Cloudflare changes abuse policy but refuses to “censor the Internet”

Enlarge / The Cloudflare network includes 111 data centers and 10Tbps capacity. (credit: Cloudflare)

Network operator Cloudflare came under fire last week from ProPublica, which wrote a lengthy article arguing that the Internet company "helps serve up hate on the Web." According to ProPublica, Cloudflare does this by providing service to any website operator and failing to provide anonymity to people who complain about racist or otherwise abusive online content.

In response, Cloudflare has changed its abuse-reporting system to allow for anonymous complaints. But the company says it still has no intention of taking steps that it says would effectively censor the Internet.

Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince discussed the controversy and the company's response in a blog post yesterday. Cloudflare's abuse reporting system tells people using it that "Cloudflare will forward all abuse reports that appear to be legitimate to the responsible hosting provider and to the website owner." By submitting a report, the submitter is consenting to have their information released to the website owner or hosting provider, the disclaimers say.

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