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| ▲ | brightball a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Wasn't 1.1.1.1 explicitly created to help people in countries with government internet restrictions to get around them? 100% support whatever Cloudflare has to do to win this fight. IMO the timing of something like this in the middle of the Elon + X vs UK censorship fight with the current administration providing support is probably the best case scenario. People aren't going to want to hear that, but in this case it's probably true. | | |
| ▲ | greyface- a day ago | parent [-] | | > Wasn't 1.1.1.1 explicitly created to help people in countries with government internet restrictions to get around them? No, it was explicitly created to receive and study the stream of "garbage traffic" being sent to 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1, which were previously held by APNIC and donated to Cloudflare on this basis. https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-1111/ > APNIC's research group held the IP addresses 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1. While the addresses were valid, so many people had entered them into various random systems that they were continuously overwhelmed by a flood of garbage traffic. APNIC wanted to study this garbage traffic but any time they'd tried to announce the IPs, the flood would overwhelm any conventional network. > We talked to the APNIC team about how we wanted to create a privacy-first, extremely fast DNS system. They thought it was a laudable goal. We offered Cloudflare's network to receive and study the garbage traffic in exchange for being able to offer a DNS resolver on the memorable IPs. And, with that, 1.1.1.1 was born. | | |
| ▲ | jp57 a day ago | parent [-] | | By these quotes, it was created to serve "a privacy-first, extremely fast DNS system", and the service of help in studying the garbage traffic was offered in exchange for gaining controll of the address(es). |
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| ▲ | bflesch a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." I think this clearly shows the hubris of Cloudflare CEO. Cloudflare is simply not important enough in Europe, and he unnecessarily provided a scapegoat "evil US tech company" for European media and politicians to slaughter. In terms of corporate politics it's not clever for him to attach his name to this issue, why not let legal handle this through EU lobby channels the same way other US tech companies do it in Europe. | | |
| ▲ | sroussey a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Cloudflare should just block Italy altogether. | | |
| ▲ | anthk a day ago | parent [-] | | Add Spain with LaLiga on top too. Inb4 "the CF CEO it's a right winger", so it's the Soccer -LaLiga- CEO. |
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| ▲ | foxglacier a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | His hubris isn't news. Remember when he woke up in the middle of the night and blocked some website because he personally didn't like it? | | |
| ▲ | bflesch a day ago | parent [-] | | No, haven't heard that story. Can you share a source? | | |
| ▲ | lkbm a day ago | parent [-] | | I suspect this is referring to the removal (not block) of The Daily Stormer in 2017[0]. [0] https://blog.cloudflare.com/why-we-terminated-daily-stormer/ | | |
| ▲ | lkbm a day ago | parent [-] | | Oh, there's also Kiwifarms in 2022: https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/ | | |
| ▲ | lostlogin 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | Was anything of value lost? Seriously, what good has ever come out of that cess pit. Yes, that’s a stance that is playing with fire. But is it wrong? | | |
| ▲ | lkbm 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm not saying it is. I think there's a pretty broad agreement that those sites are bad, and less of them is good. It's much less obvious that we want private corporations (or governments) picking and choosing which sites are good or bad. And from Cloudflare's position, a policy of "we don't police content" is more defensible than "we don't police content, except of this one in particular". These definitely aren't the only two horrible, racist websites Cloudflare has hosted. IIRC (and take this memory with a grain of salt), one thing that angered eastdakota about Stormfront was that they kept saying something like "Cloudflare hasn't kicked us off, so they're okay with us" or something like that. And obviously that doesn't hold water, unless Cloudflare has chosen to kick of some sites, it lends some credence to the remaining ones. I'm undecided where I stand on it. I'd like them to take actions like this in a principled way. (And I'm happy to accept that there's no clear line to draw, nor that it can be enforced with 100% accuracy, but if you're drawing a line, do it thoughtfully and broadcast it so you know ahead of time if you're in their gray area.) | |
| ▲ | 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | lostlogin 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > the US is entering an open economic conflict with Europe. Whilst ending swathe of agreements, threatening to end NATO and threatening to attack a NATO territory. | |
