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Let's kick this CW thread off with a discussion of the KiwiFarms attacks. Broad strokes include:
CloudFlare posted just yesterday on how they were turning off KiwiFarms use of their DDOS protection. This was 4 days after their post attempting to explain their "abuse policies" and how they would respond to such things, a casual reading of which would suggest that they would not do this. Their claimed justification for this was "potential criminal acts and imminent threats to human life that were posted to the site". They did not detail exactly what acts and threats were posted and the nature of the site moderator's response.
KiwiFarms is back up at https://kiwifarms.ru/ (note that this is somewhat spotty, they are still actively under attack) (https://archive.ph/2tS7Y should work if their site is not responding at the moment). The site admin has created a post here in which he lists the user and post that he suspects was the trigger for this, the reasons why he thinks the post was suspicious, and the actions the admins took in response, which included banning the user in about half an hour.
To me this looks like a flop on CloudFlare's part. KiwiFarms may or may not be honest in their explanation post, but it's a lot more detail than anyone's posted on the "ban it" side on exactly what were the posts of concern.
The moment Cloudflare started defending its actions, it was clear to me they were about to capitulate. Those who are steadfast in their principles do not bother justifying it; principle stands on its own two feet. Cloudflare is best understood as another tentacle of Left, Inc., with all that entails, and any protestations otherwise are a thin veneer of impartiality that will not be backed up by action.
This is the fatal flaw of centralization of power, regardless of the form that power takes; the internet is small now. Far too small.
I think this is somewhere between exaggerated and false. I think few people and fewer corporations are steadfast in their principles. But I predict that those that justify their principles are more likely to be steadfast than those that don't.
Like, I can imagine a company just telling its critics "fuck you, we're doing this whether you like it or not". And I can imagine a company telling its critics "here's what we're doing and here's why". And I can imagine a company that hasn't said either of those things yet, but may or may not in future.
And I can imagine any of those companies capitulating, and stopping doing the thing. But I think the first and second companies are both less likely to capitulate than the third. It may be that the first is less likely to capitulate than the second, or vice versa. But if we're talking about the difference between "justifying one's principles" and "not justifying one's principles", then I think we have to take companies like the third into account. And when you talk about "the moment Cloudflare started defending its actions", you're talking about them swapping from being the third type of company to the second.
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