Individual disempowerment by walled gardens has two components:
- Inability to enter the walled garden (exclusion)
- Inability to escape the walled garden (trapping)
1. Exclusion
Google’s exclusivity
Entry criteria for Google’s walled garden is quite simple:
- must have a mobile phone number
- must be willing to share the mobile phone number with Google
This essentially excludes people who cannot afford a mobile phone and
service.
Facebook’s exclusivity (same as Google)
Entry criteria for Facebook’s walled garden is quite simple:
- must have a mobile phone number
- must be willing to share the mobile phone number with Google
This essentially excludes people who cannot afford a mobile phone and service.
Cloudflare’s exclusivity
Cloudflare conceals its criteria for exclusion, but we know from tests and complaints that the following demographics experience denial of service:
- people in developing countries
- the Tor community
- VPN users
- people behind CGNAT (this often impacts poor people in impoverished regions whose ISPs receive a limited number of IPv4 addresses)
- users of public libraries (consequently people who can’t afford a PC and internet subscription), and generally networks where IP addresses are shared
- privacy enthusiasts who will not disclose ~25% of their web traffic to one single corporation in a country without privacy safeguards
- people using non-graphical browsers or GUI browsers with image loading disabled (their traffic resembles that of robots); this includes:
- blind people
- poor people on capped internet plans
- environmentalists and the permacomputing community
- people with impairments and disabilities (CAPTCHA-blocked)
- people who deploy beneficial robots – Cloudflare is outspokenly anti-robot and treats beneficial bots the same as malicious bots
- Android users running AOS 6.0 and older
No one knows all the groups excluded by Cloudflare or the full scale of the exclusion. Some users can overcome the exclusion if they manage to figure out why they are excluded. Some have no hope of overcoming the exclusion. For example, if the only ISPs available to someone use CGNAT, they cannot enter Cloudflare’s walled garden by changing ISPs. They may be able to upgrade to a static IP address as a separate feature or by subscribing to a business plan, but this may be out of reach as it’s often poor people who are stuck with CGNAT addresses to begin with.
2. Trapping and Escapability
Walled gardens have attributes and features that are designed to keep users inside the walled garden. The variables are so vast and countless it’s impractical to track and enumerate all of them. However, a useful simplification follows from the assumption that a user has the will and the intent to escape. In that context, it’s only useful to examine access to essential services. When there is an essential resource exclusively within the walled garden, it carries significance in the trapping factor.
What’s essential? Any service that traces to a human right or constitutional right is well within the scope of services we can consider “essential”.
Google’s trap
Google’s Playstore is a gate-keeper to most Android apps in the world and this includes relatively essential apps, such as:
- apps that contact emergency dispatch centers (e.g. apps that dial 112 in Europe or 911 in the US); these apps are configured with the user’s name and address which is instantly transmitted and they tend to support both voice and text so they function whether or not you have the use of your voice
- banking apps (and 2FA apps for banking); although banking was traditionally a non-essential private sector service, it’s becoming increasing mandatory because cash payment for labor is already banned in some European countries
- apps for public services (e.g. public parking)
- national train apps
- national eID services (e.g. “ID Austria” is exclusively accessible through “Digitales Amt” and “A-Trust Signatur”)
The above-mentioned apps all trace to a human right, such as the right to life, healthcare, the right to work, and the right of equal access to public services. The right to education is compromised by Google in a variety of ways:
- Google Docs is used by students in public schools, by force to some extent. Thus gdocs sometimes cannot be escaped while pursuing education. When groups of students collaborate, sometimes the study groups impose use of gdocs. Some secondary school teachers impose the use of Google accounts for classroom projects.
- The Wi-Fi networks at some public schools use a captive portal for authentication and the only way to gain access is to supply credentials for a Google or Facebook account.
Facebook’s trap
Facebook’s trap is triggered when someone needs to communicate with another organization that is exclusively reachable in Facebook. When that other entity is a public service or fills some other role related to human rights, it’s a noteworthy trap.
It’s impractical to document all such cases here but some examples are given:
- A police department recovered stolen bicycles and announced that theft victims could visit the FB page of the police dept. to see if their bicycle appears in the photos. Non-FB users were blocked from the page and there was no other means to reach the photos. Effectively, non-FB users were denied equal access to public services.
- A Danish university has a Facebook page as well as nearly every single student. Facebook is used exclusively to announce some campus social events and even some optional classes. Students without Facebook are excluded from being informed. They are effectively being excluded from some aspects to public education, although strictly speaking the Facebook exclusive events were not required to obtain a degree.
