>My guess is that the people who pressured CF to take down kiwifarms knew about this, and knew that they had bowed to public pressure before and removed sites.
It doesn't really change the situation. CF isn't a public utility, there are no sorts of 'due process' that they need to follow on cases like this, especially in extraordinary circumstances. Advertisers pull campaigns all the time due to public perception changing.
My critique isn't on Mr. Prince deciding to keep KF up or not, it's specifically on his trying to walk away from the responsibility of making a choice either way. If he does not like the unwanted attention received from having to make these difficult choices nobody is forcing him to be in that position where he's expected to.
Similarly, if KF's owner doesn't want to get banned from using companies services they can work on their moderation and public perception.
I agree with you, and I think that refusing to establish a firm line is what opened them up to this campaign.
If they had said, "we believe everyone should be respected, and any time a site coordinates harassment, we will remove it from our service," I would have had a lot more respect for them. If they had said, "we host content from Nazis and Communists, and we are not proud of it, but this is an infrastructure service and everyone is welcome," I would have had a lot more respect for them.
> I agree with you, and I think that refusing to establish a firm line is what opened them up to this campaign.
Additionally Mr. Prince had options at his disposal after the first time this happened. Cloudflare's a large valuable company. He could have retained a 'Director of Enforcement' after that event and told the world "their word is final on enforcement actions, I am removing myself from the moderation pipeline to focus on growing the business". Then if one of their decisions backfired, dismiss them. There's plenty of talented people willing to accept a large compensation package for that risk.
>If they had said, "we believe everyone should be respected, and any time a site coordinates harassment, we will remove it from our service," I would have had a lot more respect for them. If they had said, "we host content from Nazis and Communists, and we are not proud of it, but this is an infrastructure service and everyone is welcome," I would have had a lot more respect for them.
Probably also something to consider: this is a public company. The latter option is maybe not tenable for a large public corporation subject to the whims of shareholders. By that I mean times and beliefs change over time and a public company has to adjust to that in order to continue to attract investors. Private companies can work with whomever they feel and if it's their niche to work with 'high risk' clients, nobody is stopping them.
It doesn't really change the situation. CF isn't a public utility, there are no sorts of 'due process' that they need to follow on cases like this, especially in extraordinary circumstances. Advertisers pull campaigns all the time due to public perception changing.
My critique isn't on Mr. Prince deciding to keep KF up or not, it's specifically on his trying to walk away from the responsibility of making a choice either way. If he does not like the unwanted attention received from having to make these difficult choices nobody is forcing him to be in that position where he's expected to.
Similarly, if KF's owner doesn't want to get banned from using companies services they can work on their moderation and public perception.