You seen to be implying that Cloudflare has been abusing this position of power, but then listing things it allows? Porn, of consenting adults, is actually a great example of business Cloudflare's right to take on. You may not care for it, but legal/ethical pornography is a matter only of taste. We'd be far worse off if Cloudflare was blocking content based off of personal preference.
Didn't they kick off far right websites like stormfront? They still block from personal preference it's just preferences you agree with.
(in)famously they refused to do that until ordered to by law enforcement.
Err, no. At least not according to Cloudflare:
https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/
TL;DR: "The tipping point for us making this decision [to discontinue service] was that the team behind Daily Stormer made the claim that we were secretly supporters of their ideology."
And that’s what he was getting at: if TDS hadn’t put words in Cloudflare’s mouth and kept paying their bills on time, there’s little doubt Cloudflare would have ever removed them as a customer.
Cloudflare’s consistent response to accusations it defends illicit or harmful content has been some variation of “they’re paying customers and it’s not our place to judge their content”. Which, sure, noble hill to die on and all that jazz, but also something of a cowardly defense for speech whose sole purpose is creating harm.
That was sort of the PR spin they put on it. If Cloudflare was drawing an ideological line in the sand, they might have discussed where that line is lest others cross it. Instead, the post talks about when they do and don't comply with law enforcement and pleads with government not to try and force them to take other websites down. Posts on Stormfront were under immense legal scrutiny and the praising of Cloudflare brings that eye on them. Reading between the lines it's very obvious that legal made the decision. GP was discussing the larger pattern, and the larger pattern is one of inaction until there's little choice left legally speaking.
…that’s not what I was saying at all? Like, remotely close?
I was saying that:
* For-profit companies like Cloudflare have a vested interest in preserving as many paying customers as possible
* Their own process for getting content taken down makes it deliberately difficult to remove content, as that would harm their business model
* We have willfully chosen to sink large swaths of the internet behind companies like Cloudflare
* As a result, the only tools left to governments and the judiciary are often draconian in nature, harming innocent parties in pursuit of criminals
* We are naive to believe that any for-profit entity will act in the best interests of society, especially when those interests conflict with their profit-motives.