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

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

#331

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:06 AM UTC

snoshy wrote: post #316

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why are they not looking to colocate instead?

Probably because their workloads haven't stabilized at any meaningful threshold. You can only justify the capital expenditure if you know you can amortize it over time. Hard to do for a startup whose existence is being threatened. They are also a political hot potato, and would need the colo provider to agree to take them on and withstand the public pressure, which I doubt most would want.

Their proposed current hardware costs are a tiny capital outlay. Future current hardware costs are a tiny capital outlay.

They will pay far more for bandwidth than they ever will for hardware.

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

#332

Post by DonHopkins » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:07 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #140

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 think a big part of this is accepting Amazon's claims as fact, which I would not. For example, Amazon claims Parler was not moderating when in fact Parler had some pretty strict moderation enforcement. One could make an argument of whether or not it was successful "enough" and you'd have to compare it to other industry leaders like Facebook and Twitter which both have copious amounts of child pornography, calls for…

Parler had some pretty strict moderation enforcement against progressive views, just not against racism, death threats, and successfully planning violent insurrections against the government.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/filing-amazon-wa...

Filing: Amazon warned Parler for months about “more than 100” violent threats

[...] Amazon provided "more than 100 additional representative pieces of content" advocating violence on Parler over the following seven weeks, the company said. Another document in the filing (PDF, also with content warning for racial slurs and threats of violence) lays out dozens of examples of posts Amazon reported to Parler, beginning in mid-December. Those posts call for, among other things: killing a specific transgender person; actively wishing for a race war and the murder of Black and Jewish people; and killing several activists and politicians such as Stacey Abrams, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and former President Barack Obama.

Exhibit D (contains racial slurs, etc):

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664...

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

#333

Post by travisoneill1 » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:08 AM UTC

bonestamp2 wrote: post #64

travisoneill1 wrote: post #40

1. Democratic party threatens tech industry with heavy regulation because they don't censor to the degree that the Democrats want. 2. Democratic party takes over control of the government. 3. Major companies in the tech industry work together to boot a competitor, and political opponent of the Democratic party off the internet. At what point is this a legit first amendment issue? The government can't just pressure pr…

Wasn't Parler booted by Amazon before Step 2?

It was a few days after

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

#334

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:09 AM 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…

[deleted]

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

#335

Post by mancerayder » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:09 AM UTC

gowld wrote: post #287

maxsilver wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as far as I can tell, America doesn't have any meaningful left-wing politics of any kind. There's not a single left politician elected to any federal office anywhere in the nation, for example. Hollywood (the industry funded by the US Military to put pro-military-industrial-state advertisements into movies) is not "left leaning" in any meaningful way. "News Media" all lean either slight-right (MSNBC, NPR) to ha…

This is silly. Sanders is left. AOC is left. Many are left-leaning. No one advocates a monarchy either, but that doesn't mean no one is "right-leaning".

AOC is a media figure with a big following, and Sanders has had a cultural influence, but I would hardly say that they're part of the DNC establishment. They're at the fringes. For evidence, Medicare For All is a keystone platform point for them both, and not for the mainstream DNC.

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

#336

Post by Terretta » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:09 AM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #249

kyrra wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree, he has a reason to paint a certain narrative. (I added my edit before you replied I think). Either way, without knowing the full picture from both sides (like a court case going through discovering to fully put out the communciations between Amazon and Parler), we don't know the answer. We see that Amazon canceled Parler with little external communication. And we see what Parler is saying. Amazon could sh…

I've seen a copy of an email exchange between Amazon and Parler from Nov/Dec (which is difficult to Google for at the moment) which was shared publicly. Amazon bring up some examples of posts that concern them. Parler say they will look at the post that constitute actual threats but have a policy of not removing content like the post that's just a long, content free screed of racial abuse. That alone can easily be co…

Note that Parler’s very first reply to AWS defends hate speech and misunderstands the first amendment:

> The first example, as hateful as it is, would not be deemed a violation of our terms of service. Following Nadine Strossen (New York Law School, ACLU), Parler does not ban "hate speech" insofar as it would be protected by the First Amendment.

By the time of the filing, Parler realized this was mistaken on both counts. As noted in the judge’s denial:

> “Parler is not asserting a violation of any First Amendment rights, which exist only against a governmental entity, and not against a private company like AWS. And indeed, Parler has not disputed that at least some of the abusive and violent posts that gave rise to the issues in this case violate AWS’s Acceptable Use Policy.”

