Worth noting cloudflare leadership has been fighting this war for years and this is just a small battle.
Can you tell us when @Cloudflare will be holding its next "How to Protect Nazi Extremists" workshop? You guys seem to be the experts.
10:25 AM - 14 Aug 2017
The recent string of violence has forced their hand here.
it's ridiculous it's given this much attention when there's far more nefarious activity and problems caused by big tech that are to date totally under the radar outside of a few researchers and journalists, and they go far beyond privacy violations (controlling global narratives/elections for one, facilitating the indoctrination of populations by optimizing for user engagement).
what I found interesting was how quickly Hn jumped to action (contacting investors, pension funds) relating to NGO on a completely unsubstantiated report. "May have been" was the quote from that article. I can't recall the last time I've ever seen upvoted Hn comments outraged enough to contact investors let alone from an unconfirmed report.
This is fantastic, thanks for writing it and for your testimony!
my favorite bits
"The emergence of this tech oligopoly reflects a profound shift in our society, the migration of every area of commercial, social, and personal life into an online realm where human interactions are mediated by software."
"Consumers will just as rightly point out that they never consented to be the subjects in an uncontrolled social experiment, that the companies engaged in reshaping our world have consistently refused to honestly discuss their business models or data collection practices, and that in a democratic society, profound social change requires consensus and accountability."
FB is the sacrificial lamb, popular scapegoat and effective distraction in this new era of SV policies shaping public opinion, ideas and as a result global politics. It seems misplaced, the amount of vitriol and negative press directed at facebook when from my perspective Google/Twitter/Amazon and even Reddit are far, far worse in terms of aggressively monopolistic behavior and negative effects on society and democracy. The fallout and effects of these platforms unparalleled power and influence is not well-researched yet. The key part that strikes me as disingenuous if these outlets and politicians who fling so much mud towards FB cared so much about privacy violations where were the billion dollar fines and string of hit pieces on Equifax (Who also collect and store your info without your consent)? The answer is there weren't any because they don't, and this is just a distraction from the real shit.
The real threat it poses isn't to democracy but to established political players who don't want to lose any influence they have over the electorate. they use the election manipulation bogeyman to scare people into believing all their troubles would be taken care if we just trust the political class.
The real threat is that politicians will step in and decide who can have a platform, how big it can be, and worse, who can use it.
Are these large conglomerates an issue, perhaps in areas of needing regulation to insure we have privacy and no not need to opt in. however they should be able to trade for rights as well and in no case should we ever allow politicians to determine what the platform is or who can use it.
I agree with other companies being worse influences than FB. Though I'd guess that FB is the target for these articles just because of brand recognition in the publisher's target demographics.
Facebook is not all of the problem but it's definitely part of it. Facebook has clear privacy issues an implications and everyone uses it and knows about it. If highlighting its issues is a viable path to better privacy legislation and is the example that allows the bigger problems to be demonstrated to everyone, even non technical people, why not use it?
My mom wakes up on Facebook and goes to sleep on Facebook. She's spending hours a day there and it dominates her entire worldview of current events and politics. That level of engagement blows away Google/Twitter/Amazon/etc. FB is responsible for elections of right-wing dictators around the world, the rise of white nationalism, the jailing and killing of dissidents, climate change denial. In no way does any other company achieve that level of poisonous influence.
At the same time, there is a large (20%-80%), vocal, and powerful fraction of tech employees that strongly and idealistically oppose that "SV policies [are] shaping public opinion", or that it's a potentially bad thing and not something we should strive for.
I see why someone would hesitate making that comment from their primary account.
> Reddit is another example a company that has recently scrubbed itself of most controversial content,
I agree with you on most points however reddit takes no action against extremists and fringe groups proliferating on their platform until substantial pressure is applied from either advertisers or journalists. They go as far as shadowbanning users who bring up their lack of action to shine a light on their culpability, presumably to keep it off of mainstream journalists radar, thankfully it's now too late and enough good journalists have picked up the scent. Expect to see many great pieces about this in the near future.
Reddit also scrubs the profiles and post history of mass shooters who were indoctrinated on their platform, one example is Elliot Rodgers the incel and Santa Barbara shooter from several years ago, truly disgusting and frightening behavior that denies researchers and journalists from understanding the reach and impact of the spread of ideologies and hatred on these platforms.
