#Daily storme free#

It further suggests that the entire removal of Daily Stormer was in essence a provocation to start a conversation around freedom of speech. The deposition of Trey Guinn, a technical employee at Cloudflare, confirms that the company doesn’t have the power to cut a site off the Internet. Prince stated in the WSJ Article that ‘ helped kick a group of neo-Nazis off the internet last week,’ his comments were intended to illustrate a point – not to be taken literally,” Cloudflare’s legal team adds. The WSJ Article had nothing to do with copyright infringement issues or Cloudflare’s DMCA policy and procedure.

#Daily storme free#

“The WSJ Article was intended as an intellectual exercise to start a conversation regarding censorship and free speech on the internet. They quote from a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article he wrote and highlight the ‘kick off the internet’ claim, which contradicts earlier statements.Ĭloudflare’s lawyers contend that the WSJ article in question was meant to kick off a conversation and shouldn’t be taken literally. The adult publisher, however, harps on the fact that the CEO arbitrarily decided to remove one site from the service, while requiring court orders in other instances. “I have no unique personal knowledge regarding Cloudflare’s DMCA policy and procedure, including its repeat infringer policies, or Cloudflare’s published Terms of Service,” Prince informs the court This is backed up by a declaration where Prince emphasizes that he has no unique knowledge on the company’s DMCA and repeat infringer policies, issues that directly relate to the case at hand. Prince has made it clear that he is the one who determines the circumstances under which Cloudflare will terminate a user’s account,” ALS Scan adds.įor its part, Cloudflare says that the CEO’s deposition is not needed. Prince’s decision to terminate certain users’ accounts was ‘arbitrary,’ the result of him waking up ‘in a bad mood,’ and a decision he made unilaterally as ‘CEO of a major Internet infrastructure corporation’. Cloudflare wants to prevent this from happening and claims it’s unnecessary, but the adult publisher disagrees. The above is part of a recent submission where both parties argue over whether Prince can be deposed or not. Prince’s statement to the public that Cloudflare kicked neo-Nazis off the internet stand in sharp contrast to Cloudflare’s testimony in this case, where it claims it is powerless to remove content from the Internet,” ALS Scan writes.

Adult entertainment publisher ALS Scan views Prince as a “key witness” in the case and wants to depose Cloudflare’s CEO to find out more about his decision. While the Daily Stormer case has nothing to do with piracy or copyright infringement, it’s now being brought up as important evidence in an ongoing piracy liability case. It would only require a simple DNS reconfiguration to get it back up and running. In addition, Cloudflare repeatedly stressed that it was impossible for them to remove a website from the Internet, at least not permanently. Each time, Cloudflare replied that it doesn’t take action without a court order. Not least because it goes directly against what many saw as Cloudflare’s core values.įor years on end, Cloudflare has been asked to remove terrorist propaganda, pirate sites, and other controversial content.

While the decision is understandable from an emotional point of view, it’s quite a statement to make as the CEO of one of the largest Internet infrastructure companies. “I woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the Internet,” he announced.

Last month Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince decided to terminate the account of controversial neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer.