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Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#381
If they're doing illegal things, an American court should decide that and shut them down with criminal charges. Otherwise, they shouldn't be shutdown. That's how it works in all democracies I know of.

Where are US opposition groups supposed to host their content now? Russia or China, the same way groups in those countries host their content in the US?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#382

All I’m going to say is that I’m all for free speech and setting fair rules for everyone to play by (ie regulation), but looking at the examples provided in the buzzfeed articles this is beyond simple free speech. I hear a lot of people saying this is just another example of the left trying to shut down free speech but there are clear threats being made on the platform. If Parler doesn’t want to do any content regula…

Link to the Buzzfeed article: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-p...

Apparently Amazon sent them 98 examples of posts directly inciting violence, Parler replied with a proposal to manually moderate such posts with volunteers, and most of the posts Amazon gave as examples were still up (including some urging for systematic assassination or blowing up AWS data centers.)

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can ask the question of whether you think in general that marginalized voices should be allowed to exist. Obviously, you don't like these particular people (and neither do I) so you don't see any problem with eradicating their voice. If Amazon were just one provider and there were other options it might even then still be OK. But it's not just a choice of Amazon. Any provider hosting them will be subject to the c…

> Picture instead private businesses who all refuse to do business with Jews. This is a false equivalency. Race, religion, etc. are protected classes. It's impossible for people to change their race, and our society has agreed that we shouldn't force people to change their religion. Political beliefs are not protected classes. When your political beliefs include inciting violence by spreading unfounded conspiracy the…

Protected classes were defined in the law only because we decided they should be. Nothing says it can't include more or fewer things as the winds of opinion blow in a different direction. A religion isn't really much different from other belief systems after all.

This is a common error in reasoning by the way: looking to the way current law happens to be and inferring from that what the right thing to do is. For example, it is not against the first amendment for Amazon to ban Republicans. This does not mean it would be a good thing for Amazon to ban Republicans. Similarly I'm sure, if you tried, you could come up with all kinds of unjust laws that punish things that should not be punished (I certainly can think of many).

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#384
post #321

I'm struggling to try to understand what this means for the risks of running a business in the cloud going forward. It was not just AWS dropping them, but many of their other vendors dropped them too, essentially killing their business overnight. Granted, for this first case the bar was extremely high. You needed literal storming of the Capitol and a platform seemingly specifically targeted at those people for this t…

Even their own lawyers dropped them out of fear....

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#385

All I’m going to say is that I’m all for free speech and setting fair rules for everyone to play by (ie regulation), but looking at the examples provided in the buzzfeed articles this is beyond simple free speech. I hear a lot of people saying this is just another example of the left trying to shut down free speech but there are clear threats being made on the platform. If Parler doesn’t want to do any content regula…

> I hear a lot of people saying this is just another example of the left trying to shut down free speech This is a specious argument on its face. The First Amendment does not say that private companies are obligated to spend money broadcasting someone else's speech. Hosting and serving isn't free and any private company has the freedom to decide what not to host. If an author's content is so toxic that advertisers wo…

Free speech and the First Amendment are not the same thing.

Free speech is a moral principle/ideal that exists independently of the US Constitution.

The First Amendment guarantees a certain form of free speech in the United States.

Private-sector censorship / restriction of speech is not in violation of the First Amendment. However, it may still amount to a restriction on free speech.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

parler sounds like a classic honeypot

It's interesting how the natural inclination of the folks drawn to this kind of product leads to them being willing to provide a lot more personal information than they otherwise would to other similar platforms.

I'm not 100% sure on that. I saw a lot of 'non-badged' accounts, meaning they weren't providing much info. I guess, though, presumably many (most?) were providing real phone numbers, but Twitter tries to force that from people, so perhaps not much more than Twitter?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or the fact that nicolas maduro - a man already convicted of crimes against humanity by the UN - still has an account and has gone uncensored. how anyone here defends such blatant hypocrisy is beyond me

Please remind me when Nicolas Maduro led an armed mob into the US Capitol. We judge threats not only on their intent, but on their success in executing that intent. On that measure, Parler is much more dangerous than Maduro, Putin, or the Ayatollah.

You don't watch non-US news much, do you?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#388
So is it legal to boot out a store from a plaza, selling offensive items?

I think Amazon is in a very difficult position, do or don't, it is doomed. But I guess it will have to make a call on this one, to avoid looking like standing on the wrong side by the coming administration.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#389

All I’m going to say is that I’m all for free speech and setting fair rules for everyone to play by (ie regulation), but looking at the examples provided in the buzzfeed articles this is beyond simple free speech. I hear a lot of people saying this is just another example of the left trying to shut down free speech but there are clear threats being made on the platform. If Parler doesn’t want to do any content regula…

oh com'n. As if twitter doesn't allow people to post stupid junk? Multiple accounts that posted "Kill all white women" "Today seems like a good day for another reminder that all republicans deserve to die" are still active along with plenty of other insane things. You can cherry pick bad stuff from any social media site.

A friend of mine got permanently suspended from twitter because she and a friend were bantering with each other and she made a joking threat. Her friend who the "threat" was directed at has tried to petition twitter to undo her suspension, but they've just ignored her.

Twitter regularly bans people for anything that smells of violence, even when the "threat" is one person joking with their friend.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#390
post #41

Parler wasn't some innocent social media site that happened to have some disgusting content on it. The disgusting content was literally its reason for existing, despite all of the bland "we're just a free speech site" stuff. And I have yet to hear anyone discuss how "anything goes" and social media do not mix. It's much easier to turn a community toxic than it is to keep it healthy, and healthy communities (of any so…

"disgusting" like what? Can you give a few examples? (legit ask, not denying it)
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