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A comment on Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure called “Cloudflare”. Parent comment

Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by ztjio on Monday July 20, 2020 @10:26PM (#23903817)
I used to feel and think this way. But recent events, and the trajectory of the internet over the last decade has changed my mind completely.

We must stop giving excuses to the massive centralization, to the enormous companies that step in and rent-seek what is supposed to be a distributed system.

The most powerful tool we could have to get a proper internet back is the simple concept of accountability. If I was a bakery and I made a cake with poison because I was specifically asked to do so by a customer, I would still be accountable for the dangerous thing I made.

Stop making excuses for these companies with basically infinite money. They are the last ones who need it. What we all need from them is accountability.

This also goes for section 230 protections. We do not need Twitters and Facebooks and Hacker Newses and other such companies that would supposedly not exist without section 230 protection. It's clear now, in retrospect, that accountability is far more important than the license to grow enormous without any responsibility for the toxicity your giant bloated corpse of a business unleashes onto the world.

Anyone making a captcha product can and should be expected to make it work for anyone. And if there is basis for lawsuit, it should be the maker of the broken thing that faces it.

Hell, sue them both. Neither entity deserves a free pass. They both had a part to play in the exclusion.

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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by afiori on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @02:08AM (#23904669)
This does not really make sense, it would be perfectly fine if two products existed, a cheap inaccessible captcha and a more expensive perfectly accessible one with companies offering both of them to users.
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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by StavrosK on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @05:06AM (#23905406)
Fine in what sense? In my opinion, it is not fine to block disabled users out of webpages just because it costs a bit more to let them in.
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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by afiori on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @05:59AM (#23905639)
That is not happening in what I described. A webpage could decide to offer the cheapest working captcha as a default with a "Are you using assistive technologies?" / "Do you need help?" link to a more accessible service.

I don't think that is will be common in the wild, but it is an argument against regulating captcha providers rather than websites.

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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by StavrosK on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @06:27AM (#23905747)
Oh, I see what you mean. There may be a market for "accessible CAPTCHA", that's audio-only.
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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by alexnewman on Friday July 24, 2020 @11:47PM (#23946721)
Have you tried our accessibility option? It's perfectly accessible https://www.hcaptcha.com/accessibility
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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by Thorrez on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @12:08AM (#23904262)
If we want to regulate the captcha industry there should be a law passed specifically regulating the industry. Blindsiding the industry with judgments against them when there are no laws about it will decrease confidence in the rule of law, which will hurt the economy as businesses lose confidence in their ability to predict the future.
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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by bayindirh on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @02:09AM (#23904673)
Rules and laws are good tools and, I understand how law works in the most superficial way but, I fail to understand normalization of ignorance of some required features with the "nobody forced us to do this, so we just didn't care".

As human beings first and programmers later, we should understand that people with disabilities exist and assistive technologies need attention.

Why, as decent human beings, don't we do something nice without the push of laws, for once?

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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by Thorrez on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @03:11AM (#23904918)
I agree we should do nice things without the push of law. But ztjio was advocating for the push of law without following the process of creating a law, which I disagree with.
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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by dependenttypes on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @05:50AM (#23905606)
There are already laws regarding accessibility.
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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by Thorrez on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @06:58AM (#23905869)
Are Captcha companies violating those laws? If so, then yes, enforce them. If not, then either change the laws or leave the Captcha companies be.
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Re:Turns out half the internet has a single-point-of-failure... by dependenttypes on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @11:26AM (#23907558)
> Are Captcha companies violating those laws?

I would argue that this is the case, yes.

> If so, then yes, enforce them

If only I could.

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