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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

#581

Post by malandrew »

Johnny555 wrote: post #413
Closi wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree - but I think this can only be solved via legislation. Amazon has too much market power if it can shut down another company at the push of a button for something that isn't illegal (even if it's distasteful).

Was the parler content legal? "Amazon Web Services suspended Parler from its web hosting services... citing a letter it had obtained that mentions 98 examples of Parler posts that "encourage and incite violence." Don't forget that Amazon also has legal liability for hosting and distributing illegal content. Amazon is not a monopoly -- the mitigation for AWS being able to cut off your business is to architect your app…

> "encourage and incite violence."

98 examples is nothing. We dealt with an entire year of content on Facebook encouraging and inciting violence but it was okay because it was aligned ideologically with the powers that be.

I personally lost track of how many people just in my own friend's list advocating for "punching nazis", where "nazis" is a generic term for "anyone I strongly disagree with politically". Heck, I saw multiple people post videos of violence against people they consider "nazis" and celebrating it.

Personally, I'm 100% against the violence both last year and on Jan 6th, but it's amazing how egregious the double standard is between last year and Jan 6th.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#582

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

minimuffins wrote: post #167
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a coincidence that the world’s oldest democracy also happens to have many of the most robust corporations? These corporations are societally expected to uphold a cultural respect for free speech and the rights granted in the First Amendment, but there is no legal basis to compel them to allow speech or activity they do not approve of. Extrajudicial behavior such as terrorizing a legislature is harmful to these…

> no legal basis I agree. Those are the facts, for sure. > money cares more about itself than anyone’s feelings. No argument. > terrorizing a legislature is harmful to these corporations’ profitable predictability Strongly agree. This explains AWS's economic motivation. It's not that they just care so much about democracy and rule of law, though a liberal (read: Democrat loyal) employee culture there is probably also…

I never said this was good for society. My only intention was to illuminate a corporation’s point of view and why it would make such decisions given the constraints and incentives at play.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#583

Post by GCA10 »

zmb_ wrote: 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…

I'd expect the bar to remain in exactly the same place.

AWS has continued to host the National Enquirer, even after that publication dug deep into Jeff Bezos's personal life. Said coverage perhaps accelerated Bezos's divorce, which cost him $30 billion in stock, as part of the settlement with his ex-wife. ($30b is 2019 valuation; it's much bigger now.)

If Amazon/AWS will quietly endure a $30b+ hit to its founder's wealth, without pulling the plug, I'd say the cloud-business risk you've identified should be one of the smallest stressors in your life.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#584

Post by sn_master »

pixl97 wrote: post #552
sn_master wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"legal" in a democracy is something that only a court can decide. I don't know what was Parler's size, but in any website with millions of visitors a handful will post aweful things each day. Were those 98 posts posted by the same user? Did anyone report them and Parler refused to take them down? Were they popular or downvoted with few views?

I'm calling total crap on that. At best this is civil law and contract interpretation between the two parties. Or, should AWS be forced to host the Daily Stormer against their own freedom of association?

I was addressing OP who said the content was illegal. AWS is within their legal rights to boot anyone off because of the Terms and Conditions. This thread is about the ethical side of what they did.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#585

Post by shrimpx »

6sup6 wrote: post #360
shrimpx wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The black cause is on a completely different moral plane than angry white people trying to keep trump in power. To cut off service to someone is not destroying a business “competitor.” The fact that they were depending on your service indicates a type of cooperation not competition.

According to your moral values. But your morals aren't shared by the entire world.

I agree, but every major decision takes into account societal forces. When I say “moral plane” I take into account broad societal forces. For example, broadly speaking in the USA the black cause for equal justice is broadly understood to be of much more importance and credence than the cause of the Aryan nation for white supremacy.

And to reinforce my second point, Twitter’s decision to ban or not ban someone is largely subjective (beyond the TOS) and they are sensitive to public pressures and the overall societal climate.

It’s not about my moral values but the aggregate moral values of society.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#586

Post by chmod600 »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #471
chmod600 wrote: post #425

This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. I'm sure it's happened before, but probably not in situations we'd like to emulate. Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good. When any possibility of insurrection is crushed, for everyone now and in the future (not just insurrectionists), that sounds like it won't end well for the p…

It is hard to separate the fact that they are distancing themselves from a fascist, white-supremacist platform that was instrumental in a near-overthrow of the US government. And even if you think that's okay, this wasn't insurrection in response to oppression, it was an insurrection to overthrow an uncontested democratic result. I guess Parler is so radioactive that Amazon would rather be sued than continue to busin…

I don't think the Jan 6 insurrection was OK, or even close.

