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Comment by pclmulqdq | Hacker News Reader

Is the phone company responsible for connecting content? How about your internet service provider? At what level does someone become responsible?

This is a question for the law, not for the mob. The internet, thanks to a completely fucked up legal regime (section 230), is currently very gray.

Facebook and Twitter, which are commonly used to facilitate large-scale violent riots and play host to far more doxxing and cyberbullying than kiwifarms could ever hope to, get a pass despite being the main facilitator of that communication. In contrast, infrastructure services like Cloudflare (and even AWS) have been subject to intense pressure to drop other sites where people say bad things.

Under this theory, we need to be taking Facebook and Twitter offline immediately. And maybe also the phone company too.

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At all levels, and Cloudflare isn't exempted from that. Social media platforms already routinely decline to host content via moderation.

So is it your position that the phone company should disconnect anyone that they believe is saying mean things about people?

Mainstream social media also largely does not moderate nearly well enough to uphold the standard that you are applying to Cloudflare.

Does "at all levels" include ISPs? Electricity providers?

All levels of awareness have responsibility. While telcos and ISPs do have enforcement mechanisms when they are made aware, using Cloudflare's own suggested model, Cloudflare is closer to the content and therefore responsible earlier.

> All levels of awareness have responsibility. While telcos and ISPs do have enforcement mechanisms when they are made aware

I don't think that's right? Legally we've set things up so that no matter how despicable your site is, your telco or ISP can't decide on their own shut you off. They're regulated as infrastructure, and are required to keep doing business with you. They'll shut you off if they receive a court order, but not on their own judgement.

Telcos and ISPs are forbidden from taking you offline for speech. The process is about whether you have done something illegal that goes beyond speech (for example, accessing pirated material or child pornography).

Well, the phone company can't legally listen in on your private conversations.

In contrast, nothing prevents Cloudflare from looking at a company's public-facing website (ie as an unprivileged visitor just going to the domain) and deciding whether or not one wants to do business with that company.

There is no law preventing your ISP from surveilling you. Are they responsible if you harass someone online and they allow you to keep your service?

Try to stay on topic, I'm not going to rewrite my arguments over and over.

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