Kiwi Farms forum blocked by Cloudflare because the forum has been spreading hate and fueling harassment

Cloudflare, a company that provides internet services, made the announcement on Saturday that they have blocked Kiwi Farms, an online forum that has become notorious for spreading hatred and fueling harassment, citing escalating targeted threats that are a “immediate threat to human life.” Cloudflare made this announcement in response to the fact that Kiwi Farms had been blocked.

In a blog post that was written by Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince, the company stated, “We have blacklisted Kiwi Farms.” “Visitors to any of the Kiwi Farms websites that make use of any of the services provided by Cloudflare will be presented with a Cloudflare block page and a link to this post. Despite the fact that we have taken measures to prevent their content from being accessed through our infrastructure, it is possible that Kiwi Farms will switch their websites to those of other providers and, as a result, go back online.

Prince referred to it as a “extraordinary decision,” and he went on to say that given Cloudflare’s function as a provider of Internet infrastructure, he felt it to be “a risky one that we are not comfortable with.”

According to a letter written by Prince, “however, the rhetoric on the Kiwi Farms site and specific, targeted threats have grown over the last 48 hours to the point where we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life”

This decision was made just a few days after Prince and Alissa Starzak, who is the global public policy chief for Cloudflare, recognized how the firm deals with abuse. However, that message did not mention Kiwi Farms by name, and it stated that services will still be provided to Kiwi Farms.

According to the statement made in that blog post, the most common option would be to terminate the security services for information that “our staff personally feels is filthy and unethical.” “But, in the long term, such choices make it more difficult to preserve content that supports oppressed and marginalized voices from attacks.”

Cloudflare made news in 2019 after publicly removing support for the message board 8chan, renowned for housing violent hate speech and where the gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso posted his manifesto. Prior to this point, Cloudflare had stopped the service it provided to the white nationalist website Daily Stormer.

Cloudflare which offers a range of services to digital clients, from cyber security to web hosting, faced criticism recently for providing security services to Kiwi Farms, whose users have doxxed and harassed transgender people and where a campaign that specifically targeted a popular trans Twitch streamer pushed her into hiding.

Clara Sorrenti, also known as Keffals on social media, is a streamer and activist who has detailed in videos her experiences with being doxxed, which is when someone’s private information is published online, typically in cyberbullying and cyberattack scenarios, and swatted, which is a form of cybercrime that aims to send armed emergency personnel to the residence of a victim after a hoax 911 call. Keffals is the one who initiated the #DropKiwiFarms movement, in which she documented her own experience.

Keffals reacted positively to Cloudflare’s decision by publishing a blog post with the heading “The fight is won, but the war is not finished.”

The #DropKiwiFarms movement issued a statement in which it claimed that Cloudflare has removed its protection for the notorious far-right hate forum Kiwi Farms. “As pointed out by the CEO of the company, Matthew Prince, the website has seen an increase in the number of threats made against human life over the past 48 hours, and these threats are occurring at a considerably faster rate than law enforcement is able to keep up with them. Even though Kiwi Farms has been operational for more than ten years, at no other time in the site’s existence have they been subjected to this level of criticism. This is a historical moment where hundreds of individuals have risen up and taken a statement against internet harassment and bigotry.”

However, the campaign issued a warning that despite the fact that they are “pleased” with Cloudflare’s decision, “it doesn’t mean we should rest on our laurels.”

Even though we should celebrate today, it’s possible that their community will continue to exist in some form. We have demonstrated that we are able to move mountains when we work together, and if we continue to stand together and fight back, we can see this through to the conclusion,” the message concluded.