Reddit has banned Russian [0] and Iranian [1] "propaganda accounts", now lots of people over there are calling to ban "Chinese propaganda" [2] aka anybody who gets tired of anti-Chinese submissions constantly being pushed on the front-page.
Gee, one might wonder where that might be coming from? [3] That's the absurdity of the situation: Russian, Iranian and Chinese "propaganda" gets banned, while US propaganda [4] isn't even recognized as such because being pro "democracy, freedom US" is considered the default "good" position and anything not in line with it must be evil or at least bad.
Reddit has been a declining trash heap for quite some time now. It definitely has to do with its emergence into mainstream popularity (the problem gets worse the larger the subreddit). It's the perfect platform for every armchair expert with a bigoted view to gain admiration and affirmation of their views from other uninformed bigots. It happens to be much easier to be a loud and belligerent bigot than to express an informed and nuanced opinion.
The only thing stopping HN from completely morphing into that cesspool is the diligent and fair moderation and the diversity and quality of opinions expressed. For the most part, hackers tend to be more critical and suspicious of authoritative sources than other groups.
>anybody who gets tired of anti-Chinese submissions constantly being pushed on the front-page
It's not really anyone who gets tired, it's the accounts that revert to whataboutism whenever the communist party is criticised, flat out deny things like the Tienanmen Massacre, and spread a lot of hate when something happens that the CCP doesn't like, such as a Tibetan woman being elected president of a student union.
>anti-Chinese submissions
Anti-CCP. It is important to note that criticism of a government does not constitute hate speech towards the citizens. This is another tactic used by propagandists.
> flat out deny things like the Tienanmen Massacre
I'm fairly active on Reddit and I've literally never seen that happen. That's because the Chinese people so deep in historic revisionism often don't even care to begin with and can't even access Reddit in the first place, at least not "easily".
It's usually people with a "anti-China" position who bring up Tienamen square, to conflate it with whatever a given submission is about. As in: "Huweai must be spying because the Chinese government is authoritarian evil because Tienamen square".
> This is another tactic used by propagandists.
Just like conflating issues to give the impression to fight for the only "just cause" [0].
Redditors will gleefully jump on (by voting to the front page) anything even remotely critical of China. I suppose it fulfills some deeply-rooted sense of 'defiance' in them and gives them some sense of satisfaction. It's basically the childish game of "oh, you don't want me to touch this? I'm going to touch this over and over because of that".
The net effect is that they will judiciously post, for example, the anniversary of Tienanmen Square every year without fail, but fail to mark the dates of equally tragic, but unpatriotic or unflattering events. When was the last time the anniversary of the Mai Lai Massacre or No Gun Ri was upvoted to the front page? How about the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq?
Hint: Never.
It's ironic (and very telling of their motives) that the events they have complete freedom to discuss never receive equal attention or criticism.
Nevermind these users really don't do anything constructive since the problem at hand censorship.
Holocaust denial got worse because of efforts to silence some crazy people who did. Not slightly worse, it is really shit you have to think about it again. And people complaining aren't even jews or age above 50.
The self-righteousness, while the incentive might be good, really doesn't help at all.
And yes, denial of the holocaust is a form of censorship, so adjust your talking points correctly.
> agree with you on most points however reddit takes no action against extremists and fringe groups proliferating on their platform until substantial pressure is applied from either advertisers or journalists.
They banned IRA_memes because IRA I guess and quarantined waterniggas because it had "niggas" in the title even though the whole sub was just about drinking water. They're definitely taking an approach of culling anything that advertisers might not like.
to offer a counter opinion I found wordfence highly obtrusive, annoying and full of dark patterns in an attempt to upsell you to premium. They present in their dashboard ALL attacks within their entire network as if those were attacks on your site in particular which is misleading. If the project permits the best practice is to convert the site into fully static HTML (WP2Static, SimplyStatic) and keep the backend site/database separate and local only.
archive.is is a very important tool in online extremism research and you've taken money from far-right extremists, your explanation for why it's inaccessible seems incomplete.
