# Cloudflare Cloudflare is the American internet-infrastructure company founded 2009 by Matthew Prince, Michelle Zatlyn, and Lee Holloway, headquartered in San Francisco, publicly-traded on NYSE since 2019 (ticker: NET). The company substantially-provides internet-infrastructure-layer services — content-delivery-network (CDN) acceleration, DDoS-protection, DNS-resolution, web-application-firewall (WAF), edge-computing, zero-trust-network-access, and adjacent infrastructure-layer services. The company substantially-processes approximately 20-25% of all internet web-traffic globally as of 2026; the substantial market-position makes the company one of the principal contemporary internet-infrastructure-layer companies. The company's substantive-political-cultural significance for the KB operates substantially through its **infrastructure-layer content-moderation decisions** — a substantively-distinct content-moderation infrastructure operating one analytical-layer-deeper than the platform-layer content-moderation decisions made by Twitter / Reddit / Meta / Google / and adjacent platform-layer companies. The principal documentary case-events: - **August 2017 — termination of [[Daily Stormer]] service.** Following [[Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally]] (August 11-12, 2017), Cloudflare terminated Daily Stormer's service on August 16, 2017. The decision was Cloudflare's first major content-moderation action against a major right-wing-extremist site; Matthew Prince's August 17 blog post substantially-articulated the decision's substantive-rationale-and-concern infrastructure ("I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn't be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power"). The decision substantially-initiated contemporary infrastructure-layer content-moderation political-cultural-contestation environment. - **August 2019 — termination of 8chan service.** Following the [[El Paso Walmart Shooting]] (August 3, 2019), where the shooter posted a manifesto to 8chan approximately 20 minutes before the attack, Cloudflare terminated 8chan service on August 4, 2019. The decision was one of the most-substantial contemporary infrastructure-layer content-moderation actions; 8chan substantially-disappeared from the public internet for several months following the termination before returning as 8kun through alternative infrastructure-layer service provision. - **September 2022 — termination of [[Kiwi Farms]] service.** Following sustained-coordinated-harassment-campaign coverage and political-pressure, Cloudflare terminated Kiwi Farms service on September 3, 2022. The decision substantially-extended the infrastructure-layer content-moderation pattern. ## Operational Profile **Service offerings.** Cloudflare's principal service offerings include: - *Content delivery network (CDN)* — substantial caching-and-distribution infrastructure for web-content - *DDoS protection* — substantial distributed-denial-of-service attack-mitigation infrastructure - *Domain Name System (DNS) resolution* — substantial public-DNS resolver infrastructure (1.1.1.1) - *Web Application Firewall (WAF)* — substantial application-layer security infrastructure - *Edge computing* — substantial Cloudflare Workers serverless-compute infrastructure - *Zero-trust network access* — substantial enterprise-network-security infrastructure - *Email security* — substantial Area 1 (acquired) email-security infrastructure **Market position.** Cloudflare substantially-processes approximately 20-25% of all internet web-traffic globally as of 2026. The substantial market-position substantially-positions Cloudflare as one of the principal contemporary internet-infrastructure-layer companies. The company's substantial-network-effect-derived market-position substantially-distinct from platform-layer-companies' typically-larger-market-position-with-smaller-network-effect. **Customer base.** Cloudflare's customer base substantially-includes major-platform-companies (Discord, Cloudflare reports substantial-fraction of Fortune-500 corporate customer-base), major-government infrastructure (substantial-fraction of state-and-municipal-government infrastructure), substantial-fraction of small-and-medium-business internet-infrastructure customers, and substantial-fraction of consumer-facing major-website infrastructure. ## Content-Moderation Posture **Infrastructure-layer content-moderation distinguishing-features.** Cloudflare's content-moderation posture operates substantially-distinct from platform-layer-companies' content-moderation posture across multiple registers: - **Substantively-different layer of moderation.** Cloudflare's content-moderation decisions affect *whether content is accessible on the internet at all* rather than *whether content is hosted-or-recommended by a specific platform*. The substantially-deeper layer of moderation substantially-different from platform-layer moderation; an infrastructure-layer termination decision can substantially-eliminate a site's contemporary internet-presence rather than merely substantively-reduce platform-presence. - **Substantively-higher-stakes content-moderation decisions.** Because Cloudflare's content-moderation decisions affect *internet-accessibility* rather than *platform-accessibility*, the substantive-stakes of each decision are substantially-higher than platform-layer-content-moderation decisions. Cloudflare's content-moderation decisions across approximately 8 years (Daily Stormer 2017, 8chan 2019, Kiwi Farms 2022) is substantially-conservative compared to platform-layer content-moderation patterns. - **Substantively-divergent normative analytical-framework.** Matthew Prince's substantial public-articulation of Cloudflare's content-moderation analytical-framework has substantially-emphasized infrastructure-neutrality-and-due-process analytical-framework rather than substantively-substantive-content-evaluation analytical-framework. The analytical-framework substantially-distinct from platform-layer-companies' content-moderation analytical-framework. **Principal contemporary infrastructure-layer-content-moderation case-events.** The three principal contemporary Cloudflare content-moderation case-events (Daily Stormer 2017, 8chan 2019, Kiwi Farms 2022) collectively constitute one of the most-substantial documented infrastructure-layer content-moderation case-record-environments. The case-events substantially-pre-date and substantially-post-date the post-2020 broader platform-content-moderation political-rhetorical-contestation environment. ## Why It Matters for the KB **Principal contemporary internet-infrastructure-layer-company analytical resource.** Cloudflare is one of the principal contemporary internet-infrastructure-layer companies. Tracking the company is essential to engaging with the broader contemporary internet-infrastructure-layer political-economic-and-political-cultural analytical-literature. **Infrastructure-layer-content-moderation documentary anchor.** Cloudflare's infrastructure-layer content-moderation decisions across approximately 8 years constitute one of the principal documented contemporary infrastructure-layer content-moderation case-record-environments. Tracking the decisions is essential to engaging with the broader contemporary infrastructure-layer content-moderation analytical-literature. **[[El Paso Walmart Shooting]] / 8chan documentary case.** Cloudflare's August 2019 termination of 8chan service following the El Paso shooting is one of the principal documented contemporary infrastructure-layer-content-moderation case-events. Tracking the case is essential to engaging with the broader contemporary internet-infrastructure-layer content-moderation analytical-literature. **Platform-vs-infrastructure-layer content-moderation analytical-distinction documentary resource.** Cloudflare's content-moderation activity provides one of the principal documented contemporary cases for the analytical-distinction between platform-layer content-moderation and infrastructure-layer content-moderation. Tracking the activity is useful for engaging with the broader contemporary content-moderation political-economic-and-political-cultural analytical-literature. ## See Also - [[El Paso Walmart Shooting]] — the principal contemporary documented 8chan-termination case-event - [[Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally]] — the principal contemporary documented Daily-Stormer-termination case-event - [[Deplatforming]] — adjacent contemporary platform-content-moderation political-rhetorical-vocabulary - [[Surveillance Capitalism]] — adjacent broader contemporary tech-political-economic framework - [[4chan]] / [[8chan-8kun]] — adjacent contemporary platform-infrastructure