[zaptheimpaler]

I just don't think its ever going to be realistic for a company to be held responsible for everything every customer puts up on the web, because there are millions/billions of them.

The problem is any organized body of people can start a similar pressure campaign against Cloudflare or Facebook or Reddit. It is now their job to be a complete legal system - listen to each complaint, adjudicate who is right and who is wrong, what is ethical or not, and respond. Which websites are allowed to exist, which subreddits, which ads and messages are okay and which aren't..

This is an incredibly dangerous & undemocratic precedent because those companies answer to stockholders not citizens. There is a reason the judicial system is set up the way it is, with elected lawmakers and juries of ordinary people.

[viraptor]

> ever going to be realistic for a company to be held responsible for everything every customer puts up on the web

It's good that this is not what people expect from them then. We're still taking about most egregious examples discussed for years with documented lethal real world impact. Just like they already say in their TOS they would act on.

[gruez]

>It's good that this is not what people expect from them then. We're still taking about most egregious examples discussed for years with documented lethal real world impact.

So it's a justice system that only gets pulled out in the event of mass social pressure? Is that supposed to be something to be proud of?

[moomin]

The problem with your argument is that CloudFlare didn’t act to benefit ordinary citizens, it acted to protect its shareholders from a material risk to the company. It’s always been the case that businesses have to choose who they do business with and that clients can take their business elsewhere if they don’t like how a company behaves, very much including demanding that other clients are dropped.

Companies started acting like they shouldn’t need to know what their clients are doing only 20 years ago and it’s given us widespread counterfeiting, scam robocalls and DDoS attacks. Of course they want to continue doing it, because they’re making money hand over fist. Doesn’t mean we should let them.

[brnt]

> Companies started acting like they shouldn’t need to know what their clients are doing only 20 years ago

Only _some_ companies, and for obvious reasons: there is good money to be made in shady business. Playing the naivité card is apparently enough to convince some. But it's just a card, they know precisely why they are doing it, and supporting free speech ain't it.

[alexvoda]

Than lets go one level closer to the user.

Should ISPs proactively block certain websites to all clients under threat of leaving of a group of clients?

I think we want some companies to behave like utilities and be agnostic.

[moomin]

Honestly, there’s quite a few firms that want to have their cake and eat it on this one. Not just internet firms, but credit card companies. And I’m 100% not onboard with that.

[QuadmasterXLII]

"organized body of people can start a similar pressure campaign against Cloudflare or Facebook or Reddit"

Cancel culture is when people assemble and then say things in support of a cause I disagree with- in particular, it's really bad when they petition a company or government to do something I think is wrong. It's more and more common, and it's a real threat to free speech. I think the government should ban it.