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Parler CEO says he was fired by board

reuters.com

221–230 of 520 posts

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#221
post #206

> We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social media. this, from their "technical difficulties" notice, should have been enough for him to be fired on its own. requiring some users to provide government identification, building such weak security that anyone can read and archive private messages, and not stripping out damaging meta-data from media posts are three ways to not provide…

Just make your own website, as long as you've done it before and are intimately familiar with all the dangerous defaults built in to our collective tech. Perhaps they aimed too high too fast (dunno, never even went there), but I just can't bring myself to make beginner-shaming a core pillar of my criticism.

How many beginner websites require you to verify with your social and back and front scans of your license?

There's beginner shaming and then there's going above and beyond with intrusive PII collection.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#222

Parler was poor quality because it was a product of extreme political grift. People who work in politics unfortunately don't understand the mindset of actually high quality products or services. What they're interested in is quick and loud splashes to attract a huge amount of attention, pull in a bunch of capital/resources, and then underdeliver in the extreme in the hopes that the attention of the crowd will move on…

You can replace the word politics in your sentences with pretty much any field and statement will still be correct.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#223
post #206

> We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social media. this, from their "technical difficulties" notice, should have been enough for him to be fired on its own. requiring some users to provide government identification, building such weak security that anyone can read and archive private messages, and not stripping out damaging meta-data from media posts are three ways to not provide…

Just make your own website, as long as you've done it before and are intimately familiar with all the dangerous defaults built in to our collective tech. Perhaps they aimed too high too fast (dunno, never even went there), but I just can't bring myself to make beginner-shaming a core pillar of my criticism.

A company founded by billionaires and FAANG engineers, operating for multiple years, and having had millions of users shouldn't be... "Beginner shamed"... for creating services wildly irresponsible with user data?

Small or "beginner" web payment companies are required to think more responsibly about user data; the state of Parler in January 2021 was ridiculous and users who were effectively doxxed should be outraged.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#224
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all had moderation (whether its effective is another debate). It's hardly an apples-to-apples co.parison with Parler.

Parler had moderation too. The difference is that Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter's moderation lean left, and Parler's leaned right.

I feel like you may have a right-skewed view of this issue. If you look at it globally it may be different, and I don't know where you're from. Here in the United States (where all four sites are headquartered) sites like Facebook/Twitter are moderated somewhat right leaning for their role in aiding right-leaning former president Donald Trump in 2016. He lost their support later due to his abuse of power but that's a bit out of scope of a HN comment.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#225
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just make your own website, as long as you've done it before and are intimately familiar with all the dangerous defaults built in to our collective tech. Perhaps they aimed too high too fast (dunno, never even went there), but I just can't bring myself to make beginner-shaming a core pillar of my criticism.

How many beginner websites require you to verify with your social and back and front scans of your license? There's beginner shaming and then there's going above and beyond with intrusive PII collection.

There's also the aspect this was a company founded by billionaires and FAANG engineers which means an even slightly reasonable person wouldn't classify the project as one made by "beginners".

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#226

> We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social media. this, from their "technical difficulties" notice, should have been enough for him to be fired on its own. requiring some users to provide government identification, building such weak security that anyone can read and archive private messages, and not stripping out damaging meta-data from media posts are three ways to not provide…

As someone who does deeply believe in and care about free speech (from all parties), I could not be in deeper agreement with you. (for non-native English speakers: I fully agree). Parler should not have been de-platformed. That was a clearly partisan act, and the truth would have come out shortly about the company's total lack of care for its users. Say what you will about Gab, but they never pulled any of those stun…

That was a clearly partisan act

Asking a customer to stick to the rules they agreed to and eventually ending the business relationship when the customer chooses not to is hardly a 'partisan act'. Parler could have just done what AWS asked (even temporarily, to keep themselves online while looking for alternatives). They didn't.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#227
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. Freedom of speech never came with a freedom from consequences, nor a guarantee to a broadcast platform. You're still free to stand on the corner with a "God hates fags" sign or a "kill democrats" sign.

I am genuinely curious if do you see someone with a sign saying "Kill X" and someone just talking on the internet about undemocratic power change differently? If you see them differently, then why? The acts they are talking about are both crimes. My assumption is that: 1. Not everyone on Parler committed crimes in the physical world - eg. storm the Capitol, so that means that talking about something is not enough to…

Even tolerance advocates can't support intolerance. We need diversity, but not the kind that destroys the system.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#228
post #76
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but that usually means switching from AWS to GCP not, build a data center from scratch oh and by the way nobody from electricians to truckers will work with you because your platform was used to plan a violent attack on America.

Yeah, all those liberal electricians and truckers.

[deleted]

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#229

> We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social media. this, from their "technical difficulties" notice, should have been enough for him to be fired on its own. requiring some users to provide government identification, building such weak security that anyone can read and archive private messages, and not stripping out damaging meta-data from media posts are three ways to not provide…

As someone who does deeply believe in and care about free speech (from all parties), I could not be in deeper agreement with you. (for non-native English speakers: I fully agree). Parler should not have been de-platformed. That was a clearly partisan act, and the truth would have come out shortly about the company's total lack of care for its users. Say what you will about Gab, but they never pulled any of those stun…

> Parler should not have been de-platformed

With this statement you are implying one of two things:

* You are very unhappy with AWS for de-platforming them

* You think AWS should not have been allowed to do so

If it's the first one, well, you are free to treat that however you like. Stop using AWS yourself, especially if you now fear AWS will do this to you. Don't do business with other companies that use AWS -- you can even block all AWS IPs at your firewall. Tell everyone how bad they are, and encourage others to boycott them too. If AWS continues to de-platform customers that don't seem to deserve it, this will get even easier over time.

If it's the second one though, that raises all kinds of tricky issues. If you run anything that allows user content, and a user posts something that hurts you, are you now obligated to host it (leaving aside illegal content and the tricky jurisdiction issues that go with that)? What if other major customers or users start leaving because you're hosting said content -- are you just supposed to let your site/business effectively die? Are you also forbidden from raising the price to that harmful user to $1-trillion-per-month (since that effectively is a way to "de-platform" them), and if so, what is the maximum price you're allowed to charge and who figures that out?

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#230
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had a backup plan for getting kicked off AWS, supposedly, but the backup plan terminated their relationship with Parler before AWS did. I can imagine Parler also might have some problems attracting the kind of talent needed to run a site like that.

Huh, it's almost like no provider in America is cool with your platform being used to plan an insurrection. Or open calls for violence against and murder of elected officials.

On the one hand, Google deplatformed Parler by blocking their app from the Play Store, and on the other hand it continues to be "cool with" 3rd-party content on Youtube which is "openly calling for violence against and murder of elected officials".

https://youtu.be/jRLH8E_CpP0?t=205

For the record, I'm absolutely fine with Google deciding what content stays and what content goes when it comes to their hosting infrastructure. But in so doing, they need to retain legal culpability for the content that remains.

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