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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

#71
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you explain?

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

#72
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 great and will survive long into the future because users of the website pay to use it. Rather than being sold to advertisers. Value for value exchange.

Look past the religious aspect and you'll see the content on there is much less toxic than on Twitter.

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

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you listen to the Megyn Kelly interview with Parler's CEO, they did expect this and had a second entirely different hosting provider lined up. They would have made the move by the deadline too, except the second hosting provider also dropped them due to extreme pressure.

I do believe that should've also been in their threat model - these guys should've acted like they were hosting The Pirate Bay 2 given the state of American politics. For instance, they could've had a low-traffic backup in read-only mode, or prevent new sign-ups. Or have an application layer switch to reduce outgoing bandwidth (HTML only) to squeeze into a coloc facility on short notice.

Somebody leaked an email where they were soliciting new hosting, and they needed 100+ giant instances. They were clearly sloppy and inefficient from the very beginning.

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

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's worth noting how much actual political power the right in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. The Senate and electoral college favor them massively. This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to change any laws that might counter their preferences.

This is false. The left now has the Senate and the Presidency.

The electoral college does not matter. They go the way their states go as was made quite clear in the last election.

EDIT: Of course it matters how the voting system was designed. The EC votes the way their State votes.

The forefathers intended for states to have some say in the matter. We are a representative democracy. That is how the system was designed.

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

#75

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…

Twitter is left wing? I thought it was mastodon that was left wing version

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

#76
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…

The judge went so far as to explain why Parler's motion fails on all of the points, not just the "likelihood of success on the merits". That's a pretty irate judge: they're going out of their way, incurring more work upon themselves, to berate you.

The only surprising things here are a) it took the judge a week to deny this motion, and b) AWS hasn't asked for the case to be transferred to arbitration (given the mandatory arbitration clause in the TOS somewhere).

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

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's worth noting how much actual political power the right in America has, despite being about 50% of voters. The Senate and electoral college favor them massively. This means you should expect to have an uphill battle if you want to change any laws that might counter their preferences.

The Senate is split 50-50, but the 50 Democrats represent 41 million more people than the 50 Republicans:

https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1352293847385124864

If voting in this country wasn't suppressed at the local level by Republican state governments, the federal government would look very different. It would be much more diverse and representative of real Americans, not just white male Americans.

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

#78

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 is no material reason why Parler can't host their own hardware, whereas it's unrealistic for someone to start their own ISP.

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

#79

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…

[deleted]

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

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not everything is a grand conspiracy. Sometimes society really isn't okay with what you're doing.
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