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I agree that Parler was deplorable and needed to go, but I keep seeing this "private companies can do whatever they want" argument, and it bothers me. For the

I agree that Parler was deplorable and needed to go, but I keep seeing this "private companies can do whatever they want" argument, and it bothers me. For the sake of discussion, would you feel the same way if the CEOs of AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast woke up tomorrow and decided they want to unilaterally block all of their customers from accessing any news sites they deem to be against their political leanings (just for the sake of discussion, let's say they block all access to MSNBC, CNN, WaPo, HuffPo, and the like). If that happened, it would effectively cut off most Americans from being able to access news unless it agreed with those CEOs' political agenda. Would we all still be saying "well it's totally fine because AT&T et al are private companies"? It seems obvious to me that sometimes companies become so large and have so much influence that they should not be allowed to just ban/block whoever they want, even if they are private. I'm not sure if AWS in particular is at that point, but the App Store and Google Play Store certainly feel close. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I don't think this "they're private so they have no obligations to serve you" is valid at the scale of the companies in question.

franklampard 6y ago
> block MSNBC, CNN, WaPo, HuffPo I’ll be fine if these news sites were spewing hatred and fascism.
- tidepod12 6y ago
  That's dodging the question. Let's say they weren't spewing hatred/fascism, and were reporting on critical information that Americans need to know. But AT&T blocks them. Is the response still going to be "AT&T is private, so it's okay because private companies can do whatever they want"?
  - Cookingboy 6y ago
    >so it's okay because private companies can do whatever they want The point is they can't do whatever they want, just like Google/FB/Amazon actually can't do whatever they want. They can only do it if it's the will of the majority of their customers, employees and shareholders. Jack Dorsey or Jeff Bezos can't make decisions like this unilaterally without the support of all those parties.
    - tidepod12 6y ago
      The CEO of CloudFlare famously said that the reason he decided to deplatform Daily Stormer (after previously saying he would not deplatform them) was because one morning he woke up in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the internet. Literally all it took was one CEO waking up on the wrong side of the bed one morning. It seems entirely inaccurate to say that Dorsey or Bezos couldn't make a decision unilaterally like that if they really wanted. I'm not sure about Twitter, but Bezos is the majority shareholder at Amazon and if he really wanted to, could make the decision to ban anyone he wants and nobody would legally be able to stop him, will of the employees/shareholders/public be damned.
      - Cookingboy 6y ago
        I can almost guarantee you he wouldn’t have done it and got away with it if he didn’t know his decision was going to be popular among their employees and shareholders. Of course he made a statement that made himself sound courageous, but it was the easiest decision ever and a PR move lol.
  - franklampard 6y ago
    Yes of course it’s okay. Private companies can terminate services at will. If AT&T terminates customers’ access to websites, customers will go to Verizon etc. If all providers blocked access, they must have a good reason.
    - tidepod12 6y ago
      >If AT&T terminates customers’ access to websites, customers will go to Verizon etc. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the ISP market in the US, but the point here is that there are many areas in which customers cannot switch to another ISP. If AT&T were to block websites, those customers would have zero ability to access them. Hence the "some companies are too big and influential" bit.
      - franklampard 6y ago
        I support net neutrality and think internet should be a utility and treats all websites the same. But if a website is willingly violating terms of service defined by the provider (hosting child pornography, spreading racism etc), I support the IPS to block access or whatever. The fact that some users have no alternative is another problem.
      - franklampard 6y ago
        Also I sincerely ask you to check out WTF is being posted on Parker, if you haven’t. For curiosity I registered and took a look, it’s disgusting and I absolutely support it being obliterated. I also think that the real world isn’t that hypothetical and there are a lot of rights and wrongs. You shouldn’t give these racists the same freedom.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  You fundamentally misunderstand the political divide, if you think that HuffPo is not viewed as "spewing hatred and fascism". It's not hatred towards things you like, or what you view as fascism, but I can assure you that the viewpoints it espouses are seen as fascist and oppressive to those who disagree.
  - franklampard 6y ago
    Oh, I disagree a lot of these Leftist websites. Especially the NYT, they have so much BS and I can almost agree that they are fake news. But there is a huge difference between BSing and inciting violence.
Cookingboy 6y ago
That's a good point, but what you are describing would only happen if the vast majority of shareholders, employees, customers and owners of key telecom companies all have the opposite political/world value of the general public, so I think it's highly unlikely. If it does somehow happen, then yes, we should look at how come all the employees, customers, shareholders and owners of the key telecom companies all happen to hold the opposite value of the general public, that would be the bigger failure. >It seems obvious to me that sometimes companies become so large and have so much influence that they should not be allowed to just ban/block whoever they want, even if they are private. I disagree, there is a nuanced, but big difference in government allowing free speech and government guaranteeing free speech. I'm mostly for the former and mostly against the latter.
