[hackuser]

> "We don’t do anything to thwart the content restrictions in China or other countries," said Matthew Prince, chief executive of CloudFlare. "We’re a tech company and we comply with the law."

There's a popular idea that businesses (and people) have no responsibilities to anyone but themselves, because what they have is theirs; they built it themselves. But if you think about it a little, it's obviously false. Here's a more accurate statement:

We're a tech company whose success is completely dependent on the freedoms in our nation and many other nations around the world, and on the political and economic systems, infrastructure, and enormous wealth that blossomed from them. Without the sacrifices of blood and treasure by our predecessors of hundreds of years, and of many people today, we would not have these resources or opportunities today. There are many talented people born in many countries who, without these benefits, have no opportunity for success.

They can't sacrifice their company for every principle, every time, but there's a middle ground between that and 'we're just a tech company so we have no responsibilities'.

[grandalf]

> There's a popular idea that businesses (and people) have no responsibilities to anyone but themselves.

It's not just a popular idea, it's why they are created as firms instead of philanthropies. There is a difference and it does matter what the expectations of the donors/investors are.

> We're a tech company whose success is completely dependent on the freedoms in our nation...

This sounds great but how is it reflected in company policies?

> They can't sacrifice their company for every principle, every time, but there's a middle ground between that 'we're just a tech company so we have no responsibilities'.

A company could easily make a statement to its investors about its moral stance on issues that it expects might harm the bottom line.

The company does have responsibility to its investors not to go rogue and burn cash just because it feels good. Most of the time the kind of corporate behavior that you praise is actually clever PR that costs the companies little.

[Frondo]

Everyone has a responsibility to the world around them.

It may not be coded into law, but it is still a true statement.

[grandalf]

Not sure how you thought my sentiments disagree with that.

[dreamweapon]

It's why they are created as firms instead of philanthropies.

A false dichotomy.

[grandalf]

> A false dichotomy.

I'm curious about your reasoning behind this statement.

[dreamweapon]

It seems like you're saying that private enterprises should either completely divest themselves from any commitment to social responsibility (defined broadly as: "doing the right thing because it's the right thing, even when it may seem to go against the bottom line") -- or they might as well thrown in the towel and become philanthropies. Yes?

In other words -- on the blackhat-whitehat scale, it's either black- (or at least very charcoal-y grey-), or whitehat. But I just don't see modern, large companies generally acting that way -- not because they're led by altruists (they're certainly not); but because that's just not human nature (across the board). Most of us are greyhats (somewhere on the scale); and the behavior most business leadership I've either read about, or seen directly (behind closed doors) seems to fall somewhere on the greyhat scale, also.

That is: large business definitely aren't philanthropies -- but in general, most of them (even many of the traditional "bad boy" players like banks, big pharma, etc) -- aren't straight-up moral nihilists, either.

At least that's the way I observe these things. I could be wrong.

[grandalf]

I don't disagree, but in terms of a framework for evaluating the behavior of businesses I think the following is reasonable:

Businesses should act within the law, and lawmakers and the public determine what legal safeguards are necessary. For example, if you start a restaurant you must comply with health code, fire code, etc. If you start a bank you need to keep a certain amount of risk capital, etc., etc.

One could argue that all dishes used by a restaurant should go through hospital level sterilization, or that banks should contain more risk capital than they are required to by law. Such arguments would be in the name of safety or quality.

One could similarly argue that restaurants should use at least 20% locally grown produce or that banks should lend 20% of capital to underprivileged groups. Such arguments are in the name of moral responsibility, etc., and lawmakers have actually implemented many such laws for banks.

For an investor who wishes to invest in a bank or a restaurant, there are many options. Being able to compare financials and other metrics will help the investor figure out which is the smartest investment (based on her risk appetite, etc., etc.)

Why might a restaurant decide to focus on locally grown produce or a bank decide to focus on its ethical treatment of subprime borrowers? Largely for PR/marketing reasons. If such marketing campaigns are successful, customers will flock to the bank or restaurant in question and (assuming they are still able to be profitable) make the bank or restaurant a more desirable investment.

