Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support • Hacker News Board

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#641

Post by myko » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 8:44 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?

The platform refused to moderate that content.

In fact it was its raison d'étre.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#642

Post by jimbob45 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 8:44 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…

You’re preaching to the choir. We’ve been having discussions on HN for years about the dangers of swapping the short-term benefits of AWS for the long-term dangers it can bring. I’m sure there’s some Nostradamus on here that predicted this exact situation with Parler. The dangers were obvious and clear to anyone who was paying attention but not everyone was paying attention. Hopefully, this gets managers and CEOs to double-check if the benefits of AWS/EWS truly outweigh the risks.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#643

Post by bawolff » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

runako wrote: post #551

namedpipe wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

I agree with this general idea, but also any bespoke service contract approved by a competent attorney will still have clauses for instant-kill under certain circumstances. For example, no provider would provide service under a bespoke contract obligating them to knowingly host & serve illegal content (because this creates legal liability for the provider). What is alleged about Parler would likely fit into the insta…

I think the poster was worried about slippery slope - today they come for the evil men, tomorrow they come for the unpopular men, the next day they come for me. In such a context i assume the poster isnt actually planning to host anything illegal or even distatsteful to current views, so a good contract should be fully negotiatable.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#644

Post by throwaway5752 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #586

throwaway5752 wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think the Jan 6 insurrection was OK, or even close. My point is that the tools for organizing an insurrection are being removed, and that's at least a little scary. It's like fitting everyone with a shock collar and saying it will only be used against insurrectionists. The government will be a lot less worried about resistance, and the definition of "insurrectionist" is likely to move over time. It just doesn…

That's a really fair point, and it's a really hard problem.

In this case, you had people trying to overthrow a democratic vote. So they are literally the enemies of a free society. But the same laws and infrastructure to prevent this can be misused.

That's the hard stop. You can't have a governmental system that is fault tolerant to malicious misrule. You need to apply laws or laws lose power, and you need to trust those carrying out governing to obey some norms.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#645

Post by jlkuester7 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

jaredsohn wrote: post #631

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…

A nit - I think your high/low bar metaphor was backwards. A high bar means that standard is more strict while a low bar means it is less strict.

Ha, you are right! Fixed.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#646

Post by ChrisLomont » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #586

throwaway5752 wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think the Jan 6 insurrection was OK, or even close. My point is that the tools for organizing an insurrection are being removed, and that's at least a little scary. It's like fitting everyone with a shock collar and saying it will only be used against insurrectionists. The government will be a lot less worried about resistance, and the definition of "insurrectionist" is likely to move over time. It just doesn…

>My point is that the tools for organizing an insurrection are being removed, and that's at least a little scary.

Insurrections were organized well before AWS and the like existed, and they will still be organized well after AWS and the like are gone.

Limiting platforms that make it easier to radicalize large numbers of people is still a good thing.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#647

Post by crististm » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #526

hertzrat wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The irony. You mean they did exactly what twitter does but on the right wing? They deserve to be digitally obliterated!!!!

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#648

Post by bawolff » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #620

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…

> What are the best mitigations here What are you trying to mitigate? You can't mitigate "Getting banned for making a place to plan a coup". You can't mitigate "I want a place to allow posts advocating criminal activity". If people were openly discussing breaking and entering houses, should that be allowed too? Why should we tolerate publicly planning violence when we don't tolerate publicly planning other crimes?

You can mitigate anything (i dont think you should, but that is a different question). I dont think the original poster was suggesting that type of thing (more a fear of slippery slope), but for the sake of argument, if they were tor hidden services would be the obvious way to mitigate.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#649

Post by rcurry » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #427

munificent wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hear a lot of people saying this is just another example of the left trying to shut down free speech This is a specious argument on its face. The First Amendment does not say that private companies are obligated to spend money broadcasting someone else's speech. Hosting and serving isn't free and any private company has the freedom to decide what not to host. If an author's content is so toxic that advertisers wo…

Consider this - If the conservative farmers and distributers individually decided not serve the bay area anyone, they are well within their rights. Political ideology is not protected, regardless of how important you perceive basic accommodations like shelter, food, or communication are.

It’s not so much the farmers as it is truckers. CA has a lot of agriculture but some places like NYC have a very limited food supply. For some reason a lot of people have no idea how dependent they are on rural areas. I never forgot this tweet from some politician from out East who was flying back from Denver or somewhere and posted a picture of the ground below the airplane (farm fields with patterns from circular irrigation systems) and he says “No idea why the ground looks like that!”

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#650

Post by Natfan » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

chmod600 wrote: post #586

throwaway5752 wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think the Jan 6 insurrection was OK, or even close. My point is that the tools for organizing an insurrection are being removed, and that's at least a little scary. It's like fitting everyone with a shock collar and saying it will only be used against insurrectionists. The government will be a lot less worried about resistance, and the definition of "insurrectionist" is likely to move over time. It just doesn…

If it helps, I agree with you here. This whole situation has made me a bit uneasy. While I generally agree with the decision made by these private companies in this specific instance, it does feel like there was a domino effect where one platform banned people for inciting violence, and then the rest followed suit when there was media traction on the story. The fact that a few people have this much unchecked power is a bit scary.

Yes, these are private companies. Yes, they don't have to spend time, money or infrastructure on anyone they don't want on the platform, I understand all of this.

What I merely want to comment on is the ubiquity of these websites. Facebook, Google, Twitter and even TikTok are increasingly becoming primary means that people around the world communicate. If I'm a racist prat that spams that we should "kill all those muslamics, innit", sure I should be warned or removed from these platforms, however that significantly diminish my means of contacting other people.

I have friends that I can only really contact through Facebook. I'm trying to add them on multiple services so that I stay away from a single-point-of-failure, however some of my relatives are old and/or technologically inept, and they never check their email or SMS. While I could call them, if I were to get banned from Facebook that could reduce my ability to communicate with these people down quickly and easily to near zero.

I understand that there are actions for your consequences, I just fear that with these services becoming so commonplace (see WeChat in China, for example), being locked out of these walled gardens could have severe, real world impacts to those that the platform doesn't like.

I don't know, just food for thought.