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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

#771

Post by pixl97 »

sn_master wrote: post #579
pixl97 wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone doesn't understand civil law. If I dont have to wait for a child porn conviction to ban you from my site for posting 'illegal' content. I will do it immediately and sever all contracts. Its funny how we have the freedom of association right up to the moment it affects those supporting fascism, then all of a sudden a different set of laws matter.

Can you give an example of content that was within that range of offense or danger that was posted on Parler?

I don't need to, AWS gave Parler 98 of them.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#772

Post by deft »

jhowell wrote: post #725
imperio59 wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullying is real. My wife and I run a side Business Saas product. She is listed as COO on her social media profile for the company. She is also in a bunch of groups about gardening in our local area. During the height of BLM protests and CHOP/CHAZ, someone made a post that was very off-topic for the group, basically saying we should all support what was happening in the CHOP and all the violence against cops was just…

> My wife took no position on the issue but politely replied saying the post felt off-topic and she didn't want to hear about politics in her favorite gardening group. > Several people attacked her on the post, calling her white privileged, racist, etc... all for suggesting the post was off-topic (even though the group's own rules prohibited political content). Isn't the ability to decide what issue your bring to a s…

Yes, it's called Facebook Group Admin privilege. Has nothing to do with race.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#773

Post by bchmod777 »

Natfan wrote: post #650
chmod600 wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm surprised that no-one's dived deeper into WHY these private companies don't want these people on the platform.

From the perspective of Amazon, Google, Apple, and many others, the overthrowing of the US Government negatively impacts their long-term goals in many areas, such as profit and employee retention. If the US Government were overthrown and Trump became dictator, Amazon would have to move a ton of customer data to other countries because America would be the new China.

It's crazy that it took a coup attempt to open their eyes to this risk. The fact that they didn't take action sooner suggests that a lot of C-level folks throughout the tech world have been pretty complacent in regards to government stability.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#774

Post by ncallaway »

burrows wrote: post #662
yongjik wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bar for getting "canceled" is already moving up ... Eh I'm not so sure about that? I mean, "Did your userbase activately participate in a plot to storm the Capitol and potentially take lawmakers and the VP of the State as hostages (or worse)?" is an awfully high bar to clear.

And if my hypothetical platform is decentralized to the extent that I can’t top-down censor content, what then?

Then you probably shouldn't host it in AWS, because it'll risk violating other AUP terms.

The Acceptable Use Policy is here: https://aws.amazon.com/aup/

If your users use your service for illegal or fraudulent activities, you have no way of stopping them, and your service is on AWS, then you risk being shut-down.

That hasn't changed today. That was true as of September 16th, 2016 (and probably before then as well)

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#775

Post by waheoo »

weaksauce wrote: post #625
Daishiman wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To extend on that... the entire premise of parler was that everyone was censoring them too much(for similar calls for violence) so they needed a platform that was immune from that. well when your entire premise is flawed from the start it's not a stretch to see that they would be targeted from that like stormfront.

That's a stretch.

Millions feel censored and diminished.

You don't get to the level parler got purely because the few extreme users felt censored.

You saw a minority of users taking free speech too far.

This wasn't Amazon, Google's or Twitter's place to act. This was a job for the police and the FBI and really the fact they intervened at all is just so fucking American.

World police that nobody bloody wants.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#776

Post by humannature1 »

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.

I had an account there for about six months before it went offline. It wasn't a particularly interesting or compelling website. Most people viewed posts of affiliates; there were some memes but most of it was just conservative talking points. The average post being "this person or movement is a jerk because..."

I personally never witnessed any violent discussion on Parler. Again, the website was less compelling than Twitter in all ways; it was more like a news website. I have seen more provocative comments on other forums.

I have personally witnessed violent statements on Twitter over several years usually coming from leftists such as AOC. Part of this is due to the comments being easier to read on Twitter than Parler. I assume bad behavior on Parler was deep in the comments, but the website didn't make those easy to read.

I thought the Parler takedown seemed random. They were used as a scapegoat. If you were a normal user, you used it to hear a different viewpoint but you still lurked on Twitter some because there was no real discussion happening on Parler.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#778

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#779

Post by pitterpatter »

munchbunny wrote: post #764
jhowell wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My wife took no position on the issue but politely replied saying the post felt off-topic and she didn't want to hear about politics in her favorite gardening group. > Several people attacked her on the post, calling her white privileged, racist, etc... all for suggesting the post was off-topic (even though the group's own rules prohibited political content). Isn't the ability to decide what issue your bring to a s…

Isn't the ability to decide what issue your bring to a space and then deciding which issues you'll "take no position" a privilege? Why is it privilege to avoid discussing politics in a gardening group? I'll grant that "take no position" can be a privileged position in some contexts, but a gardening group discussion seems pretty clearly not one of those contexts.

I mean to tie it to a more concrete example: Take the incident with the white lady and the black guy who was bird watching in New York. I'm pretty sure he'd love nothing more than to be able enjoy his pretty chill hobby of bird watching without it becoming racial or political or what have you. But the fact of the matter is that's not his choice.

So yea, being able to say you don't take a position in politics can definitely be a privilege.

Edit: Not to say I think people should really be hounding this lady anyways but just want to explain the point about privilege there.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#780

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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