Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc • Hacker News Board

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#301

Post by Nacdor » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #237

Nacdor wrote: post #80

Glenn Greenwald has been investigating the planning of the Capitol protests and says "it was largely done on Facebook". So far he hasn't been able to identify a single person who was arrested and active on Parler: > Do you know how many of the people arrested in connection with the Capitol invasion were active users of Parler? Zero. The planning was largely done on Facebook. This is all a bullshit pretext for silenci…

> Glenn Greenwald has been investigating the planning of the Capitol protests and says "it was largely done on Facebook". Glenn Greenwald also chose to make the fake Giuliani/Hunter Biden laptop story the hill on which he wished to die upon, related to his resignation from the Intercept, so whatever credibility he had remaining has long since departed. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=greenwald...

His point all along was "The laptop isn't a big deal, the censorship is". I don't know the details regarding Hunter Biden's business dealings or his laptop (although I've heard there is at least one ongoing investigation, possibly more), but the censorship is probably one of the bigger stories of the year. Twitter admitted they were blocking the story prior to fact-checking, and this decision was made by someone who had previously worked for the DCCC:

> While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook's third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.

https://twitter.com/andymstone/status/1316395902479872000?re...

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#302

Post by realce » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

demygale wrote: post #64

Parler has a moderation policy and they don’t apply it. Content that promotes illegal activity is not protected free speech and is also prohibited by Parler’s policies. They selectively applied that moderation after they became popular with MAGA. Also, 4chan exists why can’t Parler find a host?

"Content that promotes illegal activity is not protected free speech"

If this were true then Rap music would be illegal.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#303

Post by ghayes » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

cal5k wrote: post #100

tbenst wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False equivocation. This did happen but Twitter promptly banned this and variants [1]. Parler is failing / refusing to moderate. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/10/hang-mike-pe...

Also false equivocation. Twitter failed/refused to moderate content for years throughout their meteoric growth, and only now are they barely getting a handle on it - and even then they seem to apply the rules in an uneven fashion. Expecting any potential competitor to instantly achieve perfect moderation seems like a perfect way to entrench FB, Twitter and others as the de-facto public square.

Parler is not simply failing to "instantly achieve perfect moderation," and, I personally believe it is disingenuous to speculate the fact. The service's core principals include strict limits to moderation.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#304

Post by kypro » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

chefkoch wrote: post #250

kypro wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that Parler was a disruptive platform, 4chan isn't. There is a bunch of awful content hosted on AWS, but it's generally only when you reach some scale and become a threat to those in silicon valley that you can expect to be shut off.

Why is Parler disruptive?

It was in the sense that it was a new platform that had high profile people like Ted Cruz on it with millions of followers more than he had on Twitter.

No one cares about 4chan because it has no real political influence. Parler was perhaps the first alternative platform in a long time to have actual political influence.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#305

Post by awb » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

Majromax wrote: post #126

bigtones wrote: post #94

1). AWS can suspend service for any customer immediately upon giving that customer notice. They do not have to provide a "remediation period" or give the customer any grace time at all. Every customer agrees to this as part of the AWS Customer Agreement 2). AWS can terminate an account immediately if they deem you in violation of their policies instead of a suspension - as was the case with Parler. It's all in the AW…

Companies can follow their terms of service, but under some circumstances they must act in good faith. If Parler can show that Amazon deliberately applied its terms of service in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner, then arguably it could build a case for tortious interference in the business relationship between Parler and its advertisers.

This seems to be the only possible argument, that Parler is being unfairly singled out and that other platforms have hosted similarly violent content without repercussion.

The free speech / censorship argument doesn't seem to fly.

The Lin Wood post on Parler (https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1347190280492089344) and dozens of other posts with screenshots on that thread are clearly targeted threats of political violence and have never constituted free speech:

> common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public security, and perjury

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Sedition, incitement and public security all seem to apply here to the content Parler was hoping to keep publicly accessible.

But as far as other platforms go, like Twitter, they made Kathy Griffen delete her direct threats against Trump: https://www.waynedupree.com/2020/05/kathy-griffin-twitter-pu...