paxys 6y ago
Private companies still have to follow the law. What you mention would be anti-net neutrality and thus illegal.
- tidepod12 6y ago
  The US does not have any net neutrality laws that would make the posed scenario illegal. But! That brings up a great point, because I certainly am a proponent of net neutrality laws: would/should such laws not also apply to major internet infrastructure providers such as AWS, thus making it illegal for them to block/ban sites at their leisure?
  - paxys 6y ago
    > The US does not have any net neutrality laws that would make the posed scenario illegal. It effectively does, since revocation of Obama-era net neutrality rules is still being litigated in courts and all providers are still following them while they wait for a decision. Now that the Democrats control the Senate, the House's net neutrality bill which passed in 2019 and was blocked in the senate by Republicans will likely become law. > would/should such laws not also apply to major internet infrastructure providers such as AWS Net neutrality applies in the other direction. Comcast can absolutely ban you, the consumer, from using its service if you run afoul of their terms of service, as can AWS.
    - tidepod12 6y ago
      Net neutrality is a principle that applies in both directions. One of the main ideals of the NN that was being pushed for in the early 2010s in the US was for "dumb pipes" where Comcast would not be able to ban you just because you used their "pipes" in a way that they didn't like.
      - paxys 6y ago
        That is definitely not the agreed upon definition of net neutrality today. Comcast is allowed to offer different classes of service (e.g. speeds) to different people. It is allowed to ban you for violations of terms of service (e.g. illegal downloads). It is allowed to impose data caps. None of these are against Obama-era net neutrality rules. It can't do any of these, however, to the websites it serves you.
dragontamer 6y ago
> I agree that Parler was deplorable and needed to go, but I keep seeing this "private companies can do whatever they want" argument, and it bothers me. It bothers me too. But I'm fine with supporting this temporarily, at least through the inauguration which is likely the highest-risk target. For the near future, the benefits of disrupting the rioters outweigh any of my other concerns. A month or two of emergency measures isn't a big deal. When I feel like America is peaceful again, then I'm willing to let my guard down. For now, this clear radicalization needs to stop at any costs. ---------- Over the long term: it is clear that both the left and the right are moving to break up the big internet companies with regards to antitrust, which is probably a stronger long-term solution to this situation. These companies never should have gotten this powerful in the first place, but here we are. Might as well take advantage of it while we're dealing with insurrectionists.
- bra-ket 6y ago
  > But I'm fine with supporting this temporarily, at least through the inauguration sounds like 'just a little bit of fascism, it won't even hurt'.
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    Was it fascism when Wikipedia banned the Church of Scientology from their website? Or is it recognition that in discussion-based platforms, the only move you have is banning and de-platforming to various extents (from shadow-banning, to individual moderation of comments, to deletion of spam accounts). Literally the only actions you can do as an administrator to moderate discussions is cutting out speech in some way.
    - bra-ket 6y ago
      That's a tough job to be a mod, for sure, but there is also a thing called free speech which grants even lunatics like the scientologists, freedom of, you know, speech. And it doesn't mean 'free speech you agree with'. What happens now is that Capitol protest is used as an excuse to exclude half of the country in the conversation before the inauguration (and most likely after), silence their voice, the voice of opposition. And that doesn't smell kosher to me, to 75M people who voted with me, and thankfully many on the left, the classic liberals. I don't think it's good for the country to derail to this level of totalitarian censorship, even temporary, no matter what yours or mine political beliefs are.
ramraj07 6y ago
ATT and Verizon are consumer service providers. If they block parler that will be unacceptable. AWS is just a cloud vendor. Parler can choose to work with any number of other vendors or run their own servers. It's not the same comparison.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ehsankia 6y ago
First off, we've gone over this many times before in net neutrality arguments, but ISPs are quite different from websites. Most americans only have access to 1 or 2 ISP, but anyone can create and host their own website. Next up, look at the other side of the equation. Are you ok with websites banning child pornography? What about ISIS recruitment videos? Now, what about doxxing people or posts from QAnon recruiting people to raid the Capitol? Clearly you accept a line somewhere, you wouldn't want to live in a completely lawless internet where AWS hosts child pornography, you just don't agree with the exact position of the line then? Yes they have power, but they're not stupid, they'll never ban half the internet, it just doesn't make sense, either monetarily, morally or from a popularity point of view. I personally don't buy any of the slippery slope arguments, they seem to be thrown there by people who just want the line to be in a slightly different position.
alphabettsy 6y ago
It an an interesting thing to ponder, but I don’t think it’s analogous.

