Cloudflare Stops Supporting Neo-Nazi Site The Daily Stormer (arstechnica.com)

Timothy B. Lee reports via Ars Technica: All week, the infamous hate site Daily Stormer has been battling to stay online in the face of a concerted social media campaign to shut it down. The site lost its "dailystormer.com" domain on Monday after first GoDaddy and then Google Domains blacklisted it from their domain registration services. The site re-appeared online on Wednesday morning at a new domain name, dailystormer.ru. But within hours, the site had gone offline again after it was dropped by Cloudflare, an intermediary that defends customers against denial-of-service attacks. Daily Stormer's Andrew Anglin reported Cloudflare's decision to drop the site in a post on the social media site Gab. His post was first spotted by journalist Matthew Sheffield.

Comments

Huh?

[mhkohne]

Has Cloudflare released a statement on this? Because...this is at odds with their previous behavior, and I want to know if it's just a one-off 'if you beat us hard enough, we'll do things' or if they've actually changed their mind. Because I'd kind of like them to stop helping DDOS providers.

Re:Huh?

[Motherfucking Shit]

They put up a blog post explaining their decision a little while ago.

I take some umbrage at Cloudflare's rationale. Their position regarding this site, as well as various other sites, seems to be "we're just a proxy." The issue with that defense is that by proxying for a site, the Cloudflare service hides and obfuscates whatever provider is actually hosting the content. This is a) by design, and b) necessary in order to make the DDoS protection effective. That doesn't make it any less problematic.

Cloudflare wants to pass the buck somewhere else in the "infrastructure stack," as they call it, and I don't necessarily disagree that what amounts to a glorified transit provider is the wrong place to be implementing blocks. But given the very nature of Cloudflare's service, how does one figure out where else to complain? When a site is using Cloudflare, all roads dead end in Cloudflare's network. The site's name servers are in the cloudflare.com domain. The site's A records are inside Cloudflare IP space. Cloudflare is the primary visible service provider in these scenarios, whether they host any content or not.

Case in point, I've watched this story play out with some interest over the past couple of days. I still have no idea where Daily Stormer's content was actually being hosted. It almost certainly would have violated the AUP/TOS of that hosting provider, and they probably would have terminated the site directly. But with Cloudflare in the way, no one knows who to complain to.

When your business model is being a black-box opaque front for all comers, don't be surprised when the world directs its anger at you.

Re:Huh?

[rtb61]

The only group that should censor is the courts, when ever corporations take it up themselves to be above the courts, to rule beyond the courts, it always works out much worse for us. Not happy with 'Daily Stormer' than take it too fucking court, corporations are not the fucking government. Want to take someone down, want to censor them, take it to court.

While these guys are nutters..

[thesupraman]

Sadly we can chalk up another 'win' to groupthink, oppression of minorities, and censorship.

Really, isn't the best way to fight such complete stupidity to keep it in the open?
Isn't censoring such people just making them feel more targeted, and therefore strengthening their solidarity?

All this has done is give a bunch of disenfranchised idiots more reason to hate..

Shine a light on them, don't chase them away to skulk in the dark, where they will do what they will do without anyone watching.

Re:While these guys are nutters..

[gravewax]

Their is no censorship here. They originally made a business decision to support them, now they have made another to drop them. Really they should have avoided making any public statement in the first place and then they probably could have gotten away with the original business decision. Businesses have no responsibility to provide services to such a group and it isn't oppression or censorship to refuse them service, in fact it would be oppression and censorship to force them to support them.

Re:While these guys are nutters..

[computational super]

Oh, it's even better than that. See, you and I have been told that "The Daily Stormer" has been censored and must be removed from our view because it was hateful. Although in this case I have no reason to believe otherwise, there's no way for you or I to verify whether or not it really was - or, if it was, just _how_ hateful and whether it really deserved its fate. This time it probably was, and did. But since we can't tell for sure, next time it may not, and we'll have no way to tell - it's been removed to protect us, see, and we have no business looking at it.