So, I'm not sure they have enough examples of other platforms allowing this level of violent content to remain public for long.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#306

Post by Nacdor » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #290

walrus01 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Glenn Greenwald has been investigating the planning of the Capitol protests and says "it was largely done on Facebook". Glenn Greenwald also chose to make the fake Giuliani/Hunter Biden laptop story the hill on which he wished to die upon, related to his resignation from the Intercept, so whatever credibility he had remaining has long since departed. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=greenwald...

> the fake Giuliani/Hunter Biden laptop story What was fake about it? AFAIK no factual claim has been refuted and some have been robustly proved (e.g. the gmail sent emails that have been published pass DKIM validation). If you want to say the timing of it was a transparent attempt at political manipulation, I'd fully agree.

Good point, I had forgotten that Rob of Errata Security was given an email to verify and it was proven to be legitimate:

> So as I blogged before, the emails contained DKIM information, which the original reporters could and should have verified. So I eventually got a copy of the email and run DKIM verification on it. It passed:

https://twitter.com/erratarob/status/1322007153415200768

I think he's pretty active (and well-respected) on HN.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#307

Post by kortex » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

jakelazaroff wrote: post #225

caminocorner wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The guy in the fur hat was arrested and had a Parler. I can't find evidence of this. Could you share your evidence? Greenwald did significant research here and said he found no active users from those arrested: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1348619731734028293

Glenn is either terrible at research or lying. https://twitter.com/azforeman/status/1348648808390008832?s=2... Google “baked alaska parler”. It’s literally on the first page of results.

Also, here are some screen grabs of Kevin Greeson, who likely would have been arrested, but had a heart attack from what I have heard termed "insurrectionary excitement"

Also what does it matter if Jan 6 was not planned on parler? Jan 17th and inauguration shenanigans were being planned there until the site got yanked.

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/man-who-died-capitol-riot-par...

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#308

Post by brabel » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #230

bigtones wrote: post #94

1). AWS can suspend service for any customer immediately upon giving that customer notice. They do not have to provide a "remediation period" or give the customer any grace time at all. Every customer agrees to this as part of the AWS Customer Agreement 2). AWS can terminate an account immediately if they deem you in violation of their policies instead of a suspension - as was the case with Parler. It's all in the AW…

Surely they're observing best practice cloud process and can therefore just spin up the service in another provider pronto?

In the link posted by OP, they say the code needs to be re-written for another cloud provider, and that it cannot be done fast enough to capture the alleged flood of conservatives, Trump included, trying to move From Twitter to Parler (which would probably die out within a few days if Parler did not come back up).

They also claim no other cloud provider has accepted their business because AWS, by leaking its email to Parler to Buzzfeed (which showed lots of violence threats on Parler) before even sending it to Parler, had tarnished its reputation (i.e. it was trying to manipulate popular opinion by leaking the worst posts they found - and Parler claims the same content could be easily found on Twitter at the same time - I don't know as I don't see this shit in my stream but everyone has very different streams based on their preferences, so it's plausible I think).

This looks like a dirty game they're playing, and to be honest, it's hard to say for sure that AWS and Twitter are completely clean in this... AWS is probably betting Parler will get enough hate so that other customers who may have controversial businesses running on AWS will not consider moving elsewhere (or al least preparing to do so at short notice)... which to me, kind of shows that Parler may have a point in this argument... On the other hand, Parler had very disturbing content (I did manage to have a peek just before they went offline) which I think goes well beyond the acceptable level, but for AWS to "kill" them, as they claim AWS is trying to do, seems quite heavy handed.

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#309

Post by etchalon » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #79

greesil wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but these threats were actually carried out. Not the first time for Parler either, as I recall.

A terror attack was literally live streamed on Facebook.

Wasn't Facebook racing to take down the video?

Re: Parler LLC vs. Amazon Web Services Inc

#310

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #230

bigtones wrote: post #94

1). AWS can suspend service for any customer immediately upon giving that customer notice. They do not have to provide a "remediation period" or give the customer any grace time at all. Every customer agrees to this as part of the AWS Customer Agreement 2). AWS can terminate an account immediately if they deem you in violation of their policies instead of a suspension - as was the case with Parler. It's all in the AW…

Surely they're observing best practice cloud process and can therefore just spin up the service in another provider pronto?

[deleted]