On the one hand, I like the idea of a free, open, and distributed internet, where no one company or government has the power to control what is distributed or discussed. As the great John Gilmore said, more aspirationally than accurately even then: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
On the other hand, we don't live in that world, and I don't know how well it would work in practice if we did. In this world, corporations and governments have enormous power. Cloudflare has made it clear that it will use that power in a fairly limited and restrained way, but it will use it as it sees fit.
Given that, this seems like a reasonable exercise of that power, and that's about the best we can hope for.
> Removing 8chan from our network takes heat off of us, it does nothing to address why hateful sites fester online.
It’s not your role to address the “why”. As a platform you’re only obliged to deal with the “what” and the “how”.
They now have one less platform to choose from, and their ability to do whatever it is they do is reduced. That’s a win, because wins don’t need to be absolute to count.
It would be better if cloudflare terminated service for all media outlets. Every time you turn a mass shooting into a national spectacle, it inspires copycats in rapid succession as we've just seen.
Mass shootings (generally) don't kill that many people. They are scary, yes, but not that deadly (statistically). Keep it local news, don't publish the name of the killer, basically keep the story away from the front lines.
By turning every mass shooting into a hysterical emotional maelstrom, you signal a green light to all the other potential shooters that this is how you get attention.
"the speed with which tech cos change after a bad PR cycle seems like solid proof that none of this is abt principles but abt trying to keep from making hard choices as long as possible. earlier today they argued that keeping 8chan within its network is a “moral obligation”"
If you build a system that is technically possible for someone to censor, particularly if you make it easy to do (and in fact where not doing so would cost them potentially billions of dollars in market cap in an upcoming IPO, recruiting, sales, vendors, etc), you shouldn’t be at all surprised when they do censor. It is interesting that Cloudflare has only really censored two sites (dailystormer and 8chan) outside of a fairly clearly articulated terms of service. There are clearly a large number of sites on Cloudflare which are a net liability to them and always will be, so the “free speech” stance is genuine.
There will be lots of people who are frustrated by this. They may say that Cloudflare shouldn't remove content unless they are legally required. Or that a CDN like Cloudflare is a platform layer, deep in the stack, and that it shouldn't be making decisions based on content. That they are a essentially a utility, and that they should provide the the same service to everyone.
But at the end of the day, companies are run by people. And those people should consider the positive and negative concequences of the services they provide. It is the moral thing to do. It is the right thing to do. It is the courageous thing to do.
That doesn't mean they must block every potentially bad actor. And they don't need to block based explicitly on content. Here, the line was drawn at "platforms that have demonstrated they directly inspire tragic events and are lawless by design." But when situations arise that cause decision makers at an organization to re-consider providing their services to their customers, they should take that opportunity to re-evaluate. They should ask, "Do we want to be hosting this?"
In this case, they said "No."
Maybe some other customers will leave, afraid of being kicked off next. They should take that into account. If you think your service is sufficiently like 8Chan, you should probably leave Cloudflare. Or if you think Cloudflare's decision was arbitrary and that worries you, you should leave.
But maybe others will be happy that their CDN doesn't need to be associated with hosting 8Chan's content. I know I feel that way.
Maybe the goodwill you receive will lead to more financial success. But you'll probably never know. In all likelihood, so long as your customers aren't leaving in droves after you kick someone off your platform, you'll never know if the decision was the right financial decision.
You'll probably never know if it was a net positive or negative on your balance sheet. But you might sleep better at night. And maybe sites that enable the propagate hate will find it a little bit harder to survive. And I think that's great.
Well, they're at least making their position clear here. They are not a government or a public forum. As such, they can decide who and what they will support on the internet. Can't argue with their decision on that point.
> Late Sunday, following hours of public criticism, Cloudflare announced a major reversal, saying 8chan had gone too far and “repeatedly proven itself to be a cesspool of hate.” Its access to Cloudflare services was scheduled to terminate at midnight Pacific time, making it more vulnerable to a potentially crippling cyberattack.
Yes, but Cloudflare needs talented engineers, and talented engineers don’t sign up to serve clients like 8chan. Software doesn’t run on one person’s contrarian politics.
There is nothing inherently virtuous about talented engineers, and in fact some of the most talented engineers I’ve come across in the industry have very loose morals.
