Who is responsible for the content of the internet? Social media companies have long been under fire to protect their users from accounts that spew hate speech. But companies that host websites have been given a free pass, while firms that sell more obscure web services haven鈥檛 even been asked to participate in the conversation.
That may have changed this week, following violence between white nationalist marchers and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, that killed one protester and . After the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer 鈥� which organised the rally 鈥� mocked the dead protester and urged its readers to , several web hosts refused to carry the site鈥檚 content on their servers. Then yesterday, Cloudflare, which provides security services for websites hosted by other firms, did the same.
Cloudflare鈥檚 CEO, Matthew Prince, acknowledged that by taking a moral position, he had : in hosting content or merely providing other services, any tech company is now implicitly endorsing the views of their customers. Is this a tenable position?
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For a long time, web hosts and other technology companies have excused themselves from any responsibility for the 鈥渃ontent鈥� other people give them to distribute, saying that they are neutral platforms, and that the free speech of their users is paramount.
Hate speech
The debate on hate speech has so far been dominated by social media. It makes sense from a philosophical perspective, says at the Oxford Internet Institute in the UK. On Twitter and Facebook, you are talking in someone else鈥檚 house, so they should define the terms of your conduct while you are there.
But for web hosts this logic is trickier. On your own site, you are considered to be in your own house, and it is harder to make the case for policing your speech there. Unless it is illegal 鈥� images of child abuse, for example 鈥� everything is considered free speech.
Except, of course, it isn鈥檛 really your house. You are putting all your content on to a server that is the physical property of your web host. It鈥檚 no wonder, then, that Daily Stormer鈥檚 hosts decided to kick them out.
Cloudflare is different. They act as hired muscle for websites, denying malicious traffic intended to take them offline through distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. When Prince dropped Daily Stormer, it was like a security guard deciding that it was no longer morally defensible to protect your house. 鈥淚 woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet,鈥� he told staff in an internal email .
Internet fragmentation?
Cloudflare has long resisted taking such a stance. It is one of the few companies that offer DDoS protection, and Daily Stormer was one of its longstanding clients. But now, no matter where the site is hosted, it can be shut down by anyone with the ability to mount an attack 鈥� which can be done easily and cheaply. Indeed, it seems that just hours after Cloudflare terminated its service, the latest incarnation of the Daily Stormer was .
Maybe this isn鈥檛 a bad thing morally. Perhaps free speech and US law can no longer be the sole arbiter of whether or not a tech company chooses its customers, says Ganesh 鈥� they should be more discerning. 鈥淢aybe it鈥檚 time to wonder whether tech companies have a responsibility to stop profiting from things that destabilise democracy.鈥�
But if mainstream companies won鈥檛 provide these services, others will. We could see the fragmentation of the internet into an open, public web and an immoral dark web run by those with no qualms about the content they put online. And what happens if web firms start rejecting less obviously disagreeable sites, such as those dealing in contentious moral issues like abortion?
Ganesh isn鈥檛 sure moral activism of the type practiced by Prince will have the consequences we want. Pushing these kinds of sites into the shadows will cut them off from polite society and could interfere with their ability to radicalise everyday people. Or it could have unintended consequences, such as making them harder for the authorities to monitor.
In any case, we don鈥檛 know if shutting down Daily Stormer鈥檚 protection against DDoS will have an effect on their ability to radicalise people. It could just become a badge of honour.
