Potential downtime this weekend (2 Sept - 5 Sept)

[denise]

Beginning this weekend (2 Sept - 5 Sept), users may experience short periods of site slowdowns or difficulty accessing the site. If you do have access issues, they shouldn't last long for you in particular, but the length of time where access issues are possible should last for about a week or so. We wanted to warn you in advance. You may not notice anything, or the site may be down, slow, or unreachable for you for brief periods. The exact length of downtime, and the total potential downtime window, will depend on your internet provider's settings.

This downtime is necessary to move our domain nameservice, our content delivery network (CDN) services, and our denial-of-service protection services away from Cloudflare, our current provider of those services. We've been discussing migrating away from Cloudflare recently due to their refusal to deny services to sites that endanger people's offline security and incite and target people for offline harassment and physical violence. That conversation became more urgent yesterday when, in a blog post about the campaign to encourage Cloudflare to behave more responsibly regarding the types of sites they enable to remain on the internet, Cloudflare's CEO revealed that they regret past enforcement actions where they closed the accounts of sites containing child sexual abuse material and sites that advocate for white supremacist terrorism.

We do not believe we can ethically continue to retain the services of a company that could write that blog post. As those of you who've been with us for a while know, our guiding principles involve supporting our users' expression to the maximum extent possible, and we reaffirm our commitment to protecting as much of your content that's unpopular but legal under US law as we can. However, we also believe it's more vital, not less, for a company with such free-speech maximalist views to have clear, concrete, and well-enforced policies regarding content that does cross their lines, including refusing to provide services to sites that actively incite and manufacture threats to people's physical safety, contain child sex abuse material, or advocate or instruct people how to conduct terrorism. That Cloudflare refuses to refuse services to those types of sites, and has expressed regret about the instances in the past where they have refused services to those types of sites, means we feel we can no longer ethically retain their services.

Things may be slightly bumpy for a bit as we make the transition and work to find the best replacements for the services we've been relying on Cloudflare to provide. We're very sorry for any slowdowns or downtime that may happen over the next week and a half or so, and we hope you'll bear with us as we make the move.

[EDIT: Because there are many of you and one of me, please check the comments before replying to see whether your issue has been addressed! Also, in accordance with the official DW community comment guidelines, please refrain from personal attacks, insults, slurs, generalizations about a group of people due to race/nationality/religion, and comments that are posted only to mock other commenters: all of those will be screened.]

[EDIT 7:12pm EDT: Because the temperature of many comments is frustratingly high, people don't seem to be reading previous replies before commenting as requested, and some people are just spoiling for a fight, I'm screening all comments to this entry by default while I can't be directly in front of the computer for the remainder of the day. We'll unscreen comments intermittently for the rest of the night as we have time, and I'll systematically unscreen all good-faith comments that don't contain personal attacks, insults, slurs, generalizations about a group of people due to race/nationality/religion, and comments that are posted only to mock other commenters when I return.]

[Edit 9/2 6:05pm EDT: having left comment screening on overnight, and seeing the percentage of abusive, bad-faith, or detached-from-reality comments, comment screening will remain on for this entry indefinitely. I'll keep an eye on it for another day or two and unscreen what needs to be unscreened, but probably not longer after that.]

Comments

[mark]

+100.

[denise]

♥

[pearwaldorf]

These people suck and I'm glad you're transitioning away from them. If money is the only thing they'll listen to, I hope the message comes through loud and clear from you guys and others.

[denise]

These questions are difficult questions, and there aren't easy answers -- when Mark and I started DW, the vast (vast) majority of our pre-announcement "hashing out whether we're on the same page with the details, not just the superficials" effort went to talking through questions of content policy and how to balance our "we want to protect as much speech as possible" and "we want to be a place where people feel safe to be themselves" goals, because half the time those two goals are in perfect agreement and the other half of the time they're diametrically opposed. Cloudflare isn't exactly wrong in saying that the brunt of policy enforcement efforts can have serious repercussions for marginalized people, because content posted by marginalized people is more likely to make people uncomfortable and therefore more likely to be reported. But the answer to those difficult questions cannot be to abdicate responsibility entirely, and we don't feel that we can continue doing business with a company that doesn't recognize that a commitment to protecting as much speech as possible means you are more ethically responsible, not less responsible, for drawing and enforcing clear, consistent, and concrete lines about what speech you choose not to provide services to.

Thank you for all you do

[tameiki]

This is why I continue to believe in Dreamwidth, it's because you and Mark do so much to make sure this is the place where people can feel safe and included. I'm not good with words but wanted you to know how much you and your work behind the scenes are very much appreciated.

Re: Thank you for all you do

[denise]

We do our best! These are difficult questions and there are no easy answers to them, but we don't feel that we can continue to do business with a company that doesn't even try.

[yuuago]

The heads up is appreciated.

Thanks for all you do.

[vit_r]

Happy censorship. When will you start to silence your users?

