Cloudflare pulls support for harassment forum Kiwi Farms, citing threats to human life
The decision comes after a Canadian transgender Twitch streamer became victim of a dangerous harassment campaign by Kiwi Farms users
American internet security company Cloudflare announced on Saturday that it was ceasing to support Kiwi Farms, a controversial online message board that has been linked to harassment campaigns directed against transgender people.
"We have blocked Kiwifarms (sic)," Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince stated in a blog post.
"Visitors to any of the Kiwifarms sites that use any of Cloudflare's services will see a Cloudflare block page and a link to this post. Kiwifarms may move their sites to other providers and, in doing so, come back online, but we have taken steps to block their content from being accessed through our infrastructure."
Cloudflare's decision came after Clara Sorrenti, a Canadian transgender and Twitch streamer, became victim of a dangerous harassment campaign by Kiwi Farms users.
Last month, Sorrenti was the target of a swatting attack by Kiwi Farms users. A swatting attack is an act of providing a false tip to police that someone is planning on carrying out a violent crime, which results in police swarming the home of the victim.
After that incident, Sorrenti launched a campaign under the hashtag #DropKiwifarms, urging Cloudflare to terminate their relationship with the site.
Twitter users from all around the world reposted the hashtag, with some disclosing the abuse they had received at the hands of Kiwi Farms members.
Sorrenti said she left her home in Canada and travelled to Belfast, Northern Ireland, to stay with a friend because she was concerned for her safety after her personal information was published online. However, she said, the internet harassers were able to locate her down there.
Sorrenti, known as Keffals on social media, detailed in videos her experiences being doxxed and swatted. Police in Northern Ireland are investigating threats made against her there.
Cloudflare had initially refused Sorrenti's requests to remove Kiwi Farms, claiming that doing so would be an abuse of authority. Three days previously, Prince posted a blog saying that it felt that its previous removal of other hate and extreme right sites 8chan and The Daily Stormer had been a mistake, arguing that online security services should be 'infrastructure' and available to anyone, no matter how distasteful.
However, in his latest post, Prince prince said (without specifically mentioning Sorrenti) that Kiwi Farms' abuse had got worse as a result of her campaign.
Kiwi Farms was founded in 2013 by Joshua Moon, a former administrator of 8chan. Since then, the website has developed into a place for the harassment and stalking of "lolcows," as Kiwi Farms users describe its victims, who are generally members of sexually, ethnic and political minorities, in the online and physical worlds.
Prince called the decision to block Kiwi Farms "extraordinary" stating that he felt it was "a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with."
He added, however, that 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."
Cloudflare's decision comes amid an ongoing debate about what big internet companies and platforms should do about online hate and harassment campaigns that are organised with the support of their services.
Prince has long expressed discomfort about his company's potential role of deciding what can and cannot be online.
Kiwi Farms has since resurfaced on a Russian-hosted service.
In 2019, Cloudflare pulled its support for the hate-filled forum 8chan after the site was linked to a shooting in El Paso, Texas, that killed 23 people.
Last week, Cloudflare attempted to clarify its position on the issue in a separate blog post.
The post did not reference Kiwi Farms directly, but Cloudflare said its decisions to stop providing support to 8chan in 2019, and to the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer in 2017, had unintended consequences.
"In a deeply troubling response, after both terminations we saw a dramatic increase in authoritarian regimes attempting to have us terminate security services for human rights organizations," the blog post read.