A recent investigation alleges that San Francisco-based company Cloudflare provides extremist websites with data delivery services and delivers the contact information of people who complain about hate speech to the hate spewers. As a result, some of those who have complained have allegedly been subjected to harassment.
According to ProPublica, who wrote about Cloudflare's alleged issues in a recent article, an attorney for the company named Doug Kramer explained that it's cool if they turn over the names and emails of folks who dared to complain because it is "base constitutional law that people can face their accusers."
In court, Doug. You can face your accuser in court. Also, brief Googling indicates that the Confrontation Clause in the Sixth Amendment only applies to criminal cases.
Cloudflare's clients include the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer, The Right Stuff, Iron March, American Renaissance and Storefront. According to Cloudflare, they also have mainstream clients like OK Cupid and the FBI. (Wait, wha? The FEDS?)
"We've got 6 million customers," said Kramer. "It's easy to find these edge cases."
With so many customers, it probably wouldn't make much of a dent to get rid of the "edge cases." But unlike Google, Amazon Web Services, and GoDaddy, Cloudflare is reportedly not making an effort to shed customers who host hate speech websites.
Oh, except one: when asked by ProPublica, Kramer said Cloudflare would not accept ISIS as a client, but only because there are laws against helping terrorism.
You can read the entire ProPublica investigation here.