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Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

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Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#31

Post by jasonjayr »

justapassenger wrote: post #4
andomar wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were refused by Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Cloudflare, what alternatives are there?

10 years ago no one was running in cloud. Internet still works outside of big tech data centers.

Sure, but frequently whole netblocks we blocked because spammers or IP ranges hosting + sending content undesired by the larger community.

Peering ISPs would frequently drop routes + messages from whole data centers that would blatantly ignore spam complaints, which would force their hand to kick the offending customers off their platforms that caused harm to their other non-offending customers.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#32

Post by ogre_codes »

zarkov99 wrote: post #12
api wrote: post #2

If I were running something likely to be deplatformed, I would never consider anything but a multi-cloud solution where no single provider is a single point of failure. It's not that hard to do.

Hindsight and all that. Parler has hosted content no worse than Twitter or Facebook or thousands of other sites. Their banning from AWS could not have been reasonably anticipated. It was an unprecedented act of censorship in response to an unprecedented moment in American history. The world will learn and AWS will likely loose a few customers though not enough to change its policies.

> Parler has hosted content no worse than Twitter or Facebook or thousands of other sites.

Nonsense.

Parler was created because Twitter and Facebook were moderating content. If Twitter and Facebook hadn't been moderating hate speech, Parler would not exist. Posting voices and content which is banned on Twitter and Facebook is the single unique "Feature" of Parler.

Over the months, Amazon has been in contact with Parler's management about moderating violent content and speech.

Facebook and Twitter have hosted content which incites violence and hate speech, but it's far less common and they make (often grudging and half assed) efforts to remove it. On Parler, it's accepted, arguably encouraged.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#33

Post by yanderekko »

gameswithgo wrote: post #7
andomar wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were refused by Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Cloudflare, what alternatives are there?

epik, apparently. at some point too when you notice that everyone thinks you are horrible maybe the problem is you.

Very few people are hand-wringing over the nonavailability of large child pornography sites and such. The problem is that not everyone has to believe you're horrible to get you booted off the internet - you just have to become sufficiently vile to a narrow, highly-polarized elite strata of society.

The NYT did not apologize for printing Tom Cotton's op-ed because it was outside of a broad Overton Window, but because it's a captured institution. A lot of tech firms face similar issues, whereby trying to hobble the speech channels of political enemies (even those with very broad support) is not only seen as acceptable but morally necessary.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#34

Post by threatofrain »

api wrote: post #2

If I were running something likely to be deplatformed, I would never consider anything but a multi-cloud solution where no single provider is a single point of failure. It's not that hard to do.

According to the CEO of Parler, banks and payment vendors, law firms, text and mail services also cancelled on them. This is why Parler also motivates discussion of alternative currency.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#35

Post by voodootrucker »

lisper wrote: post #11

I gotta say, recent events have left me shaken to my core. I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place. I…

I can offer no defense of the opposing point of view right now in regards to purely anonymous distributed unstoppable peer-to-peer communication.

I can offer this review of what was wrong with Parler in particular: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/a-simple-thing-biden-can-...

"In other words, we have what should be an illegal product barred in a way that should also be illegal, a sort of ‘two wrongs make a right’ situation."

I think this is why so many of our choices seem tough right now: We made the wrong decision to get to present state, now any decision we make also looks wrong.

We need to go back and rethink some things...

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#36

Post by millzlane »

lisper wrote: post #11

I gotta say, recent events have left me shaken to my core. I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place. I…

I think free speech ends at specific threats or calls to violence. Call me the n word all you want. But if you threaten my life you should be stopped. Either by the police or by me.

I think free speech is necessary, but not free speech to harass or threaten violence. Free speech including the vile and negative won't make the world a better place. Arguing against the bad ideas will. But I do not think it's the burden of society to court speech that falls in the category or harassment or threats of violence.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#37

Post by cbg0 »

imwillofficial wrote: post #22
mschuster91 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parler has hosted content no worse than Twitter or Facebook or thousands of other sites. I disagree. There were open calls for murder on the platform where Parler was notified by Apple, by Google, by Amazon - and nothing happened . Which is the key thing here. Twitter and Facebook are extremely fast with the ban-hammer, in contrast.

This is not true. Not even close.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/13/22228675/amazon-parler-ta...

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#39

Post by xiphias2 »

andomar wrote: post #3
api wrote: post #2

If I were running something likely to be deplatformed, I would never consider anything but a multi-cloud solution where no single provider is a single point of failure. It's not that hard to do.

If you were refused by Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Cloudflare, what alternatives are there?

Yandex Cloud, Alibaba, CloudSigma, Hetzner....maywhen it comes to US politics, any non-US country allows more free speech than US itself.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#40

Post by ogre_codes »

imwillofficial wrote: post #22
mschuster91 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parler has hosted content no worse than Twitter or Facebook or thousands of other sites. I disagree. There were open calls for murder on the platform where Parler was notified by Apple, by Google, by Amazon - and nothing happened . Which is the key thing here. Twitter and Facebook are extremely fast with the ban-hammer, in contrast.

This is not true. Not even close.

Amazon has this documented extensively in their court filings.
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