This is probably where I get banned from Hn but it has to be said - to posture as if you care about end users while in the same breath taking money from extremists and turning over personal identifiable information to far-right outlets like DailyStormer, is disingenuous at best and I can think of other ways to describe it which are less charitable.
This is amusing, They Banned the DailyStormer which I why I will never support them. While I disagree 100% with the DailyStormer it is not up to cloudflare to decide who can and can not speak, who can and can not access the internet.
The concept of Free Speech is the most important right we have as humanity, while I may not agree with some peoples words I will fight for their right to say those words
And do not even come at me with "well they are private company" we impose all kinds of regulations on private companies when it comes to basic human rights like free speech and Free Association for example private companies can not refuse service based on race, sex, age, etc.
yet you WANT them to censor content, censor speech. You want them to apply your left authoritarian world view to legal speech, and yes everything you have cited is LEGAL SPEECH in the USA.
If there are actual threats, True Threats as defined in US law, then the police should be involved and the people arrested. If there is defamation or other illegal speech then the courts should be involved
It should NOT be the position of private companies to regulate speech online
So who should be the arbitrator of truth? You do understand that I can cite many many many many many examples though out history where actual truth was suppressed, actual advancement was suppressed by those in power.
Free Speech is the most powerful tool Minorities and oppressed people through out the world have to end their oppression, and you just want to strip it away because of fear...
How can you not see how utterly dangerous this idea is, how can you ignore all of human history to believe it is a good idea to suppress speech.
It is not a slippery slope at all, is termination of basic human rights, is the the return to the dark ages, to Totalitarianism.
You hope that be installing a regime of censorship and speech control you will end "lies" and/or "hate" when in reality you will ensure its continued existence and growth while taking away peoples power to challenge it in the open light of public debate
> So who should be the arbitrator of truth? ... Free Speech is the most powerful tool
Generally, an independent judiciary is the arbitrator of truth.
Free speech has never been absolute. Free speech does not protect intentionally false speech. For example, tricking people to give you money is fraud. Libel is too. You can support free speech while also protecting truth. When the issue pops up, a judge determines who's right and wrong.
I can agree with that, in part, what I cant agree with is that CloudFare, Facebook, Twitter, Firefox or any other Tech Company should be in charge of this which is what the OP was asking for.
Almost all of the content the Authoritarian left wants to be banned today the independent judiciary has already ruled many times to be Legal Speech under the US definition of Free Speech
I don't have an answer to who should be the arbiter, but:
> Free Speech is the most powerful tool Minorities and oppressed people through out the world have to end their oppression,
So in order to protect the opressed, we should allow their opressors an equal platform to share their totalitarian views?
The other side(what we currently have) is equally as bad, if not worse. Right now you have a situation where the BBC in the name of "fairness" gives equal air time to a political party who only exist as a protest vote, and they allow for climate change denier to air their views against scientists. Public debate doesn't work based on facts, it works based on emotions, and it doesn't matter how nuanced or level headed your response is, "think of the children" or "the government is trying to suppress our rights" are emotional arguments that consistently Trump facts and reason. Free speech isn't a right for you to have a platform to voice your opinion, it's a right to not have your opinion be suppressed by the government.
I don't have a solution, but at some point you have to accept that tolerance of intolerance is intolerance, and when we're talking about a single incident of a platform that claims Marital Rape is ok [0],and that murdering 50 people because of their religion is "a prank" [1], they are objectively the opressors, not the opressed.
>So in order to protect the opressed, we should allow their opressors an equal platform to share their totalitarian views?
Yes. That's one of the founding principles of America. Cloudflare is a common carrier like a telco, not a hosting provider. The content on websites that use them as a CDN shouldn't be paid attention to by Cloudflare one way or another, as long as it's legal. This is their position, and it's the correct and most moral one. You also seem to be missing the fact that Cloudflare famously banned Daily Stormer; the only time they've ever banned any website: https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/
The best way to empower extremists is by trying to stamp them out. You can never, ever win when your primary weapon is censorship. Fascism thrives and festers in darkness.
