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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

#91

Post by chickenpotpie »

abarringer wrote: post #78
mozillalives wrote: post #44

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.

Twitter puts an active effort into removing those posts. You can definitely make the case they don’t go far enough, but Parler did the bare minimum. You would have to cherry pick the reasonable content off that site.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#92

Post by sigstoat »

valuearb wrote: post #40
partiallypro wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be near willing to bet that more of the Capitol Hill events were planned on private Facebook groups, chats, etc than on Parler. Signal is a chat app that is secure and group chats are big in planning... So are they going to ban Signal? Conspiracy theories are rampant on WeChat and even over text messages.

You’d likely be wrong. You have to meet your conspirators on public platforms or in public places before you can switch to private communications.

public platforms like twitter and facebook and whatever for the last X years?

conservatives have watched themselves banned piecemeal from these platforms, they know exactly what’s coming.

the ones you’re worried about have already got private comms.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#93

Post by shakezula »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #67

This vicious lethal (effectively kills Parler) action by Amazon - driven by a mob of woke employees - will cause long term damage to AWS. I had plans to use AWS for a potentially huge SAAS business, even though it is not likely to be contentious, just the thought of them being able to destroy everything overnight, without due process, without recourse - sends chills down my spine. I cannot now imagine, being able to…

Yeah, I just don't buy this at all. This has been the case with any hosting provider, unless you have a signed SLA guaranteeing you otherwise. The free market is free both ways.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#94

Post by robertlagrant »

valuearb wrote: post #37
CivBase wrote: post #2

I don't know which social media platforms use AWS to any critical extent, but I can't imagine them ejecting a big name like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc over "finding dozens of posts on the service which it said encouraged violence".

Conservatives support AWS right to decide who it wants to do business with, so implicitly they support the ejection of Parlour.

That doesn't mean what you think it does.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#95

Post by tantalor »

abarringer wrote: post #78
mozillalives wrote: post #44

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.

The difference is some sites (Twitter) have policy and infrastructure for moderating spam/abuse, and some (Parler) do not.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#96

Post by eejit_compiler »

inglor_cz wrote: post #66
eejit_compiler wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it an antitrust case? Amazon doesn't have a monopoly on hosting internet services. And there is no oligopoly for this line of business, there are many thousands of suitable providers worldwide. It would be different if, say, CenturyLink were blocking content across their transit infrastructure. That would be more like your railroad analogy.

Antitrust legislation isn't built around 100 % monopoly, but rather dominant force and cartel-like behavior, especially if they act to suppress growth of potential competitors. This is the core of antitrust jurisprudence: markets only work in presence of vigorous competition, but big incumbents are highly motivated to obtain so much influence that significant competition does not have a real chance to grow and threat…

Thanks for clarifying your position, but I still don't quite see how this applies to Parler in terms of their decision to host upon AWS. There are many thousands of other hosting companies worldwide, they didn't have to use one of the big three IaaS providers.

It seems more like poor planning on their part: over-reliance on specific services of a single provider, and no disaster recovery plan for if this is made unavailable. Particularly considering the business they're in - publishing controversial content that gets its users banned on more mainstream social media sites. They would have been wise to have a backup plan for hosting.

On the other hand, if you were also passing reference to the app store duopoly (as the report mentions this), I agree with you on that. At least on Android a banned app can be fairly easily side-loaded; iOS users are entirely subject to Apple's whims on what their device is permitted to run.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#97

Post by room271 »

minimuffins wrote: post #81
chasing wrote: 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…

[flagged]

I agree, but a lot of the arguments made seem to hit the wrong target. The issue is not 'First Amendment' rights (this applies only to government, not private companies), but monopoly, which causes many problems - this being just one. (Although actually I think the specific decisions made here are the right ones.)

Now, in practice, it might be more accurate to call these markets oligopolies (certainly cloud infrastructure is more this), but this still leaves a few companies with dramatic power over important parts of society.

And monopoly is a problem for the government to solve; these companies aren't 'evil' (any more than most others at least, except in virtue of their size), and the lasting solution is not to try and shame them or call them out here or claim victimhood (as the right has done) - though exercising voice can work as a short term tactic sometimes.

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#98

Post by minimuffins »

chickenpotpie wrote: post #88

Putting myself in AWS’s shoes makes this choice seem obvious. If I imagine myself maintaining a server and I learn it’s being used for death threats and coup plannings, I would tell them to stop doing that or I’m shutting them down. And then if they didn’t do it I would immediately revoke their access. I don’t know about everyone else on this site but I wasn’t put on this planet to design and build tools for terroris…

> If I imagine myself maintaining a server and I learn it’s being used for death threats and coup plannings, I would tell them to stop doing that

They better nullify their very lucrative business relationship with US intelligence services post haste then.

> There’s no reason they should be forced to host it.

"Forced." Poor AWS. They didn't even consent to this!

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#99

Post by kingdomcome50 »

itsoktocry wrote: post #35
moate wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more analogous to a single server host refusing to host a site, while the material components (actual physical servers) are still readily available if likely outside the financial range for a site at their size (tbh though, I have no idea what sort of server needs this site would actual have). Parler could still go out and build their own servers. The fact that this is a project driven by "free speech enthusiast…

> Parler could still go out and build their own servers. Yes, and as someone on Twitter pointed out, as a customer also denied service, Rosa Parks could have gone out and started her own bus line (likely outside her financial range though). The argument to "do it yourself" is silly. Europe sees it. The ACLU sees it. Why can't you? For the record: I think these platforms should be responsible for what they host.

I've seen this sentiment before, and I can't figure out the logic.

I used to work for a company that didn't make 300K a quarter and we managed our own boxes. Yes our scale and problem domain was about an order of magnitude smaller, but it wasn't trivially small (optimization was still a relevant problem for us). What did people do 15 years ago before all of these could platforms did all the work for you? Do that. It's really not that hard!

The analogy above is ridiculous. The problem isn't that Rosa Parks couldn't start her own bus line (though at the time this was probably not feasible for more reasons than just money). The problem is that she was denied service because of her race. You cannot change your race by "doing it yourself".

If SpaceX denies me the opportunity to fly their shuttle do I have to build my own spacecraft to get to space? Yes... I do. I'm sure we could come up with all sorts of other fun examples!

Re: Parler drops offline after Amazon pulls support

#100

Post by neogodless »

domano wrote: post #71
NDizzle wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be such a big deal if "hurts feelings" didn't equal "incites violence". Silence is also violence. All of you lurkers will be purged as well.

I do not understand what you are saying, could you clarify?

Roughly translated, "everyone who isn't on my side is going to be killed by our side, which might upset you, but I would not consider that 'inciting violence'."

EDIT: I misunderstood "purge" in this context. I disagree that silence on moderating content is "violence" just as I disagree that anything you disagree with is "violence." But I do not believe content will be "purged" unless it's part of a movement to unseat democracy or coordinate violent actions.

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