Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down • Hacker News Board

Re: Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

#121

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

richardARPANET wrote: post #53

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't take a genius to know that such a controversial website is going to get dropped, even if it's just because it makes the webhost look bad. Parler wasn't dropped for making Amazon look bad. Parler was dropped for repeatedly failing to address blatant terms of service violations. AWS still hosts the National Enquirer, the magazine that literally tried to blackmail Jeff Bezos. AWS is hardly in the habit of r…

Dropped by Amazon, in coordination with both App Stores just as it reached #1 ranked app. Really really interesting.

You'll find that large corporations tend to average out to having fairly similar thresholds for "oh, these guys can fuck right off from our service".

No conspiracy is needed. Same thing happens in neighborhoods - assholes tend to get a reputation as "the asshole neighbor" pretty rapidly. There doesn't have to be a neighborhood meeting to decide this; it just happens.

Re: Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

#122

Post by xxpor » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #67

triceratops wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting how much actual political power the right in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. The Senate and electoral college favor them massively. This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to change any laws that might counter their preferences.

A business that is heavily involved with local government has to sweat Republican politics, a business that is heavily involved with technology, the media, or other forms of nonstate power has to sweat Democrat politics. I guess it would be nice if companies could simply focus on getting their job done and not have to sweat anyone's politics at all.

Politics is the the practice of how to organize society. There's no such thing as an apolitical entity. At the most basic level, just the fact that corporations exist is itself a political decision.

Re: Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

#123

Post by iamdbtoo » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

throwaway45349 wrote: post #49

albinofrenchy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does twitter get away with hosting way worse content? Parler explicitly does not moderate calls both subtle and overt to violence -- much less just blatant propaganda. Pretty sure the reason parler gained traction is that twitter does.

If you saw the amount of left-wing content calling for the execution of politicians, calling for communist revolutions, you wouldn't be asking this question. Twitter is just as toxic as Parler, except one is left-wing and the other is right-wing. If it was the left being censored I would be outraged on their behalf as well. Edit: Not if, when the left gets censored by big tech, I will stand for freedom of speech with…

You're completely ignoring the catalyst for this was that a governement insurrection where 5 people, including some cops, were murdered was planned very heavily and also broadcasted on this service.

Re: Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

#124

Post by Blikkentrekker » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

xoa wrote: post #54

unethical_ban wrote: post #3

I've been trying to come to grips with the societal impact of echo chambers, "hate" speech, and the obligations vs. rights of sites and hosting providers. So far, my take is that websites have less obligation than hosting. It concerns me that AWS booted a site off their platform for speech issues - I am leaning more and more to the idea that colos, IaaS and ISPs should be considered common carriers, and that only a c…

> It concerns me that AWS booted a site off their platform for speech issues I'm sorry for the caps but you and a host of others are forgetting something repeatedly and it's getting fairly annoying: AMAZON HAS FREE SPEECH RIGHTS TOO. Just as Parler does, and you do, and I do, and Twitter does, and the various owners and employees of these organizations do, and on and on. It's Free Speech all the way down. And a funda…

If what users on, say Twitter say constitute it “saying something” then perhaps it should remove the standard disclaimer of how the opinions expressed thereon are that of their users, and not their own, and be held personally liable for what is posted on there.

When it suit these platforms, they claim that the opinions are of their users and not their own, yet when it otherwise suit them, they claim ownership.

Re: Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

#125

Post by Spivak » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

GavinMcG wrote: post #80

richardARPANET wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropped by Amazon, in coordination with both App Stores just as it reached #1 ranked app. Really really interesting.

Not everything is a grand conspiracy. Sometimes society really isn't okay with what you're doing.

Also I think dogpiling is often confused, intentionally or not, as conspiracy. It seems like a lot of people really really wanted to drop them but weren't brave enough to make the first move.

