Cloudflare terminate 8Chan

[Trik'Stari]

Sounds like this company and others would like to behave as publishers instead of platforms.

 

As such, they should be liable for slander lawsuits under the DMCA.

[mr moose]

Just now, Trik'Stari said:

Sounds like this company and others would like to behave as publishers instead of platforms.

 

As such, they should be liable for slander lawsuits under the DMCA.

They are neither, they are more like a distribution/warehousing service. 

[Trik'Stari]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

They are neither, they are more like a distribution/warehousing service. 

That would be either a publisher or a platform. There's no inbetween here from a legal standpoint.

 

Either you provide a service through which others can create content that you can only take down if said content violates some law or another, or you provide a service through which people can create content only you approve of.

 

What you describe is a platform, what they are doing is the actions of a publisher. Intent and context are important here. What reasoning do they have for this action?

[ZacoAttaco]

22 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Perhaps, but isn't DDoS protection one of the things they do? Protecting a target like 8chan could potentially help them improve their services even more. And honestly tho, I doubt it was even that bad for PR. Before this I didn't even know that cloudflare hosted 8chan and I didn't see anyone blame cloudflare for this. 

Yeah an interesting point, but the internet always finds out and I guess in this case it makes sense for Cloudflare to get ahead of the story and try and control the narrative. And you're right, a site like 8chan probably is probably attempted to be DDoS'd so frequently, probably especially this week, that it makes their other clients seem like child's play. Great training for them I guess.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

That would be either a publisher or a platform. There's no inbetween here from a legal standpoint.

 

Either you provide a service through which others can create content that you can only take down if said content violates some law or another, or you provide a service through which people can create content only you approve of.

 

What you describe is a platform, what they are doing is the actions of a publisher. Intent and context are important here. What reasoning do they have for this action?

Then you can hold truck drivers legally liable as content providers or publishers?  No I really don't think so.

[Trik'Stari]

4 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Then you can hold truck drivers legally liable as content providers or publishers?  No I really don't think so.

Are they making morality based decisions on what they carry? No? Then you are correct.

 

If they are making morality based decisions on what they carry, then yes, they are a publisher. If this company is dropping 8chan because "they don't like the content 8chan provides or allows* then they are in fact a publisher.

 

It's really quite simple. Just because you might agree with the action doesn't mean you get to just throw logic and the spirit of the law out the window.

 

"I don't like this content" does not equate to "this content is not profitable" it's all about intent and context.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Trik'Stari said:

Are they making morality based decisions on what they carry? No? Then you are correct.

 

If they are making morality based decisions on what they carry, then yes, they are a publisher. If this company is dropping 8chan because "they don't like the content 8chan provides or allows* then they are in fact a publisher.

 

It's really quite simple. Just because you might agree with the action doesn't mean you get to just throw logic and the spirit of the law out the window.

 

The driver can opt to not carry anything he wants at anytime if he decided the content is not good for his image.   This still doesn't make him a publisher or content provider.  He is just a service that gets the product from one person to another.   Likewise, cloudflare can decide not to do business with 8ch because they don;t like the color of the head guys shoes,  he is just the delivery service, not the publisher.

[Trik'Stari]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

The driver can opt to not carry anything he wants at anytime if he decided the content is not good for his image.   This still doesn't make him a publisher or content provider.  He is just a service that gets the product from one person to another.   Likewise, cloudflare can decide not to do business with 8ch because they don;t like the color of the head guys shoes,  he is just the delivery service, not the publisher.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that a truck driver is, legally, not a proper allegory to an online platform content provider. You are comparing apples to orangutans. (the established laws contained within the DMCA do not apply to truck drivers. What you are saying is like saying that the FAA can determine the maximum depth of a submarine. It's a nonsensical comparison)

 

And yes, that action, if he was an online service, would make him a publisher. Provided he stated why he refused service, if he were to refuse to state why he refused service, that would be a different story.

 

[ARikozuM]

33 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Then you can hold truck drivers legally liable as content providers or publishers?  No I really don't think so.

Actually, you can. If someone gives you a trailer full of food and covert drugs, you are liable for the cargo. 

 

"Officer, I was only hauling it for a friend!"

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that a truck driver is, legally, not a proper allegory to an online platform content provider. You are comparing apples to orangutans. (the established laws contained within the DMCA do not apply to truck drivers. What you are saying is like saying that the FAA can determine the maximum depth of a submarine. It's a nonsensical comparison)

 

And yes, that action, if he was an online service, would make him a publisher. Provided he stated why he refused service, if he were to refuse to state why he refused service, that would be a different story.

 

It's not an allegory its an analogy.    A similar situation devised to illustrate a point. 

 

 

1 hour ago, ARikozuM said:

Actually, you can. If someone gives you a trailer full of food and covert drugs, you are liable for the cargo. 

 

"Officer, I was only hauling it for a friend!"

If the driver knew the cargo then he is committing a crime, if he is delivering what he is told is fruit under a contract to haul fruit he is not an accomplice.

 

Sending drugs via the post does not make the postal service drug traffickers.   If cloudflare don't like the content they are transporting then they don't have to transport it.  If UPS don;t want to take on amazons business for what ever reason then they don't have too,  This is not about publication laws.   8ch are the publishers, 8ch users are the content creators and cloudflare is/was the web hosting service.  They cannot be treated as a publisher when they are not publishing the content. 

