CDN

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a geographically distributed network of servers that caches and delivers website content from the location closest to each user, reducing load times. Cloudflare is the dominant CDN provider, handling a significant share of global web traffic. CDNs also provide DDoS protection — critical for platforms that face coordinated traffic attacks. In 2019, Cloudflare terminated service to 8chan, joining the list of infrastructure providers used as deplatforming vectors.

What it means

CDN termination doesn't take a site offline the way hosting termination does — but it can make a site slow, unreliable, and vulnerable to DDoS attacks that were previously being absorbed by the CDN's network. For a social media platform serving millions of users, the difference between CDN-protected performance and un-CDN'd performance can be the difference between a functional product and an unusable one.

Cloudflare's decision to terminate 8chan in 2019 established that CDN providers will take speech-based enforcement actions — and since Cloudflare handles a large fraction of all web traffic, this is a meaningful chokepoint.

How it works on Gab

Gab's infrastructure strategy accounts for CDN-level deplatforming risk as part of its broader architectural independence from third-party gatekeepers. The same principles that drove building its own servers — digital sovereignty — apply to evaluating CDN dependencies.

Related terms

CDNs sit alongside web hosts and domain registrars in the infrastructure stack, all of which are potential deplatforming vectors. Alt-tech is building CDN alternatives.