8chan just went dark. Cloudfare terminated it at midnight, PST.

[ancianita]

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/08/05/0323200/cloudflare-terminates-8chan

From Slashdot's quote of Matthew Prince, owner of Cloudfare:

Unfortunately, we have seen this situation before and so we have a good sense of what will play out. Almost exactly two years ago we made the determination to kick another disgusting site off Cloudflare's network: the Daily Stormer. That caused a brief interruption in the site's operations but they quickly came back online using a Cloudflare competitor. That competitor at the time promoted as a feature the fact that they didn't respond to legal process. Today, the Daily Stormer is still available and still disgusting. They have bragged that they have more readers than ever. They are no longer Cloudflare's problem, but they remain the Internet's problem.

I have little doubt we'll see the same happen with 8chan.

Prince adds that since terminating the Daily Stormer they've been "engaging" with law enforcement and civil society organizations to "try and find solutions," which include "cooperating around monitoring potential hate sites on our network and notifying law enforcement when there was content that contained an indication of potential violence." Earlier today Prince had used this argument in defense of Cloudflare's hosting of the 8chan, telling the Guardian "There are lots of competitors to Cloudflare that are not nearly as law abiding as we have always been." He added in today's blog post that "We believe this is our responsibility and, given Cloudflare's scale and reach, we are hopeful we will continue to make progress toward solving the deeper problem."

"We continue to feel incredibly uncomfortable about playing the role of content arbiter and do not plan to exercise it often.... Cloudflare is not a government. While we've been successful as a company, that does not give us the political legitimacy to make determinations on what content is good and bad. Nor should it. Questions around content are real societal issues that need politically legitimate solutions..."

"What's hard is defining the policy that we can enforce transparently and consistently going forward. We, and other technology companies like us that enable the great parts of the Internet, have an obligation to help propose solutions to deal with the parts we're not proud of. That's our obligation and we're committed to it."

[Maven]

1. Cloudflare is a protection racket

They 100% knew what 8chan and The Daily Stormer and (I'm sure) countless other sites under their protection are doing and the kind of hate and filth they helped to spread. Their feigned surprise notwithstanding. Only when these sites and their association with Cloudflare become a news story do they cut ties. Fuck them.

[ancianita]

2. Just staying in their lane, letting govt do its job. But yeah, fuck the guys that said fuck 8chan.

Hate 'em all you want, but one way to look at these guys on the Nets is to see that some hosts might actually sequester or quarantine a population that aggregates around hate.

It usually ends up being bad for business, though. Along with the reputation they get.



I imagine the FBI's got this from here.