CCDH and 12 leading advocacy groups call for Cloudflare to stop profiting from Incel sites.

12 of the world’s leading advocacy groups have joined the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) to demand that Cloudflare stop providing technology support and infrastructure services to a group of sites run by extremist Incels.

Recent research from CCDH found these sites were at the epicenter of violent Incel culture.

Imran Ahmed the CEO of CCDH stated ‘Despite the immediate threat these site pose to human life – from suicide forums, glorifications of mass violence, rape threats, and sexualisation of minors – Cloudflare continue to do business with and profit from these vile forums.’

Following on the controversy surrounding Kiwi Farms forum – the violent far-right extremist site – Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince took the decision to stop providing Cloudflare services stating Kiwi Farms represented an “unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life”.

CCDH and the signatories of this letter which include Ultraviolet, GLAAD, 5Rights and #ShePersisted, are calling on Cloudflare to take urgent action and stop doing business with violent Incel groups, as they did with Kiwi Farms.

A recent major study by the CCDH into posting activity in the ‘Inceposphere’ found that members of the online forums;

• Mention rape on average of once every 29 minutes.
• 20% of posts contain racist, homophobic, anti-semitic and violently misogynistic language.
• The largest forum changed its rules to allow the sexulaization of ‘pubescent minors’.
• The Forums contain members as young as 15.
• Suicide ‘advice’ is offered  to vulnerable people in despair. 45 forum users have been found to have died by suicide.
• Idolize Incel linked mass-murderers Jake Davison, Eliot Rogers and attempted murderer Tres Grenco.

CCDH analyzed over one millions of posts made over an 18-month period, and found that the rhetoric and content promoted in the forums has become steadily more extreme.

Mainstream social media also frequently acts as a gateway to the more extreme content of the Incel forums.

Youtube currently hosts a dedicated Incel channel- ‘Incel TV’- with videos titles such as ‘Slutshame’ viewed millions of times.

‘CCDH and our partners are calling on Cloudflare to acknowledge that these forums pose a real and imminent threat to life and Matthew Prince needs to do his part to stop the spread of this vile hate. He must immediately withdraw Cloudflare’s services from the Incelosphere’ CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed.

Full list of signatories below:

• Friends of the Earth
• Reclaim These Streets
• Stop Online Violence Against Women Inc.
• Glitch
• ProgressNow NM
• 5Rights Foundation
• Reproaction
• Ultraviolet
• National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
• #ShePersisted
• GLAAD
• Maura’s Voice

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