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Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

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Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#831
post #583
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…

I'd expect the bar to remain in exactly the same place. AWS has continued to host the National Enquirer, even after that publication dug deep into Jeff Bezos's personal life. Said coverage perhaps accelerated Bezos's divorce, which cost him $30 billion in stock, as part of the settlement with his ex-wife. ($30b is 2019 valuation; it's much bigger now.) If Amazon/AWS will quietly endure a $30b+ hit to its founder's we…

Just strategically this doesn’t make any sense as banning National Enquirer would draw 100 times more attention to the story. If Bezos wants revenge he’s surely smart enough to get it quietly.

Banning Parler also draws similar attention to it (I’ve never heard of it before today, for one), but it’s a calculated and coordinated (with Google, Apple) move to 1) take them down and 2) send a message to anyone watching. The point is the additional attention here is not unwanted and even desired.

Not to mention such a retaliation would have come at a time when Trump (highly critical of Bezos) was still very much in power and had enough support in congress to use it against him.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#832
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…

How does ISIS and other terrorist orgs host their propaganda? I see a pretty funny future where Trump supporters and ISIS work together to figure out where they can host their content.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#833

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.

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…

Do you have examples of "violent statements on Twitter" by e.g. AOC? Not trying to doubt you at all, just broadening perspectives.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#834
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…

> 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).

Ah, yes, the "everything is a slippery slope" propaganda technique.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#835
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 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…

The idea Parler is a "free speech" platform or "unbiased" is a lie, in actuality its just a "safe space" for far right provokers. Users have been reporting they're been banned for posting leftist content or for criticism of Parler itself.

If they were so concerned with "freedom" why would they have the following in their terms of use?

“Parler may remove any content and terminate your access to the Services at any time and for any reason.”

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#836

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…

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 already moving down...

I fail to see how this is a movement of the bar.

Based on these two examples, the bar seems to be that a site gets canceled if a site is used to promote violence, there is a riot, violence happens, and people return to the site to celebrate and promote future violence. That was the bar in both 2017 and 2021. Doesn't seem to have moved.

Given the fact that the attack on the Capitol was a direct attack on the US government, if anything the bar has been RAISED.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#837

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result of doing nothing is that in 15 years, the US becomes Germany, pre-WW2. You can think of it as vendors getting 'canceled' for progressively less severe offenses. Or. You can think of it as people waking up to offenses that have been allowed to go unchallenged for way too fucking long. People 'waking up' or no longer keeping their heads down being the result of the current administration transitioning to a L…

>in 15 years, the U.S. becomes Germany, pre-WW2 >the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The irony of censoring people being, “the price of freedom”. Serious question, why do you think that disenfranchising groups of their ability to communicate online is going to prevent social strife and violence instead of intensifying it? Banning theDonald didn’t help, the Daily Stormer being banished from the web didn’t chang…

[deleted]

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#838
post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds very reasonable up until attempting to identify what, objectively, is the bar to set business policy. Twitter literally claims that "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th." was the straw that broke the camels back [0]. That isn't an objective bar. Context which "everyone knows" is a political question - a highly political question. If AWS happens to have a s…

> Twitter literally claims that "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th. Well, no, they didn't claim that. They claimed the two tweets, taken together, were the straw that broke the camel's back. And, yes, I think you could reasonably make the claim that the tweets were innocuous if you throw out the context of the President inciting a violent insurrection on Congress.…

> throw out the context of the President inciting a violent insurrection on Congress

No the president did not incite violent insurrection. There is literally nothing he said is that incitement.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#839
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…

BLM caused the deaths of over 80 people and nobody deplatformed Facebook or Twitter. This is obviously about the belief that republicans are not human.

Have you seen Parlor? It actually hosted and glorified violent videos. In comments, people were celebrating beating of cops.

As for BLM, I don't know if they have any central location where they plan any violence and then share videos of that.

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