| ▲ | hermanzegerman a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | "Tech and speech regulation is a central feature of that conflict" The only conflict is that Europeans don't want Russian Misinformation and Manipulation from foreign powers onto them. It's no accident that Musks X serves preferentially content from European Far-Right Parties. The US used the same argument for their TikTok-Ban/Forced Takeover. They also don't make a secret out of their plan to push the far-right to end the EU. They even wrote about this in their new National Security Strategy Pure Hypocrisy | | |
| ▲ | tick_tock_tick a day ago | parent | next [-] | | [flagged] | | | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >They also don't make a secret out of their plan to push the far-right to end the EU. How is the "far right" gonna end "the EU"? When my GF walks alone at night through the parks she's never EVER afraid of the mythical far right for her safety, but the other people the far left won't let us talk about without being called a label and being cancelled from MSM for having common sense opinions. So if the EU were to find its end, it will be 100% at the hand of its own making, from years of corruption and financial mismanagement, from years of pushing unpopular open borders far left policies that nobody was asked it they agree with them or not. That's what will end the EU. Not Musk, not X, not Putin, not Trump, but the EU bureaucrats and their unpopular policies who then use boogiemen like X and "russian misinformation" and "far right" as scapegoats to deflect from their failures like this: Corruption being exposed on X? Must be Russian misinformation. Illegal migrant crime exposed on X. Must be far right misinformation. Epstein Files? Democrat hoax. Etc but you get the point. Politicians hate accountability and media channels they can't control like X that risk exposing their mistakes and corruption. They want full control of media to tell you what's acceptable to think, since the internet and social media made traditional state controlled media obsolete. They don't want control of social media and user ID verification to "protect the children", they want it to protect themselves from criticism and accountability from you. It's not Elon's or Trump's or Putin's or the far right's fault the healthcare in my country has been on a decline for 10+ years. It's not their fault wages are stagnating but property prices are skyrocketing which is what most voters care about. That's the fault of the ECB fiscal policies. It's not their fault public safety is down and crime is up. That's the fault of EU border control and irresponsible migration policies. Etc. you get the point. So it's disingenuous at best and bad faith at worst, to ignore these long going systemic issues the EU has self inflicted on its voters, and just blame the far right for the backlash it has inevitably lead to. | | |
| ▲ | Kelteseth a day ago | parent | next [-] | | You're making it sound way more dramatic than it is [1]. And yes X is a far right echo chamber that twists the narrative so that the extreme right get the most support out of it. X is the biggest help for foreign power to sow discord among us [2] [1] https://www.dw.com/en/crime-statistics-knife-crime-drugs-lif... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj38m11218xo | | |
| ▲ | 2478238434780 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Dissidents are actually all foreign agents. All hail the EU, comrade! | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | aniviacat a day ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm unsure why you're spinning a discussion about foreign interference in the EU into a discussion about Republicans vs. Democrats. To the EU, it doesn't matter much if it's the Republicans or the Democrats doing it. What matters is that the USA is trying to interfere with the EU's political landscape. It would be bad if they pushed the extreme left, too. They just happen to be pushing the extreme right. (The reason right-wing political violence is more talked about in the EU is also rather simple: It is much more prevalent. https://www.bka.de/DE/UnsereAufgaben/Deliktsbereiche/PMK/PMK...) | |
| ▲ | lovich a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Edit: Realized I should have checked before typing up a response. This is an 18 day old account pushing lies and propaganda. Were wasting our time on bots again > ...that lead to brainwashing of Charlie Kirk's shooter. Oh, you have evidence of his political views now? Last I saw members of the admin were declaring them an antifa trans super soldier until it came out that he was a mormon from a conservative family which muddied the water and suddenly they didn't want to talk about it anymore. If you want to make a claim about far left echo chambers you should reference a group like the Zizians. > It's funny you say this when the BBC in the example from your first point was caught cutting and splicing Trump's Jan-6 speech to make a fake statement he never said[1] and is now facing defamation. Biased and coopted legacy media institutions like the BBC are the enemy here and why X is growing everywhere. Ah the video from the speech that was edit to make it seem like he called for violence on J6 instead of the full length speech, where he called for violence on J6. | | | |
