I had respect for Cloudflare in the past, but the CEO is obviously an idiot praising Vance's and Elon's actions. Talking about free speech on X, is quite hypocritical.
This is just a sign that top management of Cloudflare cannot be trusted with anything of importance, especially if you are not in bed with Vance/Musk & co.
I read the tweet twice and I don’t see any mention of free speech. What he’s describing, when you look past the rhetoric, sounds ridiculous: a single medium sized country is demanding power to institute global blocks of content on the internet? If that’s an accurate description, that’s deeply concerning for the long term viability of the internet.
"While there are things I would handle differently than the current U.S. administration" and "in this case @ElonMusk is right" are not how you talk about beacons.
Yes, the Administration who is famously so pro Free-Speech, that they intimidate and prosecute senators, when they make a video about "PSA: You can refuse illegal orders"
I cannot believe this is the first time that Cloudflare has been confronted by a local government which asked to perform "global" filtering of content. It is clear for anyone who has worked with bureaucrats that their "global" means "within our jurisdiction". It is extremely weird that he feels emboldened to publicly lash out like this and pull in people who are extremely unpopular in Europe.
You keep saying this, but 'global' has never meant 'in my jurisdiction' in any conversation or document I've ever read. What additional information can you provide the confirms your interpretation is correct?
He actually praised Vance role as a defender of democratic values, but Vance is known to deny Greenlands souvereignity, ready to capitulate to a russian dictator, indifference to police killing a protester recently, etc.
His idea of free speech does not include critical reporting. The wider US government is trying to shut down the BBC with a lawsuit or has public officials threaten individual journalists to their face, basically nothing is too large or too small.
> He actually praised Vance role as a defender of democratic values, but Vance is known to deny Greenlands souvereignity, ready to capitulate to a russian dictator, indifference to police killing a protester recently, etc.
Horrible stuff. I agree. His statement about free speech in the EU, when removed from him as a person, is still true. Progressive media sources agree [1]. If both aisles, as well as European free speech activists, think something is going horribly wrong in Europe, we should listen.
In Spain the LaLiga CEO, Tebas (Soccer association, they are legally fighting against Cloudflare and doing MITM's everwhere) isn't very different in that case (Francoist far right supporter).
Oof, Cloudflare has been one of the most interesting tech companies for me, and one I would have worked for in a heartbeat. But the MAGA pandering in this tweet is quite disappointing. I get it, running a large business in the US these days requires a certain amount of bootlicking, but still. And I say this while generally agreeing with Matthew's stance.
The "haters" who long ago have warned about the risk of Cloudflare MITM'ing global website traffic have been proven right. In the end, Cloudflare is another mass surveillance tool next to Meta/Google/Apple which will be weaponized in the interests of the current US administration.
I hope people go take a look at previous statements by MP/JGC (to be fair, no longer affiliated) with this in mind - I have always found them to be just as degrading and whiny as this announcement reads.
Every time any of these CEOs see even the mildest of pushback, the mask just fully falls off and you see them immediately run to the worst people on the planet.
I feel for his chief legal counsel who must be crying in their office right now. In the US, courts have been deactivated for MAGA-aligned rich people, but Cloudflare CEO is so stupid to assume that the same has happened in Italy. The arrogance and ignorance is astounding.
Nobody gets to these positions unless they're a complete sociopath who've long lost touch with reality. Just listen to anything thiel, musk, altman, vance and other degenerates have to say, some animals display more humanity than these golems
This is just a sign that top management of Cloudflare cannot be trusted with anything of importance, especially if you are not in bed with Vance/Musk & co.