This is a service, not a device sale. Continuing to provide a service to an organization that is using it to support criminal activity is very different and terminating clients for illegal activity is not controversial.
Not the same case. If you get a bomb on a ups package, that's not UPS' fault.
But if you tell UPS someone is using them to send bombs to people, and they don't act on it in the least and even look like they are shielding bomb senders, then it starts being their fault a little bit, doesn't it?
What if there are one or two bomb senders out of the millions of people sending normal packages, and you have hundreds of thousands of false “tips” that are actually just harassment campaigns? Do you cut off service to the victims just in case? What if you can’t tell what half of the packages even are? Mystery mechanical parts and circuits?
How are they “shielding bomb senders” though?
Because their marketing static page was hosted through cloudflare?
Taking that down wouldn’t have changed anything here either.
This is a flawed analogy. The "keyboard manufacturer" in this scenario is the "router manufacturer" who Cloudflare buys off of, not Cloudflare.
In your scenario Cloudflare is more like a newspaper aggregator which carries all sort filth along with it's normal commentary.
If this was a normal situation one could just decide not to read some filthy newspapers, while letting those who want to read it make that decision for themselves.
But in the Cloudflare scenario all the major relevant normal newspapers decided to publish all their content through Cloudflare and if something objectionable is published along with it, instead of taking your beef to the original publisher, you have to to take it up with Cloudflare who might just forward your details to some very unsavory people without you having a chance to know beforehand.
If a billboard company accepted an ad that included a threat on the president’s life or recruitment info for a known terror organization, are they complicit in the crime? Water is a basic utility so I don’t think that’s a fair comparison
This is more like a firearms dealer selling a gun to someone after they put their intended usage as “robbing banks” in the ATF form
> If a billboard company accepted an ad that included a threat on the president’s life or recruitment info for a known terror organization, are they complicit in the crime? Water is a basic utility so I don’t think that’s a fair comparison
Yet Meta and Twitter are doing fine, while this has happened.
Water was kinda intentional extreme end. Is there a line? Where is the line? Giving food for someone before they make a murder can give you much bigger jailtime than not giving it, and then just ignoring the knowledge that they are going to make a murder. It is not what you do but the act itself.
Nah this is more like a billboard service “selling” a billboard to someone (for free) and the billboard reads something like “wanna have a bank robbed for you? call me” — tbh not sure if that is illegal (probably depends on jurisdiction?)
Note in this example that the billboard seller is not told what messages will be placed on the billboard, and the billboard itself is a digital billboard that can change messages instantly on command and without permission required from the billboard seller.
An example that makes it more clear: "by that logic it's my fault that i was robbed for leaving the door to my house unlocked."
No, it's the robber's fault you were robbed. The robbery is the illegal part. It is not illegal to leave a door unlocked. Back to your train wreck of an example: it is not illegal to sell keyboards, and it is not illegal to provide water to people. Extortion is illegal. Denial of Service attacks are illegal.
That's where the line is. It is the border between legal and illegal.
Cloudflare didn't say "give us money or we'll cause you harm"... so no extortion. Cloudflare infrastructure wasn't used for the attack, so no DoS attack.
They sold services to two customers, one of whom did a crime independent of cloudflare.
If a robber sees Bob buy a bunch of expensive electronics at WalMart, and then buys a crowbar and robs him, is WalMart somehow responsible for the robbery?
> If a robber sees Bob buy a bunch of expensive electronics at WalMart, and then buys a crowbar and robs him, is WalMart somehow responsible for the robbery
Yes, if Walmart somehow knew robber’s intentions, but sold anyway. That is the primary question actually. Was the intent or act known or not.
Should Walmart be responsible for performing background checks on people buying crowbars to ensure they don’t intend to do harm? What about lighter fluid? Rat poison? Baseball bats?
That's a fallacy. This community is rational. Feelings are exactly as rational as ideas. You can use feelings to express irrationality - but as humans, we are 100% composed of feelings. Every rational thought we have is rooted in feelings. It's completely valid and interesting to talk about the feelings of some technology's impact, especially regarding visual art.
by redefining "rational" to include anything originating from human biology, you conflate the origin of a thought with its logical validity
While its true that humans are biological entities influenced by emotion, "rationality" refers to a specific process of evaluating claims based on logic and evidence.
to claim that feelings are "exactly as rational" as ideas simply because they share a common source in the brain is a category error. it’s like arguing that a car's exhaust is "exactly as functional" as its engine because both are composed of the same metal.
