Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support • Hacker News Board

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#491

Post by sn_master » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #413

Closi wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree - but I think this can only be solved via legislation. Amazon has too much market power if it can shut down another company at the push of a button for something that isn't illegal (even if it's distasteful).

Was the parler content legal? "Amazon Web Services suspended Parler from its web hosting services... citing a letter it had obtained that mentions 98 examples of Parler posts that "encourage and incite violence." Don't forget that Amazon also has legal liability for hosting and distributing illegal content. Amazon is not a monopoly -- the mitigation for AWS being able to cut off your business is to architect your app…

"legal" in a democracy is something that only a court can decide.

I don't know what was Parler's size, but in any website with millions of visitors a handful will post aweful things each day. Were those 98 posts posted by the same user? Did anyone report them and Parler refused to take them down? Were they popular or downvoted with few views?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#492

Post by lodovic » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #468

chmod600 wrote: post #425

This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. I'm sure it's happened before, but probably not in situations we'd like to emulate. Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good. When any possibility of insurrection is crushed, for everyone now and in the future (not just insurrectionists), that sounds like it won't end well for the p…

Fun fact: I spoke with two of my good buddies one up high Amazon another at Twitter. The fellow from twitter told me they will never suspend Trump because despite what he says, Twitter makes few million dollars daily (!!) off of his feed. The reason you see him being booted out is because my buddy from Amazon told me they may be ready to drop Twitter as a client altogether (mostly because of Trump) and the way their…

That math, combined with the drop in stock price, does not add up.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#493

Post by wolco5 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #471

chmod600 wrote: post #425

This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. I'm sure it's happened before, but probably not in situations we'd like to emulate. Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good. When any possibility of insurrection is crushed, for everyone now and in the future (not just insurrectionists), that sounds like it won't end well for the p…

It is hard to separate the fact that they are distancing themselves from a fascist, white-supremacist platform that was instrumental in a near-overthrow of the US government. And even if you think that's okay, this wasn't insurrection in response to oppression, it was an insurrection to overthrow an uncontested democratic result. I guess Parler is so radioactive that Amazon would rather be sued than continue to busin…

Reports of the government being overthrown have been greatly exaggerated.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#494

Post by gnicholas » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

SiliconMage wrote: post #480

gnicholas wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears there is a business opportunity to (re)create infrastructure for use by companies/individuals that have been banned from the mainstream platforms. I'm sure such a platform would be despised by many in the mainstream, and most mainstream companies would not consider using them because customers would boycott them if they did. But for companies whose customers are primarily on the right, the cost/benefit cou…

The end result will probably be two separate frameworks distanced from each other where each side is free to babble away in their echo chambers as much as they want.

We are certainly moving in that direction, unfortunately.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#495

Post by epistasis » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #409

epistasis wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these companies are "shutting you down" for your speech, it's the same sort of speech that would have gotten you shut down in the public square. Have they shut down text messaging, phone calls, group messaging, all the encrypted messaging apps? Do the tech companies control postal mail, letters to the editor, and printing presses? Of course not. You are looking for others to give you a platform to reach a wide aud…

>If these companies are "shutting you down" for your speech, it's the same sort of speech that would have gotten you shut down in the public square. That's completely absurd. Tens of thousands of people are silenced by corporations every day for speech that is considered offensive by one metric or another, but is by no means illegal. An associate of mine was permanently banned for, "deadnaming" someone else. Certainl…

There's two different sorts of "you" here. There's the big platform of "you" that AWS shut down, that was shut down for the not-allowed-in-public-sphere speech.

Then there are the "you"s that are posting on individual platforms that get to choose their own standards of conduct. AWS stopped business with a platform that would not be allowed in the public square.

An individual that got banned for dead naming can just start another account anonymously, as far as I know.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#496

Post by sn_master » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

MartinCron wrote: post #459

Closi wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree - but I think this can only be solved via legislation. Amazon has too much market power if it can shut down another company at the push of a button for something that isn't illegal (even if it's distasteful).

Parler chose to use AWS for their hosting. When you build your company on someone else's platform, you're explicitly giving them that market power.

