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Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#321

Post by zmb_ »

I'm struggling to try to understand what this means for the risks of running a business in the cloud going forward. It was not just AWS dropping them, but many of their other vendors dropped them too, essentially killing their business overnight.

Granted, for this first case the bar was extremely high. You needed literal storming of the Capitol and a platform seemingly specifically targeted at those people for this to happen. However, now that the precedent is set, I would expect the bar to be lowered going forward. That creates risks that need to somehow be mitigated (and reflected in valuations).

Even for businesses that are not in such politically charged areas, I can easily imagine getting inadvertently tangled up in some popular issue and having vendors become targets of online activist (whether it's your own vendors, or whether you are a vendor to a target).

What are the best mitigations here, both technical and social? Vocally side with the popular issues, or try to stay completely out of them, to try to avoid becoming a target (e.g., social media presence)? Try to reduce dependence on cloud providers and vendors by building more in-house? How far would you have to go, since a colo or an ISP can drop you just as AWS can?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#322

Post by pyronik19 »

Well the 90s vision of a free and open internet are dead. We now have big tech censored speech where anything the right of bernie sanders is targeted for removal and any platforms that are created to combat this are systemically attacked at the infrastructure level. Do people not understand WHY people were at the capitol? It's because of this bullshit.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#323

Post by charly187 »

verytrivial wrote: post #83
garyclarke27 wrote: post #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…

This sounds like a reasoned moral choice for you and I applaud it. Some entrepreneurs will feel the same. And some would also be looking for providers other than AWS if they didn't hold Parler to the letter of their TOS in this case. It is also true that AWS and all network providers exist within a societal context where the speech and actions of the participants can result in consequences. Where the line is drawn an…

Are we supposed to pretend that the same people that pushed for this to happen don't actively fantasize about banning people like Steven Crowder and The Daily Wire/Ben Shapiro?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#324

Post by mywittyname »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #272
mgkimsal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

parler sounds like a classic honeypot

It's interesting how the natural inclination of the folks drawn to this kind of product leads to them being willing to provide a lot more personal information than they otherwise would to other similar platforms.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#325

Post by mech422 »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #170
mech422 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if all the bakers in town refuse to bake you a cake, should you be able to force one to? Seriously, when there are dozens of options and none of them want your business, shouldn't that give you pause? If all the insurance agencies refuse to insure your ship because they think it will sink, wouldn't it be prudent to double check your blueprints/construction ?

It's not that none of the other options want their business (though I have no doubt that Google and probably Microsoft would also exclude them). It's that you can't just switch platforms within days, while you could go order another cake since there's almost no time commitment to requesting a cake.

while that maybe true - it happens fairly often, usually with no warning at all. If anything, parler got preferential treatment by getting notice BEFORE getting terminated. Most just get "your account has been locked/terminated/etc" emails after the fact. There's bunches of horror stories on HN about it...

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#326

Post by cbozeman »

chasing wrote: 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 really struggle with this. Most websites have block or mute buttons. So why is it we can't just use those?

You see something you don't like, don't click on it.

You see someone you don't like, just block or mute them.

Almost every platform lets you choose the level, of lack thereof, of discourse you want to have with people with whom you disagree.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#327

Post by throwawaysea »

chasing wrote: 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 disgusting content was literally its reason for existing, despite all of the bland "we're just a free speech site" stuff.

I disagree with this. My experience with Parler was very limited, but from a quick glance, I was not able to find any call for violence. I'm sure it exists, but the sense I got is that the vast majority of content and accounts are simply posting conservative content. Do you have evidence that "disgusting content" (whatever that means) is its "reason for existing"? That seems like a self-serving editorial conclusion rather than something borne out by hard evidence.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#328

Post by runjake »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #183
cabalamat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only way to get 'badged' is to use the mobile app and take a picture of govt ID (driver license, passport, etc). Some people have argued, based on this, that Parler was set up by the NSA to get data on people. Hoovering up data from social media is certainly the sort of thing the NSA would do.

This suggestion doesn't stand up to a moment's scrutiny. Do you really think the best way for a government agency to access government IDs is to secretly run a Twitter clone?

No, but it may be a good way to identify extremists and/or easily-manipulated persons amongst your populace.

I'm not saying it's likely, but certainly possible.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#329

Post by nudpiedo »

chasing wrote: 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…

so much politization in a single comment... the news often opens with disturbung content, and the world has many people who says daily pure garbage and we do not want to shut down any of those. Free speech is a fundamental part of western civilization, it cost us way too much to achieve it to just give it up like that. Stop with all those fallacies, they still worked on 2019 but not on 2021, at least not on HN.
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