>>So in order to protect the opressed, we should allow their opressors an equal platform to share their totalitarian views?
yes, for many reasons. One Should not be celebrating Moving the Cliff of Censorship on the bias of "Dangerous Individuals" like Facebook recently did. [2]
>Free speech isn't a right for you to have a platform to voice your opinion, it's a right to not have your opinion be suppressed by the government.
100% incorrect, Free Speech is a social concept that is often codified into law as through out history governments are the ones that often use the power of censorship to silence dissent, however threats by government is NOT the only threat to free speech.
Free Speech is a cultural value first, it has become a legal articulation based on that cultural value. [2] Platform Access Is A Civil Right, You should now have the same right to speak on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that you do in a public park.[0]
If you would not celebrate government censoring opinions you dislike why would you celebrate corporations doing it?
>>I don't have a solution, but at some point you have to accept that tolerance of intolerance is intolerance
The US Supreme Court disagrees with you, you can not fight intolerance by suppression. it has never worked in all of history, it only makes the extremism more extreme and violent. One can make the strong case that the more society pushes these people out of the sunlight the more violent they become, and if they allowed the modern public square, where their idea's would be challenged, debated and debunked there is a high probity there would be LESS violence.
Censorship does nothing but drive extremism under ground allowing it to fester, become more extreme, and then you get violence. This is also true for other forms of Censorship. Take for example the recent bills to "stop human trafficking" by censoring platforms and making them liable for it. Did it actually stop any human trafficking... No, all it did was drive it under ground making it harder for law enforcement to track and stop, while suppression lots of legitimate speech, had massive negative effects on voluntary sex workers, and untold other unintended consequences. This censorship was a net negative both in its stated goal, and for freedom in general. It accomplished nothing but taking the rights away from people.
Once your Nation has a "Chief Censor" [1] you know you have gone away from anything that could be considered Free Speech
I think you're being downvoted because of the bit about regulation. At least, that is what I choose to believe, because imagine our state of affairs if you are being downvoted because of your comments about the idea of free speech.
Silicon Valley is full of Authoritarians that believe the Tech Companies should be our overlords and be allowed to choose what "truth" is, and who can revel that "truth" to you
Actually it's the opposite. It's the newer people that are this way [0], for in my day, most people didn't even trust computers, let alone buying things with a computer, or always carrying an always-connected computer with a microphone and multiple cameras in their pocket.
Eastdakotas replies here and in previous threads indicate that his team have more oversight into his own wants and desires. He also writes more about being consistent in actions than they had when he did this action. I think that's a positive way forward. But the person at the top will be the weakest link. If I was a nation state that's where I would be applying the force not at the company level. Maybe he also realised this?
Never said it did, etc was in reference to other protected classes in the list which vary by state.
Many states, including California, have political ideology has a protected class as well.
IMO companies run a foul of that when they start banning people for subjective ideology based reasons like "hate speech" which is not illegal in the US, and is every much based in political ideology to make the determination as to what is "hate".
I understand the appeal of that for developers but it comes at the cost of users agency and control of their own system, I've been very annoyed with even simple UI changes in firefox updates as I simply didn't ask or want any such change. Reading other comments here it's clear I'm a dying breed of old and stubborn users that prefers full control and agency over my own system. Making it easier for web developers to implement new features is absolutely not a tradeoff I'd make willingly at the cost of my systems consistency and reliability. Also the reason I use firefox is because of all the major browsers vendors they seem the most aligned with those values although this seems to be changing more and more every year.
The incentive structures of society (capitalism, if you're so inclined, but I don't think this is unique to capitalism) are incompatible with your wishes.
Can you tell us when @Cloudflare will be holding its next "How to Protect Nazi Extremists" workshop? You guys seem to be the experts. 10:25 AM - 14 Aug 2017
The recent string of violence has forced their hand here.
https://twitter.com/ncweaver/status/1124091916520497153
https://twitter.com/klarajk/status/1122625367490146304
https://twitter.com/Riverseeker/status/1122612031234945024
https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1123592717341200384
https://twitter.com/NathanBLawrence/status/10562868097418199....
https://twitter.com/NJDemocrat/status/897147112273608705
https://twitter.com/InvestMib/status/1123308004873515015
https://twitter.com/jwz/status/1124415034610860033