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Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

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Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#61
post #41

Parler wasn't some innocent social media site that happened to have some disgusting content on it. The disgusting content was literally its reason for existing, despite all of the bland "we're just a free speech site" stuff. And I have yet to hear anyone discuss how "anything goes" and social media do not mix. It's much easier to turn a community toxic than it is to keep it healthy, and healthy communities (of any so…

The NYT lied to the American public to whip them up into supporting the Iraq War, which led to the deaths of millions of people (many of them innocent). Why won't AWS, Google, and Apple collectively ban them? Their open calls for violence were far more consequential and severe and serious than anything on Parler

The actual reason for the war: an informant fed the government bad intel and the state looked the other way because they wanted a reason to invade Iraq.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#62
post #41

Parler wasn't some innocent social media site that happened to have some disgusting content on it. The disgusting content was literally its reason for existing, despite all of the bland "we're just a free speech site" stuff. And I have yet to hear anyone discuss how "anything goes" and social media do not mix. It's much easier to turn a community toxic than it is to keep it healthy, and healthy communities (of any so…

[flagged]

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#63
The great irony here is that these de-platformings are only concerned with non-state violence (or so they claim). There is no censorship of people advocating for disarming the entire population (using political violence) or depriving them of property (again, using state power).

And as far as I can tell, none of the politicians who initiate and perpetuate war are de-platformed.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#64
post #2

I don't know which social media platforms use AWS to any critical extent, but I can't imagine them ejecting a big name like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc over "finding dozens of posts on the service which it said encouraged violence".

That's not the reason, and we all know it.

We live in a capitalist free-market system. Amazon (or any entity) is free to choose with whom they do business (oh the irony!). They are dropping Parler because the the current political climate has manifest in such a way that they think it will cost them more financial and/or political capital than the alternative (recall there is a lot of antitrust sentiment out there right now).

Too bad so sad. Sorry not sorry. This is exactly the kind of "freedom" for which many of the above platform's users would advocate. Parler's PR team is missing the opportunity to applaud AWS for exercising their freedoms.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction, that AWS, Google, and Apple have all claimed, is that Parler refuses to sufficiently moderate the inciting of violence. Perhaps that claim is in error, perhaps such judgements are too subjective. If so, large social media companies might avoid AWS for fear of it.

Because that would be very expensive for them...

Not moderating their uh, “content”, is very expensive for the rest of us. It’s potentially, an extreme expense for Amazon. No one has an obligation to let their business suffer for you.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am offended by the recent actions of digital giants and I never called for repeal of S230. This is fairly clearly an antitrust case, which has nothing to do with S230. Behavior of the digital giants is very similar to the behavior of railroad oligopolies of the 19th century which actually led to antitrust legislation.

How is it an antitrust case? Amazon doesn't have a monopoly on hosting internet services. And there is no oligopoly for this line of business, there are many thousands of suitable providers worldwide. It would be different if, say, CenturyLink were blocking content across their transit infrastructure. That would be more like your railroad analogy.

Antitrust legislation isn't built around 100 % monopoly, but rather dominant force and cartel-like behavior, especially if they act to suppress growth of potential competitors. This is the core of antitrust jurisprudence: markets only work in presence of vigorous competition, but big incumbents are highly motivated to obtain so much influence that significant competition does not have a real chance to grow and threaten them.

There is a longish recent staff report on the Web of the Congress regarding behavior of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook (almost 500 pages) [0]. I actually read most of it. These platforms have already engaged in a lot of stuff that is anti-competitive. And the latest purge of Parler is, among other effects, also a suppression of a potential competitor.

Of course, the tech giants say that they weren't officially motivated by a desire to suppress a competitor, but they acted against potentially competing firms so many times already that one should be wary about their explanations.

[0] https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/competition_in_dig...

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#67
This vicious lethal (effectively kills Parler) action by Amazon - driven by a mob of woke employees - will cause long term damage to AWS. I had plans to use AWS for a potentially huge SAAS business, even though it is not likely to be contentious, just the thought of them being able to destroy everything overnight, without due process, without recourse - sends chills down my spine. I cannot now imagine, being able to trust Amazon for critical infrastructure ever again and I'm sure many other entrepreneurs will feel similarly.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#69

All I’m going to say is that I’m all for free speech and setting fair rules for everyone to play by (ie regulation), but looking at the examples provided in the buzzfeed articles this is beyond simple free speech. I hear a lot of people saying this is just another example of the left trying to shut down free speech but there are clear threats being made on the platform. If Parler doesn’t want to do any content regula…

"... looking at the examples provided in the buzzfeed articles" is another way of saying "I ate the cherry pie made from the cherry-picking by the cherry-pickers." Buzzfeed is about as even-handed as the Norse god Tyr.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#70
post #41

Parler wasn't some innocent social media site that happened to have some disgusting content on it. The disgusting content was literally its reason for existing, despite all of the bland "we're just a free speech site" stuff. And I have yet to hear anyone discuss how "anything goes" and social media do not mix. It's much easier to turn a community toxic than it is to keep it healthy, and healthy communities (of any so…

I poked around on it some, and noticed something ... disturbing. I saw what I assumed were bots posting a lot of garbage links to 'articles' like "Obama compound raided!" and "8 Democrats switch to Republican Party" (that actually happened in Feb 2020, but the link was to an undated rerun and the link was posted.. 2 days ago?). The links were to such trustworthy sites as 'firstusanews.us' (made up, but all variants l…

I was also curious about Parler but, when going to sign up, it asked for my phone number. Ummmm, no thank you. That kind of association is like going to a protest with your cellphone. Pretty easy to get the wrong kind of association attached to you.
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