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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

#51

1. Democratic party threatens tech industry with heavy regulation because they don't censor to the degree that the Democrats want. 2. Democratic party takes over control of the government. 3. Major companies in the tech industry work together to boot a competitor, and political opponent of the Democratic party off the internet. At what point is this a legit first amendment issue? The government can't just pressure pr…

On a similar vein, the president breaks all the policies of a web service, and the company that runs it does not kick him off due to fear of retribution by the government.

It seems like Twitter's free speech has been limited for the past 4 years, and they've only been able enforce their policies once trump stopped having power

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

#52

I've been trying to come to grips with the societal impact of echo chambers, "hate" speech, and the obligations vs. rights of sites and hosting providers. So far, my take is that websites have less obligation than hosting. It concerns me that AWS booted a site off their platform for speech issues - I am leaning more and more to the idea that colos, IaaS and ISPs should be considered common carriers, and that only a c…

There are two separate issues:

1. Is it good that a few people at a few large companies can decide what is and isn't acceptable speech in America.

2. Do media companies have the right to end business relationships with companies who they feel violate their contracts and Terms of Service.

The obvious answer to #2 is yes. Otherwise you would be forcing Fox News to run adds calling all Fox News viewers racists, and forcing MSNBC to run adds with racial slurs in them.

There isn't a clear answer to #1.Do these people have a conflict of interest? Who would do a better job? Biden? Trump?

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

#53

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 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…

Dropped by Amazon, in coordination with both App Stores just as it reached #1 ranked app. Really really interesting.

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

#54

I've been trying to come to grips with the societal impact of echo chambers, "hate" speech, and the obligations vs. rights of sites and hosting providers. So far, my take is that websites have less obligation than hosting. It concerns me that AWS booted a site off their platform for speech issues - I am leaning more and more to the idea that colos, IaaS and ISPs should be considered common carriers, and that only a c…

>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 fundamental aspect of Free Speech isn't just the right to say something, it's necessarily the right to NOT say something, and to NOT provide material support against your will to speech you disagree with. If you or I or anyone else or any general organization decides to NOT provide help to someone else's speech, be it our own direct voice or access to our private property, that's not censorship that is itself Free Speech. They in turn have the right to complain, and to exercise their own freedom of association, and we may change our minds, or not, and others can chime in, and on and on forever. Free Speech is a system not an end goal, a constant churning that hopefully over long enough timescales will give us a better grasp of Truth.

When government uses force, that halts the system, and speech becomes frozen. History and present indicates that the bar for that, though not infinite, should be quite high. Some companies that truly have natural monopolies or exercise quasi-governmental power may fall into that too, particularly if they in some way are significantly making use of government power themselves (limited spectrum allocation for cellular carriers for example, or physical infrastructure companies making use of public rights of way). But social and economic censure is a fundamental aspect of the process of Free Speech. 3rd parties aren't some disembodied Other, they're entities that have the same rights as anyone else by default.

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

#55
post #25
post #2

Here's the denial of the TRO: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qhXD-4Kaw5dCEBv0dUM8buygEKg... Parler hasn't lost the case, just a TRO that demands reinstatement on AWS, but the ruling on the TRO requires the judge to tip their hand about the case, and Parler is going to lose. I don't think you even need to read the AWS AUP to know that Parler has no real case here. To buy Parler's contract claim, you'd have to believ…

It seemed apparent right when the case was filed that Parler didn't have a leg to stand on. It was partly a play for publicity that plays well into their customer demographics, and a dying gasp of trying to seek some kind of injunctive help from the administration, no matter how impossible it seemed. Judging by how weak their infrastructure was in the first place, getting any kind of resilient hosting in place after…

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.

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

#57

I've been trying to come to grips with the societal impact of echo chambers, "hate" speech, and the obligations vs. rights of sites and hosting providers. So far, my take is that websites have less obligation than hosting. It concerns me that AWS booted a site off their platform for speech issues - I am leaning more and more to the idea that colos, IaaS and ISPs should be considered common carriers, and that only a c…

I am very sympathetic to the idea that ISPs should be common carriers, but definitely not colos and platforms like AWS. Let’s use an old-fashioned analogy. An ISP is like a post office, and people’s letters should not be meddled with (outside of violent threats or pursuant to a legal criminal investigation). In particular, ISPs are relevant to most individuals and ISPs (should) have respect for individual rights. But…

If we had a fully P2P and distributed architecture for information exchange, this wouldn't be a problem.

As it stands, we choose centralized websites and platforms to be how we exchange information. They're an essential ingredient in the "common carrier" recipe.

How can your parents share messages without Comcast + Facebook?

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

#58
post #12
post #4

Parlers goal of being the alternate free speech platform is horrendously thought out. The same companies and that they are trying to remove influence from (Silicon Valley - amazon, twitter, facebook, etc.) are the same companies that they're doing business with. Gab is ridiculous and I get a very religious "holier than thou" (lol) vibe from them. Their founder(s) are very puritanical and will likely not survive the n…

Gab is doing great and growing like crazy. Edit: Downvoted for facts.

I guess some people may interpret "doing great" as an opinion and not a fact, although it depends on what you meant by that... it could be a fact.

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

#59
post #12
post #4

Parlers goal of being the alternate free speech platform is horrendously thought out. The same companies and that they are trying to remove influence from (Silicon Valley - amazon, twitter, facebook, etc.) are the same companies that they're doing business with. Gab is ridiculous and I get a very religious "holier than thou" (lol) vibe from them. Their founder(s) are very puritanical and will likely not survive the n…

Gab is doing great and growing like crazy. Edit: Downvoted for facts.

I don't know why you are being downvoted, from what I've read they have added a ton of users in the past few weeks. I think the Parler move is backfiring, prior to that it seemed like a battle between dozens of alt-social networks all trying to gain a foothold and after the Parler move it looks it everyone displaced from the traditional social media platforms has decided on Gab.

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

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does twitter get away with hosting way worse content? Parler explicitly does not moderate calls both subtle and overt to violence -- much less just blatant propaganda. Pretty sure the reason parler gained traction is that twitter does.

If you saw the amount of left-wing content calling for the execution of politicians, calling for communist revolutions, you wouldn't be asking this question. Twitter is just as toxic as Parler, except one is left-wing and the other is right-wing. If it was the left being censored I would be outraged on their behalf as well. Edit: Not if, when the left gets censored by big tech, I will stand for freedom of speech with…

Exactly. And now the leftists down vote you for presenting facts.
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