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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

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you articulate a plausible (does not rely on significant speculation or hypotheticals) series of events at the Capitol incident that could have resulted in democracy being legitimately lost in America? I am unable to come up with one.

This is an obviously impossible burden to load on someone, and I think you know that. If democracy is legitimately lost in America, it will happen via a series of events that we today cannot conceive of. It is more useful to think events like the Capitol incident as causing long-lasting damage to democracy, and there is a non-negligible possibility that societal schisms will widen, as opposed to heal. What that will…

What damage to democracy do you expect from the Capitol incident? I think they'll put a few more guards up, and that's it.

Or they use it as an excuse for more totalitarian control, but then the Capitol events were not really to blame for it.

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

#492

"In 2010, DNA sequencing company Complete Genomics said that "an interruption of services by Amazon Web Services, on whom we rely to deliver finished genomic data to our customers, would result in our customers not receiving their data on time." Gaming company Zynga warned about how its AWS foundation could quickly vanish when it filed the prospectus for its initial public offering in 2011. "AWS may terminate the agr…

My suggestion that governments shouldn't rely on third-parties for their infra, didn't go down well with HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25639520

Can you expand on why you believe that (and why you don't find the counterarguments convincing)?

In particular, why isn't this concern addressed by the government negotiating a more favorable contract than the standard terms of service?

(Alternatively, why can the government not address the problem with legal means? In the US, the Defense Production Act can compel private companies to accept and perform government contracts.)

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

#493
post #438
post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I can't believe this needs to be said, but the fact it failed doesn't mean the danger wasn't real. Some members of the mob were actively looking to kill the people who were 2nd and 3rd in line for the presidency. Let's not pretend that there was zero danger to democracy.

> Some members of the mob were actively looking to kill the people who were 2nd and 3rd in line for the presidency. Let's not pretend that there was zero danger to democracy.

Do you realize that numerous times throughout history people have successfully killed the actual president and it didn't end democracy?

What these people did was a serious crime and it should absolutely be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but no it was never going to destroy the country or end democracy. This is hyperbole people are using to grab and consolidate power.

Democracy is not a single person that can be killed and taken over. It's all of us acting in concert to uphold those values. It doesn't end by this person or that person being killed, it ends by all of us collectively agreeing to give up the values that make it work. That's the real threat here.

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

#494
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…

Here are some reasons that may talk you down:

* The world, and the US has always gone through periods of chaos. This is not the first time we've seen violence and strife, with assassinated presidents and students mowed down by bullets. What's happening now is not worse than what happened before and somehow we still kept free speech intact.

* While certain speech is hateful, painful, and even somewhat dangerous, stifling it only increases pressure and isolation among those being censored. They become more extreme. Furthermore, they are made to seem dangerous simply by the fact that we are censoring them rather than letting them be. The ACLU used to defend KKK marches, and we derided them for the idiots that they are, but still let them march. Furthermore, there's no way to engage in and work through the mental mistakes these people are making if we don't even let them talk. Lastly, they get a persecution complex and don't trust anything the "other side" says. It makes things worse.

* One of the main reasons these people are getting violent is because they are suffering, in poverty, without jobs, and recognize that something is seriously wrong society. They falsely attribute it to race or communism or some other thing, rather than the greedy corporate oligarchy that only gives the common man scraps. The elite would rather resort to censorship than to actually address the problems that cause these people to be unsatisfied and vulnerable to fascistic propaganda. Free speech is not dangerous in an equitable society.

* similarly to the last point, who will decide what speech is ok and what speech is not? The public? That would be mob mentality without standard. The government? Most politician are greedy and self serving. Corporations like facebook? They are beholden to the dollar. No one can be trusted to fairly choose what is not ok to say.

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

#495
post #394
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…

I agree with almost everything you say except... > a bunch of talking heads on TV and Twitter that told them there was an "insurrection" (nothing of the sort happened of course) It didn't succeed, and in retrospect, it didn't look very effective. Many (but by no means all) of the participants were clowns. However, it was absolutely an attempt. People died in an attempt to storm a seat of government and install a diff…

"attempt to install a different regime"

How can anybody believe such nonsense? Sorry, but simply taking over the capitol doesn't automatically make you the ruler of a new regime. It's not a video game were you get made king when you conquer the target zone.

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

#496
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, it was absolutely an attempt Attempt at what? Takeover of the power in the US? B-u-l-l-s-h-i-t. > People were chanting "hang Mike Pence", People chant a lot of shit. People were chanting "hang Trump" for four years, nobody ever called it an insurrection. Before that, they were chanting against Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc. Nobody ever has been hanged. Pretending not to understand the difference between chanti…

Well, /someone/ had an explicit plan for using a delay of the congressional certification to overturn the results: 'Giuliani tells Tuberville that McConnell wants to narrow the objections to just three states and explains that the Trump team wants to object to 10. “So if you could object to every state and, along with a congressman, get a hearing for every state, I know we would delay you a lot, but it would give us…

Constitutionally he can’t do that though, since it requires his term to end at noon on January 20th. If there was a deadlock on certification Trump would still leave office, and we’d probably have an emergency constitutional convention to pass a amendment to fix this bug.

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

#497

"In 2010, DNA sequencing company Complete Genomics said that "an interruption of services by Amazon Web Services, on whom we rely to deliver finished genomic data to our customers, would result in our customers not receiving their data on time." Gaming company Zynga warned about how its AWS foundation could quickly vanish when it filed the prospectus for its initial public offering in 2011. "AWS may terminate the agr…

My suggestion that governments shouldn't rely on third-parties for their infra, didn't go down well with HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25639520

[deleted]

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

#498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're (correctly) scared because they've seen how many of them would support the insurrection.

I think they're scared because people like the ones who stormed the capitol, would happily kill any of them without a second thought. The attackers were completely under the influence of their propaganda. The depressing thing is that while you may share some beliefs with that side of the political spectrum, these are not the kind of people who will be reasonable when they come for 'nonbelievers' in the night. That sh…

"would happily kill any of them without a second thought"

Bullshit

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

#499
I'm not sure exactly where the line should be drawn, but there seems to be a spectrum ranging from "private property" on one side and "utility" on the other. Where property owners can decide what their property is used for, and utilities are "common carriers".

In this spectrum, Twitter seems more towards private property, while AWS seems more.like a utility.

The law hasn't caught up to addressing the changes of the last decade in this respect, but I think we're about to see it happen, either legislatively or in the courts.

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

#500
post #410

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.

> smeared feces, stole laptops > absolutely an insurrection attempt. You must have a really low bar for "insurrection". If stealing a laptop is "insurrection", by that bar looting a Target - which we witnessed the whole 2020 - would be a Galactic War or something.

> If stealing a laptop is "insurrection"

Stealing a laptop from a federal government facility while attempting to overturn an election's results and possibly assassinate elected officials, is an "insurrection".

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