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Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down

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

#241

Post by Blikkentrekker »

klmadfejno wrote: post #233
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because violence to advance a cause the powers agree with is suddenly protected under free speech all the same. Many have pointed out that the storming of the capitol was not too dissimilar to many of the b.l.m. riots which were also often coördinated and featured chants of killing police officers. And it very much seems that whichever side one be on very much dictates how both are treated with both sides claiming t…

The sentiment you're trying to express here is empathy. There is more empathy for people protesting racial injustice and the murder of minority groups than there is for people waving hate group symbols and trying to kill political leaders. I don't see a need to demand a system void of empathy. It's not a one side issue. It's not right vs. left. In the case of parler, it's largly Nazi vs. not Nazi, and that's a partic…

> The sentiment you're trying to express here is empathy. There is more empathy for people protesting racial injustice and the murder of minority groups than there is for people waving hate group symbols and trying to kill political leaders. I don't see a need to demand a system void of empathy.

Every man considers the group for which he fights oppressed and the group that fights against him a “hate group”, and every man has cherry picked statistics to show it.

> Everyone has a choice. Everyone identifying as conservative can point at the white supremacists in DC and say "Those are my people" or "Those are not my people".

And the same applies to the the more extreme and violent parts of the b.l.m. movement.

As is usual, and as I criticized, you cherry pick the most violent parts of “the other group” to make your point, while showing the more moderate of your own to front them as the good guys.

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

#242

Post by PragmaticPulp »

kyrra wrote: post #63
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Parler wasn't dropped for making Amazon look bad. Parler was dropped for repeatedly failing to address blatant terms of service violations. AWS still hosts the National Enquirer, the magazine that literally tried to blackmail Jeff Bezos. AWS is hardly in the habit of r…

If you listen to Parler's CEO arguing about being shut down[0] (interview with Megyn Kelly), he was saying that their tech rep at Amazon gave no hints that they were in danger of being shut down. It sounded like they were doing a decent job and they tried to remedy Amazon's issues, but Amazon wanted nothing to do with them anymore. EDIT: to add, this is just his take. There is obviously 2-sides to the story, so hard…

Parler's CEO claims were debunked by Amazon, which provided evidence that they warned Parler for months across multiple multiple violations: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/filing-amazon-wa...

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

#243

Post by ceejayoz »

throwaway45349 wrote: post #236
mewse wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> isolating and pushing out so called "deplorables" is escalating the current American political conflicts to serious violence. Can you provide references that back up this claim? Bear in mind that the deplatforming began after January 6th of this year, so any escalating violence which may have occurred on or before that point is not evidence of your claim. And after the events of the 6th I imagine it’d be difficult…

The deplatforming has been going on for years, since at least 2016 when Trump was elected in the first place. In Twitter's case[0] they went after smaller users (edgy "russian bots") until ~2018, when they really ramped things up. This even hit left wing (anti-establishment) activists[1]. One of the conclusions of a recent purge by Reddit was that it just pushed the banned users into even more radical spaces online[2…

> One of the conclusions of a recent purge by Reddit was that it just pushed the banned users into even more radical spaces online[2].

You should re-read it. It offers that as a possibility, with terms like "may" and "could have". It does not conclude it did happen; it notes that some users migrated, but that's not at all surprising.

The hardcore folks are likely to always wind up somewhere, but driving them off Reddit likely makes it more difficult to recruit less initially strident users. As the study indicates, "the ban worked for Reddit".

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

#245

Post by unethical_ban »

dhimes wrote: post #95
xoa wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It concerns me that AWS booted a site off their platform for speech issues I'm sorry for the caps but you and a host of others are forgetting something repeatedly and it's getting fairly annoying: AMAZON HAS FREE SPEECH RIGHTS TOO. Just as Parler does, and you do, and I do, and Twitter does, and the various owners and employees of these organizations do, and on and on. It's Free Speech all the way down. And a funda…

More than free speech, they have Free Market Rights. Ironically, those bitching about them removing Parler are usually the strongest supporters of the Free Market.

Well I'm clearly not an advocate of fully free markets when there are natural monopolies or societal interests higher than profit.

And I'm not bitching, I'm discussing.

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

#246

Post by yholio »

soperj wrote: post #153
mercurialshark wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'll circle back with a longer form response in a few minutes. In the meantime, I find it interesting that people think down voting my comment will intimidate me into changing the analysis. That's not how legal judgment works. That's not how anything works...

@mecurialshark, likely has nothing to do with trying to change your opinion. Likely has more to do with you posting your credentials as a reason to trust you but giving us nothing more than that.

Thanks, that must explain why his legal opinion below was downvoted to a similar degree.

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

#247

Post by newfriend »

_dw7s wrote: post #160
nostromo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting how much soft power the political left in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. Hollywood, Silicon Valley, academia, and the news media all lean left. This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to do anything in these areas that might counter their preferences. I think all this soft power actually hurts the left in America, because our country's default state is a bi…

> Hollywood, Silicon Valley, academia, and the news media all lean left. citation needed. Silicon Valley is a monument to capitalism and most if not all entrepreneurs lean libertarian. As for the news media, as an example, Fox News has the highest viewership in the US. And for the others, ever thought about why you're not seeing a lot of coverage about unions/worker rights/worker strikes? Don't mistake anti-Trump rhe…

So capitalism is right-wing now? Oh let me guess, this is the old "Democrats are actually right-wing", right?

> As for the news media, as an example, Fox News has the highest viewership in the US.

Yes one channel is different than every other, of course viewership is concentrated there -- all the lefty viewers are spread out over the remaining channels.

If the other news channels aren't "left-wing" then Fox isn't "right-wing", and everything is meaningless. There isn't a large population of commies or nazis in the US, despite what the media would have you believe. Both parties are pretty near the center, with some individual outliers.

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

#248

Post by tptacek »

HALtheWise wrote: post #126
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…

Does anyone know how the AUP of Amazon and other services interacts with E2E encryption? For example, Signal uses AWS to host many of there servers, if Amazon discovers that people are using Signal to share unsightly content, can the demand that Signal kick those users off the platform? If Signal's processes and technology aren't capable of doing so, can AWS demand they change that?

I think the right mental model to have here is that AWS can boot any customer that becomes problematic for them, including Signal. It seems unlikely that you can skirt their AUP terms by constructing a service that makes it impossible for you to comply with their terms.

Amazon can enforce their contracts selectively. The contract isn't a statute; it's an agreement between two parties. Amazon could presumably strike up a side agreement with a customer that overrode the "master" contract. I'm not a lawyer, but stuff like that happens in consulting somewhat regularly, where you have an MSA governing all your projects, and specific contracts for weird projects.

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

#249

Post by notahacker »

kyrra wrote: post #192
minikites wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What leads you to believe the Parler CEO is a reliable narrator?

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 considered violation of Amazon's conveniently broad AUP.

Amazon appear not to have chosen to terminate or threaten to at the time, presumably on the basis they were getting plenty of money and relatively little grief for hosting them, but it puts a very different perspective on the idea that Parler was caught completely by surprise, and would have cleaned up everything they could if only they'd had more time and resources.

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

#250

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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