Cloudflare Blocks Kiwi Farms, Which Is Now Out Of Lifelines And Potentially Dead For Good

Kiwi Farms appears dead, and potentially for good, just days after DDoS protection service Cloudflare blocked the site.

We won. Kiwi Farms is dead. #DropKiwifarms pic.twitter.com/C2PFWYcYCj

— Keffals (@keffals) September 5, 2022

After a month of pressure organized by prominent trans streamer Keffals, Cloudflare ultimately blocked Kiwi Farms on Saturday. Visitors to the site will now be redirected to a blog post written by Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince in which he cites the decision to block the site was due to escalating threats of violence appearing on the site.

"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," wrote Prince.

"However, the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site and specific, targeted threats have escalated over the last 48 hours to the point that we believe there is an unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life unlike we have previously seen from Kiwifarms or any other customer before."

The decision represents a swift reversal of the company's stance toward Kiwi Farms. Just three days prior to Cloudflare blocking the site, the company posted a statement insisting it wouldn't take action with regards to Kiwi Farms, comparing itself to a telephone service provider who wouldn't remove a client's ability to use the phone because they say horrible things on it.

Prince insisted the #DropKiwiFarms campaign was not the key influential factor in the company's decision, writing, "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."

However, as the pressure campaign escalated, so did the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site. Feeling attacked, users of the site became even more aggressive… While law enforcement in these areas are working to investigate what we and others reported, unfortunately the process is moving more slowly than the escalating risk. While we believe that in every other situation we have faced -- including the Daily Stormer and 8chan -- it would have been appropriate as an infrastructure provider for us to wait for legal process, in this case the imminent and emergency threat to human life which continues to escalate causes us to take this action.

Captcha, provider of the forum’s captcha security, also dropped Kiwi Farms in the wake of Cloudflare's decision.

The company that provides Kiwi Farms with captchas for user security has dropped Kiwi Farms. pic.twitter.com/qs3MIgUdlD

— Keffals (@keffals) September 4, 2022

The site fled to a Russian backup server which was then almost instantly shut down by that domain's DDoS protection provider, DDoS-Guard.

"Having analyzed the content of the site, we decided on the termination of DDoS protection services," said DDoS-Guard.

In a Telegram post, Kiwi Farms owner Joshua Moon blamed "a coalition of criminals trying to frame the forum for their behavior" for the attacks on Kiwi Farms and wrote prospects for the site's continued existence appeared grim.

"I do not see a situation where the Kiwi Farms is simply allowed to operate. It will either become a fractured shell of itself, like 8chan, or jump between hosts and domain names like Daily Stormer."

Kiwi farms has now been dropped by DDoS Guard, their Russian protection for the RU domain. Joshua Moon is basically admitting defeat as there's no place left for him to turn to now that even Russia won't help him. APNIC may even revoke his IP addresses as they are Australian. pic.twitter.com/9rXnq8hnOj

— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) September 5, 2022

After DDoS-Guard dropped Kiwi Farms' Russian domain, Keffals declared, "We won."

"It is highly unlikely that Kiwi Farms will resurface with enough resources to maintain the online presence they once had. As a result, this is the final statement of the Drop Kiwi Farms campaign until further notice," she wrote. "Today the world is a better place."