| ▲ | decremental a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | immibis a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm sure you understand the fact that an alliance of countries is not held together by the absence of serial killers hiding in parks at night, yeah? Europe has rather famous historical knowledge of what the far right can do, and how it can destroy a country, and it has nothing to do with parks at night. | | |
| ▲ | joe_mamba a day ago | parent [-] | | >Europe has rather famous historical knowledge of what the far right can do, and how it can destroy a country Since you brought up European history, let me ask you where the far right came from in WW2 Europe. Did they just suddenly come out of nowhere and manage to take over a continent just like that without having majority popular support amongst the population? Or was it an organic growth gaining political support feeding off the backlash to failed policies of previous administrations in Europe? Because history is repeating itself right now and you're either not seeing it because you don't know the answer to the historial question above, or you are ignoring it because you don't like it and you hope the solution lies in draconical measures against far right parties as if that will magically to turn all those displeased citizens to stop supporting far right, and not making it worse by radicalizing them even further leading to more extremism which is what is actually gonna happen. You're basically creating a self fulfilling prophecy with this attitude of putting all the blame and focus of state failures on the far right. > and it has nothing to do with parks at night It 100% has everything to do with that. Because if you import millions of potentially dangerous and culturally incompatible people from dangerous low trust societies into (formerly) safe European high trust societies, against the will of the majority of your voters making them now feel unsafe in their own countries, and you refuse to backtrack on your unpopular policies, then voting far right is the only peaceful and democratic option the voters have to express their displeasure with your policies. And you can only ignore, ban and suppress the demands of the far right parties for so long, until they become the majority of the voter base, and then you're fucked and the prophecy you were trying to stop fulfills itself, the far right takes power and uses all the political weapons you built to suppress them against you. Just like 80 years ago. Like I said before, people are doomed to have history repeats itself on themselves because people never learn, or they learn the wrong lessons due to ideological biases giving themselves a false sense of moral superiority over the others they disagree with. You see this societal failure on HN as well, with my comments here getting flagged even though they didn't break any rules and haven't been factually proven wrong via debate, yet people will reject and try to silence them them without arguments or debate, same as they reject the other views that don't conform to their bubble. | | |
| ▲ | TRiG_Ireland a day ago | parent [-] | | Most of the big names campaigning against immigration are themselves credibly accused of sexual assault. We can see through your mind games. | | |
| ▲ | lmz a day ago | parent [-] | | Even if that is correct. It only means they have enough domestic supply of that kind of person, and there is no need to import more. |
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| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The only conflict is that Europeans don't want Russian Misinformation and Manipulation from foreign powers onto them People always have reasons for wanting to censor speech. > Pure Hypocrisy Ironic. | | |
| ▲ | bflesch a day ago | parent [-] | | There is a big difference between right to free speech by citizens of a certain country vs. someone working in the military propaganda unit of a foreign country who artificially amplifies their opinion thousandfold while masquerading as a citizen of the victim country with ultimate goal to harm the victim country. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent [-] | | You are focusing on identity and intent, e.g you are defending the restriction of speech based on who is speaking and why. Knowing the difference between an opinion of an origin you consider valid and one you consider invalid is difficult enough that one can abuse that justification to censor "real" speech by citizens. | | |
| ▲ | bflesch a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Ivan from St. Petersburg calls himself "Heinz Müller" and creates a Telegram group that reports about immigrant crime in my neighborhood, trying to fool elderly citizens with lack of social media experience into believing his fake news stories. It's a proven approach and Ivan's main job. If Ivan would've been born in another country, he simply would've tried to scam elderly citizens, but because he was born in russia he works for the propaganda unit so he doesn't get sent to a meat assault on the frontlines. In his free time Ivan comes to HN and poses as a free speech absolutist. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > In his free time Ivan comes to HN and poses as a free speech absolutist. I am not an absolutist, far from it, and I'm pretty sad that you feel the need to resort to personal attacks, even if indirect. | |
| ▲ | nec4b a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is there also a progressive woke version of Ivan or is there always only a far right version of him? | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Well you see, <my side>'s swarm intelligence is organic and honest and people from <other side> are bots. Jokes aside, the Harris campaign openly manipulated Reddit to get their opinions on the top [1]. I was there on election night. The entire site slowed to a crawl. Opinions of people you normally never read gained hundreds to thousands of upvotes. It felt organic for exactly one day. [1]: https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/29/busted-the-inside-story... | | |
| ▲ | nec4b a day ago | parent [-] | | If the plan is to sow division, it would be really weird to always only try to play one side. If I was trying to stir division, I would make sure to play all sides for maximum effect. But apparently other commentators here think only one side is being played and its always the same one. |
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| ▲ | 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | lossolo a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | So you are basically arguing that it's hard to distinguish, therefore we shouldn't try. By that logic, we couldn't prosecute fraud because it's sometimes hard to distinguish from aggressive marketing, or couldn't have espionage laws because it's hard to distinguish from journalism. The distinction isn't about "valid" vs "invalid" opinions, as you framed it, it's just about authenticity and coordination. A Russian citizen genuinely expressing pro Kremlin views on their personal account is exercising speech. A state funded operation running hundreds of fake accounts pretending to be American citizens, artificially amplifying divisive content, is something different, it's basically a form of information warfare. And what I write here isn't theoretical, coordinated influence operations have inflamed ethnic tensions from the Balkans to Myanmar, not to mention Russian-Ukraininan conflict propaganda. These aren't just "opinions we disagree with", they're documented operations with measurable effects on real world violence. I mean this is a form of war, in which some countries want to destroy your society fabric for their advantage. Every democracy already makes this distinction in other domains. Foreign governments can't donate to political campaigns. Foreign agents must register when lobbying. Do you call them violations of free speech? They're just acknowledgments that coordinated foreign influence is fundamentally different from citizen discourse. The difficulty of drawing lines doesn't mean no lines exist. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent [-] | | > So you are basically arguing that it's hard to distinguish, therefore we shouldn't try No, I said because it's hard to distinguish, therefore we can not use it as an excuse to enact censorship. > By that logic, we couldn't prosecute fraud Fraud is illegal. > couldn't have espionage laws Espionage is illegal. No matter what you do or what you write, enacting "desinformation laws" would require a ministry of truth to decide what is fact and what isn't, a task governments are famously incredibly bad at because they always have vested interests in not telling the truth. > A state funded operation running hundreds of fake accounts pretending to be American citizens, artificially amplifying divisive content, is something different, it's basically a form of information warfare And yet it is still speech and not distinguishable from genuine Russians sharing their opinions. It is easy to refute the opinions of many a people by discrediting them to be of the origin of a manufactured propaganda machine. Once you start doing this for foreign people, the next logical step is to continue this strategy for local activists or political opponents. > And what I write here isn't theoretical, coordinated influence operations have inflamed ethnic tensions from the Balkans to Myanmar, not to mention Russian-Ukraininan conflict propaganda. These aren't just "opinions we disagree with", they're documented operations with measurable effects on real world violence. I mean this is a form of war, in which some countries want to destroy your society fabric for their advantage I know this to be factual. I'm not denying it's existence at all. I'm making a point here. I don't want the government to hold these tools you propose. Any law enacted and every power given will not only be wielded by a government of parties you support, but also at one point by factions you disagree with entirely. | | |
| ▲ | jacquesm a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Guess what? Copyright violation is also illegal. You are all over this thread in god knows how many comments arguing about Germany and world wide censorship whereas this thread - and the fine - is about copyright and Italy. The second they use it for anything else I'll be happy to jump the line but until then they are - for once - using this law as it is intended and it doesn't really matter that there are other unrelated wrongs that you could commit using the same mechanism. | |