Re: Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

#126

Post by HALtheWise » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #44

throwaway45349 wrote: post #5

As much as I don't like Parler's digital death sentence from Silicon Valley, they should've known this was coming and prepared. It doesn't take a genius to know that such a controversial website is going to get dropped, even if it's just because it makes the webhost look bad. Yes it's unfair that Twitter gets away with hosting way worse content, but life is unfair, that doesn't mean you stick your head in the sand an…

The premise of Parler directly contravenes the AWS AUP, which demands that companies ensure their users comply with AWS's AUP and that companies kick users that don't. The whole point of Parler is to host Twitter users who violate Twitter's TOS, which is a cohort significantly comprised of people who are also violating AWS's TOS. To believe that Parler would have been viable on AWS to begin with, they had to actively…

Does anyone know how the AUP of Amazon and other services interacts with E2E encryption? For example, Signal uses AWS to host many of there servers, if Amazon discovers that people are using Signal to share unsightly content, can the demand that Signal kick those users off the platform? If Signal's processes and technology aren't capable of doing so, can AWS demand they change that?

Re: Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

#127

Post by fjabre » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #116

klmadfejno wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It concerns me that AWS booted a site off their platform for speech issues They booted Parler off for violence issues. One may personally disagree about where to draw that blurry line, but I think there's more than enough plausible deniability here. This is not the trigger of a grand slippery slope. If Amazon drops a company purely for non-violent political differences, by all means, lets raise those pitchforks.

> They booted Parler off for violence issues. It baffles me how often violence issues become conflated with speech issues. You are absolutely correct, this is a violence issue. America has likely the most free speech protections in the world, but fighting words (violence) are not protected. There is a huge amount of precdent to support Amazon's actions here, dating back decades. Furthermore, just because Facebook did…

If that's true then pretty much every social media platform today should be banned from AWS.

Re: Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

#128

Post by triceratops » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

fjabre wrote: post #74

triceratops wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting how much actual political power the right in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. The Senate and electoral college favor them massively. This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to change any laws that might counter their preferences.

This is false. The left now has the Senate and the Presidency. The electoral college does not matter. They go the way their states go as was made quite clear in the last election. EDIT: Of course it matters how the voting system was designed. The EC votes the way their State votes. The forefathers intended for states to have some say in the matter. We are a representative democracy. That is how the system was designe…

> The left now has the Senate and the Presidency.

The key term is "now". After getting about 40m more votes. Be honest. Is that balanced?

Re: Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

#129

Post by jki275 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

julienb_sea wrote: post #29

scohesc wrote: post #4

Parlers goal of being the alternate free speech platform is horrendously thought out. The same companies and that they are trying to remove influence from (Silicon Valley - amazon, twitter, facebook, etc.) are the same companies that they're doing business with. Gab is ridiculous and I get a very religious "holier than thou" (lol) vibe from them. Their founder(s) are very puritanical and will likely not survive the n…

I think the future of controversial speech is in closed, private groups on large platforms. Those fly under the radar and can escape public pressure, which has the side effect of easing pressure on Facebook to halt the "controversial" discussions. This is why violent protests will likely continue to be primarily organized on high profile platforms like Facebook.

I have watched significant centrist websites go closed or semi-closed over the past two weeks, deleting or closing historical data, removing seo, disallowing public indexing, etc.

So yes -- this is probably how it will go, it's already started.

Re: Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

#130

Post by vlunkr » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #57

ojnabieoot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very sympathetic to the idea that ISPs should be common carriers, but definitely not colos and platforms like AWS. Let’s use an old-fashioned analogy. An ISP is like a post office, and people’s letters should not be meddled with (outside of violent threats or pursuant to a legal criminal investigation). In particular, ISPs are relevant to most individuals and ISPs (should) have respect for individual rights. But…

If we had a fully P2P and distributed architecture for information exchange, this wouldn't be a problem. As it stands, we choose centralized websites and platforms to be how we exchange information. They're an essential ingredient in the "common carrier" recipe. How can your parents share messages without Comcast + Facebook?

We choose to use centralize platforms out of convenience, but if Facebook magically disappeared, people would immediately move to one of the many alternatives.