Freedom of speech is also our freedom to read or freedom to hear. When tech giants delete entire websites from the internet, we've all lost our ability to choose for ourselves what we'd like to read or hear.
Freedom of speech is also our freedom to read or freedom to hear. When tech giants delete entire websites from the internet, we've all lost our ability to choose for ourselves what we'd like to read or hear.
Moral decisions are a two-edged sword: we may all agree kiwifarms is bad and should be blocked because we agree trans people have a right to live without harassment; and if Cloudflare agrees with us, they'll block kiwifarms and we'll rejoice. But what if Cloudflare had a different value set from ours? What if they decided to block all pro-abortion-rights websites? They would, after all, be within their right.
It's my opinion that governments should ultimately be the deciders of what goes. Kiwifarms is allegedly committing several crimes. What should be investigated is: why did law enforcement not get involved sooner? After all, Cloudflare can be ordered to stop serving a person or legal entity by a court of law. So why hasn't that happened?
I agree ideally, but if you always wait for literal legal orders, any moderation would take _ages_. So you'd always need some sort of value judgement on the provider's part to interpret the law as they see it and act.
EDIT: not to mention governments are also putting pressure on providers to act fast.