301–310 of 652 posts
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So why didn't they crackdown on this type of content back in the Obama administration when the threat of political blowback also wasn't there?
What type of content?
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> I find it interesting that people think down voting my comment will intimidate me into changing the analysis. I find it interesting that you think you can read minds as what expectations downvoters have about their downvotes’ effect on your behavior. As you say, “That’s not how anything works…”
I do not possess power to read minds, nor anticipate the court's actions. I find it all, very interesting!
Is that how you talk to the judge in court?
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…
Twitter also hosts lots of content that's way better. Among the highly relevant, when it comes to AWS decision making, AWS evangelists like Jeff Barr and Andy Jassy use Twitter to communicate with customers. AWS itself has a Twitter account for status updates. There's just a ton of stuff on Twitter that is absolutely fine and would be collateral damage were Twitter shut down.
In the realm of taking down providers for copyright violations, the courts recognize a standard of "substantial non-infringing use" as a way to minimize that collateral damage. A provider like YouTube, which had a ton of both legal and illegal content prior to the Google acquisition, was allowed to stay up whereas a provider like Napster was shut down because they found it to be almost entirely copyright violation.
It seems like directly equating Twitter and Parler is a false equivalence. Twitter is a generic platform that some users use for problematic political discussion. Parler is a platform specifically targeted at problematic political discussion. You can't target the problematic stuff and expect the same protection as someone who casts a wider net.
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Can you explain?
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...
Argument from authority is one of the weakest forms of argument. If you want to weaken it, you turn it into argument from claimed authority that no evidence was offered for. If you want to weaken it even further, you set that weak argument against a judge's decision and the reasoned analysis of other people who clearly have read the legal briefs and have pointed out specific problems with the arguments made.
This is exactly what you did. Now maybe you are exactly what you say and you are exactly right. However based on your current content, you are indistinguishable from a troll. And that is exactly how people are responding to you.
If you don't want people to treat you as a troll, you need to provide enough actual meat that it is clear that you are not a troll. But until you are willing to do that, you should expect the response that you are getting.
If your expectations are different, then that is your mistake. You should learn how the internet works and adjust your expectations accordingly.
If you want an example to look at, see https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rayiner. He is a respected lawyer who often posts opinions that run counter to the average opinion on this site. But when he speaks about the law, people listen. Not because he claims to be a lawyer, but because he speaks in a way that demonstrates his knowledge of the subject.
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I feel like if some religious nut has to make a gay wedding cake then Amazon has to serve websites for their political enemies. This is a moral statement and not a legal one.
The wedding cake makers ultimately won. And only found themselves in court because of legislation protecting against refusal of service on the grounds of sexual orientation: nobody could have raised legal objections if they declined to make a cake that said 'God Is Dead', 'Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll' or 'Vote For Pedro' Nobody is forced to make a wedding cake with a long stream of racist invective like one of the e…
But forcing people to make cakes they feel morally icky about sounds like a guaranteed way to get some really ugly, half-assed cakes. Whether we like it or not that they feel that way doesn't seem to matter because an ugly cake that validates me is still an ugly cake.
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Tech attorney here (with no relation to this specific matter). I wouldn't say they don't have a leg to stand on. I think it will prove to be very interesting.
Not an attorney, but I've read all the briefs in the case (you can too at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/29095511/parler-llc-v-a... ). Count 1 (antitrust) fails because you need to actually allege a conspiracy, not just say "Twitter is also a customer of AWS!" I mean, I immediately realized it was deficient on their initial brief, because they didn't even back up enough evidence to satisfy their own citations ,…
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…
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…
This is not technically true. (1) politics is a spectrum (2) the US is generally left leaning as a whole, but the largest demographic designation of people in the US is generally considered moderate.
> This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to do anything in these areas that might counter their preferences.
The population of the US leans left - those outlets are simply a reflection of that. It's absurd to think that all of these elite people who run those companies get together and conspire to keep left ideas alive. If you know anything about the Democratic party you would know they are horrible at creating a coordinated strategy. To think that same party is somehow regurgitating a coordinated theme through commercial means while at the same time having an uncoordinated government strategy is absurd.
> It's possible to go to university, watch movies, read the news everyday, and have no idea what the other half of the country is thinking or saying.
I agree with this but not for your aforementioned reasons. Those echo-chambers exist because communication is no longer at the town square but on social media and messaging apps.
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> Should Verizon and T-Mobile have free speech rights too then? Try reading the whole paragraph (emphasis added): >particularly if they in some way are significantly making use of government power themselves ( limited spectrum allocation for cellular carriers for example Come on. > Why should they allow literal Nazis to communicate over their infrastructure? Because they're making use of a government granted monopoly…
> Because they're making use of a government granted monopoly on a physically limited common. They should in turn operate as common carriers. Hmm, not always though. I use WiFi 99% of the time, including for voice calling, which isn't using any government-allocated cellular spectrum. So in my case, T-Mobile should be able to filter packets going through their servers and censor undesirable speech, right? Their server…
Also their government allocated bands don't change if you use "WiFi 99% of the time" they still have the monopoly.
As for packet filtering, that's Net Neutrality issue, which last time I checked the right was against and successfully allowed it (except for states that brought their own laws to replace it).
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I know effectively zero about Parler's infrastructure, but I would say it's not that uncommon to build a product tied specifically to AWS. What really surprised me though is that it took them days to get even a static homepage up.
My understanding is that Parler actively avoided making technical decisions which would tie them to AWS. Their problems coming back online have primarily been because most major hosting providers have refused to take their business (and possibly also as a result of their ridiculous hardware requirements, cf. https://twitter.com/th3j35t3r/status/1350612426115452935 ).
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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...
I downvoted you not because I thought it would intimidate you, but because it lacked any content at all. You just asserted something without explanation. It was a low quality post. The way you respond to the downvotes now also makes me think you are not even arguing in good faith, but just doing performative victimization.
If tptacek, security researcher, says a case is no real case (even with arguments) and an attorney contradicts him then that is evidence tptacek is wrong.
Realistically, I still expect Ptacek to be right - I don't see how Amazon could be forced to host something they don't want to. Nor why it would make sense to make them to. So I hope this lawsuit fails. But the way Parler was assassinated seems a bit questionable and there might be some cause for complaint there. It may be that AWS's terms of service are overruled by some law somewhere and they'll owe someone money.