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Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

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Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#881
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).

It is illegal to conspire to commit violence against the US

Parler didn’t conspire to commit violence against the US.

And it’s actually not illegal to host other people’s illegal speech. It’s super pedantic, but also very important!

So what did Parler do that was illegal?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#882
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, 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…

>attempt to... install an illegitimate government

I keep seeing this claim, and it's quite a substantial claim, but I don't see equally substantial evidence to support it.

I see evidence of disgruntled LARP'ers forming an angry mob and causing more trouble than anyone would want, but I don't see evidence of an armed rebellion in a sustained firefight or siege, with all the explosions, rubble, chaos, and loss of life that accompanies an uprising, with the explicit goal of installing a new government.

Is this claim misinformation? Should it be censored?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#883
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, 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…

> but not everything is a slippery slope.

This is indeed why it is called the "slippery slope fallacy".

It's a fallacy because the implication of a "slippery slope" is that once the merits of this specific idea are evaluated, then all subsequent ideas following will be implemented immediately without a separate debate and discussion of the merits of those ideas.

Pursuant to the current issue: if you're not planning on running a "somewhat moderated" platform where you'll host content calling for violence against the current government representatives, resulting in an actual attempt at a coup...then you've nothing to worry about.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#884
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, 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…

"... something that is more genuinely a popular social issue ..."

We shouldn't let minority rights or freedoms be ignored just because they aren't popular. If this is an important issue to that other person, then they should bring it up for discussion.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#885

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do you realize you don't have to literally say "let's be violent and attack people" in order to incite violence?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#886
post #721

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…

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…

This thread started out talking about on what grounds a vendor like AWS might refuse service to a service like Parler, and what those who run companies might want to do to mitigate this risk.

You switched it to talking about on what grounds Twitter might refuse service to the President of a country or other powerful person. Which you got lots of takers to discuss that, but it seems like a very different discussion to me.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#887

All I’m going to say is that I’m all for free speech and setting fair rules for everyone to play by (ie regulation), but looking at the examples provided in the buzzfeed articles this is beyond simple free speech. I hear a lot of people saying this is just another example of the left trying to shut down free speech but there are clear threats being made on the platform. If Parler doesn’t want to do any content regula…

I totally get why people in the thread are raising the sentiment that free speech is a core tenant of a democractic society that is worth protecting, regardless if you're a private entity or a government.

However, democracy itself is actually an exceedingly fragile system, more so than many people realize. We have lived in a golden age for democracy for centuries now, but that actually only represents a tiny blip on the time scale of human existence, which naturally tends towards tyranny.

What we need to protect above anything else is the democratic systems and institutions that make free speech even possible at all. And sometimes that means placing restrictions on forms of speech that seek to destroy the very foundations on top of which free speech protections is built upon.

Without those limits on free speech, it'd be a very realistic possibility for those who are in fact against free speech to co-opt it to gain enough power to then turn around and abolish it. I think we'd all agree that would be the worst possible outcome, considering all the progress humanity has made on this front.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#888
post #859

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…

> For now, don't attempt to overturn a fair democratic election and install an illegitimate government. Step back for a moment and ask yourself honestly: do you really believe, in your heart of hearts, that there was even the slightest, faintest, remotest chance of the dude in the viking outfit overthrowing the US government? It was a violent protest that got way out of hand, absolutely. There was never even the slig…

You are deflecting from the armed militia attempting to breach the house and senate chambers while the lynch mob chants for blood.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#889

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…

>attempt to... install an illegitimate government I keep seeing this claim, and it's quite a substantial claim, but I don't see equally substantial evidence to support it. I see evidence of disgruntled LARP'ers forming an angry mob and causing more trouble than anyone would want, but I don't see evidence of an armed rebellion in a sustained firefight or siege, with all the explosions, rubble, chaos, and loss of life…

Failing to succeed at your coup doesn't mean that wasn't what you were attempting to do.

Being stupid about it has never been a criminal defense. "Attempted murder" is still a felony (and you know, the crowd actually murdered a capitol police officer).

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#890

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…

Fuck off with that bullshit
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