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Comment by phillipcarter | Hacker News Reader

> I just don't want to live in a world where society is governed and censored by big corporations.

You already do. And that's actually a good thing. It means that in free societies like the USA, these companies are free to choose to do (or not do) business with whomever they choose. They are not free from the market reacting to those decisions, though.

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Which is effectively mob rule, or fear-of-mob-rule rule. I don't want dominating corporations to be run by people afraid of offending a vocal minority.

Who decides what's a minority?

By "vocal minority" I mean a small but loud group, the literal definition of minority not the social justice sense of some oppressed group.

Oh, so like a forum full of people addicted to internet stalking?

I understand your point and largely agree with the idea that corporations shouldn't become de-facto governments with regard to morality/free-speech/etc. However I think it's important to acknowledge that there's a really difficult problem to solve here with regards to spam, astroturfing and harassment/trolling (if not more areas) where allowing everything that is technically legal would make most online spaces unbearable to participate in for the vast majority of people (e.g. 4chan and its ilk). And the line between moderating those things and censorship is incredibly blurry

It is not Cloudflare's job to moderate a website they provide network services to.

This is a different issue than a social network doing moderation and spam prevention on its own platform.

It is not Cloudflare's job to protect Twitter or wherever else from a forum of assholes.

It's not Cloudflare's job to do anything. They can just stop DDoS protection for everyone BUT nazi sites if they want to. That's called freedom!

...but they're not free from public reactions to their choices.

Although I'd agree there is a difference I think these issues are closer than you think, for example if Cloudflare was providing network services to a website dedicated to spam, trolling or harrassment. These things in many jurisdictions are not illegal but many companies will refuse to support them because they are actively bad for business (driving existing or potential customers away, making their own products worse, etc.). Ideals can be great but trying to apply them without considering the effects, intended or not, can lead to poor results

Everything is mob rule, or fear-of-mob-rule rule. Most companies have principles on how they do business, and they adjust those principles based on how people (internally and externally) react to them. That's why Google shut down its search engine for the CCP - it's mob rule at Google, and if you decide to do something that enough people find unethical, you won't hear the end of it until you stop. Why do you think this is a bad thing, or that it's somehow not the way the world works?

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