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

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#321

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 8:16 AM UTC

endless1234 wrote: post #311

johnisgood wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is so typical. My experience with Discord: I need to login to my account to be able to delete it, except what if I cannot log into it?! At first they disabled it, then I e-mailed them requesting them to delete my account, but all they did was a soft-delete, of course. All of the private messages are still there, etc. Even if I were to delete my account myself, it would still leave all my messages intact. I guess…

Why should an account delete remove private messages from others? If you delete your account at your cellphone cartier, should it remove text messages you've sent from everybody's phones?

[deleted]

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#322

Post by minsc__and__boo » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 8:18 AM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #99

pocw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works until your colo provider tells you to take a walk. Your landlord evicts you from warehouse where you host your backup datacenter space, your ISP cuts you off. It's almost like everybody drew the line at openly planning insurrection. Maybe they could have tried not doing that?

4chan, Stormfront, Gab, and plenty of other sites are alive and well, so I don't even buy the "what if datacenters and ISPs ban us?" argument.

I think the difference is that the Parler CEO touted their unique (i.e. lack of) moderation as a feature of their website.

The sites you listed are notorious bad actors but they at least have a degree of moderation.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#323

Post by Fogest » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 8:18 AM UTC

endless1234 wrote: post #317

Fogest wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing more frustrating than searching for information on old reddit threads and seeing that some useful comment that used to be there is gone because the user nuked all their comments via a script. I understand the privacy reasons but at the same time it does ruin a lot of content on sites and can force people to repost old questions to get the answers again.

This indeed sucks, but it would be pretty easy to fix. Just allow your nickname to be deleted for old posts automatically. I don't think individual posts' privacy is what people are usually worried about, but the possibility of getting "doxed" when given an easy way to view all of their previous messages.

I have actually considered using these scripts on my reddit account for privacy reasons but have always been concerned about deleting some useful posts/comments I have made. I definitely would love an option to unassociate my username from posts but still leave the content up.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#324

Post by simplecto » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 8:18 AM UTC

minsc__and__boo wrote: post #315

oaiey wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who owns the message? The sender or receiver? That is a question that bugs me once in a while.

I always thought removing the sender identification was a good middle ground. i.e. John Does said, "Hello world" -> [Removed] said, "Hello world"

True, but the content of the message could contain identifying information. This is not an easy issue to solve.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#325

Post by bzb6 » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 8:18 AM UTC

minsc__and__boo wrote: post #315

oaiey wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who owns the message? The sender or receiver? That is a question that bugs me once in a while.

I always thought removing the sender identification was a good middle ground. i.e. John Does said, "Hello world" -> [Removed] said, "Hello world"

Discord does that.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#326

Post by AnthonyMouse » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 8:18 AM UTC

latch wrote: post #277

skynet-9000 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm interested in knowing how you think a real "free speech" platform can actually work, however. We have message boards that do this and they are just toxic cesspools. The idea of an online "public square" that isn't that sounds impossible. How many public squares are reaching millions of people instantly? I'd like to know the answer to this, too. I wonder if the reason why they turn into toxic cesspools is precis…

> I wonder if the reason why they turn into toxic cesspools is precisely because the only people who use free speech platforms are the people who were kicked off the others You don't have to wonder, we've seen this time and time again with virtually every open community. Without tireless moderation, the swamp grows. In other words, the majority of people who use free speech platforms have already answered your questi…

You're not actually answering the question.

Suppose that the dominant platforms (e.g. Facebook) are not free speech platforms. They boot off a hundred thousand people. 10% of them actually deserved it and are militant jackasses who ruin everything.

Now someone else creates a "free speech" platform. Everybody is allowed in. Well, 80% of the initial users are going to be a subset of the ones who got kicked off of the incumbent platform, and 10% of those are jackasses, so your platform is now 8% jackasses. That's a huge percentage and it's going to immediately turn into a dumpster fire because the jackasses will drive out ordinary people and become an even larger percentage. There are plenty of instances of this happening, e.g. Voat.

But suppose you go the other way. Somehow get a large number of ordinary users. Now the jackasses are only 0.5% of the users. Combine this with something like a voting system so that nothing is ever actually removed, but spam and fascism end up at the bottom of the feed where nobody sees them by accident.

That has the potential to work. The key is to somehow get enough users to dilute the jackasses before they take over, e.g. because the incumbents overreached and a large number of non-jackasses are moving in protest.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#327

Post by johnisgood » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 8:20 AM UTC

minsc__and__boo wrote: post #315

oaiey wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who owns the message? The sender or receiver? That is a question that bugs me once in a while.

I always thought removing the sender identification was a good middle ground. i.e. John Does said, "Hello world" -> [Removed] said, "Hello world"

Discord changes your name, so it does that, although it does not really do much if the messages contain identifying information which it most likely does.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#328

Post by Fogest » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 8:21 AM UTC

minsc__and__boo wrote: post #320

Fogest wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare even supports sites like thepiratebay if I recall correctly. It does make me respect them more and makes me happy to do business with them.

Piratebay is just hosting the magnet links, right? That's not infringing copyright IIRC.

Yes I believe they now only host magnet links. I believe they did used to have .torrent files. I am not sure if .torrent files actually make a huge difference in copyright though do they? Aren't they still almost the same as a magnet link just essentially a different format?

I believe they switched to only magnet links as it made it easier for them to be mirrored and switch around providers to hide from authorities without having to worry about all those files. Also most people likely use magnet links anyway.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#329

Post by minsc__and__boo » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 8:21 AM UTC

redwood wrote: post #42

rektide wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rebekah Mercer is done being embarrassed by you! (Reminder: she's the board that fired him.)

Do you realize who she is? If she's embarrassed by anything it's that he hasn't brought the site back to glory yet

I'm convinced that Parler was a data grab.

They ran the numbers and figured it would be cheaper to run a social media platform to attract their target constituents rather than try to scrape it (like they did with Cambridge Analytica) or attempt to buy it.

Hence the ID requirements.

Re: Parler CEO says he was fired by board

#330

Post by pmontra » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 8:22 AM UTC

oaiey wrote: post #271

johnisgood wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is so typical. My experience with Discord: I need to login to my account to be able to delete it, except what if I cannot log into it?! At first they disabled it, then I e-mailed them requesting them to delete my account, but all they did was a soft-delete, of course. All of the private messages are still there, etc. Even if I were to delete my account myself, it would still leave all my messages intact. I guess…

Who owns the message? The sender or receiver? That is a question that bugs me once in a while.

If I send you a paper mail, you keep it and your descendants could read it in 2121. Of course you own it and they will own it.

If I send you an email, same thing, if it survives for such a long time. Does Google/any ISP also own it?

If I send you a SMS, same thing, I bet it won't survive. Does the phone company also own it?

If I write you on a social network, do you and I own the message or does the social network own it? There are ToS that we might not have read.