My point is that the tools for organizing an insurrection are being removed, and that's at least a little scary.

It's like fitting everyone with a shock collar and saying it will only be used against insurrectionists. The government will be a lot less worried about resistance, and the definition of "insurrectionist" is likely to move over time.

It just doesn't seem like a good direction to me.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#587

Post by hinkley »

jlkuester7 wrote: post #469
cactus2093 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are the best mitigations here, both technical and social? Vocally side with the popular issues, or try to stay completely out of them, to try to avoid becoming a target (e.g., social media presence)? For now, don't attempt to overturn a fair democratic election and install an illegitimate government. Seems like a pretty easy thing to stay clear of. I get the concern you're expressing, but not everything is a s…

> not everything is a slippery slope From a risk management perspective, this does not seem like a safe assumption to make. The DailyStormer got "canceled" by vendors for not even trying to moderate content that actively promoted violence (among other horrible things). Now Parlor gets "canceled" by vendors for not doing a good enough job trying to moderate content promoting violence. The bar for getting "canceled" is…

The result of doing nothing is that in 15 years, the US becomes Germany, pre-WW2.

You can think of it as vendors getting 'canceled' for progressively less severe offenses.

Or.

You can think of it as people waking up to offenses that have been allowed to go unchallenged for way too fucking long. People 'waking up' or no longer keeping their heads down being the result of the current administration transitioning to a Lame Duck status.

The price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance. Yes, you should absolutely be actively paying attention. No static rule will allow you, or me, or that guy over there to go back to not paying attention.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#588

Post by sn_master »

sbilstein wrote: post #555
sn_master wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"legal" in a democracy is something that only a court can decide. I don't know what was Parler's size, but in any website with millions of visitors a handful will post aweful things each day. Were those 98 posts posted by the same user? Did anyone report them and Parler refused to take them down? Were they popular or downvoted with few views?

Parler was essentially 90% MAGA shouting. There was virtually no content that was non-political and it was basically the Twitter version of the anti-Obama rumor emails my boomer dad kept forward me from 2008-2016. I had the app, checked it quite a bit while trying to understand the other side better.

Are MAGA-shouting or the anti-Obama rumors illegal? How about the countless anti-Trump rumors, including the ones involving his children?

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#589

Post by hackyhacky »

starkd wrote: post #236
hackyhacky wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Parler has been use to literally plan an overthrow of the US government. That's why it's banned. So far, Parler and its associates have come a lot closer to dismantling American democracy than Iran ever has. That's why they get taken more seriously. Neither Twitter, nor Apple, nor Amazon want to be responsible for the rise of a fascist regime in the US. Too often, you can't see the rise of authoritarianism…

Respectfully, I think you missed the point. There are many voices on parler not out to overthrow anything. You may disagree with them, but they are within the mainstream of political debate. The power of a tech oligarchy to take out its competitor is a serious violation of anti-trust law. There are less ham-fisted approaches to dealing with illegal activity. The DOJ and FBI have effective means to do it.

Whether or not there are some rational voices on Parler is beside the point: Parler is not moderating the voices that support and plan actual violence. That means that any company that supports Parler, including Apple and AWS until recently, is potentially also complicit in that violence. Those companies have warned Parler that they need to moderate, and Parler has not acquiesced.

Apple and Amazon absolutely have the legal right to not do business with anyone, for any reason; and they have the ethical obligation to not do business with anyone openly proposing violence.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#590

Post by mrlala »

chmod600 wrote: post #425

This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. I'm sure it's happened before, but probably not in situations we'd like to emulate. Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good. When any possibility of insurrection is crushed, for everyone now and in the future (not just insurrectionists), that sounds like it won't end well for the p…

>Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good

Let's be realistic here though. The ONLY reason "insurrection" was even close to being on the table is because of the delusional rantings of the President for the last two months (and everything leading up to that.. but that's a different discussion).

This entire election fraud thing is absolute insanity, and anyone who was paying attention saw this coming months before the election with how he was setting everything up to look like if Trump didn't win- it had to be fraud.

So my point is, no one is trying to "stop the possibility of insurrection". They are trying to actively say: 'I am not supporting giving you a platform to spout insane lies anymore, because it has and could cause real measurable harm".

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