Kiwifarms

Internet services company Cloudflare has blocked the notorious hate site, forcing it offline.

Earlier this month, Canadian Twitch streamer and transgender rights activist Clara “Keffals” Sorrenti was the victim of swatting after her personal information was posted on Kiwi Farms. The site was described as “the web’s biggest community of stalkers” in a 2016 The owner of Kiwi Farms, Josh “Null” Moon, responded to the website being blocked in a short message on Telegram. Shortly after Cloudflare pulled its services, the KiwiFarms website served a message saying it was “blocked.” However, the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site and specific, targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours,” Prince said. But, in the long term, such choices make it more difficult to protect content that supports oppressed and marginalized voices against attacks,” the company said.

The infrastructure provider's CEO said the site's postings presented an "emergency threat to human life."

In 2019, [Cloudflare dropped the 8chan troll haven](https://www.axios.com/2019/08/05/cloudflare-pulls-8chan-support-after-el-paso-shooting)after mass shooters used the site to distribute racist "manifestos." [a statement posted on Telegram](https://twitter.com/ellievhall/status/1566196221131227136): Cloudflare's decision to block the site was done without any discussion. 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." The federal government may proceed with further charges, police said. In this week's Markets Weekend, we dive into why America has such an acute labor shortage. The message I've received is a vague suspension notice.... In this case the imminent and emergency threat to human life which continues to escalate causes us to take this action." [What we know — and don't know — about the rogue Tupelo pilot](/2022/09/03/cory-patterson-rogue-pilot-arrested-today) 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.... [A Deep Dive into the labor shortage](/2022/09/03/a-deep-dive-into-the-labor-shortage) In several cases targets of such campaigns have committed suicide. [the Nazi Daily Stormer website](https://www.axios.com/2017/12/12/cloudflare-ceo-1512745348)after the 2017 Charlottesville rally.

Kiwi Farms, the web forum centered around harassing people—especially trans people—will no longer benefit from the web services of Cloudflare, ...

I've written before about [why private companies cannot guarantee free speech, even if they want to](https://boingboing.net/2021/01/15/why-free-speech-platforms-all-end-up-moderating-content.html), precisely because of the business realities Price describes as dangerous and uncomfortable. [gave it the boot](https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/). 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.

"If there is any threat to life on the site, I have received no communication from any law enforcement," Josh "Null" Moon wrote in a statement on Telegram.

Kiwi Farms has also been linked to the deaths by suicides of transgender people harassed by members of the forum, according to USA Today. The attack led Greene to [condemn the forum](https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-ironically-blasts-trans-hate-forum-after-swatting-1736699). There is real risk that by taking this action today we may have further heightened the emergency," he wrote, promising Cloudflare will "continue to work proactively with law enforcement." Saturday afternoon, Prince shared "Blocking Kiwifarms" to the company's blog, announcing that the company had cut service to Kiwi Farms. That pressure campaign targeted Cloudflare as well as other providers utilized by the site," Prince wrote. "Finally, we are aware and concerned that our action may only fan the flames of this emergency.

Internet hosting and security services provider Cloudflare said Saturday that it would block Kiwi Farms, a website associated with harassment campaigns ...

The message from Matthew Prince is unclear," the post stated. "The message I've received is a vague suspension notice. “They’re thinking about what comes next,” said Fredrick Brennan, who worked with Moon when they were both administrators at the fringe message board 8chan. Kiwi Farms owner Josh Moon did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday from NBC News. The streamer, Clara Sorrenti, known to fans as Keffals, responded Saturday in a tweet. Our campaign will put out a statement soon," she said.

Cloudflare, a high-profile online service and security company, has taken the largely unprecedented step of blocking access to its customer, the forum Kiwi ...

