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Comment by penrouse | Hacker News Reader

Seems to me they're operating on a matter of principle.

The Christians who run my local food bank do similar. Their clients include some of the worst people: rapists, paedophiles, murders - released from prison, with nothing and no-one to help them, other than these kind churchly individuals. Their principle is that Jesus would want them to help their fellow humans in need, no matter what their sins. So they do.

Obviously it's a bit different with Cloudflare as they're a for-profit company of diversely ideological employees, not a non-profit charity of devoutly religious volunteers. But the former type of organisation can run on principles other than making money hand-over-fist too.

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>Seems to me they're operating on a matter of principle.

That’s what I’m talking about. The “principle” argument is genuinely funny! They have unlimited power but because they’ve chosen to follow an arbitrary rule based on their arbitrary definition of neutrality, they have no power. It’s a coincidence that they enable doxxing, harassment and DDOS-for-hire because they’re religiously bound by a sacred covenant! They dare not cross the ancient gods lest blood and pestilence rain down upon all our heads!

They’re not making a choice to continue enabling harassment, doxxing and DDOS-for-hire, they are simply doing as the sacred runes prescribe, as all orthodox stewards of the realm should and would do. It’s actually noble, we should actually be thanking them for acting this way.

It’s just plain funny.

As for your food bank analogy, do they provide food for active murderers and pedophiles? Like, if they were visited by current victims and the families of victims asking them for help, would they respond with a box of food for the perpetrators and tell the victims to kick rocks?

>DDOS-for-hire

KF uses cloudflair specifically because it's haters try to DDOS the site.

The only reason someone would advocate to turn off ddos protection for a site, is so someone can perform terroristic acts against the site and ddos it until it goes down.

How about it - you tell me. What reason would so many people, maybe in this thread chain, argue so strongly for a company to revoke its ddos protection of a website they dont like. Its weird right?

I would suggest that you take that question up with Cloudflare, as they just disabled DDOS protection for KF.

Got it - but I'm asking you.

It appears you were hoping that they would remove it. What possible reason did you have to hope that a site took away their ddos protection?

Its weird right?

You tried to get an answer out, but unfortunately some users here have no scruples.

I would suggest you take up that question with Cloudflare. Based off your previous statements, they’re now supporting “terroristic” acts. I’m not sure why you would want the opinion of some internet stranger over a corporation that is now directly supporting terrorism by your estimation.

It is weird!

This, my fellow citizens, is what we call a "bad faith actor". They volunteer a position on questionable premises, get asked about their internal philosophical consistency, then dodge the question.

I agree, the poster that was very obviously and hamhandedly trying to get me to say something that they could then twist into “I support terrorism” or whatever was indeed acting in bad faith. Thank you for highlighting this.

CF: >Over the last two weeks, we have proactively reached out to law enforcement in multiple jurisdictions highlighting what we believe are potential criminal acts and imminent threats to human life that were posted to the site.

It sounds like CF didn't ban them because of revolting or otherwise commonly illegal content, but actual death threats against individuals that have been reported to law enforcement.

I think you can appreciate the difference between not letting former criminals (released from jail) starve and helping them integrate back in society, and actively providing them tools that they use to do terrible things, including crimes.

KF is just a forum, nothing posted there is illegal.

Sadly, laws do in fact prohibit the posting of certain kinds of information and messages - for example, death threats, dox or hate speech, depending on your locale. Being "just a forum" does not change this. We can debate whether the laws should restrict speech that way, but don't pretend the laws in western countries don't exist.

Sounds great - if a website is hosting content that is illegal, then there are laws that can be enforced by the government.

The government, in the united states at least, cannot restrict freedom of speech. Its kind of a big deal. Hoping that corporations revoke their ddos protection so that terrorists can ddos them down is laughable. "I know the government can't do it, but ... just walk away wink wink and I am sure the problem will be fixed wink wink".

Come on.

> The government, in the united states at least, cannot restrict freedom of speech.

But USGOV doesn't run Cloudflare. They are perfectly able to pick and choose their own customers without any reference to 1A.

> if a website is hosting content that is illegal

No-one is obliged to service them.

You seem to misunderstand - or at least I hope you are misunderstanding.

If a group is doing something illegal, the government should act. You seem to imply "Well if they are doing something illegal, people shouldn't have to work with them."

I think you know what I know - they aren't going to be targeted by the government because they are not, in fact, doing something illegal.

> If a group is doing something illegal, the government should act.

Yes but as you surely know, the government has limited resources which precludes them from acting on every illegal act in a timely manner. Which means that groups can, and do, get away with illegal acts for a long time before they get to the front of the queue for being dealt with.

> they aren't going to be targeted by the government because they are not, in fact, doing something illegal.

It is a fact that the government may not target you because you are not doing something illegal - 100%, yes. But it is also a fact that you can be doing something illegal for a long time before the government targets you. You cannot use government inaction as proof one way or the other.

The devil has enough advocates. Don't feel the need to throw your hat into the ring.

Helping other sinners eat is a bit different than one company helping another company sell hate on the internet.

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