In addition to the ongoing criticism of social media platforms and the declining share price
Cloudflare has finally gotten rid of Kiwi Farms, a forum specifically designed to harass, doxx and even threats of violence against transgender people, despite ongoing protests against its policies for customers.
Kiwi Farms has been around since 2013. Most recent calls(Opens in the fresh open window) to Cloudflare to end the forum from its customer list, which will make it much less difficult for users to harass or doxx their victims–came when Twitch streamer Clara “Keffals” Sorrenti documented her struggle to ensure the safety of her family following Kiwi Farms users “swatted” her in the ongoing battle against them.
Cloudflare Chief Executive Officer Matthew Prince and Global Head of Public Policy Alissa Starzak said(Opens in an entirely New window) in an August. 31 post on their blog that the firm that provided Kiwi Farms with protection from distributed denial of service (DDoS) and also served as its Content Delivery Network (CDN) would not leave the forum’s customer base despite being aware that its users could be threatening the safety and privacy of a lot of people.
The company also concealed responses, comments and messages from a number of social media platforms, urging it to shut down Kiwi Farms. The increased examination of Cloudflare’s policies came with a drastic drop in the stock of the company–Google Finance reported that its shares traded at the New York Stock Exchange dropped from a peak of $78.61 on August. 11, to $58.71 at the time of writing.
Prince announced(Opens in an entirely New window) the fact that Cloudflare had removed Kiwi Farms on Sept. 3. in an widely(Opens in fresh screen) criticized(Opens in new open) blog post that made clear that the company was not happy with this change. Prince said:
This is an extremely difficult choice to make and, in light of Cloudflare’s function in the role of an Internet infrastructure provider, it is a risky one that we’re not comfortable with. But, the statements on the Kiwifarms website and the precise threat vectors have increased in the past 24 hours to the point where we believe that there is an extraordinary emergency that poses a risk to human life that is not like anything the ones we’ve previously witnessed from Kiwifarms or any other client before.
Vice reports(Opens in the fresh browser) in which Kiwi Farms became inaccessible shortly after the announcement by Cloudflare. Visitors instead were presented with an error message that reads “Due to an imminent and emergency threat to human life, the content of this site is blocked from being accessed through Cloudflare’s infrastructure.” The error message is still visible when you attempt to access the website at the time of writing.
In the time, Kiwi Farms has reportedly(Opens in a new tab) changed onto Telegram. Telegram messenger platform.