Re:While these guys are nutters..

[Ol Olsoc]

Sadly we can chalk up another 'win' to groupthink, oppression of minorities, and censorship.

Really, isn't the best way to fight such complete stupidity to keep it in the open?

Explain. This is not keeping people from putting their Blood and Soil and the Holocaust was a liberal Jewish hoax and Lets go here because there are some liberals gathering" websites on the internet, it is telling them that "we" aren't going to host it.

The Brave young Aryans are completely free to sign up with any service that will have them. Or even better, start one of their own, where they can spread their messages without having to worry about Liberals. In fact, they can deny those liberals access to their servers then, an obvious win.

Isn't censoring such people just making them feel more targeted, and therefore strengthening their solidarity?

First, it isn't censorship, and second, many of the people in these organizations are drawn to them because they feel disenfranchised, or have a deep seated need for hatred.

All this has done is give a bunch of disenfranchised idiots more reason to hate..

Shine a light on them, don't chase them away to skulk in the dark, where they will do what they will do without anyone watching.

Sounds like a demand for support of any group that feels marginalized. Sometimes groups are marginalized for a reason. Both of these groups have committed some serious crimes, either on a semi local level for the White Supremacists, or on a global scale, such as Nazis. And people who provide services for other people are allowed to deny service to others, except in certain narrowly defined circumstances. Good luck in the real world trying to convince most of America that they have to support either of those groups. You have a President who supports them - what more could you ask for?

Re:While these guys are nutters..

[Anonymous Coward]

Someones never been on the daily stormer, or browsed comments on far-right websites. Did you know that an internet archive exists?

Re:While these guys are nutters..

[werepants]

There's "censorship", and then there's "you're an asshole, and association with you will hurt my reputation, so I won't do business with you".

It's not like an ISP is proactively blocking people who want to read this site's content, or the government is forcing people to abandon him. The free market is acting.

Re:While these guys are nutters..

[PopeRatzo]

Really, isn't the best way to fight such complete stupidity to keep it in the open?

Do you have an historical example of this working? I mean, there may well be some, but none come to mind.

If you shine a light on some bugs and they scurry under a rock, you can then blow up the rock and problem solved. You don't beat the bugs by inviting them into your house.

Nazis are cockroaches. When you promote genocide by idolizing genocide that already happened you forfeit your right to be part of civil society.

Re:While these guys are nutters..

[duke_cheetah2003]

Businesses have no responsibility to provide services to such a group and it isn't oppression or censorship to refuse them service, in fact it would be oppression and censorship to force them to support them.

This is exactly right. However, infrastructure business have a responsibility to uphold free speech. They have shown extremely poor judgement by caving to pressure to suppress. Sorry, that is not going to work. And in fact, if history is a lesson, trying to stamp this out in this fashion is insane. These kinds of groups just become more hateful, radical, violent and provocative. If they can't speak, then they will act.

Let them have their wretched little website to spew hatred at each other. At least then we know who and where they are. Society is playing with fire here, repeating past mistakes.

Let me make a sort of messy analogy. Just pretend for a minute highways and streets were privately owned. This would be the equivalent of saying these people can't drive on your streets, period. And not only that, they're not even allowed to have an address on a street. Does that really sound like something we want to say we did to someone else? And pretend it's somehow a "good thing"? Really?

So much for common carrier status

[WolfWalker545]

I suspect these companies have failed to adequately discuss their moves with their lawyers, by taking actions based on viewpoint, they potentially forfeit their ability to claim legal protections as common carriers.

Re:So much for common carrier status

[mhkohne]

Actually, and especially with CloudFlare, I don't think anyone has much of a leg to stand on to take them on. First amendment is a thing that limits the government, not business - they are free to do business (or not) with whoever they choose.

Whether it's a good idea or not, is a separate thing.

Re: Meanwhile the extreme left is unscathed

[Anonymous Coward]

First they came for the racists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a racist.

Then they came for the sexists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a sexist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me. And nobody was left to speak up for me.

