Cloudflare Has Had Enough, Cutting Off 8chan

upnorth

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In the wake of Saturday's mass shooting in El Paso, in which 20 people lost their lives, it was discovered that the shooter had posted a racist manifesto on the imageboard site 8chan. That was the third time this year alone that a mass shooting has involved the notorious site, and network operator Cloudflare decided that was finally enough. As of midnight on the US West Coast, Cloudflare will cut off 8chan.

This isn't the first time that the popular service provider has severed its ties to one of its customers over offensive content. In 2017, the company dropped the white supremacist website the Daily Stormer. The Daily Stormer was able to get back online after a brief outage by switching to another service. Matthew Prince, the company's co-founder and CEO, has always spoken with apprehension about whether to stop providing network services to specific websites. He called his own company's decision regarding the Daily Stormer "arbitrary" and "dangerous," and intended that this would be the last action of the sort Cloudflare would take. Earlier on Sunday, CNN reported that the company had no intention of acting against 8chan.

Cloudflare is not a website hosting provider. The company operates a global network that improves performance of websites and protects them from DDoS attacks and other security threats.
 

plat

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I just saw a story about this on the news. Although Cloudflare was not named, the reporter quoted an official from the Dept. of Homeland Security who said those who use this venue (8chan) to spew their manifestos will simply move elsewhere. That's it. Gotta do the right thing, these were innocent people, including little kids.

 

Burrito

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Burrito

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Update.
 

conceptualclarity

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All this business of blaming one person's violence on another person's speech that didn't advocate violence makes me queasy, even if the 2nd person was indeed a bad actor. We are moving away from the concept of freedom of speech as a human right to a concept of freedom of speech as a privilege to be reserved only for the correct ones--correct ones according to somebody's subjective and fallible judgment.
 

Burrito

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All this business of blaming one person's violence on another person's speech that didn't advocate violence makes me queasy, even if the 2nd person was indeed a bad actor. We are moving away from the concept of freedom of speech as a human right to a concept of freedom of speech as a privilege to be reserved only for the correct ones--correct ones according to somebody's subjective and fallible judgment.

Wow, no conceptual clarity in that statement.

You're pretty much incorrect on everything you have stated and implied.

There absolutely can be inflammatory and violence-inducing speech. And it some cases, it's never been protected speech. This is well settled in law.

There is no movement away from the concept of freedom of speech.

And then ironically, you criticize free speech for those who speak out against inflammatory speech by your own subjective and fallible judgment.
 

Threadripper

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I love free speech as much as the next guy, but I don't love hate speech quite as much. Good riddance.



Well, they moved elsewhere to Canadian cybersecurity company BitMitigate -- and they were cut off.

With enough tries though, somebody will host them...

Hate speech will survive.

That's the unfortunate reality.
The Bitmitigate one is a funny story, the "world-class CDN. Bulletproof DDoS protection with a proven commitment to liberty." was actually hosted by a German host called Voxility, it took Voxility 30 minutes to read reports and nuke Bitmitigate entirely.
 

plat

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All this business of blaming one person's violence on another person's speech that didn't advocate violence makes me queasy, even if the 2nd person was indeed a bad actor

Yeah, the concept of free speech seems to have morphed. BUT nowadays, I as a Host would be highly concerned about eventual involvement with some law agency, not to mention other legal action. Who wants that? I also still have a conscience, I have to sleep at night.
 

oneeye

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The manifesto was first posted to Instagram, then later posted to 8chan by someone else. No doubt to screw them over, and it worked because the MSM are a pack of liars #FakeNews !
 

conceptualclarity

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There absolutely can be inflammatory and violence-inducing speech. And it some cases, it's never been protected speech. This is well settled in law.

My reference to "speech that didn't advocate violence" obviously implies understanding that speech that advocates violence has not been considered protected. As for "inflammatory" speech, anyone who's been paying attention knows that it has become pretty normal in today's politics. Blaming mass shootings on people who have never condoned such things is certainly inflammatory, and it is rampant at moments like this. I don't see the faintest possibility of legal remedies for that.

