Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support • Hacker News Board

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#201

Post by khawkins » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

ortusdux wrote: post #7

It fascinates me that the people most offended by the recent actions of google, amazon, facebook, etc are the ones pushing for the repeal of section 230.

Section 230(b):

It is the policy of the United States- (1) to promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services and other interactive media; (2) to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation; (3) to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and other interactive computer services; ...

Up until now, a Laissez-faire regulatory approach seemed to achieve these goals, but it's hardly fair to call what exists at this point a "vibrant and competitive free market" which "maximizes user control over what information is receives by individuals". Especially if a cartel of tech platforms can completely stamp out individuals' ability to listen to the speech of people they want access to. Regulation is needed now.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#202

Post by sigotirandolas » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

explorigin wrote: post #70

mgkimsal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I poked around on it some, and noticed something ... disturbing. I saw what I assumed were bots posting a lot of garbage links to 'articles' like "Obama compound raided!" and "8 Democrats switch to Republican Party" (that actually happened in Feb 2020, but the link was to an undated rerun and the link was posted.. 2 days ago?). The links were to such trustworthy sites as 'firstusanews.us' (made up, but all variants l…

I was also curious about Parler but, when going to sign up, it asked for my phone number. Ummmm, no thank you. That kind of association is like going to a protest with your cellphone. Pretty easy to get the wrong kind of association attached to you.

I was able to sign up recently with a throwaway e-mail address and made up phone number. But I was also surprised it asked for it.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#203

Post by ketamine__ » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

MichaelRazum wrote: post #185

ketamine__ wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it depends on the country. Facebook deleted personal profiles of NSO group employees because they hacked WhatsApp but then an Israeli court ruled that was illegal. Sometimes Facebook does the right thing. I think Uber should refuse service to those added to the no fly list. Some of them aren't taking it so well: https://mobile.twitter.com/rayredacted/status/13483886011182...

Interesting. How about a doctor, could he legally refuse treatment as well?

Some doctors refuse treatment to anti-vaxxers now.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#204

Post by jmull » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #103

chickenpotpie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter puts an active effort into removing those posts. You can definitely make the case they don’t go far enough, but Parler did the bare minimum. You would have to cherry pick the reasonable content off that site.

Mea culpa: I had the completely wrong idea on this post. See down thread. I would delete this comment if I could. Is that why "Hang Mike Pence" was allowed to trend with 14K tweets, and later that same day "Hang Pence" with 55K?[1] I'd wager every penny I own that almost none of those people were banned or sanctioned in any way. [1]: https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1347791913806532609

That argument doesn't hold water.

"Hang Mike Pence", as has been noted many times, was trending because people were discussing the videos showing Trump rioters chanting that.

People were not banned for using that phrase for the same reason you and I are not going to be banned/flagged for using it here: we aren't calling for violence and murder.

edit: previously called this a bad-faith argument, but that's not fair.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#205

Post by khawkins » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

dagmx wrote: post #187

khawkins wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating different groups of people because you don't understand the nuances of the different groups at play. These are not the same groups in the slightest.

How are they not when they support the same group of politicians?

Since when do people only vote for people they completely agree with and not the "better of two evils"? If the choices are the party that actively wants to censor you and the party that doesn't want to pass legislation to protect you from censorship, the choice is obvious.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#206

Post by gurjeet » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

This being HN I expected more commentary around how a company can/should build technology to survive such incidents, and not go down just because one of your providers either blocked you or themselves went down.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#207

Post by mgkimsal » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

sigotirandolas wrote: post #202

explorigin wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also curious about Parler but, when going to sign up, it asked for my phone number. Ummmm, no thank you. That kind of association is like going to a protest with your cellphone. Pretty easy to get the wrong kind of association attached to you.

I was able to sign up recently with a throwaway e-mail address and made up phone number. But I was also surprised it asked for it.

I 'signed up' on the desktop version, but you can't the 'verify/badge' stuff is only available via the mobile app, AFAICT.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#208

Post by vb6sp6 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

garyclarke27 wrote: post #67

This vicious lethal (effectively kills Parler) action by Amazon - driven by a mob of woke employees - will cause long term damage to AWS. I had plans to use AWS for a potentially huge SAAS business, even though it is not likely to be contentious, just the thought of them being able to destroy everything overnight, without due process, without recourse - sends chills down my spine. I cannot now imagine, being able to…

All hosts have the power to shutdown anything they want, this isn't unique to amazon.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#209

Post by kiawe_fire » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #174

kiawe_fire wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point this becomes about what is right for society versus what you can legally get away with and what you feel like doing because you can. Is this, legally, a free speech issue on its own? No, and I support Amazon’s right to “nope” out of anything they want. But in the current context of the rush to also prevent open Trump support in other areas like payment processing, and the way the media is hellbent on tr…

The worst part about the giddy, gleeful way in which they are shutting down these echo chamber apps is the complete lack of thought as to how this impacts and further radicalizes the users. I have a brother who is into Qanon and Alex Jones. All of this just feeds into and cements the narrative, and pushes him into alternative platforms where he is even less likely to hear or see more mainstream view points. It litera…

I have some family members who are similar.

In the past, I would be able to help talk people through their conspiracy theories to come to a logical conclusion that what they were hearing was too big, too harmful, or otherwise incapable of accomplishing anything to actually be true.

That approach is becoming harder the bigger this becomes.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#210

Post by mlyle » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

ChrisKnott wrote: post #183

cabalamat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the only way to get 'badged' is to use the mobile app and take a picture of govt ID (driver license, passport, etc). Some people have argued, based on this, that Parler was set up by the NSA to get data on people. Hoovering up data from social media is certainly the sort of thing the NSA would do.

This suggestion doesn't stand up to a moment's scrutiny. Do you really think the best way for a government agency to access government IDs is to secretly run a Twitter clone?

I don't think it's true, but..

> Do you really think the best way for a government agency to access government IDs is to secretly run a Twitter clone?

The best way to get a bunch of white supremacists and insurrectionists to robustly, undeniably identify themselves might be to ask them to upload their ID. :P