I didn't say it was? I don't see why the fact that cf is paying for their ddos protection instead of kf paying for it themselves is really relevant to the enablement of harm.
Honestly that makes it even worse: in the other situation, cf is taking money from a bad actor and funneling it towards a good one (both allegedly). Here cf is paying expenses (probably in the marketing line of their expense sheet) to keep kf accessible, including storing, replicating, and distributing their content, doxes and all.
> This is the specific contradiction I'm trying to avoid.
I think this is a contradiction of your own making? The problem people have isn't that the targets of kf are being "silenced" in some Renaissance ideal sort of way. It's that they are put in a position of fearing for their own lives and the lives of the people around them. There's no contradiction here unless you think the people who want the site to stop are secret free speech absolutists.
Anyways, while we're talking about perfect worlds where police actually do anything about stuff like this and no one has to resort, in my perfect world the internet doesn't break because cf does, and cf isn't even in a position to arbitrate speech. But we can't always get what we want.