So then the answer is for Cloudflare to restructure their company. If they want to be seen as a utility so desperately, make it so!

Not having the legal obligations of a utility, while acting like one (i.e., getting to pull the "neutrality" card in the face of public pressure to drop nazis) is not okay.

As a private company, they can choose how they serve users.

Isn't this what gets said everytime Twitter bans someone?

Cloudflare is allowed to offer services to people you don't like.

And we're allowed to pressure them to act more ethical.

Ok, but your pressuring is not working. We're just trying to save you from wasting your time.

You should look at their stock price.

It took a hit because a bunch of random nobodies are raging about them on HN?

Private companies are allowed to do a lot of immoral things because lobbying prevents the law from accurately reflecting the values of the voting public.

Nazis shouldn't get a website, even if the law permits it, and everyone has a moral obligation to fight fascism.

Everyone has a right to speech, even speech that is not good. That applies to gay people at Stonewall and the KKK marching in DC equally.

If you would restrict one then you restrict both. The freedom is absolute or it does not exist for anyone except the current favored group.

It's like laws on the treatment of prisoners of war - we don't have those rules because we love our enemy, it's because we want our brothers to not be tortured.

the legal defn isn’t really relevant. freedom has taken on new popular meanings in this culture war.

Cf themselves are disincentivized to make that change

What change would that be? I don't know of anything they could do to make themselves a utility besides behaving like one and publicly starting that they intend to do so.

yes there is a deeper systemic crux to this symptom and it won’t be solved by a business

I'm sorry, i don't see how this answers my question. What do you mean by "this symptom"?

there’s no serious suggestion that cf reform themselves away from their incentives. their negative behavior is a symptom of a wider structural problem

What incentives do you claim they are under? I'm sorry, but you seem to be assuming some context i seem not to have.

just capitalism lol sorry for speaking a little suggestively on a vc forum

I really mean my original question. I think what CF is doing is trying to behave like a utility, and i think it's arguably in their best interest[1]. You seem to think that it's very obviously not in their interest. Care to elaborate on why?

[1] because their business scales very well, so they'd prefer to be considered reliable, so that competition doesn't have that available as a differentiator; any attempt at applying content-dependent rules either uses lots of heuristic automation or is reactive in response to Twitter storms, neither of which is predictable and reliable

I think it’s an easy and attractive talking point for them to posture publicly and internally, and to feel a connection to their personal philosophies. So far Cf has at most discussed the thought and process behind their policies and actions. I don’t see them offering up real public control and accountability of their service policy and enforcement. They’ll want to keep control over their business operations and seek the business dealings convenience of perceived neutrality, which they can do through thought leadership bs etc.

If they actually wanted to offer up control to the pubic in some way, how would they go about that? I guess they could create an appeals process for their decisions that's independent of them; or do you have something else in mind?

probably begins with lobbying. which shows the absurdity of it, of course they're not doing that, they just enjoy the public perception of it

Yes, exactly. They want all the benefits of being seen as a utility, but none of the obligations of actually being one. That's called being slimy.

Why not go a step further and call the incentives and the ones who prop them up slimy?

>is as close to an essential service as it gets in the digital world

Thankfully, that's not true at all. About 16% of all sites use Cloudflare (80% of 20%)

“Cloudflare is used by 79.8% of all the websites whose reverse proxy service we know. This is 19.1% of all websites.”

https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cn-cloudflare

>This is not the same as saying "posting on Twitter is a civil right"

It's pretty much the same thing, yes.

Now do what % of people ever need rescuing by the fire service.

would you clarify your intent