[elmin]

Cloudflare has a pretty simple policy. They only censor content when they legally have to, or when it's child porn. That actually opens them up to a lot of heat from people who aren't big fans of the KKK, the Westboro Baptist Church, or botnets. BUT they don't specifically allow botnets as a weird method of promoting them, it's a widely applied policy.

I would bet things would be a fair bit easier for them if they agreed to take things down which most people don't like, but from my position they are taking a very principaled stand for free speech. Are people on hn actually arguing we want more censorship on more places on the web?

[kyledrake]

Nobody in here is proposing that Cloudflare censor unpopular speech. We are asking that they stop protecting for-profit DDoS attack sites that are destroying the internet and using violence to censor people's ability to speak. That isn't a freedom of speech debate, it's a debate on the ethics and legality of defending and protecting criminal activity that financially benefits them, a timely topic now that this activity is actively threatening the ability of the internet to function for any kind of speech http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1599694 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0uf9RIu...

[tripzilch]

I agree that it's an ethics problem, and a non-trivial one at that.

It seems like another problem caused by the fact that code can be data and data can be code. By which I mean, both are information. 'Free speech' implies the intent to be communicated to people, and can be considered 'data'. However a DDoS is a bunch of information with the intent of affecting the behaviour of computer systems, and can be considered 'code'.

The problem lies in discriminating between the two, given that "bits don't have colour", as explained here: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

I'm not at all sure what the right answer is, here. I'm also not 100% convinced that Cloudflare has the right approach, but I'm leaning to "yes", considering the alternative.

(by the way, you'd probably be interested in watching the youtube clip jgrahamc posted elsewhere ITT, with someone from Cloudflare saying some words about their perspective on this dilemma: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12564876)

[pooper]

I mostly agree with you but let's not take it too far.

> We are asking that they stop protecting for-profit DDoS attack sites that are destroying the internet and using violence to censor people's ability to speak.

A DoS is not a violent act. I am mostly ignorant of these things but I think attacks if this kind are a service that test our capabilities. My fear is that there might be calls for legislative actions against "DoS attacks" which would then apply to people sitting at home pressing F5.

[fragmede]

"I will send DDOS for $xxx, send paypal to ###@example.com"

That's the the extremely unpopular speech that you're proposing to censor. The instant you say "oh but that's different" because of the contents of the speech, you're interjecting your own opinion about that speech.

Which, actually, is fine, but don't play that off as not being speech.

At the level where Cloudflare's network isn't actually being used to send the DDOS attack itself, it's also still speech.

Cloudflare will close accounts when asked, backed by court order. The problem is on today's Internet, that's nigh impossible, which realistically means it falls to Cloudflare to interject an opinion on what's good and bad, but so far they've avoided that as effectively as an ostrich burying it's head in the sand, and so are effectively supporting many bad actors.

[steve-howard]

Protecting unpopular organizations is taking a principled stand for free speech. Protecting people who profit from breaking people's web services is not.

"We don't take it down unless it's illegal" is a simple policy, but to be a good policy it needs judgment as well.