Bit hyperbolic, no? Maybe rephrase to "if you engage in Neo-nazi hate crime and promote real world harm, they'll deactivate your account after much internal deliberation on their role as gatekeepers and will publish a post with clearly stated rationale"?
I'm not advocating Cloudflare, but I do think we need to be fair when judging stuff like this.
"Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision. It was different than what I’d talked talked with our senior team about yesterday. I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet."
The above comment is referencing the actions taken in 2022 against Kiwifarms; your article is from five and a half years ago; Cloudflare's internal processes have matured a lot in that time.
Moreover, its really worth driving the point home that Prince's point in that cherry-picked statement was to (dramatically) shine a light on the fact that he could do that. Cloudflare does not do that often; that's why it makes headlines when they do. Other tech companies do similar things far more often, daily in some cases. He, then and now, has been an advocate for abdicating responsibility for these decisions to governments. The issue, then and now, is that our government is woefully inadequate in keeping the internet safe. Threats coordinate at the speed of light and cross country borders; in the Kiwifarms case, the US government wasn't able to put together a case fast enough to keep Kiwifarms' targets safe. Also, I'm sure the public outrage in that case helped push a decision in one direction.
First, the phrase "cherry-picked" implies that something has been removed from a context which changes its meaning. The quote I shared was from an email that Prince sent, and if anything, the full context enhances the point I was making.
Second, the fact that tech companies "do similar things far more often" is not a good thing. Creating an internal committee and slapping the words "trust and safety" on it does not replace due process. These big tech companies are role-playing as governments, but they are terrible at it, and when they fail, they face no consequences.
As far as "government is woefully inadequate in keeping the internet safe," is that really what you want the government to do? How far should the government be able to do to enforce "safety"?
> These big tech companies are role-playing as governments, but they are terrible at it
If actual governments did it, they wouldn't have to. I bet they'd be thrilled to be relieved of that responsibility.
> As far as "government is woefully inadequate in keeping the internet safe," is that really what you want the government to do?
Someone has to do it. I'd rather it be done by a government, who have to pay at least some attention to public sentiment, than by major corporations, who do not.
I think we may have a different view on what the purpose of a government is. Would you be ok with the military forcefully entering a tech company, pointing guns at the employees, and forcing them to do something? Because in my opinion, that is precisely what the law does, in an abstracted sense.
Also, I have absolutely no interest in a government keeping people "safe." That sentiment only leads to license for governments to violate privacy and control the lives of private citizens.
> I think we may have a different view on what the purpose of a government is.
Perhaps. I also suspect that we have a different view on what government actually is.
> Would you be ok with the military forcefully entering a tech company, pointing guns at the employees, and forcing them to do something?
I think representing all actions of government as being the equivalent of this is reductionist to the point of absurdity.
From my point of view, there will always be (and has to be) rules about how we interact with each other. The question is who will develop and implement those rules. Call it a necessary evil if you wish.
I prefer those rules be developed and implemented by us, collectively, because then we have at least some amount of influence over the process. If it's not done that way, it will be done by powerful entities such as corporations (or, in a maximally degenerate situation, warlords or mobs), where we have little to no influence over the process.
Your description of what happened is a bit hyperbolic as well. I remember this event, but the details are pretty fuzzy. IIRC, it stirred up so much controversy precisely because no US laws were broken. So saying "engage in Neo-nazi hate crime and promote real world harm" is inaccurate. The content was garbage, no doubt about it. But let's not get hyperbolic in the other direction either.
People keep confusing private organizations and governments. They don't need to break any laws to become undesirable customers, and any private company that tolerates these kind of customers does so at their own discretion. The world doesn't owe them a right to be awful people, but they can still be awful if they accept the consequences.
The problem I have with CloudFlare is that their definition of "undesirable customer" includes forums engaging in hateful, virulent, but ultimately legal speech, but does not include forums that are selling methamphetamine and stolen credit card numbers.
I'm not confusing anything. Cloudflare's stance was that they'd serve anything that wasn't illegal, and one day they decided to change that. Of course that's their prerogative, but I'm just explaining why it stirred up so much controversy.