- There is a local activist group fighting for the right to be analog. Their sole presence is on Facebook. So freedom of assembly in this case is conditions people on being trapped in Facebook. There are countless athletic clubs and housing associations that establish themselves exclusively on Facebook which has the effect of forcing others into the walled garden and retaining them.
- Facebook marketplace facilitates the exchange of second hand goods. The right to environmental protection is enshrined in human rights law, so this is an essential service. For many people it is the sole resource that traps them in Facebook. Many would say the right to boycott is also essential despite not being enshrined in human rights law. The right to boycott is often exercised using the second hand markets.
- Facebook
induces addiction to the service. This does not trace to a human right but it exceptionally impedes users with the will and intent to excape to the same extent an essential access has.
Cloudflare’s trap
Roughly 20% of all websites in the world exist inside Cloudflare’s walled garden. Countless Cloudflare websites are essential and indispensable. Where can we possibly begin? Below is a list of Cloudflared resources that play a significant role in protection of human rights. If someone exits Cloudflare’s walled garden, this is what they give up—
The right to vote:
The voter registration forms in nine U.S. states (AZ, FL, GA, HI, ID, NY, OH, RI, WA) are exclusively in Cloudflare’s walled garden.
The right to petition:
The biggest petition services in the world are in Cloudflare’s walled garden.
- change·org
- moveon·org
- actionnetwork·org
Freedom of expression:
The biggest threadiverse server in the world (lemmy·world) is in Cloudflare’s walled garden.
Freedom of assembly and of association:
Countless political activist groups have their online existence exclusively in Cloudflare’s walled garden.
The right to education and academic freedom:
Learning platforms exclusively reachable within Cloudflare’s walled garden:
- MyOpenMath
- PhET
The right to engage in work and access to placement services:
Most of the biggest job searching sites are exclusively reachable within Cloudflare’s walled garden, including:
- indeed·com
- glassdoor·com
- careerbuilder·com
Bank access is becoming increasingly critical for receiving payroll payments as the world eliminates cash. At the same time banks and credit unions are joining Cloudflare’s walled garden.
Fair and just working conditions:
Many workers’ rights organizations are exclusively inside Cloudflare’s walled garden, notably:
- Center for Workers’ Rights
- Justice at Work
- Solidarity Center
- The Farmworker Association of Florida, Inc.
- Women Employed
- Worker Rights Consortium (WRC)
Many workers’ safety organizations are also exclusively inside Cloudflare’s walled garden, notably:
- American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
- National Association of Safety Professionals (NASP)
- National Safety Council (NSC)
- The Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI)
- World Health Organization – Office of Occupational Health (WHO-OCH)
The right of access to government documents:
At the federal level, these websites make access to government documents exclusively available in Cloudflare’s walled garden:
- Library of Congress
- The US Congress (congress·gov + the websites of some individual Congress members such as Ayanna Pressley)
Countless US states have made access to government documents and information exclusively reachable inside Cloudflare’s walled garden. There are too many to make a comprehensive list but if we only consider the Secretary of State resources, these states have made access to business registration records conditional on entry into Cloudflare’s walled garden:
- Arizona
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- New York
- Ohio
- Rhode Island
- Washington
Opensecrets·org enables people to review how money is spent in connection with politics. The site is also in Cloudflare’s walled garden.
The right life and to healthcare:
Searching for a health issue is often useful to quickly get essential medical information particularly in an emergency. When a search for medical information filters out Cloudflare sites, the resulting information is generally sparse and lacking. Websites like webmd·com are part of Cloudflare.
3. Exclusion (Cloudflare’s exclusion is more rigid and more vast)
Google and Facebook exclude those who do not have access to a mobile phone, which account for ~5% of the world’s population. A total of 5.35 billion people around the world were using the internet at the start of 2024, equivalent to 66.2 percent of the world’s total population. So it’s probably fair to say that a large portion of people without mobile phone access do not have internet access anyway. The people excluded by Google and Facebook may only be a small percentage of privacy enthusiasts who simply refuse to share their mobile phone number with a surveillance advertiser. Those who want to enter the walled gardens of Facebook and Google can also use a pinger service to overcome that barrier. This naturally pales in comparison to Cloudflare, whose exclusion is non-transparent. People in Cloudflare’s excluded groups cannot know how to overcome the exclusion if they do not even know the reason for their exclusion.
4. Trapping (Cloudflare’s walled garden is the least escapable)
Google’s Playstore traps people to the extent that they insist on the convenience of using an app. Most services offer web service as an alternative to a mobile app. There are some niche scenarios with schools but this does not affect a large portion of the population. Facebook’s trap is relatively weak as well apart from some niche situations. Escaping Cloudflare is unsurmountable. Most who decide to remain outside of Cloudflare’s walled garden must generally give up access to a substantial number of essential services.