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

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

#201

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #186

duskwuff wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he was saying that their tech rep at Amazon gave no hints that they were in danger of being shut down And I wouldn't expect them to do so! They're a tech rep, not a legal rep.

So deplatforming by surprise is okay? Facebook and Twitter don't own their data centers. If the DCs responded to the same pressure about hosting illegal content, the social media giants would disappear too. Edit: the downvotes and rate limits are about to push me away from HN for good. This is ridiculous. My platform is anti-fascism. I'm tired of people on both sides trying to shut down the other side.

> Facebook and Twitter don't own their data centers.

Facebook certainly owns quite a few.

https://www.facebook.com/careers/life/facebook-infrastructur...

They lease some, but some are definitely custom built just for them:

https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/facebook/facebook-plans-...

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

#202

Post by triceratops » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

jki275 wrote: post #158

triceratops wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said "favors". The 50 Democratic Senators represent 40m more people than the 50 Republican Senators. It's far easier for the balance to tip right than left. The electoral college was decided by about 40k votes this time, and about 80k votes last time. The popular vote margin was in the millions. That should tell you something about how far the EC is from reality.

"popular vote" has absolutely no bearing on anything in this discussion. The US is not a direct democracy, it is a representative republic. The 50 senators who represent semi-conservative states represent the same number of states as the 50 who represent more liberal states.

> The US is not a direct democracy, it is a representative republic.

I'm aware of that. And that structure favors one side more than another. This is not a controversial statement - the numbers (y'know, facts and logic) back that up.

States are lines on a map. In the current setup they have more influence than the actual people living in those states. Do you seriously not see how that can lead to disproportionate representation of some views?

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

#203

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #76

tptacek wrote: post #2

Here's the denial of the TRO: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qhXD-4Kaw5dCEBv0dUM8buygEKg... Parler hasn't lost the case, just a TRO that demands reinstatement on AWS, but the ruling on the TRO requires the judge to tip their hand about the case, and Parler is going to lose. I don't think you even need to read the AWS AUP to know that Parler has no real case here. To buy Parler's contract claim, you'd have to believ…

The judge went so far as to explain why Parler's motion fails on all of the points, not just the "likelihood of success on the merits". That's a pretty irate judge: they're going out of their way, incurring more work upon themselves, to berate you. The only surprising things here are a) it took the judge a week to deny this motion, and b) AWS hasn't asked for the case to be transferred to arbitration (given the manda…

> The judge went so far as to explain why Parler’s motion fails on all of the points,

Well, actually, they said that it could pass on irreperable harm, but that was somewhat mitigated by the fact that much (but not all) of the harm could be addressed by money damages.

It did fail the the other 3 elements, and the balancing test in the alternate Ninth Circuit criteria.

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

#204

Post by nostromo » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:11 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #196

nostromo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The electoral college actually favored Biden this time. He got 57% of EC votes, which is much higher than his share of the popular vote. This is all pointless anyway for a union of states. Germany is underpowered compared to Luxembourg in the EU by design -- the same is true in the US. Should California ever go back to being conservative, as it was until Clinton, it will disadvantage Republicans just the same.

> The electoral college actually favored Biden this time I think we're operating on different definitions of "favored". The definition I'm using (and which most of the English-speaking world uses) is "have a fundamental advantage". He won the electoral college narrowly. He won the popular vote handsomely. That's a sign of a thumb on the scale in a pretty fundamental way.

> He won the electoral college narrowly. He won the popular vote handsomely.

He didn't though. He won 57% of the electoral vote and 51% of the popular vote.

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

#205

Post by duskwuff » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #14

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.

Apparently mostly facebook was used, not parler.

You're conflating two different issues.

Some of the specific, concrete planning of violence may have taken place on Facebook. That doesn't appear to have been taking place as much on Parler -- possibly because it was less private -- but there was plenty of generally violent rhetoric on Parler, just less specific. "We should kill this person" (Parler) versus "Let's all meet up with our guns here" (Facebook).

