Comment by luke3butler
9 years ago
"Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power."
I've been jumping back and forth over the fence on this topic, but this stance is where I've ended up.
I think he's overstating the case. There are plenty of ways for that content to get on the internet that don't involve CloudFlare.
Booting them off cloudflare caused downtime at best.
The site of the nature and reputation such as Daily Stormer will remain offline in perpetuity without DDoS protection. It wouldn't even take botnets - you could easily sign up enough volunteers to run the client.
It did. They're completely offline now. Since their .com got taken down, they had a .onion domain, which now simply says that they've moved to .ru, which is currently down thanks to Cloudflare. They'll probably return to that .onion domain shortly, but, as I'm writing this, they're completely off of the Internet.
I'm struggling to connect these two phrases:
"No one should have that power"
"I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn't be allowed on the Internet"
Seems like a very tricky precedent to set that you can just not allow someone on the internet.
The natural question from this is: how long until this type of power is used against views you support?
>The natural question from this is: how long until this type of power is used against views you support?
I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I support free speech, even when the speech is hateful and malignant, because I honestly believe the best way to combat vile ideas is out in the open where people can see them, hear them, discuss them and repudiate them. Cultures can't innoculate themselves against ideas without an intellectual herd immunity, and that is impossible without mass exposure.
On the other hand, fuck Nazis.
I think I'm quite willing to let them come for the Nazis then start caring when they come for the Socialists and Trade Unionists, etc. If that makes me a hypocrite, so be it.
Of course, on the third hand, I have no real power over anyone else's speech, and I'm just some rando on the internet, so it doesn't really matter what I think.
Right -- for some reason or another, there is A Bright Line around Nazis that makes this a brain-dead decision. It might be that the name has become a by-word for "evil," but as someone who is _very much_ a free speech advocate, I have no sympathy for Naziism, or any kind of "speech" (however people try to bend that word) that advocates the ill physical will toward others. It's that simple. Any attempts to give a heady definition only result in convolution.
They're Nazis. They can fuck themselves.
I mean, he just has the authority over the company and can deny service to them, he can't effectively shut them down. Just give them downtime. I would compare this to a DoS more than a shut down.
It is not they can't be on the internet, it is we are not going to help them spread their message.