| ▲ | lovich a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You are jumping back and forth between moral arguments and legalistic arguments. If your defense for going after fraud and espionage is its illegal, are you fine if a country makes censorship legal? | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent [-] | | No. My point is that real people are hurt by fraud and espionage and comparing outlawing those to outlawing speech is inane | | |
| ▲ | lovich a day ago | parent [-] | | I am hurt when I think I am hearing words from a fellow citizen that are their own opinion, when instead it is a foreign actor pushing a narrative for their state. I am all for free speech, but I am not for anonymous speech which is choking the internet. If I am in person speaking with you, I can be fairly certain that you aren't actually a completely different person underneath a rubber mask. I want to at least know that an account I am speaking to is a _person_ and not a robot, although Id probably want country of origin too. I do not have a good answer for how to achieve that without having a chilling effect on speech, but maybe that's a good thing? I go back and forth on if its better or not to require you to say who you are if you want to say something in public. In private, go hog wild. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I am hurt when I think I am hearing words from a fellow citizen that are their own opinion, when instead it is a foreign actor pushing a narrative for their state. No you are not. > I am all for free speech, but I am not for anonymous speech which is choking the internet Then you are not for free speech. Have you ever considered from your point of view that anonymity is incredibly valuable to people who live under an oppressive regime, like Iran or Russia? > I want to at least know that an account I am speaking to is a _person_ and not a robot, although Id probably want country of origin too. I too, want many things. That does not give me the right to unveil people who wish to be anonymous. It's pretty wild that this is an opinion on hacker news, of all sites. | | |
| ▲ | lovich 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > No you are not. If you are going to decide my values for me, then there is nothing left to discuss. |
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| ▲ | lossolo a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | The issue I have with your argument is that you're treating inaction as neutral. It isn't. Choosing not to act against coordinated foreign influence operations is itself a choice with consequences. If a hostile state can freely run thousands of fake accounts to inflame divisions, amplify extremism, and erode trust in institutions (and we deliberately tie our hands) then we're not preserving some pristine free speech environment. I mean we're ceding the information space to whoever is willing to manipulate it most aggressively. The "marketplace of ideas" doesn't function when one participant is a state apparatus with unlimited resources pretending to be thousands of organic voices.
Your slippery slope argument applies to laws we already have and accept. Lets take US as an example, the Foreign Agents Registration Act has existed since 1938. Foreign campaign contributions are illegal. These laws require distinguishing foreign influence from domestic speech. By your logic, these should have already devolved into tools of domestic political persecution. Have they? Imperfect enforcement, sure. But "the government of a faction I disagree with might someday abuse this" hasn't been a reason to repeal FARA. Another issue that I have with your argument is that you've identified risks of action but proposed nothing. What's your actual framework here? If coordinated foreign information warfare is real and harmful, and ongoing (which you acknowledge) what should democracies do? I mean if your answer is "nothing, because any tool could theoretically be abused" then you are not offering any policy, right? but basically you are arguing for resignation. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent [-] | | > The issue I have with your argument is that you're treating inaction as neutral. The issue I have with your argument is that you're treating action as a necessary evil enacted by a well meaning government. It isn't. > I mean we're ceding the information space to whoever is willing to manipulate it most aggressively. I am well aware that this is a difficult thing to solve. What is it then, that you propose we do? > These laws require distinguishing foreign influence from domestic speech. By your logic, these should have already devolved into tools of domestic political persecution. Have they? Yes. YES. The FARA has sometimes been applied asymmetrically, especially against individuals or organizations connected to political opponents, lobbyists and think tanks. It is the perfect example for what I mean. The FARA is broadly defined and with a DOJ under an administration, it is prone to misuse. The DOJ under Trump considered to use it to charge Hunter Biden. The identification of "hostile agents" that you argue is necessary is exactly what I mean when I point to government misuse, as the Trump admin is currently using these exact laws to identify activists and nonprofits as domestic terrorists [1]. We have people in this thread decry the Trump administration for their actions and stances on selectively applying free speech while they at the same time argue for more government power even while