Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers • Hacker News Board

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

#741

Post by fireeyed » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:12 AM UTC

apple_innocent wrote: post #483

noncoml wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

FWIW, I agree with your opinion. That includes not letting politicians onto these websites to do campaigning. This was a big mistake. The number of former public servants who have gone to work for Facebook is alarming, IMO. The number of possible future public servants who have worked there is perhaps even more worrisome.

Don’t forget Apple, Netflix, Twitter, Google whose board members, “senior policy executives” are all ex political staffers or cabinet officials.

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

#742

Post by mplewis » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

ddxxdd wrote: post #683

vharuck wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you realize that numerous times throughout history people have successfully killed the actual president and it didn't end democracy? I'm no historian, so was there ever a time the killing was instigated by a sitting politician who then was not punished? (Yes, the Senate has yet to decide, but chances are they won't vote for removal or banning from office). Because politicians trying to have their political oppone…

The president's full speech before the protest is here: https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-tr... Can you point to a place where he specifically encouraged trespassing or violence in a way that is more egregious than the ways in which various Congresspeople encouraged violence in Kenosha or Minneapolis?

You sure love to move the goalposts.

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

#743

Post by wolco5 » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #691

noncoml wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For a valid reason. The government isn't a tech company or an infrastructure provider. You wouldn't ask the government to build their own roads or bridges, so like everything else software and services need to be contracted out as well. Of course that doesn't mean they should use AWS by default, but asking every single government agency to build their own data centers and CDNs is foolish.

Who builds your roads? You contract out road building because it's too difficult for the government to do?

Where do you live?

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

#744

Post by Karunamon » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #739

Karunamon wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the president asked his supporters to bring violence against his political opponents This did not happen. Trump asked his supporters to march on the capitol, and then when shit got out of hand, he asked them to go home. Anything else regarding his words is a "reading between the lines" that's going to involve a lot of loaded, partisan-biased, and worst of all unfalsifiable claims.

This did happen, repeatedly, throughout his presidency. There's video evidence, it isn't difficult to find. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-incitement-vi...

Every single incident on that page involves a series of "protestors" who were forcibly ejected from a series of 2016 rallies after attempting to disrupt them, and in one case, involves a "protestor" getting removed by the secret service after trying to rush the stage.

Snopes is here holding up the president saying he'd punch someone who rushed onto the stage as "encouraging violence at his rallies", which is such a willfully disingenuous attempt at poisoning the well it calls the entire article into question.

That is not the same thing, not what we're talking about here, and it is not honest to equate them. People who disrupt rallies absolutely deserve to be removed from those rallies with appropriate force.

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

#745

Post by caseysoftware » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:16 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #699

caseysoftware wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ Exactly. There are lots of unclear and open to interpretation areas of law but this isn't one of them. We have a well-established process with clear steps which apply in good times and bad times, whether any of the players like them at the moment or not. It's not tough but people have to discard their conspiracy theories in favor of facts, laws, and reason.

> It's not tough but people have to discard their conspiracy theories in favor of facts, laws, and reason. OTOH, one should not ignore conspiracy theories if one is trying to explain the actions of Q cultists. Just because there is a clear reality doesn’t mean that every actor is motivated by that rather than a distorted, conspiracy-theory driven one on which fringe or outright untenable theories of law are among the…

I'm thinking less about interpreting others' actions and motivations and more about understanding what is possible, what is likely, and what is real.

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

#746

Post by erichocean » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:17 AM UTC

rubyist5eva wrote: post #524

ars wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump did not "credibly tell[] people to actually go and commit violence". He "set the stage" as it were, and people did what they did. It's really not that different from what the women did: She got people upset about Islam.

"I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Today, we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections. But whether or not they stand strong for our country, our country. Our country has been under siege for a long time. Far longer than this four year period." "So we are going to--we are going to walk dow…

To the USG, that's incitement—look what happened immediately after.

There aren't 25K troops in DC as I write this because Trump did not incite a coup/insurrection, they are they because he did. The reaction itself is the proof.

You may not think Trump's rally should have had that effect, but at this point, it's moot: it did.

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

#747

Post by jariel » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:18 AM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #688

dragonwriter wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who would be President on Jan 20?' - if the vote to approve the electoral results on Jan 6th were not completed [...] Bonus points if you can tell us how the 20th Amendment clarifies that for us. Nancy Pelosi. Amendment XX: “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January [...] If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, o…

^ Exactly. There are lots of unclear and open to interpretation areas of law but this isn't one of them. We have a well-established process with clear steps which apply in good times and bad times, whether any of the players like them at the moment or not. It's not tough but people have to discard their conspiracy theories in favor of facts, laws, and reason.

There is no 'conspiracy theory' in the clear and obvious observation of an insurrection on Capitol Hill wherein many attempted to thwart the Jan 6 validation of votes.

Despite Dragon's decent response, it is far from clear what the outcome would be where the vote to have been stopped.

It's also false to suggest that the laws are clear enough to disambiguate these situations.

At very least, there would be a constitutional legal war the likes of which the country has never seen.

But most importantly - the issue is one of populism: if 1/3 of the country does not believe the results of what was by all accounts an unambiguous outcome - and were capable of literally stopping the process - then it 'doesn't matter what the law is' because already the system will have gone beyond objective reality and due process. It's Game of Thrones then.

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

#748

Post by vel0city » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:18 AM UTC

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #530

DarmokJalad1701 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Successful in what Successful in killing/hold hostage those elected officials they deemed against their cause. This could have ended so much worse than it did. For example, what do you think would've happened if AOC or one of the other congresswomen maligned by Trump ended up in front of these maniacs? Do you think they would have stopped at stealing podiums/laptops?

What would have happened if any of the riots this past year escalated to violence because of heavy handed actions of the "left". In fact, we know what happened, death and destruction. Why is this not viewed in the same way? It's a complete attack on our country and government, but was somehow sanctioned?

While I don't doubt many leftists were violent in those BLM protests, many of them were not leftists. Many were anarchists, which its hard to be both at the same time. Also, some who were actually charged by the federal DoJ were members of right-wing groups trying to ignite the race war. These aren't conspiracy theories, these are looking at the actual people charged with committing violence during these protests.

https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-race-and-ethnicity...

https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/self-described-member-boo...

http://stmedia.startribune.com/documents/Hunter_complaint_af...

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

#749

Post by haram_masala » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:21 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #438

smsm42 wrote: 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.

In 1983 a group of people actually did bomb the Senate, which seems much more severe than just a bunch of rednecks roaming the halls and yelling stuff. Democracy endured just fine.

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

#750

Post by freebuju » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:21 AM UTC

sjwright wrote: post #574

rayiner wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve got one of the most educated populations in the world. Europe is only recently catching up to is in e.g. the percentage of people with college degrees.

College degrees are not a relevant metric. What percentage of the population are being taught fundamental critical thinking skills? How many are taught how to evaluate the quality of data and the quality of sources? How many people have a good grounding of statistics? Or civics? Or logical fallacies? How many people can describe the scientific method? I don't have many vivid memories of my primary school education bu…

> how to be suspicious of claims made in advertisements. That one class stuck with me for a long time. (This was in Melbourne, Australia sometime around 1988.)

FWIW, advertising and to a larger extent advocacy in 1988 and what is today are entirety different animals.

Though I do agree with your point. The number of college graduates does not equate to higher critical thinking of a nation's populace.

I did attend a journalism class almost a decade ago. Even though the powerful effects of mass media on people were likened to a magic bullet [0] It would be correct to assume that social media tech today has transcended this very capability and in more powerful ways than ever imaginable by its inventor.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodermic_needle_model