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Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

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Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#41

Post by voodootrucker »

lisper wrote: post #23
ghoward wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote about why free speech is still important here: https://gavinhoward.com/2019/11/recommendations-and-radicali... . Basically, the problem is not free speech. It's the social media drive for addiction.

But that is exactly the problem: how do you separate the two? Once someone figures out a way to profit from "free speech" the profit motive takes over and infects the whole system. I don't see any way around that without compromising freedom.

I think banning online advertising causing these sites to charge their users for the service would right a lot of wrongs automatically, when the free market can start to kick in and do it's job.

It makes it so Facebook's product becomes online photo sharing, instead of it's current product which is manipulation and addiction.

https://www.wired.com/story/why-dont-we-just-ban-targeted-ad...

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#42

Post by tenebrisalietum »

millzlane wrote: post #36
lisper wrote: post #11

I gotta say, recent events have left me shaken to my core. I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place. I…

I think free speech ends at specific threats or calls to violence. Call me the n word all you want. But if you threaten my life you should be stopped. Either by the police or by me. I think free speech is necessary, but not free speech to harass or threaten violence. Free speech including the vile and negative won't make the world a better place. Arguing against the bad ideas will. But I do not think it's the burden…

What do you do when people simply want to spew emotional tirades and mindlessly copy memes, and won't argue in good or any faith? What is that worth really?

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#43

Post by ogre_codes »

mschuster91 wrote: post #18
zarkov99 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hindsight and all that. Parler has hosted content no worse than Twitter or Facebook or thousands of other sites. Their banning from AWS could not have been reasonably anticipated. It was an unprecedented act of censorship in response to an unprecedented moment in American history. The world will learn and AWS will likely loose a few customers though not enough to change its policies.

> Parler has hosted content no worse than Twitter or Facebook or thousands of other sites. I disagree. There were open calls for murder on the platform where Parler was notified by Apple, by Google, by Amazon - and nothing happened . Which is the key thing here. Twitter and Facebook are extremely fast with the ban-hammer, in contrast.

> Twitter and Facebook are extremely fast with the ban-hammer, in contrast.

Twitter and Facebook have recently grudgingly picked up the ban hammer and use it, often too late or ineffectively. But yes, they will eventually act which is the big difference.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#44

Post by quacker »

lisper wrote: post #11

I gotta say, recent events have left me shaken to my core. I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place. I…

> But we've now done the experiment in a big way and the results seem overwhelmingly negative to me, to the point where they present a credible existential threat to civilization, on a par with climate change.

Free speech is certainly a double-edged sword. For example, would you be comfortable running a large site on which users spread misinformation about climate change? Would you continue allowing that misinformation?

It’s a pretty hard question for me personally.

(Practically speaking, you might seek to redirect profits from that misinformation toward donations that help combat climate change, or something similar to offset the impact of that misinformation.)

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#45

Post by MrPatan »

lisper wrote: post #11

I gotta say, recent events have left me shaken to my core. I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place. I…

What happens when nobody is allowed to talk you down from this position?

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#46

Post by yanderekko »

zarkov99 wrote: post #25
gameswithgo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

epik, apparently. at some point too when you notice that everyone thinks you are horrible maybe the problem is you.

Yeah, that is a great mental heuristic: the majority is always fair and right. I am sure the Jews thought that back in 1930’s Germany. And the Christians in Rome, the Kolacks in Russia, the intellectuals in Mao's China, the wealthy Cubans when Castro took over and blacks in the US before the civil rights movement.

You grant too much. The people who are making these deplatforming decisions do not represent a majority or anything close to it. Perhaps they believe they will when their cultural revolution is complete and the dust has settled, but that has yet to be seen.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#47

Post by rvz »

andomar wrote: post #3
api wrote: post #2

If I were running something likely to be deplatformed, I would never consider anything but a multi-cloud solution where no single provider is a single point of failure. It's not that hard to do.

If you were refused by Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Cloudflare, what alternatives are there?

Self-hosting was a thing 10 - 15 years ago before the cloud hype and it is still an option today especially for those who have no choice but to do it.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#48

Post by zarkov99 »

yanderekko wrote: post #46
zarkov99 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that is a great mental heuristic: the majority is always fair and right. I am sure the Jews thought that back in 1930’s Germany. And the Christians in Rome, the Kolacks in Russia, the intellectuals in Mao's China, the wealthy Cubans when Castro took over and blacks in the US before the civil rights movement.

You grant too much. The people who are making these deplatforming decisions do not represent a majority or anything close to it. Perhaps they believe they will when their cultural revolution is complete and the dust has settled, but that has yet to be seen.

Unfortunately they do represent an overwhelming majority of the power in this particular domain.

Re: Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers

#50

Post by threatofrain »

quacker wrote: post #44
lisper wrote: post #11

I gotta say, recent events have left me shaken to my core. I thought I believed in free speech, to the point where I started a company dedicated to providing privacy and communications products that were not subject to control by any central authority (that turns out to be very hard!) But watching the events of the past few years unfold I am no longer convinced that this would really make the world a better place. I…

> But we've now done the experiment in a big way and the results seem overwhelmingly negative to me, to the point where they present a credible existential threat to civilization, on a par with climate change. Free speech is certainly a double-edged sword. For example, would you be comfortable running a large site on which users spread misinformation about climate change? Would you continue allowing that misinformati…

It's up to every democracy to decide the limits of any freedom. Germany bans Nazi symbols, communications, and organizations altogether, and it doesn't appear as if their state is suffering.

Also, Apple and Android ban porn, which is basically an entire industry.

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