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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

#441

Post by acdha »

trident5000 wrote: post #407
acdha wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because that “storming” only happened in your imagination. The protests were hundreds of feet away and the violence started when the police tried to clear the public park for Trump to have a photo op. If you look at the footage from the journalists who were assaulted, there was nothing like a risk to the White House perimeter: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-02/channel-7-journalists... If the Trump supporters…

Yes the secret service made the call to take the president into a bunker because it never happened. Just wanted a little adventure that day.

Whoever made decision to move him into the bunker doesn’t change the fact that the protesters did not go past the gates or otherwise do anything which was unusual from decades of protests – which happen all of the time in DC. You are clearly desperate to portray a false equivalence but that simply doesn’t fit the facts.

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

#442

Post by vkou »

skissane wrote: post #389
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…

> But we've now done the experiment in a big way and the results seem overwhelmingly negative to me, to the point where they present a credible existential threat to civilization, on a par with climate change. A lot of these issues seem largely peculiar to the US. Trumpism, birtherism, Pizzagate, "Stop the steal", QAnon, etc – all movements originating in the US, focused on US-specific political issues, and with most…

> Other first world countries don't seem to have this issue to anywhere near the same extent.

The kinds of things you listed happen all the time in marginal, developing, or failing democracies. There are a lot of people who believe that the US shares many of its attributes with ailing democracies, so this should not be too surprising.

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

#443

Post by smsm42 »

frostburg wrote: post #379
smsm42 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25828247 Let's say there were people who support violently overthrowing US government (I personally don't think there were many at Capitol on Jan 6, but I am willing to entertain your point and even go much further than that). In fact, we know such people existed, long before today, but let's say there are more of them. How that changes anything? There always were hundreds of mill…

Please consider how immersed in the QAnon belief system the whole thing is. The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy (broadly against their own interests) on the impetus of completely baseless hogwash. Society apparently has little defense against this sort of viral, distributed cult and people are scrambling. I'm pretty sure that ad-hoc ostracism effected by large soc…

> The scary thing is how large amounts of people are apparently willing to attack democracy

You mean, like set up an autonomous zone in a center of the city and kick the police out? Burn down a federal court? Destroy the police station? Take over capitol building and occupy it for several weeks? Attack an elected official's family at their own home because you don't like their policies? Yeah, that happened, but not sure how immersed in QAnon belief system (whatever it is) that was. All I know the democracy survived all that.

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

#444

Post by jldugger »

trident5000 wrote: post #386
compiler-guy wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They smeared feces, stole laptops, broke windows, killed a police officer and got one of their own killed. People with bullhorns directed their fellows to the next target. It was an insurrection attempt by incompetents and LARPers, but absolutely an insurrection attempt.

It was idiot rioters just like we had over the summer. Not some well planned out attempt to actually overthrow the govt. It was a disrespectful day and they did accomplish that.

People marched into the capitol with handguns, zip ties, and an intent to award the presidency to the loser. I'm not waiting for someone to actually succeed before I declare them insurrectionists, and I don't know why you want to minimize the threats made against Congress, which did not stop that day: https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-siege/no-bail-for-qanon-...

If you want to compare it to something, I would recommend the fall conspiracy to capture the Michigan governor, put them on a mock trial and then publicly execute them for their "crimes": https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/politics/fbi-plot-michigan-go...

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

#445

Post by joshuamorton »

smsm42 wrote: post #372
joshuamorton wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I'm amazed by how easily people are handwaving away what was a hairs breath from the murder and kidnapping of multiple elected officials, not to mention constitutional crisis/breakdown. > TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection" It meets the definition though. There seems to be a lack of willingness to acknowledge an attempted coup as a coup, or a failed insurrection as an insurrec…

Nobody was going to kidnap and murder anyone. And there wasn't constitutional breakdown - nothing broke down. The electoral college was delayed by several hours. That's it. Surely it's a huge egg on the face of security apparatus to let that happen, but pretending it somehow broken the constitutional government is nonsense. > There seems to be a lack of willingness to acknowledge an attempted coup as a coup Because t…

> Nobody was going to kidnap and murder anyone. And there wasn't constitutional breakdown - nothing broke down.

