When Internet companies began banning “hate” and bouncing white supremacists from their services, we cried in alarm that what could be done to them could be done to us — to libertarians, to gun-rights activists, to defenders of the Bill of Rights, to anyone whose opinions some Silicon Valley hotshot decided to hate today.
But I think we at least expected there’d be a fairly long slippery slope and that we weren’t even actually on the edge of that slope yet.
But no. It has already begun.
Brad R., who’s been as much on top of this issue as anyone around, reports that libertarian/gun-rights hero Cody Wilson has also been kicked off CloudFlare. That is his GhostGunner.net is no longer entitled to CloudFlare protection.
Brad notes, “Now, folks, gun rights are not an ‘alt-right’ issue. They’re a libertarian issue, and to a lesser extent a conservative issue. (Conservatives seem to like the right to own guns, but are wishy-washy on the right to manufacture your own guns at home.)”
Not surprising. It is the Internet and things, good and bad, happen on Internet Time. Expect a lot more soon.
If you didn’t live in the path of the eclipse, it was much ado about nothing. Those of us here in lower Nevada, didn’t notice any change at all. Cloudy all day, though.
Liberals are fast to condemn others for what those liberals call ‘sins’. But they are also quick to do the same, and worse, and to revel in their own ‘sanctity’ for doing so. They are all hypocrites and I despise them for it.
I posted something in the Cabal about the latest offensive by Antifa, that of outing people who took part in Unite the Right in Charlottesville and how a local guy where I live was targeted:
Rochester Antifa Group Outed Local Unite the Right Charlottesville Participant
Antifa pretty much considers everybody who doesn’t think like them to be fascists and Nazis and those of us who post here would qualify to be on their hit list.
I’m still skeptical of the ghostrunner.net story. Are there any versions of it that DON’T rely on a screen shot of a billing notice mentioning that the site’s paid subscription is ending?
I’ve updated my blog post to mention Tom’s skepticism. That is a possible alternative explanation. I’m not willing to say “probable” at this point; it would help if Wilson shared all his correspondence with CloudFlare about this matter.
Brad,
Exactly. We have:
1) A billing notice from Cloudflare saying that the site’s “pro” plan is ending; and
2) Cody’s angry tweets.
If Cloudflare was canceling or ending service for any reason other than non-renewal of a paid plan by the customer, there would presumably be an email citing a ToS violation or whatever.
My natural inclination is to assume that Cody is angry for a reason. But I try to resist making assumptions.
I don’t know Cody Wilson. Judging from his tweets he seems easily inflamed, but I’m not sure he’d go so far as to stop payment for a service he’s using, in order to raise a big ruckus about how he had been unjustly terminated. Given Wilson’s involvement with Hatreon, and the CloudFlare CEO’s recent public statements, I rank the probabilities as: first, CloudFlare terminated him because they don’t like his views; a close second, it’s a misunderstanding about an administrative issue that has gotten way out of hand; and a distant third, Wilson is trying to stir up trouble for CloudFlare.
Good points, thank you, Tom and Brad.
Here’s a link to Tom’s larger statement: http://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/11297
“I’m not sure he’d go so far as to stop payment for a service he’s using, in order to raise a big ruckus about how he had been unjustly terminated.”
I don’t see that as being even remotely likely.
In the absence of evidence beyond what I’ve seen shown so far, my guess would be that the period for which he had paid came to an end and that Cloudflare’s billing department told him so.
Why might that surprise him? Expired credit card. Or didn’t set up automated payments and forgot to renew. Or someone else bought the Cloudflare plan for him and stopped paying for it at some point. And maybe he jumped to a conclusion that wasn’t warranted as to why his plan got canceled.
Or maybe not. Maybe it is what people seem to think it is.
I can’t say I’ve had a whole lot of ToS problems with web services I’ve used, but when I have had one, I’ve received a message concerning ToS, not just a billing notice that my pro plan is ending.