Cloudflare drop “revolting” Kiwi Farms amid takedown campaign
Over the weekend, Cloudflare did a u-turn on its continued protection of the far-right forum, Kiwi Farms amidst Keffals’ harassment.
Kiwi Farms, a website known for its continued harassment campaigns against online personalities, has been taken down after Cloudflare finally took action.
Cloudflare’s original position was detailed in an extensive blog, penned by the CEO and the Global Head of Public Policy. This included taking a neutral position on Kiwi Farms, offering its free anti-DDoS software to the website, and taking no action, as Cloudflare wasn’t actually hosting it.
However, over the weekend, it appears that Cloudflare has been advised as to Kiwi Farms’ continued harassment of trans Twitch streamer, Keffals. She has now relocated to Ireland, as the addresses she fled to in Canada were all compromised.
Keffals, real name Clara Sorrenti, has been running a campaign to have Cloudflare drop the forum since Kiwi Farms turned its sights on her. She also brought up the point that Kiwi Farms was linked to the suicides of three individuals, including emulator developer Near. Near had directly referenced Kiwi Farms in his final Twitter thread before passing.
Cloudflare takes down Kiwi Farms
With Cloudflare taking off its free service protection, it became blocked almost worldwide. There is no way to access the website, as Cloudflare currently place this warning when trying to access it:
“Due to an imminent and emergency threat to human life, the content of this site is blocked from being accessed through Cloudflare’s infrastructure.”
There’s also a link to another blog, again authored by the CEO of Cloudflare, Matthew Prince.
The blog claims that they did not take the “action directly because of the pressure campaign”, saying that they felt “empathy” with the organizers involved.
Despite seemingly about Kiwi Farms’ overall content, it was reiterated that they have removed the site from their service over something else:
“Revolting content alone does not create an emergency situation that necessitates the action we are taking today.”
It appears they’ve taken action due to “users of the site” becoming “even more aggressive” due to the continued scrutiny from the outside world.
This aggressive behavior has included bomb threats, death threats, and more against Keffals, as well as any other targets.
Keffals response to Kiwi Farms takedown
On the campaign website, organizers wrote a blog in response, claiming that “the battle is won, but the war is not over” in the headline.
“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.”
They note that the company hosting Kiwi Farms, Fiberhub, still has the servers and they will be continuing the pressure against the company. Fiberhub has also removed any and all tweets defending Kiwi Farms, as well as the CEO locking his account in response to the news from Cloudflare.
Meanwhile, site admin Joshua Moon attempted to keep the website alive by moving the website to a Russian equivalent of Cloudflare. They had the site removed and down in hours, compared to Cloudflare’s 10-year coverage.
The site is now permanently down for the foreseeable future, as Moon has attempted to shift the harassment narrative over to those that are campaigning against Kiwi Farms.
Kiwi Farms statement
In a statement provided to Kiwi Farms users, Moon claims he has a “family emergency” which will mean he’s out of the conversation for a week. He expects Kiwi Farms to go down during his time away.
He also claims that this is “an organized attack”, portraying the victims as a “coalition of criminals”.
“This is an organized attack. There is a coalition of criminals trying to frame the forum for their behavior.
“These criminals provide opportunities for professional victims to amplify their message.
“Journalists canonize the crimes as the behavior of the forum itself, which becomes the effective truth for the general public.”
As it was discovered that Moon’s company, 1776 Solutions, LLC., was changed from ‘Final Solutions, LLC.’, it has also come to light that he was helping host other websites. When Cloudflare suspended services to Kiwi Farms’, it had a knock-on effect and took out another dangerous website in New Zealand.