'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help? • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help?

#41

Post by ntsplnkv2 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 2:33 AM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #23

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #16

Parler most certainly does have a right to exist. And companies have a right to not associate with a platform that incites violence and foments activity against the very constitution it appeals to.

You can be sure that any companies that host user-published content today are looking closely at the response to Parler, and are probably accelerating plans to get off of AWS. What happens when the Eye of Sauron turns to you and declares that you don't do enough to moderate?

And nothing of value was lost.

Won't even be a blip on AWS's radar. Aside from rightwingers self hosting, nothing will really change in an impactful way.

Eye of sauron? Dramatic, much? It's not hard: Don't host incitement of violence, i.e. Incitement to Imminent Lawless Action. It's not hard. But for these radical right wingers, it apparently is. Sad.

Re: 'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help?

#42

Post by jcranmer » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 2:57 AM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #23

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #16

Parler most certainly does have a right to exist. And companies have a right to not associate with a platform that incites violence and foments activity against the very constitution it appeals to.

You can be sure that any companies that host user-published content today are looking closely at the response to Parler, and are probably accelerating plans to get off of AWS. What happens when the Eye of Sauron turns to you and declares that you don't do enough to moderate?

For what it's worth, the terms of use of AWS require you to moderate content:

> You are responsible for End Users’ use of Your Content and the Service Offerings. You will ensure that all End Users comply with your obligations under this Agreement and that the terms of your agreement with each End User are consistent with this Agreement. If you become aware of any violation of your obligations under this Agreement caused by an End User, you will immediately suspend access to Your Content and the Service Offerings by such End User.

(https://aws.amazon.com/agreement/, §4.5).

According to AWS's reply brief in the lawsuit with Parler (https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664...):

> During one of the calls, Parler’s CEO reported that Parler had a backlog of 26,000 reports of content that violated its community standards and remained on its service.

This isn't something that popped up out of the blue; this was something that AWS was concerned about for a while (several months), and communicated with Parler about for a while. Given an existing backlog of unhandled reports, and the prospect of a rapid growth in new content that would presumably generate even more complaints, AWS did not believe that Parler could fulfill its contractual obligation to moderate with volunteers and terminated its service.

Re: 'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help?

#43

Post by jcranmer » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 2:59 AM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #22

cosmotic wrote: post #19

Parler (a social network or publication platform) has the right to exist. Parler (a platform to publish hate and to make threats of violence without consequence) does NOT have a right to exist.

Hate speech is actually protected speech under the 1st Amendment, meaning you have every right as a US citizen to speak and publish hate. True threats, on the other hand, do not have the benefit of 1st Amendment protection. Then again, Parler claims that such speech is removed via moderation. Do we have evidence that Parler has chosen not to moderate such speech?

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664... has some damning things to say about Parler's moderation approach.

Re: 'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help?

#44

Post by GnwbZHiU » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 4:03 AM UTC

cosmotic wrote: post #19

Parler (a social network or publication platform) has the right to exist. Parler (a platform to publish hate and to make threats of violence without consequence) does NOT have a right to exist.

But "Hang Mike Pence" trending in Twitter is OK. Amazon should ban Twitter as well.

Re: 'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help?

#45

Post by SimeVidas » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 4:24 AM UTC

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #31

SimeVidas wrote: post #12

“Right to exist” talk sounds like socialism. It’s a free market. Find someone who wants to host your app. Pay them. There is no problem.

Wouldn't the same apply to health care? I would imagine the common stance would in fact be the exact opposite of this here. I think as a whole we need to agree that things are black and white and in fact grey. This, healthcare, and other topics are much more nuanced than pointing fingers at one side or the other.

Healthcare is a human right (Hello, Europe calling!). Parler is social networking app. Those two things hardly have anything in common.

Re: 'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help?

#46

Post by thatswrong0 » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 4:24 AM UTC

boxmonster wrote: post #8

Of course it has a right to exist, just like the rest of the internet that's not on Apple/Google/Amazon

Exactly. There's nothing stopping Parler from just like.. setting up their own servers. This whole "We can't let the tech giants control speech this way" is pure nonsense until ISPs start blocking such internet traffic.

Re: 'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help?

#47

Post by SimeVidas » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 4:29 AM UTC

barnaclejive wrote: post #32

SimeVidas wrote: post #12

“Right to exist” talk sounds like socialism. It’s a free market. Find someone who wants to host your app. Pay them. There is no problem.

Yea, "right to exist" is too black & white. That is a bad term to use. I agree that free speech can exist, but if it is so unpopular that no one wants to help you get your hate speech out there, well that is your problem to find a solution to.

There are websites that sell illegal drugs. If those sites can find web hosting, so can a website that promotes hate speech. Actually, such sites probably already exist. Lots of them. It’s just that Parler became too popular for its own good.

Re: 'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help?

#48

Post by benmmurphy » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:52 AM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #43

coryfklein wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate speech is actually protected speech under the 1st Amendment, meaning you have every right as a US citizen to speak and publish hate. True threats, on the other hand, do not have the benefit of 1st Amendment protection. Then again, Parler claims that such speech is removed via moderation. Do we have evidence that Parler has chosen not to moderate such speech?

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664... has some damning things to say about Parler's moderation approach.

In the brief AWS references some messages and claims they are illegal but it is likely none would pass the Brandenburg test so all would be likely protected speech.

For example: “We need to act like our forefathers did Kill [Black and Jewish people] all Leave no victims or survivors.”

Is very similar to the speech that caused the Brandenburg case. AWS also claims the messages are harmful and thus violate their acceptable use policy and I think AWS has a much stronger argument here. However, AWS hasn’t really clarified what harmful means in their policy at least in terms of speech. Harmful can be interpreted quite widely and Parker could argue this interpretation doesn’t make sense and the implied interpretation is harmful illegal content. For example a AWS hosting a business competing against another business is harmful to that other business.

Re: 'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help?

#49

Post by threatofrain » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #23

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #16

Parler most certainly does have a right to exist. And companies have a right to not associate with a platform that incites violence and foments activity against the very constitution it appeals to.

You can be sure that any companies that host user-published content today are looking closely at the response to Parler, and are probably accelerating plans to get off of AWS. What happens when the Eye of Sauron turns to you and declares that you don't do enough to moderate?

Per Parler’s CEO, banks and payment vendors, law firms, text and mail services also cancelled on them. That’s why there’s talk of alternative currency, because otherwise AWS or not, when you don’t have a relationship with a bank or payment vendors, you’ve just turned into a financially conspicuous lemonade stand.

There is no one ring to rule them all. If it were just AWS, then the conversation would turn to switching to Azure.

Re: 'Parler Has a Right to Exist,' Says Vitalik Buterin. Can Ethereum Help?

#50

Post by bradgranath » Wed, Jan 13, 2021, 9:43 PM UTC

I'm sorry, The Internet still isn't a public resource, but we're supposed to pretend that cloud computing is? Quite literally: "I have the the right to run My software on Someone Else's Computer."