Enlarge / Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince speaks during the Wall Street Journal Tech Live global technology conference in Laguna Beach, California on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019.
Cloudflare is resisting requests to fully shut off its services in Russia, saying that such a move would hurt Russian citizens and likely be "celebrated" by Putin's government. "[W]e have received several calls to terminate all of Cloudflare's services inside Russia," CEO Matthew Prince wrote in a blog post yesterday. "We have carefully considered these requests and discussed them with government and civil society experts. Our conclusion, in consultation with those experts, is that Russia needs more Internet access, not less."
Prince said Cloudflare has seen "a dramatic increase" in users on Russian networks navigating to international media sites, "reflecting a desire by ordinary Russian citizens to see world news beyond that provided within Russia. We've also seen an increase in Russian blocking and throttling efforts, combined with Russian efforts to control the content of the media operating inside Russia with a new 'fake news' law."
Prince noted that over the past few years, Russia's government "has threatened repeatedly to block certain Cloudflare services and customers." His blog post argued that a Cloudflare cutoff would be welcomed by the Russian government:
