I don’t know how we’re still retreating to “private companies can do what they want” in the free speech debate on HN. It’s clear that those who want Kiwi Farms gone are resorting to illegal means such as DDoSing to get what they want. A very small number of companies like Cloudflare can effectively defend against this. In this position they act as utilities, a category of private businesses that is held to strict standards of free speech. Sadly the law has not caught up to this reality.

In their market position, Cloudflare has the power of a small government. In American capitalist society in particular, there’s increasingly no daylight between large corporations and the government. If the big companies say you can’t speak, what good is the right?

What Cloudflare appears to have done is cave to a Twitter mob in violation of their own stated principles and common sense. This has irreparably harmed not only Cloudflare’s reputation, but the prospects for free and open speech on the Internet.