[denise]

Since inception, we have committed to supporting our users in allowing for the maximum range of expression possible -- to the point where we once spent four months unable to accept payments at all because PayPal, our payment processor at the time, wanted us to censor content that was perfectly legal under US law but that they found distasteful and we refused. We continue to operate under those principles, and that isn't going to change. But that commitment has never been "we will never remove content", because every service that accepts user-generated content has users who post spam, illegal material, and content that skirts the boundaries of legality but causes significant offline harm. We've never allowed people to post other people's personally identifying information such as phone numbers or Social Security numbers, for instance, even though that isn't automatically illegal in most states.

Operating a business that provides service on the internet inherently includes difficult questions about content policy, and operating a business that provides service on the internet and is committed to allowing the widest range of expression possible makes those questions even more difficult. People often report content to us that they find distasteful and think should be removed, and we have clear, concrete policies about what qualifies for removal and what doesn't. Cloudflare's public response yesterday shows that they believe they should not deny security services to any site at all, for any reason, no matter what content that site contains. As a company that's spent fourteen years wrestling with those difficult questions about how to balance user expression with legal requirements and the question of preventing offline harm, we believe we can't continue to do business with a company whose answers to those difficult questions about content policy and content removal is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

[shadowspar]

Thanks so much for taking this on as expediently as possible. I know y'all have a lot of other stuff going on right now, and I appreciate it. <3

[sarajayechan]

Oh boy, yet another "well if we put our foot down and ban dangerous content that's oppressive censorship and we want to be nice and support free speech" type. Sorry, Cloudflare, but banning content that actively harms human beings isn't censorship, it's basic safety and human rights.

I was (regrettably) involved with a fandom community on LJ that was like that, where they let all kinds of bullying go on because they "didn't want to be oppressive."

You're doing a good thing, and it's worth any downtime.

[the_jubjub_bird]

Words cannot harm me, sticks and stones could.

[the_jubjub_bird]

I hope you wouldn't adopt the practices of Facebook and Twitter who deny free speech to their users?

[sarajayechan]

You're missing the point.

This isn't about free speech, it's about protecting users from actively harmful content like human trafficking and doxxing. As in, things that happen to real human beings and should not be happening to real human beings.

[feistro]

You guys are one of the few sites on the net I trust to actually stick to their principles. Thanks for all you do! ♥

[sorcyress]

This this this! I think "trust" is the really key word here, I actually trust Dreamwidth to be a space which will try and have nuanced and intelligent considerations about awkward and difficult things, and to be transparent about the decisions they are making. Thank you for it!

[hokuton_punch]

Thank you for the heads-up! And for the rest. ♥

[nou]

Thank you for doing this.

[forests_of_fire]

Thank you so much for this. It fucking appalls me that Cloudflare is okay with supporting CSAM and white supremacy. Just because they received requests to cease services for human rights organizations doesn't mean that they should host things like CSAM and white supremacy. There is no "good side" to those things.

The fact you're finding a new service host this fast makes me so relieved.

[denise]

Drink something highly caffeinated in our honor this weekend!

[badly_knitted]

A little bumpiness in nothing. Behind you all the way, thanks for standing up for decent ethical values!

[paserbyp]

Moving from Cloudflare to where? Any insurance that new one will be better?

[denise]

We're spreading the services we were using Cloudflare for across several different providers, since (unfortunately) there isn't a single good replacement for all the services they offer. We do the best diligence we can when choosing providers, and try to choose the option that most closely matches our values as a company when we have multiple choices. If it turns out later that we got it wrong, we'll start looking again! We don't always have the option to switch if something like this happens, because sometimes there isn't a provider that matches our values more closely or the provider that matches our values more closely is well outside the range of our budget as such a small company, but we do what we can.

[ride_4ever]

Thank you, Denise and Mark, for everything you do to make DW a place of safety and kindness.

[grazie]

Thank you so much. I am so relieved to see you take these actions so quickly.

[torino10154]

Thank you for all you do.

[cofax7]

BZ to you!

[ganimede]

I was aware of Cloudflare's refusal to deny service but I was not aware of the CEO's recent regrets for their past actions. That is appalling and I'm glad to hear that you're moving away from them. I'm supporting you in that wholeheartedly.

[denise]

Yeah, Mark and I were already having the discussion, but that blog post yesterday is what pushed me over the line. As I've said in a few comment replies already here, we believe that companies operating in that speech-maximalist space have more of an obligation to have clear, concrete policies that prevent them from serving content that causes significant offline harm, not less, and we felt we couldn't continue to do business with a company that fails to recognize that obligation.

[pantswarrior]

Once again, above and beyond. <3 Y'all are awesome.

[the_siobhan]

100% in support

[stranger]

Thank you for this.

[sagesaria]

Sorry if this is a weird question or something that I should know already, but do you guys have a system for backing up DW accounts or posts? I trust you guys to do your best to keep the lights on in the transition but I always get a little nervous about things potentially getting lost in the move on stuff like this, and just want to play it safe if I can. To sate my own paranoia, really.

[preternatural]

You can download a backup of your journal here.

[starfallhaven]

This is great news. Thank you for sticking to your principles, yall.

[wadanohara]

Amazing! Thanks for taking such immediate and decisive action.