> In Europe we are under daily attack from Russian accounts that spread massive amounts of desinformation, deep fakes, just emotional appeals with the goal of destroying liberal democracy.

The disinformation campaigns have always been there, the reason they're growing roots in the mind of the average European is because the EU is spending it's razor thon political capital on things Chat Control, Digital Omnibus which are wildly unpopular.

Isn't it a bit ironic that in order to protect "liberal democracy" you need to reach out for authoritarian suppression?

Also another Italian here. For context, the "Piracy Shield" mentioned in the order is basically a legislative hacksaw authorized by the regulator (AGCOM) primarily to protect Serie A football rights. Soccer rules Italy more than the Vatican..

It’s a mess technically: it mandates ISPs and DNS providers to block IPs/domains within 30 minutes of a report, with zero judicial oversight. It’s infamous locally for false positives—it has previously taken down Google Drive nodes and random legitimate CDNs just because they shared an IP with a pirate stream.

The NUCLEAR threat regarding the 2026 Winter Olympics (Milano-Cortina) is the real leverage here. He’s bypassing the regulator and putting a gun to the government’s head regarding national prestige and infrastructure security.

My personal take idea likely outcome: Cloudflare wins.

EU Law: The order almost certainly violates the Digital Services Act (DSA) regarding general monitoring obligations and country-of-origin principles. Realpolitik: The Italian government can't risk the Olympics infrastructure getting DDoS'd into oblivion because AGCOM picked a fight they can't win. They will likely settle for a standard, court-ordered geo-block down the road, but the idea of Cloudflare integrating with a broken 30-minute takedown API is dead on arrival.

I just want to point out that AGCOM once decided to put out an "Economically Relevant Instagram Influencers Register".

They're not really... let's say, 'on the ball' for understanding how the internet works. It's a bit of a running joke in Italy that their decisions are often anachronistic or completely misunderstanding of the actual technology behind the scenes.

And for the most part they just deliberate, they have no direct judicial authority. They ask an administrative judge to operate on their decisions, which brings us to some of the favourite sentences for any italian lawyer: the... "Ricorso al TAR". ("appeal to the Regional Administrative Court", which is a polite way to say "You messed up, badly and repeatedly, and now we have to spend an eternity trying to sort this out in a court room").

We live and have lived in a technological civilization for more than a hundred years. Legislators have NO EXCUSE to hide behind 'we don't understand the technology'. Sure computers are complex. But so are nuclear reactors, combustion engines and food safety.

If nuclear reactors cost 3x what they should, yet safety incidents occur 2x as often as they could because of stupid legislation, they shouldn't be able to hide behind 'we only have a legal diploma so we can't figure out what actuall works'.

For some reason, a lot of older folks consider computing as a 'low stakes game', as computers being either an annoyance or convenience but nothing more.

I don't know if the system is fundamentally flawed, and the people in charge are becoming less and less able to actually handle the reins of society and some major upheaval is necessary, or the system can be fixed as is, but this seems endemic and something should be done.

> a law was created without verifying how the implementation of such law would work in practice (something very common in Italy)

To be fair to Italy, this happens everywhere quite frequently. In my country (the US) we do this all too often.

> So, I'm not sure anybody verified that what the right holders claimed was actually true.

Yup, this will be weaponized by the MPAA/RIAA

Wait, so is this about censorship, or about copyright?

If the latter, I don't see why CloudFlare is complaining about "global" censorship. The US would simply seize the domains (which they have done so many times before), but I guess Italy doesn't have that power...

So is this similar to the DCMA in the US, where there's a lot of iffyness about abuse and actually knowing that someone is actually a rights holder?

He says that JD Vance and Elon Musk believe in free speech, so I’m inclined to conclude that he’s far beyond reason.

Is this similar to what happened in Spain?

Also Italian. I think everybody sucks here?

Most Italian authorities like this one are chock full of incompetents, and I'm almost sure they're just caving in to some soccer broadcaster or some crap like that. He might very well be fully correct on the fact of the matter.

Still, the rhetoric of the post is frankly disgusting. No, I'm not taking lessons in democracy from JD Vance, thank you very much. No, I don't think that might makes right and it's unsurprising that those who believe otherwise are so eager to transparently suck up to this administration.