There is no movement away from the concept of freedom of speech.

When certain governments put people in the docket not for advocating violence but for merely criticizing one religion (in many instances thereby violating the principles set forth in their own constitutions, and meanwhile showing no interest in treating criticism of other religions in the same fashion), that is most definitely a movement away from free speech. Fortunately many such prosecutions have failed in the end, but they have been harrowing and expensive experiences for the accused, and the fact that they continue is alarming.

In the past five years there has been a tremendous movement in social media platforms that were originally billed as viewpoint-neutral toward censorship and severe viewpoint discrimination. I am not going to discuss specific cases much here lest I be responsible for turning this into a political thread, which is frowned upon. I have compiled a whole bookmark folder full of articles documenting this trend on my default browser. When I get my new computer set up and recover the data I presume is preserved in the Cloud I will be happy to share the links to these articles in a private message to you if you so desire. Just let me know.

I have myself been censored more than once on the website Quora and told I violated some kind of get-along-with-other-users policy. In fact my censored comments were not directed toward and were completely unrelated to other users. Somebody disliked their political bent (although it was certainly mainstream) and flagged them, and moderators acted on the basis of political bias and not an honest implementation of their terms. This kind of moderator misconduct has a chilling effect. Many others on that website report similar experiences, and that is becoming normal on social media these days.

And then ironically, you criticize free speech for those who speak out against inflammatory speech by your own subjective and fallible judgment.

I did not advocate suppression of anybody's speech except, by implication, advocates of violence.

Wow, no conceptual clarity in that statement.
... by your own subjective and fallible judgment.

Inappropriately personal and heated remarks. Malware Tips expects a more dispassionate and fraternal approach on its threads. People can disagree without being disagreeable. I invite you to bury the hatchet with me, colloquial for leave this behind and begin afresh. :)
 
Last edited:

Burrito

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My reference to "speech that didn't advocate violence" obviously implies understanding that speech that advocates violence has not been considered protected. As for "inflammatory" speech, anyone who's been paying attention knows that it has become pretty normal in today's politics. Blaming mass shootings on people who have never condoned such things is certainly inflammatory, and it is rampant at moments like this. I don't see the faintest possibility of legal remedies for that.



When certain governments put people in the docket not for advocating violence but for merely criticizing one religion (in many instances thereby violating the principles set forth in their own constitutions, and meanwhile showing no interest in treating criticism of other religions in the same fashion), that is most definitely a movement away from free speech. Fortunately many such prosecutions have failed in the end, but they have been harrowing and expensive experiences for the accused, and the fact that they continue is alarming.

In the past five years there has been a tremendous movement in social media platforms that were originally billed as viewpoint-neutral toward censorship and severe viewpoint discrimination. I am not going to discuss specific cases much here lest I be responsible for turning this into a political thread, which is frowned upon. I have compiled a whole bookmark folder full of articles documenting this trend on my default browser. When I get my new computer set up and recover the data I presume is preserved in the Cloud I will be happy to share the links to these articles in a private message to you if you so desire. Just let me know.

I have myself been censored more than once on the website Quora and told I violated some kind of get-along-with-other-users policy. In fact my censored comments were not directed toward and were completely unrelated to other users. Somebody disliked their political bent (although it was certainly mainstream) and flagged them, and moderators acted on the basis of political bias and not an honest implementation of their terms. This kind of moderator misconduct has a chilling effect. Many others on that website report similar experiences, and that is becoming normal on social media these days.



I did not advocate suppression of anybody's speech except, by implication, advocates of violence.



Inappropriately personal and heated remarks. Malware Tips expects a more dispassionate and fraternal approach on its threads. People can disagree without being disagreeable. I invite you to bury the hatchet with me, colloquial for leave this behind and begin afresh. :)

Consider it buried.

Cheers.
 

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