Sorrenti has a [GoFundMe](https://www.gofundme.com/f/clara-sorrenti-keffals-moving-legal-fund) (opens in new tab) active to aid with the costs associated with this sequence of events. This entire time, Sorrenti has remained outspoken in defiance of the threat to her life, and [initiated a campaign](https://www.dropkiwifarms.net/) (opens in new tab) to pressure Cloudflare to terminate its client relationship to Kiwi Farms. [public statement](https://twitter.com/keffals/status/1566208349451984896) (opens in new tab) shared to Twitter, acknowledged that the site could find an alternate security provider and come back online. [Sorrenti was swatted](https://www.pcgamer.com/keffals-swatting/) (opens in new tab) at the beginning of August, with the police of London, Ontario, coming to her home on August 5 in response to a fraudulent mass shooting threat made in Sorrenti's name. [blocking access to its customer](https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/) (opens in new tab), the forum Kiwi Farms. Sorrenti moved to a hotel, where stalkers were [able to identify her location](https://kotaku.com/keffals-clara-sorrenti-twitch-streamer-trans-doxxing-1849434714) (opens in new tab) by comparing the bedsheets in an image shared to Twitter against promotional images of hotels online.

Cloudflare, a web hosting and security provider, has blocked the hateful site Kiwi Farms after seeing an increase in "specific, targeted threats."

A [report from New York Magazine](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/07/kiwi-farms-the-webs-biggest-community-of-stalkers.html) called Kiwi Farms “the biggest community of stalkers,” with harassment so severe that the site has been blamed for the deaths of [several](https://kotaku.com/the-brilliant-snes-emulator-creator-known-as-near-has-d-1847182851) [victims](https://www.dailydot.com/irl/chloe-sagal-suicide-cyberbullying-harassment/). In the update, Cloudflare claims it didn’t block the site due to the social media campaign that pleaded with the service to drop Kiwi Farms as a customer. The site has become known for the harassment and stalking of “lolcows” — the term Kiwi Farms uses to describe its victims (who are often neurodivergent or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community). “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.” Cloudflare has also coordinated with law enforcement to address some of the threats on the site, but claims the “process is moving more slowly than the escalating risk.” [an update posted to its site](https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflares-abuse-policies-and-approach/) last week, Cloudflare outlined its policies on abusive content, laying out an argument for maintaining service without explicitly mentioning Kiwi Farms. Last month, Kiwi Farms users waged a swatting attack against Sorrenti, otherwise known as the act of providing a false tip to police that someone’s planning on carrying out a violent crime, resulting in police swarming the victim’s home.

An online forum which compiles information in order to harass people for entertainment was blocked after creating “the potential risk for human life.”

[NBC](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/cloudflare-kiwi-farms-keffals-anti-trans-rcna44834) “I constantly have this lingering thought in the back of my head, ‘What are they up to? The Anti-Defamation League considers the forum a “ [breeding ground for countless harassment campaigns.](https://twitter.com/ADL/status/1562490784188100608)” Members of Kiwi Farms will “swat” their victims whereby a false emergency tip is sent to police saying the target is about to commit a violent crime. Without Cloudflare’s security services, the forum will be open to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks where it could be flooded with fake internet traffic, rendering it unusable. They also hack victims online accounts like Uber which was the case for one of the forums current targets, Canadian transgender activist and Twitch broadcaster Clara “Keffal” Sorrenti. Kiwi Farms is known for discussing and compiling information about people it deems eccentric and then doxing them, their family and friends for the purpose of starting harassment campaigns.

The internet services company Cloudflare has announced Saturday that they have blocked Kiwi Farms, an online forum that has become infamous for spreading ...

"Visitors to any of the Kiwi Farms sites that use any of Cloudflare's services will see a Cloudflare block page and a link to this post. "Today Cloudflare has dropped the notorious far-right hate forum Kiwi Farms," the #DropKiwiFarms campaign said in a statement. This is a historical moment where thousands of people have stood up and taken a stance against online harassment and hate." "While we should celebrate today, this may not be the end of their community. "But, in the long term, such choices make it more difficult to protect content that supports oppressed and marginalized voices against attacks." Kiwi Farms 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."

While a former FBI Assistant Director says the site 'could easily become an increased threat of domestic terror'

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. Fiberhub, a company based in Las Vegas, is where the servers that host Kiwi Farms are located and serviced. 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. hCaptcha, provider of the forum’s captcha security, have also suspended Kiwi Farms, saying the site’s hateful and violent content violates their terms: [also says in his blog post](https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/) that “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”. We are also not taking this action directly because of the pressure campaign.