Making public threats in this way is just vice signaling, nice bait.

I would like to see a similar rant about the DMCA from US CEOs, which amounts to similar global effect. Not a great law but all this censorship stuff is bullshit.

To replicate the rant: Cloudflare on the otherhand blocks me regularly from using the Internet using a privacy aware browser because I fail to pass their bot checks so that I can enter their CDN based replica of a real internet.

>as usual, a law was created without verifying how the implementation of such law would work in practice (something very common in Italy), and this is the result.

This is everywhere.

The reason is you DONT want a law to be too detailed with tech mumbo jombo. If too detailed, it will get outdated. See that USA crypto wars ban in the 90s.

se non del tutto giusto, quasi niente sbagliato :)

I also wonder why he felt emboldened to escalate like this. Maybe he thinks Italy is so small it can be slapped around by a rage post on Twitter?

There's a DNS blocklist from media industry applied by German ISPs and I assume Cloudflare was also asked to block these websites, so why didn't I read a story about Cloudflare making a big stir about the German DNS blocking?

He did mention that they were fighting the law before they were fined and they plan to challenge the fine in court. He has also been vocal about other similar legislation before they were enacted or the company got fined (not sure about this specific one though).

So I don't think it's fair to characterize it as he "only complains about it when his company is fined".

> financing a company that thinks it is above the law

I've never liked arguments like this, because laws are often complex, unreasonable, and unjust, and all of us (both individuals and companies) routinely use our best judgment to decide which laws to flout and which to follow, and when, where, and why to do so.

Style aside, what do you think he should do? Faced with a law that not only imposes disproportionate fines (more than revenue from the country), but on the surface also requires blocking globally, there are really only a few things to do:

1. Challenge the law in court

3. Influence the law via political means

3. Try to sway public opinion so 2. may be easier

4. Give in and play ball

5. Exit the country entirely

Crying free speech and attempting to rile up the tech bros is just what companies do these days.

It doesn't matter if, like this issue, it has absolutely nothing to do with free speech; if you position yourself as a defender of the "open internet", "open source", "free thinking" or "innovation" you get every dingleberry that hangs off Musk to come and defend you.

What is an example of a crazy law from EU?

> I don't feel comfortable financing a company that thinks it is above the law

Of all the companies to make that claim about in 2026, Cloudflare would not be very high on the list I would think... Also, hopefully you're not paying for any genAI services and making that statement?

> when they lobbied the FTC to investigate him

FYI Cloudflare didn't actually do that: https://x.com/eastdakota/status/1566160152684011520

(Disclosure: I work at Cloudflare but have no personal involvement with this.)

How is CFs business model a protection racket?

I mean I dislike JD Vance as much as the next guy, but I don't see how it's unreasonable to appeal to the federal government for assistance in dealing with international legal issues. That's very much in the government's remit.

I’m not sure whose business model you’re referring to, Cloudflare or Trump/Vance? Or sounds like the former, but I’m not sure how that appeal “validates the view…”.

while the spirit of your statement is clear , i dont think its 'properly craven' to recognise both an individual's faults and their strengths - in this case the author goes to lengths to state he does not necessarily agree with either musk or vance. has anybody successfully recieved protection from this US administration while acknowledging fault of said administration ? from outside this doesnt seem likely as US politics is currently operating like team sports (ie. no tolerance of toeing party lines, 'youre either with us or against us')

This is taking place in a larger geopolitical context. He is applying whatever pressure that Cloudflare can apply on its own (not much), and he mentions Vance as a way to call for US administration help at a time when the US is entering an open economic conflict with Europe. Tech and speech regulation is a central feature of that conflict.

IMHO this is a time when there are no good players. I support CF’s fight to keep the internet open against encroaching EU regulation while also acknowledging that the US has been a recurring bad actor here. I am not as anti-Cloudflare as some (I have no problem with their pro free speech policies) but I do think centralization of infrastructure is a bad thing, and CF encourages that.