They needed 300-500 servers according to the CEO. There isn't much choice in the market when it comes to that kind of need, specially when you need to be hosted in the US because you're a political website. Imagine if they were hosted in Russia instead, they would have lost all their credibility.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#497

Post by xyst » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #425

This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. I'm sure it's happened before, but probably not in situations we'd like to emulate. Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good. When any possibility of insurrection is crushed, for everyone now and in the future (not just insurrectionists), that sounds like it won't end well for the p…

There was the case of PornHub/MindGeek and MC/Visa. PH was hosting a ton of videos which showed exposed minors (likely most of it was "revenge porn") and other unsavory content. It wasn't until Visa/MC decided to halt processing of all PH transactions that PH decided to haphazardly delete ALL non-partnered content on the platform.

This all happened in less than a week of Visa announcing it.

I think the outcome was "good" but the damage had already been done as these videos are likely residing on servers that are not owned or controlled by PH. Additionally, there's probably a shit ton of non-partnered content that was innocuous.

timeline:

* nyt publishes scathing article about PH and other sites on 2020-12-04 (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...)

* MC and Visa announce to cut ties with PH on 2020-12-11 (https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/mastercard-and-visa...)

* On 2020-12-14 (~3 days later), PH then purges all unverified content (https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgqjjy/pornhub-suspended-all...)

In just a matter of 10 days, a billion dollar corporation deleted a significant amount of their content without even having to step into a court room.

To be honest, it's kind of scary. What if you are just on the wrong side of a person at XYZ company? Maybe a cloud executive wants Y company to succeed because he or she has significant capital investment in it, and X competing company is about to roll out their product to the masses. Executive then writes up a scathing internal report by X company to ban them from using their products, or even worse "leaks" false information about X company to get them tied up in a public opinion battle.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#498

Post by mainstreem » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #471

chmod600 wrote: post #425

This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. I'm sure it's happened before, but probably not in situations we'd like to emulate. Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good. When any possibility of insurrection is crushed, for everyone now and in the future (not just insurrectionists), that sounds like it won't end well for the p…

It is hard to separate the fact that they are distancing themselves from a fascist, white-supremacist platform that was instrumental in a near-overthrow of the US government. And even if you think that's okay, this wasn't insurrection in response to oppression, it was an insurrection to overthrow an uncontested democratic result. I guess Parler is so radioactive that Amazon would rather be sued than continue to busin…

If Amazon has rules, why is Twitter still up?

The "PacNW Youth Liberation Front" Twitter account is still active. They frequently call for overthrow of the government and organize violent direct actions.

Rose City Antifa is still active. They do the same.

Salon's Tweet calling for more violence this summer and calling the violence that had already occurred against Federal properties by Leftist activists "justified" is still up, as is Salon's website.

Khamenei's Twitter is still active, calling for the elimination of all Jews and Israel.

I'm sure this will get downvoted. Probably flagged.

But since the government can't shut down companies due to the content their users post, because of Section 230, I guess a small, colluding cartel of corporations can step in to silence people when the government will bend knee to the Leftist mob instead.

It's only a matter of time before the people wielding this power find it turned against them, if they do not recognize what they are doing to discourse on the Internet.

Pandora's box is fucking open now.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#499

Post by marcod » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #471

chmod600 wrote: post #425

This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. I'm sure it's happened before, but probably not in situations we'd like to emulate. Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good. When any possibility of insurrection is crushed, for everyone now and in the future (not just insurrectionists), that sounds like it won't end well for the p…

It is hard to separate the fact that they are distancing themselves from a fascist, white-supremacist platform that was instrumental in a near-overthrow of the US government. And even if you think that's okay, this wasn't insurrection in response to oppression, it was an insurrection to overthrow an uncontested democratic result. I guess Parler is so radioactive that Amazon would rather be sued than continue to busin…

They had 50+ concrete examples of calls for violence on parler that were reported to AWS.

> AWS has rules.

Also, "we're trying to have a f'ing society here"

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#500

Post by Daishiman » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

jlkuester7 wrote: post #469

cactus2093 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)? For now, don't attempt to overturn a fair democratic election and install an illegitimate government. Seems like a pretty easy thing to stay clear of. I get the concern you're expressing, but not everything is a s…

> not everything is a slippery slope From a risk management perspective, this does not seem like a safe assumption to make. The DailyStormer got "canceled" by vendors for not even trying to moderate content that actively promoted violence (among other horrible things). Now Parlor gets "canceled" by vendors for not doing a good enough job trying to moderate content promoting violence. The bar for getting "canceled" is…

No, parlor wasn't even doing a "good enough job". It wasn't doing _anything_. It's financial backers supported everything with regards to its users going into a violent frenzy.

There really is nothing contentious here, unless you feel that if you know that a group is organizing in your platform with the intent of staging a coup then you're in your right to just let them go about it.