Cloudflare PR seems to have handled this badly (judging by the fast shift in HN tone). DNS censorship is wildly unpopular. This should have been one of the easier PR jobs in the tech world: they were handed free positive publicity on a silver platter.
Heck, HN expressly called on Cloudflare to take up this exact fight[0]; and now that they have, they've still, somehow, managed to turn most of HN against them.
How is that even possible?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43448112 ("Italy demands Google poison DNS under strict Piracy Shield law (arstechnica.com)"; 9 months ago, 175 comments)
Top-rated comment: "It's one of the rare cases where the sheer size and international influence of companies like Google and Cloudflare can actually do some good for the world by fighting back against such laws."