I'm a team lead in an American organization that relies heavily on Cloudflare's Project Galileo[1], and I read that post with growing dread. My first thought was that this guy doesn't sound very much like a CEO. Let me rephrase that: He sounds like the kind of unhinged CEO of orgs I try to stay away from (X, for instance).

Then I read what you're talking about:

> [...] we are considering the following actions: [...] 2) discontinuing Cloudflare’s Free cyber security services for any Italy-based users; [...]

That's punishing all of Italy's users including those whose job it is to call truth to power (Project Galileo is free for journalists). If my state had a similar spat with Cloudflare would we be in danger of losing the infrastructure we've grown to depend on?

I was complacent and we need to re-think our relationship with them. It's true what they say: there's no such thing as a free lunch.

[1] https://www.cloudflare.com/galileo/

It is not unrealistic at all. The Olympics are run by politicians, essentially, since they appoint the committees, make the investments, build the infrastructure.

And the ones pushing for these bans are the sport media tycoons: this fight isn't about Anna's Archive, it is about people watching soccer illegally. Because that is where the real money is.

> Not a good look on that guy to list his "pro-bono" services and threaten to pull them while asking JD Vance for his help.

I think it's worth noting the quotes around the pro-bono. As outlined by Matthew Prince (Co-founder & CEO, CloudFlare):

> Bandwidth Chicken & Egg: in order to get the unit economics around bandwidth to offer competitive pricing at acceptable margins you need to have scale, but in order to get scale from paying users you need competitive pricing. Free customers early on helped us solve this chicken & egg problem. Today we continue to see that benefit in regions where our diversity of customers helps convince regional telecoms to peer with us locally, continuing to drive down our unit costs of bandwidth.

* https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/a/88685

* Via: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42712433#unv_42712845

It is not charity but a business decision that benefits them.

It seems the panel that fined him is politically appointed so seems reasonable to reach for politics to attempt to fight/resolve it.

Politics tends to work that way.

He replies to an Italian user

> We can’t offer free services in a country that fines us millions unreasonably. Fix your government or lose access to our charity.

On one hand, I agree with you, it's problematic to threaten collective punishment. However, I don't think it's unreasonable to "divest" from a country trying to fine you for behavior outside of said country. It's also important to communicate that clearly, and unfortunately bluntly. Did you have a different expectation or suggestion for what they should do?

Is there some more context then the original post? All I see is CF CEO saying that Vance agrees with the idea that these laws are bad.

Was with him in the first part, then wtf. Vance and the others dont stand for free speech either, it's only their own speech that matters and they'll proudly ban anything else.

Cloudflare really is all in on "we happily host pirate sites and tada, they're not in your country so we'll do nothing about it at all."

1. Vance built a lot of support in Silicon Valley.

2. Tech donated to Vance (and Trump) under the understanding that they would be a protected class.

3. By tagging Vance publicly and directly, he’s calling a favor.

4. If Vance doesn’t take action, it’s a signal that he’s not worth investing in.

Exactly, his whole tirade felt extraordinarily far fetched, sketchy if not outright racist.

Yes I thought the same. I thought the post was making a good point, but the image just undermined the seriousness of the post, as it characterized Italian politicians as zombies. It made me think less of the author.

Attaching a little cartoon at the bottom makes it extremely childish, no "seem" about it.

Please don't make everything into us versus them.

Also that paragraph is very critical as far as praise goes.

The "free speech" argument worked in his favor this time, so... Let's see if he still uses this card the next time something inconvenient comes up.

I agree. Musk calls for "free speech" while censoring his own AI and manipulating elections. There goes my respect for this CEO.

And yet this is the only thing people seem to focus on in a discussion about a government agency without any of those attributes.

His argument of “free speech” has zero meaning when “shouting out” JDV and Elon. What a joke of a CEO

Agreed, he really should learn from how Pavel Durov responded to France after he was treated unfairly by French police.

Indeed. There was a much better way to make this point.

The post is unhinged. Basically a tantrum. It’s sad really. It reminds me of https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r...

tldr you don’t get angry discussing with institutions because it makes you look like an amateur.

