cloudflare withdraws our cyber security protection.
In the meantime, we remain happy to discuss this with Italian government officials who, so far, have been unwilling to engage beyond issuing fines. We believe Italy, like all countries, has a right to regulate the content on networks inside its borders. But they must do so following the Rule of Law and principles of Due Process. And Italy certainly has no right to regulate what is and is not allowed on the Internet in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Brazil, India or anywhere outside its borders.
So blocking Kiwifarms took.. months of activism and loud complaining. Heraled by Matthew as "this is an extraordinary decision for us to make and, given Cloudflare's role as an Internet infrastructure provider, a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with".
However a fine that amounts to ~0.7% of the annual revenue and they threaten to block an entire country?
```
The rights holders also declared, under their own responsibility, providing
certified documentary evidence of the current nature of the unlawful conduct, that the reported
domain names and IP addresses were unequivocally intended to infringe the
copyright and related rights of the audiovisual works relating to live broadcast sporting events
and similar events covered by the reports.
```
So, I'm not sure anybody verified that what the right holders claimed was actually true. While I understand what AGCOM (the italian FCC, more-or-less) is trying to do, it seems that, as usual, a law was created without verifying how the implementation of such law would work in practice (something very common in Italy), and this is the result.
Cloudflare CEO seems irate, and some of his references are not great, but I'd be inclined at thinking he's got at least _some_ reason on his side.
We live and have lived in a technological civilization for more than a hundred years. Legislators have NO EXCUSE to hide behind 'we don't understand the technology'. Sure computers are complex. But so are nuclear reactors, combustion engines and food safety.
If nuclear reactors cost 3x what they should, yet safety incidents occur 2x as often as they could because of stupid legislation, they shouldn't be able to hide behind 'we only have a legal diploma so we can't figure out what actuall works'.
For some reason, a lot of older folks consider computing as a 'low stakes game', as computers being either an annoyance or convenience but nothing more.
I don't know if the system is fundamentally flawed, and the people in charge are becoming less and less able to actually handle the reins of society and some major upheaval is necessary, or the system can be fixed as is, but this seems endemic and something should be done.
I agree with this sentiment.
His tweet was quite disingenuous and it doesn’t help that he’s tagging Musk and Vance. The noise they make about free speech is a charade.
I still can’t understand why these tech CEOs are doing so many cynical things even in places where they have the chance to start healthy debate.
> Italy’s communications regulator AGCOM imposed a record-breaking €14.2 million fine on Cloudflare after the company failed to implement the required piracy blocking measures. Cloudflare argued that filtering its global 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver would be "impossible" without hurting overall performance. AGCOM disagreed, noting that Cloudflare is not necessarily a neutral intermediary either. [...]
180 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadPretending to take a principled stand against censorship but then randomly throwing flowers to two of the biggest threats to freedom of expression is deeply hypocritical, and makes it really hard to take his reaction seriously. And let's not forget that really vile AI image that is sure to alienate all Italians against Cloudflare.
How is he expecting the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics to influence some representative of media right holders who have fined Cloudflare? Is he assuming that just because all of the listed things are Italian they can just make the fine go away?
I assume Cloudflare has a great PR team because this feels like a master class in rhetoric. Given how you're expected to solicit help these days.
Rhetoric aside, it'll be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out. Italy seems to have taken out a hammer, and their d.... well, I'm just gonna hope the Internet wins this one.
On a more serious note, I'm surprised Cloudflare wants to pull out of Italy. Being a company which terminates TLS connections for Italy must be a gold mine for the NSA.
Yesterday a quasi-judicial body in Italy fined @Cloudflare $17 million for failing to go along with their scheme to censor the Internet. The scheme, which even the EU has called concerning, required us within a mere 30 minutes of notification to fully censor from the Internet any sites a shadowy cabal of European media elites deemed against their interests. No judicial oversight. No due process. No appeal. No transparency. It required us to not just remove customers, but also censor our 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver meaning it risked blacking out any site on the Internet. And it required us not just to censor the content in Italy but globally. In other words, Italy insists a shadowy, European media cabal should be able to dictate what is and is not allowed online.
That, of course, is DISGUSTING and even before yesterday’s fine we had multiple legal challenges pending against the underlying scheme. We, of course, will now fight the unjust fine. Not just because it’s wrong for us but because it is wrong for democratic values.
In addition, we are considering the following actions: 1) discontinuing the millions of dollars in pro bono cyber security services we are providing the upcoming Milano-Cortina Olympics; 2) discontinuing Cloudflare’s Free cyber security services for any Italy-based users; 3) removing all servers from Italian cities; and 4) terminating all plans to build an Italian Cloudflare office or make any investments in the country.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. While there are things I would handle differently than the current U.S. administration, I appreciate @JDVance taking a leadership role in recognizing this type of regulation is a fundamental unfair trade issue that also threatens democratic values. And in this case @ElonMusk is right: #FreeSpeech is critical and under attack from an out-of-touch cabal of very disturbed European policy makers.
I will be in DC first thing next week to discuss this with U.S. administration officials and I’ll be meeting with the IOC in Lausanne shortly after to outline the risk to the Olympic Games if @Cloudflare withdraws our cyber security protection.
In the meantime, we remain happy to discuss this with Italian government officials who, so far, have been unwilling to engage beyond issuing fines. We believe Italy, like all countries, has a right to regulate the content on networks inside its borders. But they must do so following the Rule of Law and principles of Due Process. And Italy certainly has no right to regulate what is and is not allowed on the Internet in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Brazil, India or anywhere outside its borders.
THIS IS AN IMPORTANT FIGHT AND WE WILL WIN!!!
However a fine that amounts to ~0.7% of the annual revenue and they threaten to block an entire country?
If somebody wants to read the full document about the fine (in italian) it's here: https://www.agcom.it/sites/default/files/provvedimenti/delib...
Part of this doc states:
``` The rights holders also declared, under their own responsibility, providing certified documentary evidence of the current nature of the unlawful conduct, that the reported domain names and IP addresses were unequivocally intended to infringe the copyright and related rights of the audiovisual works relating to live broadcast sporting events and similar events covered by the reports. ```
So, I'm not sure anybody verified that what the right holders claimed was actually true. While I understand what AGCOM (the italian FCC, more-or-less) is trying to do, it seems that, as usual, a law was created without verifying how the implementation of such law would work in practice (something very common in Italy), and this is the result.
Cloudflare CEO seems irate, and some of his references are not great, but I'd be inclined at thinking he's got at least _some_ reason on his side.
If nuclear reactors cost 3x what they should, yet safety incidents occur 2x as often as they could because of stupid legislation, they shouldn't be able to hide behind 'we only have a legal diploma so we can't figure out what actuall works'.
For some reason, a lot of older folks consider computing as a 'low stakes game', as computers being either an annoyance or convenience but nothing more.
I don't know if the system is fundamentally flawed, and the people in charge are becoming less and less able to actually handle the reins of society and some major upheaval is necessary, or the system can be fixed as is, but this seems endemic and something should be done.
I still can’t understand why these tech CEOs are doing so many cynical things even in places where they have the chance to start healthy debate.
It’s so frustrating.
> Italy’s communications regulator AGCOM imposed a record-breaking €14.2 million fine on Cloudflare after the company failed to implement the required piracy blocking measures. Cloudflare argued that filtering its global 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver would be "impossible" without hurting overall performance. AGCOM disagreed, noting that Cloudflare is not necessarily a neutral intermediary either. [...]
https://torrentfreak.com/italy-fines-cloudflare-e14-million-...