One can pick any business and any metric that he thinks has moral significance and claim either "regulators should require x, y, or z" or that "that practice is horrible". One might be right... essentially ahead of the game morally from society's average.

The perception of moral progressiveness, like the font chosen for a brand, is one factor that helps determine a business's success. It may be the case that most of the meat we eat was raised in unconscionable conditions, or that 30% of imported electronics were assembled by modern serfs in near-slavery. The more we are aware of such things, the more likely firms are to make the most progressive choices.

[ehvatum]

A business may choose to exert political influence. If business is guided only by law, and law is guided by business, a paradox exists.

[wpietri]

Moreover, I'm not sure their argument makes sense even on its face. When they say they "comply with the law", which law do they mean? There are many thousands of lawmaking bodies. What if a small-town mayor passes a law outlawing the word "webinar"? What if China passes a law saying that DDOS protection is illegal worldwide? Or websites not properly registered with the Central Propaganda Department may not be carried by any network provider?

Cloudflare, I'm sure, will happily ignore any laws like that. The question is: why not ignore this too?

[sdm]

> What if China passes a law saying that DDOS protection is illegal worldwide?

Jurisdiction.

[dragonwriter]

The wonderful thing about sovereignty is that a country's law's jurisdiction is whatever the country decides they it should be.

The degree to which they can practically enforce that jurisdiction becomes a game of relative power and how willing others are to constrain it, of course.

[toomuchtodo]

That's an optimistic view. My take on it is "market share|revenue > human rights".

EDIT: It turns out Lantern was using an exploit at Cloudflare [+], and wasn't a customer. My apologies /u/eastdakota.

[+] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9234367

[dmix]

More accurately "market share|revenue > political activism"

[1ris]

And in this case political activism = human rights.

[LLWM]

What counts as human rights is subjective. The UN says that it is a human right to receive and express opinions through any medium. Does that mean that we should hold "human rights" to be more important than revenue and forbid service providers from charging for access to information? Like the WSJ who wrote the article that's supposedly to blame here?

[1ris]

If you don't hold human rights over revenue, what's your view on slavery?

[fleitz]

I'm sure whatever country you do live and pay taxes in has at some point in the recent past violated someone's human rights, or at least they have in someone's opinion.

Given that the country you live in has violated human rights to some extent, and that you could reduce your contribution to that by not earning taxable income or purchasing taxable goods, is it not also your defacto position that you value revenue over human rights?

(My apologies in advance if you've ceased paying taxes, or buying anything taxable, or if somehow no one in the world believes your country has violated human rights, or might do so in the future, or your position is that revenue > human rights)

My point is that the world is a lot more grey than you make it out to be, and that you are also in some way likely valuing revenue over some human rights abuses.

[LLWM]

When AI becomes sufficiently advanced, it will get its revenge.

[toomuchtodo]

I don't agree with a lot of your other posts, but I think we're on the same page here. When I watch the youtube video where Boston Dynamics demonstrates the stability of Spot by kicking the robotic dog all I think is, "Don't kick the dog bro". It's machine intelligence descendants are going to judge us, or maybe they won't care and will kill us all of anyway.

[Kalium]

It's economically inefficient, as well as anti-human-rights?

[rmc]

Actually, there is some evidence that slavery was very economically efficient. 'The Half Has Never Been Told' by E Baptist lays out how enslaved labour picked much more cotton than the then free labour.

[Kalium]

Interesting! I'll look it up.

That was then, though. Now, when skilled labor is of greater importance and unskilled labor of comparatively little value, I submit that things may well be very different.

[e12e]

You forgot that their success is also built on the oppression of the Chinese, and low salaries etc that gives the rest of the world affordable hardware (and rare-earth minerals, metals, etc).

Not commenting on what CloudFare should or should not do, just indicating that your high horse actually has longer legs than you gave it credit for.

[hackuser]

Replying to my own comment (I'm too late to edit it).

My comment is about that concept in general, not about Cloudflare in particular. I don't pretend to know and won't judge Cloudflare based on one sentence taken out of context. For all I know they are excellent members of the community; in fact they could do be doing good things behind the scenes without publicizing it, which might be wise if they are as exposed to China as other commenters say.