HN does not use a "Just one moment..." Cloudlfare interstitial

It seems to do just fine without it

HN does not require Javascript or use of a particular client to request and read its HTML. I use an HTML reader (offline) with no suupport for auto-loading resources, images, JS, CSS or DNS "prefetch" nonsense

The Cloudflare "protection" against so-called "abuse" forces www users to enable Javascript and use a client that exposes them to increased risks, including risks to their privacy and quiet enjoyment of the web

It cannot tell the difference between (a) a single reguest from a single IP address by a www user who prefers a client that is not distributed by an online advertising company or an online advertising company's business partner and (b) so-called "abuse" such as an excessive number of requests, sometimes from many IP addresses

For the purposes of "protection", it considers (a) and (b) the same

CF's "solution" is to force the www user to choose a particular client that puts the www user at risk and exposes them to surveillance and advertising, and surreptitious data collection

"Solve" a problem by creating a new, additional problem

One thing it should mean is that anyone using Cloudflare is doing so while risking that its CEO suddenly pulls the rug and closes down the service; not a dependency you want in your stack, and not a great look for a service that's supposed to be usable as a stable high-availability one.

Sure, at least the ones that survive DDoS attacks will be.

The alternative to the "checking your internet connection" page for many websites is either "508 Resource Limit Is Reached", "Please click all the boxes with traffic lights", or no website at all. They're not there to bully you, they're there to protect websites from abuse.

Thanks. I was looking for that at the top, but had to scroll down all the way here to find it.

Yeah, it's weird. I don't like the law in Italy, Cloudflare, or the current US administration, but I'm fairly anti-censorship, so I feel compelled to side with Cloudflare unless more info comes to light.

It really doesn’t matter what administration is in charge, at a certain level you have to curry favor with whatever administration is in power and hold your true motives close to your chest. People seem to think what people say in public is perfect knowledge of their true intentions. No. What they say is what they want someone to hear them say. There is nothing to gain by saying what you really feel, no one can prove it’s what you really feel anyway.

Cloudflare and other US tech companies base business decisions on revenue (and apparently on emotion), not allegiance to government agencies that have fallen out of fashion.

Claiming to and following through are two different actions, lots can happen between the two.

Yes, it is good for Europe that US tech leadership comes out in the open and share their twitter ramblings, so nobody can deny that their interests are not aligned with us.

Actually, the fine amounts to over 200% of Italy-sourced revenue ($17 million fine vs. $8 million in revenue in 2024). Why would you continue doing business in Italy?

He isn't threatening to block Italy, just to remove cloudflare's business from there. Anyone living and surfing from Italy would not be blocked by cloudflare from accessing any service provided by cloudflare.

Yeah that makes sense to me. If you come up to me and say “you have to arrest that guy; he’s stealing from me” I have to do a lot of research to make sure that everything is correct.

On the other hand, if I see you steal from me, I don’t have to do a lot of research. I am a first party to the thing. I can be sure.

It’s the difference between a policeman arriving on the scene of an assault and someone actually assaulting the policeman.

The acting party being the affected party simplifies things because you know you’re not a “confused deputy”.

How do you not understand the difference..?

> So blocking Kiwifarms took.. months of activism and loud complaining.

Kiwifarms isn't a pirate site. It's just another site that you think is legitimate to censor.

> However a fine that amounts to ~0.7% of the annual revenue and they threaten to block an entire country?

What's going to be next weeks fine? Of course they should block the entire country. Even if they pay the fine (I could imagine there's some way that the EU could force that on pain of forcing them out of Europe), they should block the country.

Shouldn't Italy want lawbreakers to leave?

>activism and loud complaining

I'm not sure why would you want to remind the world about that episode. those men lied, stalked, harassed, and threatened a lot of people to get that perfectly legal website exposed to very illegal DDoS attacks.

Please don't cross into personal attack or name-calling, and please don't take HN on generic ideological tangents of flamewar tangents.

You may not owe $CEO better but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.

All of this should be clear if you've reviewed https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html recently.

I read the tweet twice and I don’t see any mention of free speech. What he’s describing, when you look past the rhetoric, sounds ridiculous: a single medium sized country is demanding power to institute global blocks of content on the internet? If that’s an accurate description, that’s deeply concerning for the long term viability of the internet.