crimethink
16th August 2017, 09:28 PM
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/cloudflare-ceo-the-people-behind-the-daily-stormer-are-assholes/
Until recently, CloudFlare prided itself on its unwavering commitment to free speech. Even when he was criticized for providing service to alleged terrorist groups in 2013, CEO Matthew Prince stood firm, insisting that "a website is speech. It is not a bomb."
So a lot of people were surprised on Wednesday when the company abruptly changed its tune and canceled the account of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer. The action seemed to fly in the face of everything CloudFlare claimed to believe as recently as May.
And in an internal company email obtained by Gizmodo, Prince acknowledged that the decision was exactly as arbitrary as it seemed.
"My rationale for making this decision was simple: the people behind the Daily Stormer are assholes and I'd had enough," Prince wrote. "Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision."
Prince wrote that he "woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. It was a decision I could make because I'm the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company."
In the same email, Prince argued that it is "dangerous" for that kind of power to be concentrated in any one person's hands.
"It's important that what we did today not set a precedent," Prince added. "The right answer is for us to be consistently content neutral."
Until recently, CloudFlare prided itself on its unwavering commitment to free speech. Even when he was criticized for providing service to alleged terrorist groups in 2013, CEO Matthew Prince stood firm, insisting that "a website is speech. It is not a bomb."
So a lot of people were surprised on Wednesday when the company abruptly changed its tune and canceled the account of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer. The action seemed to fly in the face of everything CloudFlare claimed to believe as recently as May.
And in an internal company email obtained by Gizmodo, Prince acknowledged that the decision was exactly as arbitrary as it seemed.
"My rationale for making this decision was simple: the people behind the Daily Stormer are assholes and I'd had enough," Prince wrote. "Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision."
Prince wrote that he "woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet. It was a decision I could make because I'm the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company."
In the same email, Prince argued that it is "dangerous" for that kind of power to be concentrated in any one person's hands.
"It's important that what we did today not set a precedent," Prince added. "The right answer is for us to be consistently content neutral."