Re:Meanwhile the extreme left is unscathed

[jedidiah]

Except the only thing that these people are actually doing is saying shit you don't like.

You clearly want license to abuse people you don't like and are too arrogant to see this ever being used against you.

Re:Meanwhile the extreme left is unscathed

[Quirkz]

Except the only thing that these people are actually doing is saying shit you don't like.

Are you sure it's the *only* thing? A gal I know got spit on by a stranger in a coffee shop in Denver today, because she was Jewish. Now maybe *that* guy isn't like these other guys with the same ideology, and as long as they're only talking about things, and it's just this guy who's working his way up through assault, there's a line there. But it's hard to believe anyone who self-identifies as a Nazi isn't hoping to have a chance to do at least that much.

Re:Meanwhile the extreme left is unscathed

[Rick Schumann]

Except the only thing that these people are actually doing is saying shit you don't like.

And running people over with their cars. Tiny little detail you left out.

Re: Meanwhile the extreme left is unscathed

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder, would you have told the Jews to man up when they faced injustice against the Nazi regime?

Careful when cheering against acceptable targets without reflection. Some of the worst things in history occurred because someone else was an acceptable target.

Re: Meanwhile the extreme left is unscathed

[LynnwoodRooster]

Apples and oranges.

If you're running a business of public accommodation (that is, a business open to the public), then you cannot legally refuse service to a customer solely because that customer is in a protected class.

So, Cloudflare does NOT run a business of public accommodation, then? And political speech IS a protected class - it's called the First Amendment. Or are "some animals more equal than others"?

Re:Nazi

[Pfhorrest]

So those college kids proudly waving around the flag of the people who tortured you, chanting the slogans of the people who tortured you, and espousing the ideology of the people who tortured you, doesn't bother you? They're not "real Nazis" despite adopting all the symbols of the real Nazis and standing for what real Nazis stood for? Why, because this generation of them haven't tortured you yet?

I hate those thug as much as you....

[aepervius]

But please let me correct you : ONE of them ran over an innocent person , murdering her. Not the whole group. ONE hacker hacking a medical device and killing one person does not make all other responsible. ONE Christian killing a gay does not make all christian responsible. ONE Muslim killing anybody with an IED does not make all responsible. One Gamersgate guy sending death threat to Anita Sarkezan does not make the whole group bad. I am sorry but I CANNOT stand such generalization, whether they are done on my friend or group I belong to (athiest, scientist, Pathfinder/DnD roleplayer - go ahead laugh) or group I do not belong to (all others above).

What you MAY have wanted to tell is that the racist supremacist asshole did not condemn loudly enough the action of the scumbag murderer. BUT again, this is the same stupid reasonning which is used against other group so it makes me uncomfortable. Condemn people for the action they do , do not condemn whole group for the action other did. Yes even the neo nazi. But you can condemn them all of having stupid racist ideology and so forth, it is after all how they advertize themselves, but condemning the whole group for the murder of the woman is incorrect.

Chip off Washington and Jefferson from Mt Rushmore

[KayakFun]

In the Netherlands police are trying (and failing) to disband Outlaw Motor Gangs based on the criminal activities of their members. Everybody knows there is a big correlation between OMG membership and crime, but the crimes are not orchestrated by the OMG. You cannot blame an entire organisation because one member committed a crime.

Volkert van der Graaf, who killed the dutch politician Pim Fortuyn 9 days before the 2002 elections, was a vegan and memeber of environmental pressure group Milieudefensie. Should we have pulled the plug on al vegan and milieudefensie websites?

Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh was killed by muslim Mohammed Bouyeri after being critical of Islam. Should we ban all islam websites? And close all salafist mosques?

I am not a fan of the far right or the far left. I am peacefully a bit left of the center. This witch-hunt is the end of free speech. If we give in to those social justice warriors you might as well start chipping the heads of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson from Mount Rushmore as they were slaveowners. Do you know who else destroys ancient art that does not conform to their ideology? Terrorist group IS.