Live data from Hacker News

Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

courtlistener.com

461–470 of 485 posts

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#461
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Twitter and Facebook have extensive systems for keeping the various horrors in check. They are not as good as I think they should be. But they're miles better than what Parler had, which was more of a fig leaf.” If Twitter and Facebook (being multibillion dollar companies with a decade or more to build these algorithms) haven’t solve this problem yet, how can any upstart possibly compete with them? They’d be shut do…

My NDAs constrain me from saying as much as much as I'd like, but it's a mistake to think that the key to fighting abuse is "algorithms". The heart of it is always human judgment. It starts at the executive level to set policy. That policy needs to be carefully socialized to users. The user need ways to report problems. And then you need trained staff to judge the reported content. Algorithms can help, of course. But…

Humans are incredibly biased in making judgements like this. How do you “train” a person to enforce a standard that goes against their inherent biases?

Seems like the more objective the process can be shifted (by moving away from human decisions), the more effective/fair the process becomes.

Anyway, it sounds like you may work in this space, and, therefore, might have further insight, which I am very interested in hearing about.

It is definitely an Achilles Heel for social media platforms.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#462
post #84

I have seen so many violent threats and incitements on Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram over the last 5 years that Parler could possibly make the case that they've been singled out, but I doubt it. They're just too unsympathetic of a plaintiff, imho. That said, antitrust battles against Big Tech will dominate the next four years of economic policy, and rightfully so. GAFA is too big, too powerful, too manip…

> The US government should also move to immediately outlaw targeted algorithmic advertising, which would make a huge impact on Big Tech's sectarian violence cashcow. That is an interesting proposition, but I wonder what would fill the void created. I believe advertising does not increase consumption per-se, but that it redistributes it among a different set of product and services, so who would be the winners and los…

> I believe advertising does not increase consumption per-se, but that it redistributes it among a different set of product and services, so who would be the winners and losers of such an effort?

Why do you believe this?

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#463

I have seen so many violent threats and incitements on Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram over the last 5 years that Parler could possibly make the case that they've been singled out, but I doubt it. They're just too unsympathetic of a plaintiff, imho. That said, antitrust battles against Big Tech will dominate the next four years of economic policy, and rightfully so. GAFA is too big, too powerful, too manip…

> Sectarian violence is not just a term for non-Western countries. Has it ever been? Probably the best known use of the word in many countries is The Troubles.

Also, arguably, the Balkans.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#464
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Twitter and Facebook have extensive systems for keeping the various horrors in check. They are not as good as I think they should be. But they're miles better than what Parler had, which was more of a fig leaf.” If Twitter and Facebook (being multibillion dollar companies with a decade or more to build these algorithms) haven’t solve this problem yet, how can any upstart possibly compete with them? They’d be shut do…

Being smaller they can and should user human moderation. Twitter and Facebook have problems because of the huge number of posts. Parler is still small enough that then _can_ moderate.

Doesn't make sense to me. Twitter&FB have more users but they also have much more resources than Parler.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parler is founded on the idea of absolutely unmoderated speech. They claim they are for free speech, but they aren't even close. They remove all kinds of things, just not enough of the things that Amazon wanted. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200630/23525844821/parle...

No 'obscene usernames' is actually hilarious to me. The bastion of free speech won't even allow users to choose their own handles.

What does decent language requirement have to do with free speech?

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#466
Sure there were far-right people and calls for violence on Parler, but the same thing is on Twitter. Twitter and Facebook is literally overflowing with nazis, fascist, communists openly calling for violence against ppl or a particular class. And some accounts are left unchecked for very very long time. Calling for genocide of jews, killing of cops, racist comments against black people, asians etc. And suddenly Parler is the problem? I don't get this.

Twitter is full of pedos and rape videos and that's totally ok too? This is pathetic.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#467

I have seen so many violent threats and incitements on Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram over the last 5 years that Parler could possibly make the case that they've been singled out, but I doubt it. They're just too unsympathetic of a plaintiff, imho. That said, antitrust battles against Big Tech will dominate the next four years of economic policy, and rightfully so. GAFA is too big, too powerful, too manip…

> They're [Parler] just too unsympathetic of a plaintiff, imho. I don't know that sympathy has anything to do with the merits of their case.[1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio [2] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/27/aclu-assist-kkk-... *edit--formatting

These cases apply to what governments can do. AWS is a privately held subsidiary of a publicly traded company.

The 1st Amendment does not protect all free speech. It simply bans the US government from passing laws that limit free speech.

for AWS, it will come down to whether they’ve defined situations where they can end their agreement / contract (MSA/EULA) with Parler. Btw, that’s the argument Parler is making that they had an agreement with AWS and not they’re in breech. The feee speech comment is weaker than arguing a binding contract exists.

Of course, it sounds like they have the default MSA with AWS. So, likely has terms very much in AWS’s favor. Also, I’d say they probably have some type of clause related to activities that could hurt AWS’s brand equity as be grounds for early termination.

Bottom line: as the cases referenced show, the government cannot limit free speech with laws - 1st Amendment (read full text). Private/public companies can do whatever is in their contracts that customers agree with at sign up.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird how inconsistent they are about it Tweets from Ayatollah Khomeini talking about how Israel is a cancer[1] that needs to be violently eradicated[2] apparently don't run afoul of the "Glorification of Violence" policy. OTOH Trump's 2 tweets, which were tame in comparison, were bannable. [1]: https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1003332853525110784 [2]: https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/126374233989129…

Banning Ayatollah Khomeini from Twitter would probably cause an international incident. He might declare a fatwa[0] against Twitter, the US, or both. If none of these events happen, there's still a risk of Islamic terrorists attacking Twitter's offices. I'd probably leave his account in place too. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwa

This makes sense on a personal level, but it highlights the hypocrisy of AWS decision

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#469
post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the fellows that organise this and boast about it on Twitter will never, ever get banned.

It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. Can you please not do that? It's against the rules ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ) and it's the line across which we start banning accounts ( https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... ), regardless of which politics they're battling for. This is because it destroys what HN is supposed to exist for, which is c…

I will be very glad to stick to following the rules and limiting myself to technology discussions.

Could you please ban these topics then ? After all, this thread is a political discussion and imbalanced or biased statements naturally invite responses to correct them.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#470
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats a mischaraterization at best, which is sort of my point. What GG said and his real positions don't matter. What matters is he bucked the narrative (mostly when he pushed against the propaganda push that the HB laptop leak was of Russian origin) and that made him bad, and then the justifications for his "bad" label were found afterwards. They don't hold up to scrutiny but the character assassination is done alre…

I followed him on Twitter before he left the intercept and before Substack. I used to respect him. He thought the laptop story was true and barked about it for days. He had no evidence to think it was true, it just was to him. His substack work was after he humiliated himself on Twitter and is largely trying to justify how stupid he was.

I have followed GG's writing for over 10 years myself, actually reading his articles as opposed to twitter headlines, and I think its telling after the effort I went trhough to try to have a real conversation, that is your response.

Downvote all you want Biden lackies, it doesnt change the uncomfortable facts!

Post reply on HN