it is being abused in this very moment. I am aghast at how this is happening. > Another issue that I have with your argument is that you've identified risks of action but proposed nothing. What's your actual framework here? If coordinated foreign information warfare is real and harmful, and ongoing (which you acknowledge) what should democracies do? Do what democracy's are already doing. Issue sanctions that hurt. A large amount of LNG and gas imports in Europe are still traceable to Russia. Invest into digital thinking and digital literacy. But that would require putting your money where your mouth is, instead of arguing for those sweet tools of citizen control. Germany spends below average on education and our pupils suffer. The same is true for US education. Sorry, but I won't argue for controlling a stupid populace when we fail at teaching at the same time. I will give you an example. The censorship tools already exist, at least in Germany, and they are justified and enacted by politicians that cite "studies" from NGOs like Amadeu Antonio, HateAid, Demokratie leben! or NETTZ. All organizations that receive massive funds from the govt that exist only to deliver "proof" and "reasons" for censorship because of "hate" and "misinformation". Of course, these studies [2] are then cited massively [3] by the media aparatus and ultimately the same politicians that paid to have this information produced [4]. Sometime after, the truth may be reveiled [5], the falsified data exposed, but the damage is done and laws are proposed [6] that enable the government to break and enter into journalist offices and media companies and shutting them down without a court order. All in the name of fighting misinformation and saving democracy. [1]: https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/how-nspm-7-seeks... [2]: https://hateaid.org/neue-studie-politisch-engagierte-und-dig... [3]: https://nachrichten.idw-online.de/2025/01/15/neue-studie-dig... [4]: https://taz.de/Justizministerin-Lambrecht-ueber-NetzDG/!5689... [5]: https://www.publicomag.com/2020/07/publico-dossierverfolgter... [6]: https://dserver.bundestag.de/brd/2025/0766-25.pdf | | |
| ▲ | lossolo a day ago | parent [-] | | Sanctions haven't stopped Russian influence operations, they've continued under the heaviest sanctions regime in history.
I agree that digital literacy is genuinely important, but lets not kid ourselves that we can suddenly make it work tomorrow, it's basically a generational project. Meanwhile, influence operations are happening now, at scale, with measurable effects. So what I mean is that "invest in education" approach is correct but insufficient as a response to an active, ongoing campaign. It's like responding to a house fire by saying we should invest in fire safety education. Your home will burn down while you do this. So I understand your point but you're essentially arguing that because democracies can abuse power, they should unilaterally disarm against adversaries who face no such constraints. Russia etc have no free speech concerns limiting their operations against us. Doing nothing will allow these adveraries to destroy our democracies from within.That is an endgame of your approach, and I just can't agree with this.
So doing nothing because our tools might be misused feels like it guarantees we lose. I think we can at least agree that the choice isn't only between "government ministry of truth" and "do nothing" and we need a middle ground solution. Transparency requirements (forcing platforms to label state affiliated accounts), requiring disclosure of foreign funding for political ads and influencers, holding platforms accountable for coordinated inauthentic behavior etc etc, these don't require the government to decide what's true. They require disclosure of who is speaking and who is paying. Think of the US influencers paid unknowingly by Russia, or the "patriotic" X accounts that turned out to be foreign run. Those are just the obvious cases already happening. This needs to stop or at least the public needs clear disclosure of funding and origin. We have homomorphic encryption now. Let's use it in a way that protects privacy but still helps flag foreign influence and helps distinguish between foreign speech and protected domestic speech. | | |
| ▲ | j-krieger a day ago | parent [-] | | Ha! What sanctions? We are not sanctioning like we truly mean it. > So I understand your point but you're essentially arguing that because democracies can abuse power, No, my point is that because democracies are abusing power, right now, we should be against giving them more tools. The US democracy is in an active state of being dismantled because they have lots of shiny legal tools to do it. These very same beginnings can be seen in Europe too, when the EU tries again and again to pass privacy invading internet tracking laws. We are not in favour of Iran building nukes for "defense", and I would wager you won't defend their efforts in the face of critics when they say "hey, we're pretty sure they will abuse it" because it might not happen, even though abuse is clearly already happening. > Russia etc have no free speech concerns limiting their operations against us. Doing nothing will allow these adveraries to destroy our democracies from within If democracy is so weak that it needs to be protected from uncomfortable truths and the opinions of its people (read: opinions you or I may not share), then maybe it's not saveable. > I think we can at least agree that the choice isn't only between "government ministry of truth" and "do nothing" and we need a middle ground solution. Dead on. The only true weapon to combat misinformation is transparency. But transparency efforts are not what I'm seeing, and they are certainly not what Ursula von der Leyen means when she talks about the Digital Services Act. | | |
