this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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I'm not arguing against free speech here. Granted I also didn't downvote these comments.
The main problem is that the original comment and subsequent comments don't explain what the alternative is. It isn't just the US that has such laws (as I tried to demonstrate by posting an alternative law from the UK.
The thing is, generally the rights of an individual generally stop where the rights of another individual start and vice versa.
The original comment doesn't even explain what part of either the ruling by the country in question or the threat of legal action on the part of Cloudflare they disagree with, nor did they explain how that is in any way related to free speech.
There exist whole countries that have internet that doesn't use Cloudflare's services. Cloudflare is a big player in the DNS space but they aren't the end all be all of the internet.
If the concern is that Cloudflare's threat to leave the country will amount to censoring free speech because websites won't be available due to the lack of Cloudflare services, that's a problem with the infrastructure of the country in question and their ability to provide DNS blocking as a service (forcing them to rely on a business that is provides said services in exchange for money).
That same money can be used to stand up a Cloudflare alternative.
Reliance on tech corporations is not an excuse to claim free speech is being detrimentally affected by censorship.
Even if it was, the least the original commenter could have done was offered alternative solutions.
I haven't been talking about this specific case about Cloudflare, at all. To set the record straight, I am unequivocally against the Italy government trying to ban pirate sites, that's absolutely wrong.
What I am arguing against is the absolutist sentiment that "censorship is always wrong, in whatever circumstances, no matter what it is used to do". Granted, I could have been more tactful talking about this under a post where the government is using censorship to do a terrible thing. But my position is still my position.
Like, we want gun control, don't we? Because gun kills people. Speech can kill people too! Many, many people has died because of the current rise of vaccine hesitancy. If you want to regulate guns to reduce harm, why won't you want to regulate speech too?
I need some time to think about what you wrote before I respond. I need to switch gears here and also give some thought to how such a thing would play out.