Kiwi Farms, an internet site that has spawned numerous hate campaigns over the past decade, finally has actions against it following the internet security company Cloudflare effectively taking the website off the internet.
The trans political streamer Clara “Keffals” Sorrenti was forced to leave her home due to threats from people who use the website that led to the hashtag #DropKiwifarms. It was a ploy to take on Cloudflare, the forum’s security provider, and persuade Cloudflare to stop supporting the forum.
Although Cloudflare was initially hesitant to compromise on the issue, they changed their mind this week. They stopped Kiwi Farms while going to extreme lengths to state in a blog article that the reason for the change was “specific and targeted threats” and not the massive public relations backlash that accompanied Cloudflare’s ongoing support for an online forum created solely to sift through the most sinister desires of the web’s most hateful individuals:
We are also not taking this action directly because of the pressure campaign. While we have empathy for its organizers, we are committed as a security provider to protecting our customers even when they run deeply afoul of popular opinion or even our own morals.
It’s a good move; however, it’s something that’s not right! In his blog post, Cloudflare’s Matthew Prince also says, “This is a significant decision to make and, in light of Cloudflare’s function in the role of an Internet infrastructure provider, it is a potentially risky one we’re not confident about”. There is nothing such as an unpolitical provider of systems. I am shocked that he is being forced to hear that. It’s astounding that Cloudflare has made the right decision in the worst possible way.
The site’s security has been revoked. The site is now inaccessible at the time of writing. Anyone trying to access Kiwi Farms will receive the following warning:
Following Cloudflare’s departure, many new developments have occurred regarding the site’s future. hCaptcha, which is the company that provides the forum’s captcha security, has also removed Kiwi Farms, saying the website’s violent content violates their terms and conditions:
However, Frank Figliuzzi, a National Security Analyst at NBC and a former assistant director of the FBI, reports that Kiwi Farms have since moved to Russian servers. The company claims that the users “could quickly become a greater risk of terror in the country”:
In response to Cloudflare’s overdue move, the #DropKiwifarms team issued a statement which you can read below:
THE BATTLE IS WON, BUT THE WAR IS NOT OVER.
SEPTEMBER 3RD, 2022
Today Cloudflare has dropped the notorious far-right hate forum Kiwi Farms. As CEO Matthew Prince has noted, threats against human life have been escalating in the last 48 hours on the website, and happening in a much faster manner than law enforcement is able to keep up with. Kiwi Farms has been around for over a decade, and at no point in the site’s history have they come under this much fire. This is a historical moment where thousands of people have stood up and taken a stance against online harassment and hate.
We’re happy with the decision that Cloudflare came to, and this deals a big blow to Kiwi Farms and their community, one they may never recover from. But that doesn’t mean we should rest on our laurels. While we should celebrate today, this may not be the end of their community. We have shown that when united together we are capable of moving mountains, and if we continue to stand together and fight back, we can see this until the end.
As long as websites like Kiwi Farms remain active we’ll keep fighting. Fiberhub, a company based in Las Vegas, is where the servers that host Kiwi Farms are located and serviced. If Kiwi Farms ever becomes active again, we must apply the same pressure to FiberHub that we did to Cloudflare, otherwise the website will return online and be operational in the foreseeable future.
We should celebrate all of our hard work. We did what no one else could. However, this is not the end. If we want to see the end of Kiwi Farms and communities like theirs, we must continue fighting.
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