Comment by thaumaturgy
4 years ago
This was not a free speech issue and I suspect that some of the attempts to reframe it that way are deliberately muddying the waters.
The issue at hand is that Cloudflare was providing material support to terrorists.
The site at the center of all this wasn't merely being critical of a group of people, it was being used to gather and disseminate personal information and coordinate acts of terrorism. Cloudflare meanwhile is not a public utility and had absolutely no obligation to provide services to terrorists; that was a smokescreen meant to deflect criticism of their decision to do so.
Free speech absolutists should really consider whether their argument is being strengthened or weakened by this specific case before hitching their ideological wagon to it.
Should we ban Signal if people use it to coordinate acts of terrorism?
Should Signal block users if Signal has the ability to do so and they become aware that those users are using Signal to coordinate acts of terrorism?
Can we collectively re-learn how to argue specific situations without comparing them to entirely different situations?