Cloudflare blocks anti-trans site for “emergency threat to human life”
Internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare has “blocked” a site it provides domain services to after identifying “an imminent and emergency threat to human life”.
The company said on Saturday that it has reluctantly stopped providing services to Kiwi Farms, a web forum whose users reportedly bully and carry out doxxing and swatting attacks on transgender people and activists.
Visitors to kiwifarms.net are now presented with a message from Cloudflare stating: “Due to an imminent and emergency threat to human life, the content of this site is blocked from being accessed through Cloudflare’s infrastructure.”
A linked blog post explaining the decision said:
This is an extraordinary decision for us to make and, given Cloudflare’s role as an Internet infrastructure provider, a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with. However, the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site and specific, targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours to the point that we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life unlike we have previously seen from Kiwifarms or any other customer before.
The move is likely linked to a campaign by a trans Twitch streamer, who reportedly has been campaigning for Cloudflare to drop the site after multiple threats to her life, including a recent swatting (where armed police are tricked into showing up at your door).
Last week, the company had tried to explain its continued support for the domain by stating that one two previous occasions it has blocked sites, authoritarian governments have used that precedent to try to get human rights sites pulled.
At this stage, it appears that Cloudflare is using its status as the site’s DNS provider to implement the block. It’s still the domain’s registrar, and so far the Whois record does not reflect an attempt to move it elsewhere.
The domain was registered with DreamHost until last year, but was asked to leave following the suicide of a software developer, one of three suicides reportedly linked to Kiwi Farms users’ behavior.
Could Epik be its next destination? The company is a strong proponent of free speech, but even it has a line when it comes to violence. This could be Epik’s new CEO‘s first big test.
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