Daily Stormer The Most Censored Publication in History
Andrew Anglin
Daily Stormer
March 27, 2018
I’m always humbled at the real world effects of my little Jew-hate website.
We are now playing a central role in a major suit against Cloudflare. They lost their ability to claim neutrality when they kicked us off, and the porno people who had their copyright violated are demanding recompense.
You see, the porno people were asking Cloudflare to block sites that were illegally distributing their porno content, and Prince said he only ever blocked people with a court order. But he had no court order when he blocked me. So they’re saying “so what is your thing then? You block legal political content but you won’t block illegal copyright violating content?”
Last summer Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince decided to terminate the account of controversial neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer.
“I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet,” he announced.
It was later explained that the move was meant as an ‘intellectual exercise’ to start a conversation regarding censorship and free speech on the internet. In this respect, it was a success, but the discussion went much further than Prince had intended.
Cloudflare always had a policy not to remove any accounts without a court order, so when this was exceeded, eyebrows were raised. In particular, copyright holders wondered why the company could terminate this account but not those of the most notorious pirate sites.
The Daily Stormer removal also became an issue in the piracy liability case adult entertainment publisher ALS Scan had filed previously. After Cloudflare’s CEO was questioned on the matter, it could now be brought up before a jury during the trial as well.
This is something Cloudflare would like to avoid, it appears. A few days ago the company asked the court to exclude any hate group related evidence or arguments from the trial.
“Cloudflare respectfully asks this Court to exclude any evidence or arguments that ALS intends to offer relating to Cloudflare’s services, including termination or non-termination of services, to hate groups,” the company writes.
“This includes but is not limited to services that Cloudflare historically provided to the Daily Stormer website, and Cloudflare’s decision to terminate services to that website following the tragic events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017.”
For the record, I actually agree with Matthew Prince’s “intellectual exercise,” although it caused me a lot of problems.
I actually wrote about this earlier today.
He started a discussion about the role of private companies in controlling what people are and are not allowed to say on the internet, which I believe is clearly going to end with an outcome I want. The government is going to get involved, and give us an internet bill of rights.
The CDN provider adds that the Daily Stormer removal had nothing to do with copyright and is therefore irrelevant. The main reason the company decided to terminate the Daily Stormer account was that the site suggested that Cloudflare supported its views.
To prevent any guilt by association or distracting emotional impact, the CDN provider urges the court to prohibit the issue from being raised at trial.
lol
That was part of the ruse, of course. Prince cited a random comment on forum and said “they” as if every commenter on the site represents the views of “the site.” He then switched up his argument several times and settled on the “intellectual exercise” thing.
I think that was in reality his original goal.
But it is probably going to cost him a settlement to the porno people. And then if the porno people win, he’s going to have to censor for anyone who claims copyright, because it is going to set a precedent.
That sucks for him, but it’s fair enough after the shit he put me through – even if it was for the greater good or whatever.
Meme gods + angering = getting your shit all fucked up.
TO BE CLEAR FOR THE COURT: I nor any other employee of this site ever suggest that Cloudflare supported my views. A random person on the forum joked about it. There was never any “guilt by association,” that is a fake argument. Ask him for the source. It was a commenter, and something I am immune from responsibility for under CDA.