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

If the driver knew the cargo then he is committing a crime, if he is delivering what he is told is fruit under a contract to haul fruit he is not an accomplice.

You're supposed to check your cargo. If you don't see drugs when inspecting, but they are present, you may not be an accomplice, but you will get arrested for possessing and hauling those drugs. Whether you get charged or not in court is another matter. 

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

You're supposed to check your cargo. If you don't see drugs when inspecting, but they are present, you may not be an accomplice, but you will get arrested for possessing and hauling those drugs. Whether you get charged or not in court is another matter. 

There is a difference between being legally in the wrong and being arrested.  Many people get arrested for crimes they did not commit, that is why people have the right to a fair hearing in most democracies.

 

 

[ARikozuM]

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

There is a difference between being legally in the wrong and being arrested.  Many people get arrested for crimes they did not commit, that is why people have the right to a fair hearing in most democracies.

Yeah, no crap. You, or someone else, came up with this dumb analogy. I'm just letting you know that if you are hauling something, and are found in possession of illegal goods, you are going to be arrested and investigated. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Yeah, no crap. You, or someone else, came up with this dumb analogy. I'm just letting you know that if you are hauling something, and are found in possession of illegal goods, you are going to be arrested and investigated. 

 

But that doesn't mean you are guilty of anything.  That is the point (and a pretty big one in regard to this discussion).  Cloudflare is not legally responsible for the content, because they are neither the publisher (that's 8ch) not the content creator (that's the users).  They are a web services company that no longer want to associate with 8ch.

 

The best that can be claimed is they do not want to be associated with 8ch content because of it's a legal liability.  That itself doesn't even mean they have publisher like roles.

[Drak3]

36 minutes ago, mr moose said:

8ch are the publishers, 8ch users are the content creators and cloudflare is/was the web hosting service.  They cannot be treated as a publisher when they are not publishing the content. 

8Chan is a platform. Legally different from a publisher in the US.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

8Chan is a platform. Legally different from a publisher in the US.

 

If 8ch is a platform then that removes cloudflare form the question of being a publisher altogether.

 

And if they had to face court I bet they would choose to be which ever one gave hem the best chance of avoiding conviction.  Just like facebook.

 

 

[BuckGup]

Hail hydra you can’t stop things like this. Work on the mental health issue in the US right now. Better treatment and education is the only way to stop acts like this. But that involves a lot of work so it’s much easier to just blame it on guns or a website

[realpetertdm]

33 minutes ago, comander said:

 

From what I can tell, multiple people in the LGBT community banded together in an attempt to run Phillips out of business through abuse of the legal system. He had a transgender lawyer come in and ask for a cake the day of the Supreme Court ruling. 

 

 

Do you have any evidence (i.e. witness accounts) to prove this? There's no indication that this happened from what I can tell.

[strajk-]

14 hours ago, Waffles13 said:

4chan is incredibly important to mention since the only reason that 8chan ever got any traction was because 4chan started banning people over relatively mundane "controversial" topics. Those people all were forced to migrate somewhere else, found 8chan, and 8chan gradually got more and more extreme in its views as a result of being comprised largely of people who weren't allowed to discuss things on 4chan.

 

So tell me, with 8chan gone, what's going to happen to the next refuge that these folks are forced to run to? Is it going to somehow be less radical than 8chan was, or are these people who feel wronged going to double down on their views?

That's a complete non sequitur to what I wrote so I won't bother going deep into it. 

4chan bans users that don't follow their guidelines, job done from their part, whatever happens in another corner of the internet isn't 4chan's beef. 

 

So grouping it together with 8chan, is incredibly disingenuous. 

Want to discuss these things without being judged and censored? Easy, get a Tor Browser and go to the darkweb, there is a Chan there too. 

[RejZoR]

11 hours ago, mr moose said:

 

But that doesn't mean you are guilty of anything.  That is the point (and a pretty big one in regard to this discussion).  Cloudflare is not legally responsible for the content, because they are neither the publisher (that's 8ch) not the content creator (that's the users).  They are a web services company that no longer want to associate with 8ch.

 

The best that can be claimed is they do not want to be associated with 8ch content because of it's a legal liability.  That itself doesn't even mean they have publisher like roles.

Except, 99,9999999% of people didn't even know 8chan was hosted/powered by Cloudflare.

[spartaman64]

1 minute ago, RejZoR said:

Because guns are convenient. Take them away and they'll use whatever next is most abundant in USA. My bet is on SUV/pickups. Ram with enough speed into crowd and you'll have a long list again. I've said billion times, guns are not the problem in America, fucked up mentality of people is.

next they will require people to register their cars and have a license to drive them oh wait

[matrix07012]

Here's a statement from Jim Watkins:

 

It's pretty good and addresses the arguments people make. 

[RejZoR]

7 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

next they will require people to register their cars and have a license to drive them oh wait

And that changes what? If someone decides to murder people, I think the last thing they give a fuck about are laws...

[spartaman64]

9 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

And that changes what? If someone decides to murder people, I think the last thing they give a fuck about are laws...

but why do we want to make it easier for them

[AlTech]

And cloudflare just lost me as a potential customer.

 

I'm against censorship and this is censorship by Cloudflare deciding to be Judge Jury and Executioner all at once.