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Comment by dannyw | Hacker News Reader

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dannyw

There are two services that are gateways for small, independent (but prominent / notorious) internet sites:

CloudFlare and Google Project Shield.

These are the two only services that provide affordable DDoS protection, even for 100++Gbps, for $200/month or free.

Tell me another provider like CloudFlare that will protect a blog against a 100Gbps DDoS for $200 a month.

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By the way, regulating CloudFlare by limiting its ability to choose customers would be unconstitutional under the 1st amendment, would it not? There are a very specific number of protected classes that private individuals or companies can't discriminate against.

"Do not discriminate against hate speech" is not a class.

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> hate speech" is not a class.

As a hacker, do you not see that there's a security vulnerability here that's big enough to drive a truck through? You simply label whatever you don't like as hate speech, then you're magically allowed to censor it.

Cloudflare can and will censor everything they want without the need for labels

When you subscribe to their service you agree to their terms

The right to be published or served through a gateway is not an universal human right

> The right to be published or served through a gateway is not an universal human right

This is demonstrably not true; it just requires the victim to be a member of a protected class. Private businesses can not legally deny service to ethnic minorities, women, people with disabilities, or gay people.

The law determined many decades ago that some people are more equal than others.

> Private businesses can not legally deny service to...

They can deny service to those people. They just can't do it because of their membership in those protected classes.

> This is demonstrably not true; it just requires the victim to be a member of a protected class.

What's a protected class?

What I mean is: I'm from Italy, Europe, what is a protected class here may not be a protected class where Cloudflare operates.

The only protected classes are those that Cloudflare decided are protected.

You can't force them to publish for example nazi propaganda because it comes from a disabled person.

What about the telephone company? Can AT&T cut off phone service to groups of people they politically dislike?

I don't believe they can. But they are also a common carrier, unlike ISPs and similar. Once ISPs become defined as common carriers, then the argument will have more merit. But expect that to happen anytime soon, because the big guys like Comcast and Cox don't want to allow anyone and everyone to have access to their infrastructure.

All I'm trying to highlight here is that our government already does have some limits on what infrastructure companies can do to shut off service to customers. I feel that Internet infrastructure companies like Cloudflare should have at least as much responsibility to be content neutral as a phone company, and I do hope the law catches up here.

I certainly don't think it would be "unconstitutional" to bar infrastructure companies from moderating content, like we already do with telcos.

> I feel that Internet infrastructure companies like Cloudflare

Cloudflare it's not an internet infrastructure company

It's a service

We are not talking about cutting the internet connection, we are talking about terms of service.

Don't use Cloudflare, host your server behind your DSL line and write whatever you want.

As a libertarian, do you not see there's a security vulnerability here that's big enough to drive a truck through? You just put all speech under the control of private monopolists you control, and then you're magically allowed to censor whatever you don't like!

;-)

I think there are two main enforcement tactics.

1. Classify them as a utility like the phone company.

2. Allow safe harbor provisions only for those companies that do not do content discrimination. You can either choose to provide your services to every legal user that pays and have safe harbor, or you can choose who you service based on content and be liable for that content. For example, someone hosts pirated movies. If the company had no content discrimination, it would have safe harbor and would not be liable. If the company had engaged in content discrimination, then the copyright owner could also sue and win damages from the company.

> By the way, regulating CloudFlare by limiting its ability to choose customers would be unconstitutional under the 1st amendment, would it not?

You're correct from a legal perspective, but Matthew Prince himself called it "dangerous" to do what they did. I think with good reason. While it's legally okay, it definitely raises valid questions, not about what's legal, but about what's right.

If a bar has the right to not accept Nazi customers, and they have it, why not a service provider?

The danger is inherent to the kind of service you're using: a private company in the US

Not just a company in the US, but the right of any group of people who are not the government to freely associate in the US. Free association has implicit within it, the right of people to choose who they do not wish to associate.

Exactly right

My point is that especially if you are not from US, a service from a private company in a foregin country, cannot be considered a public utility.

If such a service don't want to support nazi propaganda is their right to shut it down.

I see no risk for everyone's freedom.

There is also OVH and Voxility and a bunch of other affordable options. These days you really can get something with DDoS protection for five bucks.

But I still agree that large infrastructure companies should not be able to choose customers freely.

Yes, if the government were to mandate that Cloudflare refuse service to neo-Nazi websites, that would be a violation of the First Amendment. But it is not illegal for Cloudflare itself to refuse service based on content.

I think the GP was saying it would be unconstitutional to _force_ Cloudflare to serve neo-Nazis.

"We needed a constitutional ammendment for many protected classes, because otherwise there's issues with other rights" is the idea here perhaps?

It would be unconstitutional, though a version this question is going before the Supreme Court right now in that case involving Christian bakers and gay wedding cakes. I think the baker's lawyers are basing their argument on that sort of reasoning.

I haven't followed the case closely enough to tell if that premise itself is actually in question, or if it's whether that premise is overridden by some other (e.g. regarding anti-discrimination laws).

The baker's lawyers are arguing that a customized cake is a form of personal artistic expression, and that punishing a business for refusing to provide such an item amounts to compelled speech.

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