| ▲ | lossolo a day ago | parent [-] | | I don't think transparency alone will be enough. We may need to treat foreign speech differently from domestic speech (my last sentence from previous comment), with different protections (prioritizing domestic speech) because you simply cannot control the firehose of propaganda coming from the rest of the world. And don't get me wrong, this isn't about silencing foreign opinions. What I mean is we need to recognize that a citizen expressing a view and a state apparatus manufacturing thousands of fake citizens expressing that view are fundamentally different things, deserving different treatment. We already make this distinction in campaign finance, lobbying, broadcasting etc. So I think extending it to the information space isn't a radical departure, it's basically catching up to the modern world. I want to circle back to something, because I think there's an irony in your argument that's worth examining.
The administration you're worried about abusing power is itself a product of the influence operations. We have documented evidence (not speculation) of Russian operations boosting Trump's candidacy in 2016 and 2024. We have confirmed payments to influencers like Tim Pool and others through Tenet Media, amplification networks on social platforms, coordinated campaigns targeting swing state voters. The Mueller investigation, the Senate Intelligence Committee report, the recent DOJ indictments etc all showing the same thing. So when you say "look at how Trump is abusing power, this is why we shouldn't give governments these tools", I'd ask: how do you think he got there? The foreign influence you're arguing we should mostly tolerate helped install the government you're now citing as proof we can't trust government. You're using the consequences of the problem as an argument against addressing the problem. On your "if democracy can't survive this, maybe it's not saveable" point, I find this fatalistic in a way that doesn't match how you argue about everything else. You clearly do think democracy is worth protecting (that's why you're worried about government overreach, civil liberties etc) So I think yu're not a nihilist.
So why adopt an all or nothing frame specifically here? Democracies have always required defensive mechanisms. We have treason laws, foreign agent registration, campaign finance rules etc. So it wasn't about "pure openness vs. authoritarianism", but basically it always been about where to draw lines. Drawing them poorly is a risk. But as I said before refusing to draw them at all isn't principled neutrality, it's just losing by default. |
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| ▲ | simianparrot a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The good players are the US on this front. I say this as a European. Europe at large is in a dark place in terms of freedom of speech, the press, and other issues like immigration. And the US might eventually have to be the ones to apply force to hold our leaders accountable, ironic as that is given history. | | | |
| ▲ | aforwardslash a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > 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 This is a great way of bombing its business in the EU. Just sayin' :) | | | |
| ▲ | pamcake a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I may have missed something but Akamai seem to be living proof that it's possible to operate that kind of business at scale from the US without vice signalling or publicly sucking up to fascist authoritarians. | | |
| ▲ | bflesch a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Good point. | |
| ▲ | kijin a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Akamai doesn't have to, because they don't go attracting the kind of clientele who would host pirated soccer videos. |
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| ▲ | jacquesm a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | CF is a US company, the EU has the right to make their own - misguided - laws. And CF has the option to simply stop doing business with Italy, or comply with the law. This stupid grandstanding is just a thinly veiled attempt at blackmail which I'm sure will very much impress the legislators and the judges of the country to which it is addressed. /s |
