CloudFlare refuses to block service to pro-ISIS websites (2015)

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/anonymous-opisis-cloudflare-refuses-block-service-pro-isis-websites-1495758

by jccooper • 9 years ago

25 18 9 years ago

ibtimes.co.uk

ratsmack3• 9 years ago

I would think that this is a good comparison for a case study of whether Cloudflare should reject someone. Just off the top of my head, ISIS has murdered thousands of people, where The Daily Stormer has just offended people with unsavory content.

ouid3• 9 years ago

The threat that ISIS represents is not existential. The threat that fascism represents is.

jhanschoo2• 9 years ago

The reason you can think that is that you are in a society where the threat of right-wing radicalization is real, but not Islamic radicalization. If you lived in a Muslim-majority country, you would see that Islamic radicalization is far more dangerous.

Don't forget that even as WWII garnered many atrocities, one of the goals is in reviving the caliphate, a religio-political entity that has had a very real presence as a political institution in the past, that had been able to unite squabbling desert tribes into a powerful entity that had been able to defeat two ancient and prestigious empires—both the Persian Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire.

topmonk3• 9 years ago

Sure it is, ISIS wants to kill all infidels. How can that not be considered an existential threat?

copx• 9 years ago

The threat that ISIS represents is not existential.

Tell that to the Yazidis in Syria.

jhanschoo2• 9 years ago

I would suppose that at the moment CloudFlare's policy would be defensive; to refuse service to groups that are clearly defamatory to CF.

To assume censorship on greater moral principles would mean 1. a greater degree of arbitrariness and unfairness, and 2. a drain of resources on an unpopular policy.

itsdrewmiller• 9 years ago

Did the purveyors of those websites claim Cloudflare secretly supports ISIS, as the Daily Stormer's did of Nazism?

nocoder• 9 years ago

This is nothing but PR and ensuring they have a moral high ground among their target audience. It does nothing to address the issue and makes people who use their services feel good about themselves. This is similar to how FB supports net neutrality in US but pushes their free basics in other countries. Additionally, this also provides fodder to extremists saying look how all these people are against us because they are only punishing our views, this gives the extremists more ammunition in their brain washing of vulnerable population. A corporation does not stand for anything except it's profits and will shift its moral position based on what is most helpful to the bottom line.

ratsmack3• 9 years ago

And what you describe is why I believe there are more actors involved in the decision, possibly customers. The possibility of losing contracts is a good incentive to remove a small player. The "I was in a bad mood" strikes me as a cover to protect someone involved in the decision.

kthejoker2• 9 years ago

"My rationale for making this decision was simple: the people behind the Daily Stormer are assholes and I’d had enough," Prince wrote. "Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision."

Prince wrote that he "woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company."

- CloudFlare CEO on why he dropped Daily Stormer as a customer

CloudFlare CEO: “The people behind the Daily Stormer are assholes”

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1148311

buttcake• 9 years ago

You know things are going south when you're more afraid of being labeled as nazi than actually being harmed by one.

dragonwriter• 9 years ago

More realistically in the current USA, you know you are extremely privileged when you're more afraid of being labeled as a Nazi than actually being harmed by one.

Or, you have an unusually strong reason to fear being labelled a Nazi, like you are a vocal racist who attends public demonstrations carrying or dressed in Nazi accoutrements or attire.

Or, you just have irrational relative levels of fear between those two outcomes.

dvfjsdhgfv• 9 years ago

This tendency to call everyone a Nazi is a very strange phenomenon in the USA. I think if Americans really experienced the atrocities of the Nazi, mass death camps, shootings of civilians, tortures - they would hesitate before they used this label against someone they don't like or whose views are different than theirs.

ratsmack3• 9 years ago

The same thing can be said about the word "racist". It is so over used that to me it has lost all meaning. It seems that in every political discussion where there is a disagreement, it will be interjected at some point.

CloudFlare refuses to block service to pro-ISIS websites (2015)

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