Parler CEO says he was fired by board • Hacker News Board

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#211

Post by visarga » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

burnte wrote: post #63

dnhz wrote: post #51

I wonder how much damage that disastrous interview with Kara Swisher did (for the site and for Matze). I have no sense of this. ( https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/opinion/sway-kara-swisher... )

Honestly, probably not much. Since day one they've been vocal about not policing any of the speech there. That's the selling point. I can't fathom anyone on the board not knowing that. It's more likely they felt, "you job is to keep the company going, and if that means policing speech, do it," and he failed.

> and if that means policing speech, do it

After the data leak there should be zero trust in their name no matter what the moderation story is/was.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#212

Post by tehjoker » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:54 AM UTC

rodone wrote: post #183

tehjoker wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know moderation is expensive, but how much of a cost is it to Twitter on the scale of their various expenses? Is Parler's idea a reasonable cost savings from a business perspective?

Is staffing your meat packing plant with sickly orphans a reasonable cost savings from a business perspective?

I'm a socialist. I'm just curious if Parler was more of an ideological or a business play. If it's a business play, then the ideological dressing could be interpreted as just a hook to get rubes onto the platform (though it could be both too).

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#213

Post by visarga » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

cphoover wrote: post #109

This is a big risk for cloud native applications sure they have the benefit of built-in fault tolerance and replication with many of their services, but good luck moving quickly to another provider when they shut you off.

Should have bought and self-hosted their own servers and tunneled the traffic to a number of hosting providers. One click change. Like wearing replaceable armor.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#214

Post by visarga » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:58 AM UTC

drivingmenuts wrote: post #105

eganist wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give me Parler's software and I will host it in Russia... that's where USA's free speech usually come from anyways (free as in somewhat controversial, popular and still allowed). Doubt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny

Russia only really has a problem with speech when it’s against them. People slagging the US is fine by them.

Isn't it exactly the same with US? They would happily host any website critical of Russia's elite.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#215

Post by tomrod » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:59 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #185

wsatb wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parler was never a "free speech" platform. This was always a lie, they heavily moderated their content. I've always felt like Parler was just a lazy attempt to make some cash by pulling some users away from Twitter claiming they could do what they want, it was never more or less than that. I'm interested in knowing how you think a real "free speech" platform can actually work, however. We have message boards that do…

> Parler was never a "free speech" platform. This was always a lie, they heavily moderated their content. Exactly. Alt-left speech was not welcome on parler - only alt-right speech.

Alt-left isn't a thing in the US, perhaps you're falling for a false dichotomy. Alt-right is a euphemism for fascism/white supremism.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#216

Post by vkou » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:59 AM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #154

newacct583 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our societies need tools that can survive popular histrionics. Getting owned by some sanctimonious prick at Amazon is not pro level play. Seems like banning communities that led directly to an insurrection in congress should be one of those tools, no? I mean, that part was a bit more than just "histrionics" by "sanctimonious pricks". I know you won't buy this because of the environment that we find ourselves in, bu…

I'd argue the insurrection narrative is as much of a farce as Kim Jong Il hitting 11 hole-in-one strokes on a golf course, because if you voice doubt about the absurdity of the claim, it marks you as a dangerous subversive. Everybody knows it, and they're just too afraid to say so because they're worried they will get put on a list. Some conspicuously unarmed people trespassed and even managed to bring camera crews.…

How do you think coups work?

Look into the history of Greek city states. A mob of civilians storming the chambers of government is quite literally how tyrants have installed themselves.

Some of those tyrants had to try multiple times, before the last attempt succeeded. They generally follow up by killing their political rivals, because people who come to power through violence rarely turn around and adopt a policy of pacifism.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#217

Post by tomrod » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #198

bbreier wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AWS is not a common carrier

At their size, they sure seem like it. What happens when AWS and Azure design their own silicon, outstrip other hosting providers, and then become the only hosts on the internet? Are they common carriers then?

Nah, anyone can set up a host.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#218

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 5:03 AM UTC

hundreddaysoff wrote: post #169

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overestimating the ability of many "Silicon Valley darlings" to recover from what happened to Parler. First, at least these days, most Silicon Valley darlings are pretty heavily tied to whatever cloud service that hosts them, so disaster recovery exercises mean spinning up another project in a different AWS availability zone, not moving from AWS to GCP or whatever. Granted, given Parler's mantra they s…

Just curious... in your experience, are most "Silicon Valley darlings" also more apolitical and pragmatic than this CEO's statement seemed to indicate he is? Or do they run the gamut? Just curious as this was my overall sense when I lived in the Bay Area and it would be consistent with a lot of the corporate "censorship" of various diverse viewpoints that's going on now.

> are most "Silicon Valley darlings" also more apolitical and pragmatic than this CEO's statement seemed to indicate he is?

Yes, but with an important caveat. Most all good business leaders are pragmatic, because if you're not there's a very good chance you won't be a good business leader.

However, Parler's entire raison d'être was as a right wing alternative to Twitter et al (you can say "free speech" alternative all you want, but it's beyond ridiculous to claim Parler's community wasn't extremely hostile to liberals/progressives on the site, to the point that I rarely if ever saw any on there), so it would be expected for him to be quite political as it aligns with the business culture of his company. His problem was that he wanted to make his stand without an adequate technological plan if he had to build everything off the major (and even not-so-major) cloud providers.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#219

Post by wombatpm » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 5:03 AM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #115

throwawaysea wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, more like most big tech platforms are run by (or willing to cave to) far left progressives who like to censor/deplatform/suppress views that don’t align with their own. Also stop calling it an insurrection. That is incorrect and this looked nothing like an actual coup ( https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/06/why-this-wasnt-a-coup-c... ). And making it seem like Parler was full of open calls for violence is just hyp…

You make such great points! How can any be argued? Also. Insurrection and coup are not the same thing. It was an insurrection. Yea those big tech doing such far left progressive ideals like paying no taxes, dodging all sorts of moral issues, working with another to not poach and lower income. I can’t tell if AOC and Bernie dont run big tech.

It’s only a coup if comes from the coup d'état region of France

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

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Post by garbagetime » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #208

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Parler praises "free speech" they're really just using that as a cover for running a cheap Twitter clone with no investment in moderation. They exist to extract profit with minimum overhead.

From whom are they extracting profit? I think the word you're looking for is "producing", not "extracting".

From their users, presumably. I never visited the site, but I assume they ran advertisements.