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Comment by cryptica | Hacker News Reader

It's concerning that Cloudflare is monetizing on these disasters by publishing this article and promoting it on HN; in a way, they're using these crimes as an opportunity to improve their brand image. Cloudflare should have dealt with this privately; this matter is between Cloudflare and 8chan - They were always able to choose who they want and don't want to do business with. They were very happy to take the money when it was convenient. If you want to do the right thing according to your values, you should do it quietly; if you brag about your action publicly and you stand to gain something out of it then it completely undermines the intent of the action.

I'd love to see companies actually do the right thing and not talk about it; just like how they don't talk about it when they do the wrong thing. That would be a step forward.

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I think talking about it openly was the right thing to do. People are going to rag on them for this decision (though I assume most will understand) and you have more control over the message if you get out there first rather than waiting to comment til there's a backlash. Maybe it's just lipservice, but I actually liked a lot of what they said in the post about it being obvious 8chan had to go, but that they want to have more objective policies in place rather than deciding who is bad enough to drop on a whim. They made it pretty clear they don't intend to be the internet content police force and that they don't even think this will stop 8chan from existing, so it's not like they were bragging about doing any good really. All-in-all seemed pretty reasonable in my opinion.

Doing it privately just means giving them the opportunity to spin the story in a bad light.

Not a good idea with today's outage society

There have been many vocal calls for cloudfare to drop 8chan. This is not a move to get publicity, but cloudfare giving in to public pressure.

> This is not a move to get publicity, but cloudfare giving in to public pressure.

Well I'm not sure which is worse. Using tragedy for publicity or caving to a mob.

Why do you assume it's only the two options that happen to conform to your narrative?

Why do you reply to a post you find deficient without offering alternative suggestions while simultaneously assuming I'm holding a narrative?

Someone suggested this was an action not of publicity but of mob action, and I merely remarked that I'm not sure which one I find to be worse. Both possibilities concern me.

Seems they can’t win then.

True in a way. But in such a situation the better option is always not to act and invoke plausible deniability. Otherwise we will see repeated efforts.

Although 8chan is probably just a sacrificial anode for 4chan and some other sites, the pressure of censors will probably not subside for a while. Even if their chances are slim, it is really bothering how quickly people throw away rights just to have an opportunity to point their fingers on people they believe are worse than themselves.

The only winning move is to not play.

> I'd love to see companies actually do the right thing and not talk about it;

Was this being intentionally ironic? If companies do the right thing and don't talk about it, then you won't see it. They could be doing it right now, and you'd have no way to know.

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