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Comment by wandaluzt | Hacker News Reader

Yeah I really regret using Cloudflare. It was in the back of my mind that they could 'throw me under the bus' to use a British colloquialism.

I'm amazed that this can happen so easily in the US. I realise the US courts probably don't care about UK citizens, but free speech is free speech. I realise that's not without consequence, there's been nothing untrue said about this individual to warrant this action.

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How are US courts relevant in a case concerning a UK citizen being challenged by another UK citizen in the UK?

From what I understand anyone in the UK can make claims, file cases, etc…, against anyone else.

Edit: They may take action in another jurisdiction where they posesss some advantage, but it would have to be taken up in UK courts to actually mete out formal punishment.

Cloudflare is the middleman to my site. The individual got a court to issue a subpoena to Cloudflare, a US based company to find out the identity of the operators of the site.

I edited the prior comment a minute after I posted it.

How is that relevant when they would still need to go to a UK court to go after you in some way?

Which is what you are afraid of, I’m assumming?

At least in the UK a lawyer would tell him whether he had a case or not. At least I'd be dealing with the UK court system where I have some chance of understanding it. I also have legal insurance. I do not genuinely believe it would get to court. Cloudflare just handing over details is just chilling. They could have just asked me to take the content down.

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