This is contrary to what some of the people who were in the capitol claimed in advance, and their recorded actions, and their equipment. Seeking out particular officials (Pence and Pelosi), having previously made threats to harm them, with equipment to do so. What about that makes you so certain that no one was going to be killed? So certain that you're willing to reject it outright without even considering the evidence? That rings much more of preconceptions than objective analysis of the evidence.

> but nobody tried to change the constitutional government of the US

The intent of the people who attacked the capitol was to prevent constitutionally mandated transfer of power.

> Pelosi's desk, or steals Pelosi's podium, and now he's the king of the USA and we are all his loyal subjects? There's literally no imaginable way one could perform an actual coup - i.e. take the power into one's own hands

That's not what anyone is suggesting. This wasn't a coup to make baked alaska president, but to keep Trump in power. That's still a coup though. And I think centering your objection to "coup" on that makes it pretty transparent that your argument isn't particularly strong. So yes, stop talking nonsense and get on the same page as everyone else, participate in the discussion others are having, or bow out, but playing semantic games doesn't make you look good, and isn't interesting.

> You mean like being shown a picture of the horned guy in the Capitol, as opposed to actual war

No, but then you knew that already. I'd encourage you to read up on the HN guielines, because you're currently breaking them. And on that I'll disengage, because it's clear you aren't interested in a good faith discussion.

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

#446

Post by vimy »

acdha wrote: post #396
trident5000 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like when the white house was stormed over the summer and the pres went into a bunker? Was that an attempted overthrow?

No, because that “storming” only happened in your imagination. The protests were hundreds of feet away and the violence started when the police tried to clear the public park for Trump to have a photo op. If you look at the footage from the journalists who were assaulted, there was nothing like a risk to the White House perimeter: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-02/channel-7-journalists... If the Trump supporters…

No, he's right. The secret service took Trump to his bunker. What you're describing happened the day after the attempt to breach the White House and it was to prevent another attempt.

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

#447

Post by babygoat »

smsm42 wrote: post #257

That is the most depressing part for me - how easily American society is scared into giving up their freedom ideals. Turns out they don't have to be threatened with overwhelming force. They don't need to be threatened with death, starvation or torture. They don't need to be threatened by economic ruin or untold suffering. No, the richest and most safe civilization ever existed on the face of the planet is ready to gi…

A couple things: 1) Shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater isn’t protected speech, so why should explicit calls to violence be? 2) The government hasn’t silenced anyone. The 1st amendment doesn’t oblige anyone else to broadcast hate speech or plots to subvert a democratic election process.

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

#448

Post by Digory »

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…

Twitter and Facebook aren’t “free speech,” as the wags remind us all the time. In fact, they’re machines for hyper-self-reinforcing echoes of the national id.

More speech leads to truth, unless you can choose to wall yourself off from all critical speech that offends you. Then you just self reinforce and self radicalize. The Twitter/AWS response is a larger version of the same American reaction that got us here.

I’d like to see social media designed to get at truth, not just dopamine. It makes no sense to me that you can’t get a retraction tweet sent to THE SAME people who view a false tweet. And yet you can’t.

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

#450

Post by newacct583 »

smsm42 wrote: post #404
stolen_biscuit wrote: post #330

A portion of your citizens were called to storm your nations capital by a President who refuses to accept the results of a democratic election. The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded. Do not pretend the people who are frightened of these actions are overreacting. Democracy is a fragile thing, and you have a portion of your population who attempted to take a hammer to it. Don't pretend this is a narrati…

> The very foundation of your democracy has been eroded. That would be a crappy democracy if it could be eroded by a bunch of idiots taking an unauthorized Whitehouse tour. Fortunately, absolutely nothing happened to the democracy and it proceeded on its course. What could actually erode the democracy is nation giving up on free speech. That'd be a real sign of nation in severe distress. > I don't listen to your news…

> unauthorized Whitehouse tour.

This is awful, and I can't imagine the thought process that leads to this kind of rationalization. MANY members of the crowd are known to have been armed. Five people are dead. Congress had to be evacuated. Had an escape route not existed (many nations don't have cold war fortifications in their legislative buildings!) we could very easily have been looking at a hostage situation.

This is how real governments fall, in the real world. And even failed coups are often repeated successfully. The Beer Hall Putch was about the same size, equally unsuccessful, and yet...

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