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

#206

Post by ed25519FUUU » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:12 PM UTC

sjansen wrote: post #9

Not really a surprise given the weakness of their arguments. If you’d like to hear a lawyer read and comment on their complaint, I recommend https://youtu.be/FL7r-Nt5j50

Vive Frei has done a good job breaking down the lawsuit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkiZKk4_-lA

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

#207

Post by perlgeek » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

Here's the denial of the TRO: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qhXD-4Kaw5dCEBv0dUM8buygEKg... Parler hasn't lost the case, just a TRO that demands reinstatement on AWS, but the ruling on the TRO requires the judge to tip their hand about the case, and Parler is going to lose. I don't think you even need to read the AWS AUP to know that Parler has no real case here. To buy Parler's contract claim, you'd have to believ…

A bit off-topic, but after reading this and a few other court decisions (for example in the context of contesting election results), it strikes me that they are pretty well-written.

They provide context for a lay audience, and while their language isn't simple, it is understandable to a non-native speaker like me.

Is this usual? or is it that for such cases with high publicity, the courts select judges that are know as good writers?

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

#208

Post by gdulli » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #75

throwaway45349 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Twitter is left wing? I thought it was mastodon that was left wing version

The fact that each side believes Twitter is in favor of the other one should clue them both in to the very obvious truth that none of this is partisan to Twitter. They're only afraid of liability since people have now died.

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

#209

Post by mewse » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

throwaway45349 wrote: post #107

tptacek wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I get it, companies do not legally have to provide these services to right-wing groups persecuted off of Twitter. I'm saying that it's _morally_ wrong to deplatform. Not necessarily because I enjoy having this speech hosted, but because isolating and pushing out so called "deplorables" is escalating the current American political conflicts to serious violence. As I said in my other comment, when the disenfranchised c…

> isolating and pushing out so called "deplorables" is escalating the current American political conflicts to serious violence.

Can you provide references that back up this claim?

Bear in mind that the deplatforming began after January 6th of this year, so any escalating violence which may have occurred on or before that point is not evidence of your claim. And after the events of the 6th I imagine it’d be difficult to compose a compelling argument that not deplatforming prevents violence.

In any case, the only news on the topic that I’ve seen has been that election misinformation on Facebook/Twitter has dropped by 70% since the deplatforming happened on those platforms[1]. That isn’t directly about violence, but presumably will result in less alt-right radicalisation, since their ability to reach new people is reduced. Though obviously it’s much too early to have a good understanding of the long-term impact of actions like this.

Which is why I’m so curious about how you’re making statements like this as if they’re plain facts. I’m super interested to see any references you can provide!

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/16/misinfo...

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

#210

Post by joshuamorton » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

travisoneill1 wrote: post #133

joshuamorton wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternative framing: 1. Republican party threatens teach industry with heavy regulation if they censor to the degree that the tech industry wishes to. 2. Republican party looses power. 3. Major companies in the tech industry do what they wanted to do the whole time. At what point is (1) a first amendment issue? The government shouldn't pressure private companies to do things that violate those groups first amendme…

This would be an issue, but I dispute point 1 because the leaders of the tech industry would very much like to wash their hands of politics and be seen as neutral platforms so they can save money on moderation. Most of these same platforms pretty much had an anything goes unless it's illegal attitude from the time they were started until a few years ago when they started getting a lot of political blowback and blame…

> This would be an issue, but I dispute point 1 because the leaders of the tech industry would very much like to wash their hands of politics and be seen as neutral platforms so they can save money on moderation.

No, they'd like to be approachable by the broadest groups possible (or really the broadest set of ad-viewing groups possible). Calls to violence are unappealing to most people. This is the reason unmoderated platforms fail: people don't enjoy spending time on them. To be palatable to normal people, the sites need moderation, which they do, to appeal to users.

> Most of these same platforms pretty much had an anything goes unless it's illegal attitude from the time they were started until a few years ago when they started getting a lot of political blowback and blame for "helping Trump" by not moderating more.

This is completely untrue. Here's one of the first Trump related posts I can find: https://www.fastcompany.com/3054611/when-does-hate-speech-cr..., notably "Though it apparently violated Facebook’s own internal guidelines, Trump’s video was not removed".

They've been, since the beginning, getting blowback for making exceptions for politicians instead of evenhandedly applying their policies. What you've seen over the past 5 years is simply the platforms growing in influence (and thus controversy).

The act of not moderating trump when he violated existing policies was an attempt to appear neutral to conservative users, while actually biasing to more loosely moderate a particular conservative. I can only hope platforms have learned from their mistakes.