Just to underline that first sentence, for end users on Parler, or Twitter, or AWS, “First Amendment rights” are not a thing.

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

#337

Post by kyrra » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:11 AM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #325

kyrra wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree, he has a reason to paint a certain narrative. (I added my edit before you replied I think). Either way, without knowing the full picture from both sides (like a court case going through discovering to fully put out the communciations between Amazon and Parler), we don't know the answer. We see that Amazon canceled Parler with little external communication. And we see what Parler is saying. Amazon could sh…

They shared it, in their court filing on 12 January: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664... “In mid-November 2020, AWS received reports that Parler was hosting content threatening violence, in breach of the agreement. Executive 2 Decl. ¶ 4. On November 17, 2020, seeking to better understand Parler’s approach to content moderation, AWS provided Parler two representative examples, asked whether…

I'd be interested to know their response time to remove the content. And how that compares with other social media players.

As well, these are just responses, not actually discovery. I'd be interested exact timelines of things and how emails played out within Parler and within Amazon. Amazon's response is just their take on it trying to justify their own actions.

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

#338

Post by dang » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:11 AM UTC

richardARPANET wrote: post #60

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…

Exactly. And now the leftists down vote you for presenting facts.

You've been posting so many flamewar comments to HN that we've banned the account. It's too bad, because if you would use the site as intended, HN would be better for having you. But you've been flouting the rules egregiously and often, to the point where it's become the only thing that you're doing here. That's not cool.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#339

Post by rodgerd » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:13 AM UTC

bob33212 wrote: post #52

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…

There are two separate issues: 1. Is it good that a few people at a few large companies can decide what is and isn't acceptable speech in America. 2. Do media companies have the right to end business relationships with companies who they feel violate their contracts and Terms of Service. The obvious answer to #2 is yes. Otherwise you would be forcing Fox News to run adds calling all Fox News viewers racists, and forc…

> 1. Is it good that a few people at a few large companies can decide what is and isn't acceptable speech in America.

Sure, but that's not like it's a new issue. And while I'm not suggesting you personally are raising it in bad faith, it's quite striking how much of the discourse - and I use that word in the broadest possible sense - on HN has appeared only after a pro-facist social media site lost its hosting, from folks who don't seem to have been concerned with, or even aggressively in favour of, companies banning "woke politics", or the constrol the Murdoch family exert over discourse in the English speaking world, and so on.

Like sure, there's a legitimate social issue there, but most of the posting here just reinforces Satre.

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

#340

Post by Melting_Harps » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:14 AM UTC

takeda wrote: post #228

echelon wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. If the DCs responded to the same pressure about hosting illegal content, the social media giants would disappear too. Not true, they do have own data centers.

> Not true, they do have own data centers.

Which further underscores the perils of architecture built around a central point of failure once more, so far from what I've heard about Parler makes me think it was a den of mainly boomer aged crack-pot Qanon and Trump supporters.

In a way its a lot like 8chan, which also got censored after the last racist shooting, Hotwheels outright condemned this and went on record from the Philippines where he lives now and said he wished he didn't create the thing as the worst things he could ever imagined came out of there in masse, but he had no choice as a person living the US with a disability and no access to medical care and limited employment opportunities.

With that said, I'm indifferent to Qanon BS, and the latest storming of the Capitol underscores how pervasive the cancer that is social media is in deteriorating the social fabric in the US for so many (mainly disenfranchised, and poorly educated people) which makes me want to blame you FAANG types even more. I'm sure Russia and China have a hand in all of this, but that is to be expected after how the US intelligence agencies have weaponized every technology for nearly the entire last century around the World.

But in the end, people have agency and the choice to not use your algo optimized survielence based apps/platforms and fall trap to these abysmal outcomes. And the truth is so many of you people default to the 'If I didn't do it, someone else would' rationalization.

And as I've come to learn in my time in tech, especially in my (limited) time in Silicon Valley, many of you are immigrants on employer sponsored Visas or 1st generation migrants with family back home who need the money to survive, so I can't hate you as a person if that's your situation. I just want to clarify that I hate the system you operate with a passion because it lures you in with the delusion of prestige tied with bloated salaries for focusing your attention on the most pointless, and in modern times clearly dangerous, use of your collective talents and skills at these places when we have so many more real problems to solve.

What I can say is I just sincerely wish you do something worth redeeming you as a Human being as a side project.