Protecting Free Speech Or Hate Speech? Shootings Intensify A Cybersecurity Dilemma

The weekend's mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton have intensified a long-running debate about gun control — and a newer debate about internet control.

In Greater Boston's large cybersecurity industry, some executives are thinking hard about the decision one of their counterparts in California has made to cut service to a website where the alleged El Paso gunman posted racist comments shortly before the shooting.

There is no consensus on how to handle the competing interests of free speech and public safety.

"We're not content police, but I think we do have a responsibility to our employees and our customers and our shareholders and, as a company, we have a cultural responsibility," said Tom Leighton, chief executive of Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies.

Akamai's services include protecting websites from hackers. That's what San Francisco-based Cloudflare did for the website 8chan until late Sunday, when Cloudflare Chief Executive Matthew Prince wrote in a blog post that his company is "terminating 8chan as a customer."