Cloudflare finally blocks the the transphobic Kiwi Farms site
Security firm Cloudflare drops Kiwi Farms website after #DropKiwiFarms campaign put them under pressure.
Matthew Prince of the site protection service Cloudflare writes in a blog post:
We have blocked Kiwifarms. Visitors to any of the Kiwifarms sites that use any of Cloudflare’s services will see a Cloudflare block page and a link to this post. Kiwifarms may move their sites to other providers and, in doing so, come back online, but we have taken steps to block their content from being accessed through our infrastructure.
This is an extraordinary decision for us to make and, given Cloudflare’s role as an Internet infrastructure provider, a dangerous one that we are not comfortable with. However, the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site and specific, targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours to the point that we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life unlike we have previously seen from Kiwifarms or any other customer before.
The fact that a company like Cloudflare takes this step is good news, because they signal that serious companies should not be complicit in anti-trans crimes. Note, however, that Cloudflare had previously defended providing services to Kiwi Farms.
Kiwi Farms seek Russian protection
This does not mean that Cloudflare is done for, however.
What the Trans reports that Kiwifarms is back using DDoS-Guard, a Russia based company that has helped extremist sites like Parler, Hamas, 8kun (8chan), Daily Stormer, and the Russian Ministry of Defense.
So Kiwi Farms can continue to do damage. Still, it has now become abundantly clear what kind of toxic content they publish, when they need to go to Putin’s Russia to get protection.
#DropKiwiFarms
Members of Kiwi Farms have aggressively targeted trans people and trans activists. One of them has been Clara “Keffals” Sorrenti, a Canadian Twitch streamer who has had her personal information posted on the site. It was Clara who launched the #DropKiwiFarms campaign.
Kiwi Farms launched in 2013 and quickly grew into a popular internet forum for online harassment campaigns. At least three suicides have been tied to harassment stemming from the Kiwi Farms community, and many on the forum consider their goal to drive their targets to suicide. Members of the LGBTQ community and women are frequent targets.
UPDATE: DDos-Guard has abandoned Kiwi Farm as well. More here!
