Parler’s de-platforming shows the exceptional power of cloud providers • Hacker News Board

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

#981

Post by voodootrucker » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 1:41 AM UTC

voodootrucker wrote: post #35

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 can offer no defense of the opposing point of view right now in regards to purely anonymous distributed unstoppable peer-to-peer communication. I can offer this review of what was wrong with Parler in particular: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/a-simple-thing-biden-can-... "In other words, we have what should be an illegal product barred in a way that should also be illegal, a sort of ‘two wrongs make a right’ s…

Okay, it's been a while, more data is available now, and I can provide a counter argument:

This whole event was planned on social media in the open, and still that did not help anyone prevent it. Had it all been planned on Signal the exact same result would have occurred.

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

#982

Post by h_anna_h » Mon, Jan 25, 2021, 5:34 AM UTC

glogla wrote: post #978

h_anna_h wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but not on bases of what someone allegedly done hundreds of years ago when societal standards were different Guess we can't legally criticize people for owning slaves now.

Oh I'm sure you can. The ruling doesn't say that. The ruling says that when you do it in context of pretend-seminar that's far right propaganda, and you do it mostly to to anger and hurt people to divide society - then when you get fine of 480 EUR your human rights are not violated.

> The ruling doesn't say that.

Your post does however.

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

#983

Post by bshanks » Tue, Jan 26, 2021, 4:52 AM UTC

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…

Do recent events make you confident that you can trust every government administration not to abuse a hypothetical power to regulate speech?

Freedom of speech may have great value in helping to prevent (or reduce the probability of) totalitarian dictatorship and democide. If so, this value will only be realized infrequently, and only speculatively (e.g. when a politician comes close to taking power and fails, we can speculate that perhaps they would have succeeded if they had been able to regulate speech).

It's possible that freedom of speech makes society worse in various ways, but that this is outweighed by the positive value of even very infrequent averting of totalitarian dictatorship or democide.

One question is, does freedom of speech make totalitarianism more or less likely?

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

#984

Post by Layke1123 » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

legostormtroopr wrote: post #596

Layke1123 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the simple solution you are looking for is that lies should not be considered free speech in the same way that false advertising and fraud is considered illegal in the land of the first amendment. Food for thought.

What is a lie though? And how do you legislate that people speak the truth. Besides - everyone talks about speaking "their truth", not "the truth". Trump got in trouble for saying "The election was stolen", but what if he said "I feel like the election was stolen". Its not a lie, he might feel like that.

You just litigated the point. Saying the election was stolen versus you felt like the election was stolen are two completely different things. Regardless, if there is overwhelming proof that something is considered to be true by evidence you can audit and review, straight up denying it is indeed grounds to call into question your ability to speak truth.