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| ▲ | bflesch a day ago | parent | next [-] | | I think it is a big strategic mistake for him to personally take ownership of this topic and to elevate it on a political level. He openly aligned himself with two people who are extremely unpopular in Europe, while threatening an important EU member state. I think his hubris makes him overestimate Cloudflare's importance for Europe. Cloudflare is simply not important enough. If it was Microsoft or Apple threatening, then maybe - but those companies are clever enough to leverage lobbying for this. Now the Cloudflare CEO has set himself up to be at the whims of JD Vance/Trump, while providing a perfect "arrogant US tech company" scapegoat that can be slaugthered by European politics and the media conglomerate that he is threatening. Europe is too important for USA. I don't think the US administration will like the relationship to go sour at this very point in time just because of this Cloudflare doofus barking around. Anyways, it is like Facebook CEO and Amazon CEO applauding the Trump inauguration; it is a totally unnecessary political statement which fragments their userbase and introduces a political dimension to any procurement decision involving Cloudflare. It takes people's illusion that Cloudflare is a neutral tech company and replaces it with this guy's twitter ramblings, who is obviously an Elon Musk and JD Vance fanboy. | | |
| ▲ | grayhatter a day ago | parent | next [-] | | > it is a totally unnecessary political statement which fragments their userbase and introduces a political dimension to any procurement decision involving Cloudflare. My take was, If you need help from the current State Department, or the current administration, (and I assume they do) it absolutely is a necessary statement. And then, this is them trying very hard to suck up, as is required, without pissing off everyone. Perhaps I'm wrong, and this is actually a form of honesty, instead of performative theater. In which case I would probably agree with you. It's unfortunate. But I default to the assumption that people aren't children by choice. | | |
| ▲ | NewJazz a day ago | parent [-] | | Then why bring up Musk, who is perhaps more reviled than even Vance? |
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| ▲ | tacker2000 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I agree, he seems to be ranting and escalating unnecessarily. | | |
| ▲ | jules a day ago | parent [-] | | The are fining his company 213% of yearly Italian revenue. He is not the one escalating. | | |
| ▲ | oaiey a day ago | parent [-] | | He took a risk in ignoring a law instead of exiting the market. They did not escalate, they applied the law. What we need is an international legal framework for the Internet. And that includes compromises on all sides. China, EU, Russia, US and others have very different understanding on what is right. But hey, I think US politics is America first and cancel all international treaties. Sounds like more problems like this are incoming. | | |
| ▲ | jkman 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sure, next we should implement global communism and live in peace and harmony forever! That is most definitely feasible |
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| ▲ | throw0101d a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Europe is too important for USA. I don't think the US administration will like the relationship to go sour at this very point in time just because of this Cloudflare doofus barking around. When you say "for USA", what do you mean by "USA"? Are you talking about the general US population? US corporations? Or the person who decides foreign policy direction (i.e., Trump)? Because Trump recently ordered the snatching of a foreign head of state because he didn't like how the guy danced and allegedly didn't take him seriously. | | |
| ▲ | bflesch a day ago | parent [-] | | I was trying to say that even though the US administration is actively escalating with Europe, I don't think the point in time has been reached where they want to go full berserk and cut Europe off from services by US tech companies. Cloudflare CEO tries to trigger such an escalation right now, but I'm not sure the US administration wants this kind of escalation right now, because it would also accelerate migration away from Microsoft and other US tech companies, hurting their revenue. For FAANG $7M is peanuts, and they won't leave billions on the table just because Cloudflare CEO has a big ego. |
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| ▲ | user34283 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Musk and JD Vance are not "extremely unpopular in the EU", they are primarily unpopular with progressives, regardless of the location. It sounds like you're just upset the Cloudflare CEO sides with conservatives on this particular issue. | | |
| ▲ | sidibe a day ago | parent [-] | | Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but they are, in fact, extremely unpopular in EU | | |
| ▲ | user34283 a day ago | parent [-] | | You believe Musk is unpopular with conservatives in the EU? | | |
| ▲ | sidibe a day ago | parent [-] | | Overall he is very unpopular. There are a few far right parties that love him but they are outnumbered. |
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| ▲ | plagiarist a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well, for example, from what you quoted: > We can’t offer free services in a country that fines us millions unreasonably. This is normal and reasonable. > Fix your government or lose access to our charity. This is petulant and smug. My suggestion for what they could have done differently is have a PR team handle the public announcements. TBF what they did here is probably more effective than my plan, but only because the world is a trash fire. |
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