I think you'd find a great many talented engineers don't share the same politics you do, and an even greater number who are far too apolitical for it to factor into their job search.
Its important that a company distances themselves from this type of behaviour but even slightly spinning it as action against something is disingenuous at best. So much more needs to happen to really address these problems and Im fairly confident a cdn isnt the make or break for shootings in America.
Why does Cloudflare feel the need to take action here? Only a minority believe that 8chan is the culprit in creating these gunmen, and fewer people have called for Cloudflare specifically to shutdown 8chan.
By staying idle the conversation would've moved onto gun control, but now they're going to make this round of shootings all about online community policy which IMHO is a futile scapegoat.
Political discussion happens all the time on Hacker News, but you don't see many mass shooters from HN. Culture of the online communities matters a lot (and moderation). I don't think chans create gunmen per se, but they assist to radicalize antisocial young men.
I don't think anything is gained from political discussion on chans. Free speech is important, and no company should be legally punished for providing these spaces, but that doesn't mean discouraging them from existing is wrong.
Obviously not supporting these sites, but I think an argument can be made for at least being _consistent_ about whether or not you're going to allow only things you find morally reasonable on your service.
That's a pretty warped view, 8chan is the support system for radicals which in all likelyhood gives them the motivation to commit mass murder since they have an audience to play to and support for their demented views.
As the article states, it's very likely 8chan is just going to use a competitors service so it's unlikely to cause them much disruption, but at least Cloudflare isn't going to feel terrible for providing Internet services to the cesspit that formed the mind of the next radical that's going to commit mass murder and announce it there.
This. Having this content out in the open means we can monitor it. I totally get why Cloudflare would not want to do business with 8Chan, but every step towards pushing 8Chan and it's members underground is less visibility into the kind of people who operate on the site.
Less visibility for those not already on it looking to join in too though. If it gets forced so far underground that law enforcement can't figure out a way in I don't see how some disaffected youth somewhere could either.
It's not that it would go too underground for law enforcement to find it, it's that it would be limited to terrorist cell networks that mass shooters don't even post in.
They didn't post this on Twitter or FB already but every news media person found his manifesto quickly - just like they always do. There will be another 8chan to fill that void soon enough.
Except the warnings are anonymous, and don't mention who, when, or where.
What's really going on is similar to what we saw with radicalization in extremist Islam forums. A large group of young, usually lonely and frustrated men, disconnected socially, often with no hope of financial status advancement, find solace and community in online forums with like people, and then act to self-reinforce some of the community's worse inclinations, blaming their predicament on other types of people, dehumanizing them. The irony with these forums are, some people on those forums are not racist or pedophiles, but edge-lording on purpose, but other people can't discern the difference and are swept up and manipulated by other people who get off on manipulating people.
When I was a teen in the 80s, I nerdy and disconnected from school, but back then, if you used a computer, you were fairly involved in hacking, and a lot of community revolved around constructive activities, so whatever loneliness or ostracism geeks felt, it was often distracted by optimism and excitement over technology.
It seems these days, you have the online community in these forums, but it is mostly consumptive, not constructive, or rather, what is constructive is memes and racist, xenophobic, extremist screeds.
I really worry about what's happening as more and more people are made idle and out of the labor force, rather than seek face to face community activity, will eventually retreat to their online bunkers?
Political *chan culture drives mass shootings in the first place by radicalizing antisocial people more. You'd likely have fewer mass shootings you'd need early warning about in the first place.
"Some" will condemn this ban by appealing to freedom of speech. But freedom of speech is not absolute. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, as per the Guardian:
"I am an unswerving advocate of freedom of expression, which is guaranteed under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), but it is not absolute. Article 20 of the same covenant says: ‘Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law."[0]
As so often, different values are in tension with each other. And different societies draw the line at different places, somewhat favouring one or the other value. I hope we can agree that 8-chan, due to the lack of sensible moderation, is way past that line by all standards.
On the other hand, we don't live in that world, and I don't know how well it would work in practice if we did. In this world, corporations and governments have enormous power. Cloudflare has made it clear that it will use that power in a fairly limited and restrained way, but it will use it as it sees fit.
Given that, this seems like a reasonable exercise of that power, and that's about the best we can hope for.
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