Cloudflare Tries to Ignore the World

They share the links to their sites with each other over discord and on other sites. The internet has made communicating easy. You can't stop people from communicating. If this site gets shutdown, a new one will start up and the URL will be dropped into those same channels. If shutting down websites worked, internet piracy would have been solved decades ago.

> It pops their bubble and forces many of them to see the wider world.

That might work when you're talking about shutting down a subreddit or a particular section on an otherwise popular forum filled with diverse subjects and perspectives, but not when you're talking about a site dedicated to the offending topic.

> The community will reform elsewhere, but it will be smaller, weaker, less capable of harm.

There's no evidence for this. Again, it's too easy to get the word out for the next place. You also risk the group spreading out. If one site is shut down, two or more others may create alternates which can then get used by everyone. Having multiple sites spring up helps protect them if one site gets shut down, and it makes it more time consuming and difficult for researchers and law enforcement since they don't seem to have started using site templates.

When websites/social platforms split, or multiple ones spring up to replace one that gets shutdown new tools have to be developed to scrape content since each site is different. It also means there are multiple hosting companies/networks to reach out to and an entire new landscape of laws/compliance to navigate depending on who is doing the hosting. Some providers are much more supportive than others.

As for their capability to do harm, that stays unchanged because the harms they are capable of don't exist on a website or at a URL. The harm is always from the person in front of the screen using these websites. The harder you make it for people to keep an eye on hate groups, the easier it is for the people in them to harm others without notice and we can lose the ability to hold them accountable after the fact.

Many of the rioters at the Capitol were caught because of data pulled from the online spaces they inhabited. Warnings in that case were ultimately ignored by the administration, but at least we knew it was coming and their online preparations have been being used as evidence against them. I for one would like to have that information before the next attack. I want law enforcement and researchers spending their time acting against these groups not chasing down the latest URLs, building and maintaining tools for them, and spending time playing catch-up.

> Also, racists and transphobes are not going to blindside you.

They do it all the time. We know they are out there and we have some idea of what they want, but what's really nice to know are things like what is being planned, who specifically is being targeted, what specific lies and propaganda are being spread, if their communities are growing or shrinking and in which areas, what kind of people are members, what jobs do these members have (doctors? judges? police?), who is most vulnerable to their message, etc. These things can help us fight against them. We can reach out to the vulnerable before these hate groups get their hooks into them. We can craft, refine, and target our messaging to clear up the lies being spread before most people hear them (there's some research showing this in particular is immensely helpful!). We can keep watch on their targets to improve their safety and warn them so they can take steps to better protect themselves.

> Consider that not everyone wants to know exactly who they're targeting today.

And that's the core of the problem really. If you aren't interested in knowing what terrible bullshit bigots are up to, don't visit their sites! That's perfectly fine, but it's not okay to try to get those sites shut down just so that you don't have to be made aware of things that make you uncomfortable, especially when doing so makes it harder for people who actually want to address the problem instead of just ignoring it.

The "shut down their website!" response is just as dangerous in that sense as facebook "thoughts and prayers" or changing your profile picture to "support" some cause. As long as you don't think about it for more than 2 seconds, shutting down a website actually feels like you've done something productive and worthwhile. It gives you comfort and a rush of self-righteousness as if you've made the world a better place, but as real as the feeling you get is, it is still a lie. Deluding ourselves into thinking we've addressed a problem when we haven't can actually prevent us from taking meaningful steps to deal with the issue.

We can't solve anything by blinding each other to the problems around us. "Out of sight, out of mind" isn't a solution, but the problem is very real and needs to be faced. If it's too much for you, step away, but don't advocate for false solutions that hinder the efforts of people doing meaningful work and then lie to yourself that you're helping.

+ context before/after in the thread. You'll find the link to the case documents there as well.