Cloudflare Weirdly Quiet on Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[michaelrkn]

Cloudflare's blog (https://blog.cloudflare.com/) has typically discussed the implications of major armed conflict on internet access in the affected countries. 7 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, their blog has been weirdly quiet, and they haven't made any public statements. What gives?

[jgrahamc]

Matthew has been pretty active on Twitter with charts etc. We do plan to blog about it shortly.

[simplebutimpact]

Please provide a simple checkbox/tool for all CloudFlare customers which turns on a page that show russian users how to get uncensored news.

[jgrahamc]

https://blog.cloudflare.com/internet-traffic-patterns-in-ukr...

[legofr]

I hope they don't do anything. It's extremely hypocritical to see companies stand up to Russia yet fail to do the same with China, who in recent years stripped Hong Kongers of their human rights, send innocent Uyghurs to concentration camps and engage in genocide, and caused a global pandemic that has killed millions of people around the world (not to mention their human rights abuses in Tibet, organ harvesting industry, etc., all of which is actively taking place today). They (both the CCP and the majority of the people) also happen to support Russia's invasion.

[muzani]

I'm not pro-China, but a lot of that stuff is debatable. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is not. It's open. It's a clear attack. There are explosions and missiles and tanks.

If you were to say "I'm criticizing China's genocide", you'd have to give evidence of that genocide at this point.

[0xy]

Why should citizens be punished for the actions of their government? If you're an American, how would you feel about being punished for the repeated war crimes of the US war machine (bringing slaves back to Libya, Iraq invasion and more recently drone striking innocent kids in a car in Afghanistan)?

The average Russian internet company and its developers have no part in this war. I don't see why they should be punished.

It seems like open discrimination and prejudice, no less toxic than people avoiding Chinese restaurants due to the coronavirus.

It's also deeply dangerous. Pushing an adversary into a corner can lead to isolation or further aggression. America has been battering North Korea with sanctions for decades, and they're more isolated than ever. However despicable this is, if the talks and negotiations stop then you should be seriously worried.

[muzani]

I'm actually with you on that. Attacking a civilian building during a war is a war crime, even if that building is tied into the war effort (e.g. farms). This isn't anything new; plenty of generals have forbid cutting trees or burning farmland thousands of years ago.

However, sanctions have proven a very effective alternative to war. It's a way of punishing warmongers without anyone getting hurt too badly.

I don't know if it's ultimately effective, though. Something like this pushes both China and DPRK into Russia's corner. And then before you know it, you have WW3 on your hands.

[kokomjolk]

Many russian government owned websites are using cloudlfare.

[tomohawk]

How about this: https://chinatribunal.com/final-judgment/

The China communist party has taken over Tibet, where they have implemented a police state and forced people into camps.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54260732

Same thing in East Turkistan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps

And now Hong Kong.

Same game play. Invade the place, liquidate/supress the population. Move your own people in.

[muzani]

That first and last link is really good evidence. The BBC one is the kind I normally see, but I feel they tend to be more anecdotal and highlight interesting stories over painting an accurate picture.

[andrejguran]

I saw many pro-russian websites (not necessarily in Russia) to be protected by cloudflare

[vanattab]

For what it's worth the most useful website I have found for tracking the conflict is liveuamap.com and it is protected by cloudflare and is very pro Ukrainian.