> If you think this isn't how society should function, great, you can attempt to vote and change the laws.
The laws allow Cloudflare to make this decision. Respectfully, I would offer you the same advice -- if you think that Cloudflare shouldn't be blocking openly abusive content, then pass a law banning Cloudflare from doing so. But I think you'll have a hard time getting that law to pass a 1st Amendment challenge. We barely got Net Neutrality to survive Supreme Court challenges and that depends on legally declaring the companies it affects to be common carriers, a classification that Cloudflare has not pursued for itself in any equivalent form.
> you don't get to make a moral judgment here and deny ME, a citizen of the world, access to information unless our democratic society votes otherwise.
I'll happily make that moral judgement as a free speech advocate. This has come up a couple of times already in these comments, but sites like Kiwi Farms are very direct chilling actors on free speech. They are pretty much the textbook definition of what "cancel culture" actually is and what it actually means beyond any freedom of association or freedom to criticize. They exist not to spread an ideology, but to bully people (often through real-world tactics and abuses of common infrastructure) into leaving the Internet.
People are very upset about the idea that by advocating for Cloudflare to remove Kiwi Farms, people like me are making decisions about what content you can access. They don't seem to be upset at Kiwi Farms for pushing for the same outcomes in much more egregious and openly anti-free-speech ways, and it just makes it really difficult for me to take this moralizing seriously. I'm supposed to be ashamed of contributing to a constitutionally protected process that used collective speech and freedom of association to get a private actor to make a legally protected decision about who they'll associate with. And I'm supposed to believe this is a greater threat to freedom of speech than doxing people, threatening their family members, or trying to convince employers that they're pedophiles.
I just don't buy it. I do in fact have a legal right to exercise my freedom of speech and freedom of association in regards to private actors, and I would argue I have a moral right to call out malicious actors that are doing direct harm to freedom of speech and a moral right to advocate for platform standards among private entities that cause speech to flourish rather than allowing a singular forum to use illegal tactics to make it physically dangerous for people to exist on the Internet. Getting rid of obviously malicious actors like Kiwi Farms is good for freedom of speech.
Furthermore, I don't buy the backwards logic that by arguing against expanded definitions of illegal speech and against expanded involvement of governments in censorship that I am somehow taking the pro-censorship position. But whatever, if you want to argue that Cloudflare is fundamental infrastructure to the point where it shouldn't be making private decisions or to the point that it should be treated like an ISP, then fine. That's a thing you can argue for. Get it classified as public infrastructure, we have a legislative process for doing that. Lobby the company to form a collective public organization with other CDN services that can make these moderation decisions. Both you and Cloudflare have options here if you both really believe the company is too important to make private decisions.
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Cloudflare isn't an ISP (although note that even under most definitions of Net Neutrality an ISP could arguably have still legally banned Kiwi Farms). Cloudflare argues that its infrastructure should be treated as the same level of critical importance as an ISP, and it argues that its importance demands neutrality about even websites that are dedicated to promoting illegal behavior. Cloudflare argues that blocking even just straightforwardly malicious actors on its network should be subject to a legal process.
But I think that's a very selective claim. It's a claim that Cloudflare only seems to make when it comes to these controversies, and not a claim that seems to inform any other part of its decision-making process or business structure. Let me know when Cloudflare starts operating as a publicly owned entity, or demanding court orders before it blocks DDoS attacks, or demanding strict legal definitions of malicious traffic, and then we'll talk about whether they really believe that they're fundamental critical communication infrastructure and whether they really believe that they need a government to tell them to remove obviously malicious actors from the network.
In the meanwhile, forgive me for being skeptical about Cloudflare's claim that its moderation decisions should all just be proxies for court rulings. Let me know when Cloudflare actually subjects itself to any kind of binding restrictions or any kind of public democratic accountability for its moderation decisions, rather than just using this excuse conditionally to avoid responsibility or criticism.
The laws allow Cloudflare to make this decision. Respectfully, I would offer you the same advice -- if you think that Cloudflare shouldn't be blocking openly abusive content, then pass a law banning Cloudflare from doing so. But I think you'll have a hard time getting that law to pass a 1st Amendment challenge. We barely got Net Neutrality to survive Supreme Court challenges and that depends on legally declaring the companies it affects to be common carriers, a classification that Cloudflare has not pursued for itself in any equivalent form.
> you don't get to make a moral judgment here and deny ME, a citizen of the world, access to information unless our democratic society votes otherwise.
I'll happily make that moral judgement as a free speech advocate. This has come up a couple of times already in these comments, but sites like Kiwi Farms are very direct chilling actors on free speech. They are pretty much the textbook definition of what "cancel culture" actually is and what it actually means beyond any freedom of association or freedom to criticize. They exist not to spread an ideology, but to bully people (often through real-world tactics and abuses of common infrastructure) into leaving the Internet.
People are very upset about the idea that by advocating for Cloudflare to remove Kiwi Farms, people like me are making decisions about what content you can access. They don't seem to be upset at Kiwi Farms for pushing for the same outcomes in much more egregious and openly anti-free-speech ways, and it just makes it really difficult for me to take this moralizing seriously. I'm supposed to be ashamed of contributing to a constitutionally protected process that used collective speech and freedom of association to get a private actor to make a legally protected decision about who they'll associate with. And I'm supposed to believe this is a greater threat to freedom of speech than doxing people, threatening their family members, or trying to convince employers that they're pedophiles.
I just don't buy it. I do in fact have a legal right to exercise my freedom of speech and freedom of association in regards to private actors, and I would argue I have a moral right to call out malicious actors that are doing direct harm to freedom of speech and a moral right to advocate for platform standards among private entities that cause speech to flourish rather than allowing a singular forum to use illegal tactics to make it physically dangerous for people to exist on the Internet. Getting rid of obviously malicious actors like Kiwi Farms is good for freedom of speech.
Furthermore, I don't buy the backwards logic that by arguing against expanded definitions of illegal speech and against expanded involvement of governments in censorship that I am somehow taking the pro-censorship position. But whatever, if you want to argue that Cloudflare is fundamental infrastructure to the point where it shouldn't be making private decisions or to the point that it should be treated like an ISP, then fine. That's a thing you can argue for. Get it classified as public infrastructure, we have a legislative process for doing that. Lobby the company to form a collective public organization with other CDN services that can make these moderation decisions. Both you and Cloudflare have options here if you both really believe the company is too important to make private decisions.
----
Cloudflare isn't an ISP (although note that even under most definitions of Net Neutrality an ISP could arguably have still legally banned Kiwi Farms). Cloudflare argues that its infrastructure should be treated as the same level of critical importance as an ISP, and it argues that its importance demands neutrality about even websites that are dedicated to promoting illegal behavior. Cloudflare argues that blocking even just straightforwardly malicious actors on its network should be subject to a legal process.
But I think that's a very selective claim. It's a claim that Cloudflare only seems to make when it comes to these controversies, and not a claim that seems to inform any other part of its decision-making process or business structure. Let me know when Cloudflare starts operating as a publicly owned entity, or demanding court orders before it blocks DDoS attacks, or demanding strict legal definitions of malicious traffic, and then we'll talk about whether they really believe that they're fundamental critical communication infrastructure and whether they really believe that they need a government to tell them to remove obviously malicious actors from the network.
In the meanwhile, forgive me for being skeptical about Cloudflare's claim that its moderation decisions should all just be proxies for court rulings. Let me know when Cloudflare actually subjects itself to any kind of binding restrictions or any kind of public democratic accountability for its moderation decisions, rather than just using this excuse conditionally to avoid responsibility or criticism.