Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support • Hacker News Board

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#521

Post by yks » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:43 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…

I think things are pretty clear cut, if you want to start a service to obviously harbor fascist user-driven content, then yes, prepare to be cut off from the mainstream vendors. DailyStormer and Parler are explicitly those types of services.

It is a bit disingenuous to suggest that because Parler is down, "mom and pop" websites with comment section attached now need to lawyer up.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#522

Post by Domenic_S » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:43 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…

> near-overthrow of the US government

That's giving WAY too much credit. The US Government is not a room or a building. A coup is considered successful if it holds power for 7 days; these jokers didn't hold power for 7 seconds.

> insurrection to overthrow an uncontested democratic result.

This is overstating from a certain point of view. It was contested in court (and soundly affirmed). Bear with me for a moment - if what Trump was saying about the election were true, we would want this kind of reaction. I think we can all agree that rigged elections are an affront to democracy. It's just that this election wasn't rigged, as affirmed by courts many times, so the mob wasn't acting righteously. This train of thought has some nuance so I'm not going to be surprised when some folks misinterpret it.

There are two things to think about:

1) how have we let misinformation get so bad that it ultimately forms insurrection? We've got Snopes, disclaimers on social media, etc - is deplatforming the only thing left to counter fake news that calls people to violent action?

2) what are the implications of giving social media & hosting platforms the power to arbitrate what's fake news and what's not? This is incredible power and without checks & balances it is probably too much for individual private companies to hold the keys.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#523

Post by Johnny555 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

nix23 wrote: post #505

Johnny555 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>98 examples of Parler posts that "encourage and incite violence." Just imagine how much that would be in Facebook numbers? I think we can block Facebook too, no?

Does Facebook have a moderation policy in place that will remove these posts? Does Parler?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#524

Post by namedpipe » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

zmb_ wrote: post #321

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 t…

The best mitigation strategy here is to engage your vendors with private contracts instead of depending on generic terms of service (ToS) alone.

Every company I've worked with has negotiated separate agreements with providers to reduce risk. Including contracts with both AWS and Azure.

If your business gets to a certain size and you are still on the generic ToS and paying by credit card you have a big risk on your hands. You could be terminated at any point.

With a private contract you can negotiate things like a termination notice. You can put in place a grace period before things are shut off. You can implement dispute procedures that are unique to your business needs so that when you and the vendor disagree it doesn't immediately disrupt your business.

None of this is easy. But if your business absolutely depends on public cloud hosting you'd be stupid not to call up your vendor and negotiate.

If you are unwilling to do that, then you need to make sure you diversify your cloud. It's much less likely that two competing cloud vendors would shut you off at exactly the same time.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#525

Post by pixl97 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #510

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…

> don't attempt to overturn a fair democratic election and install an illegitimate government. Erm, was Parler as a platform even doing that? Or you know, PEOPLE on the platform, which is not the exact same thing?

Turns out you should keep those attempting to over throw democratic elections off your service.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#526

Post by sbarre » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

hertzrat wrote: post #450

DangerousPie wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the mitigation is "don't build a platform to attract white supremacists banned from other sites and then watch as they use it to plan a riot in the Capitol."

Imagine a hypothetical, well-intentioned free speech focused platform, without censorship and with low moderation: it will attract those people because those people have nowhere else to go. That strategy is a non-starter. The real requirement is that we are pushing for a world of auto-moderation where robots have to approve every single thing we say online - otherwise you are not allowed to let people communicate.

Just to be clear about this specific case: There is "evidence" (Twitter posts) coming out that showed that all new users of Parler were shadowbanned by default, until their posts/content were approved by a small group of "right-think" moderators.

So while your hypothetical isn't invalid in general, it's really not what was happening here with Parler.

What they said they were trying to be was not at all what they were actually doing - a common theme in extremist spaces.

But your overall concern about the concentration and centralization of our communications is legit. There's no easy answer there.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#527

Post by sn_master » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

Daishiman wrote: post #508

sn_master wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thousands of companies host 300-500 servers on a couple of racks in some data center in the Midwest. There is not reason at all to have your content hosted in the US if you felt its legislators or IT providers aren't up to par to your idea of what free speech represents. Credibility? Yeah, seems that the crediblity issues weren't exactly about the hosting provider.

Look at their growth curve, they weren't planning from the beginning on that. I am sure they would have gone with their own DC if they did.

The legislative and judicial system didn't say anything about Parler, and that's the core of the problem. Big tech acted by themselves to appease the new king.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#528

Post by larrywright » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

Daishiman wrote: post #500

jlkuester7 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There are lots of horrible things on Parler from what I’ve seen (I don’t have an account, I’ve just seen screen shots). The most egregious example was the post from Trump attorney Lin Wood calling for Pence to be executed by firing squad. It was up for days, and only taken down when this all blew up.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#529

Post by StellarTabi » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:45 PM UTC

enriquec wrote: post #39

derision wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about calling for the eradication of Jews? https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1003332853525110784 Twitter doesn't seem to have any issue with this content

or the fact that nicolas maduro - a man already convicted of crimes against humanity by the UN - still has an account and has gone uncensored. how anyone here defends such blatant hypocrisy is beyond me

I don't think "convicted of crimes against humanity by the UN" violates Twitter's ToS, and I'm assuming he didn't use Twitter to commit any of the alleged crimes, so this is a pretty bad faith, whataboutism, complete non-sense, etc.. By this logic you could ban both Bush and Obama, too.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#530

Post by crazydoggers » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

a_band wrote: post #446

crazydoggers wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference with the phone companies is you’re talking one on one communication. Not a publishing platform which is what these social media services really are. You can always use text, signal, etc if you want to communicate with your group. These are the same kinds of issues society dealt with, with the advent of radio and television, platforms that allowed small groups to reach out to very large groups of people…

> You can always use text, signal, etc if you want to communicate with your group. Does Signal run on AWS? If I can shut you down at the cloud level then I'm not sure these options will be available in the future. Someone is going to coordinate a protest/riot on Signal, screenshots will leak, then what happens?

Well Signal is free and open source. So feel free to boot up some servers on any other platform, or your own hosting and run it from there. Maybe signal the foundation needs to pay more or move platforms to support the app and make it easy to install, but again, why would or should AWS, Google, Apple be forced to host them? Don't those companies have a first amendment right to block speech they don't like?

It's like walking into the mall or public place, and saying, "You have to broadcast this message to everyone because 'freedom of speech'"".

In fact it's better to assume that private companies have such ability anywhere in the world. Signal fosters more access to defy censorship precisely because it realizes that. Making the software open source is how you allow people who need such tools to have them available.

And honestly... you've got the airwaves. It's called radio. Shortwave, can reach halfway around the world.

Again, the entitlement to these services astounds me. The internet didn't exist 40 years ago.... and now somehow the ability to assault people with misinformation, provide unfettered access for propaganda from state actors, permit the dissemination of hate speech is being called a right??

It makes no sense, and is completely devoid of historical perspective.