franklampard 6y ago

> block MSNBC, CNN, WaPo, HuffPo I’ll be fine if these news sites were spewing hatred and fascism.

tidepod12 6y ago
That's dodging the question. Let's say they weren't spewing hatred/fascism, and were reporting on critical information that Americans need to know. But AT&T blocks them. Is the response still going to be "AT&T is private, so it's okay because private companies can do whatever they want"?
- Cookingboy 6y ago
  >so it's okay because private companies can do whatever they want The point is they can't do whatever they want, just like Google/FB/Amazon actually can't do whatever they want. They can only do it if it's the will of the majority of their customers, employees and shareholders. Jack Dorsey or Jeff Bezos can't make decisions like this unilaterally without the support of all those parties.
  - tidepod12 6y ago
    The CEO of CloudFlare famously said that the reason he decided to deplatform Daily Stormer (after previously saying he would not deplatform them) was because one morning he woke up in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the internet. Literally all it took was one CEO waking up on the wrong side of the bed one morning. It seems entirely inaccurate to say that Dorsey or Bezos couldn't make a decision unilaterally like that if they really wanted. I'm not sure about Twitter, but Bezos is the majority shareholder at Amazon and if he really wanted to, could make the decision to ban anyone he wants and nobody would legally be able to stop him, will of the employees/shareholders/public be damned.
    - Cookingboy 6y ago
      I can almost guarantee you he wouldn’t have done it and got away with it if he didn’t know his decision was going to be popular among their employees and shareholders. Of course he made a statement that made himself sound courageous, but it was the easiest decision ever and a PR move lol.
- franklampard 6y ago
  Yes of course it’s okay. Private companies can terminate services at will. If AT&T terminates customers’ access to websites, customers will go to Verizon etc. If all providers blocked access, they must have a good reason.
  - tidepod12 6y ago
    >If AT&T terminates customers’ access to websites, customers will go to Verizon etc. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the ISP market in the US, but the point here is that there are many areas in which customers cannot switch to another ISP. If AT&T were to block websites, those customers would have zero ability to access them. Hence the "some companies are too big and influential" bit.
    - franklampard 6y ago
      I support net neutrality and think internet should be a utility and treats all websites the same. But if a website is willingly violating terms of service defined by the provider (hosting child pornography, spreading racism etc), I support the IPS to block access or whatever. The fact that some users have no alternative is another problem.
    - franklampard 6y ago
      Also I sincerely ask you to check out WTF is being posted on Parker, if you haven’t. For curiosity I registered and took a look, it’s disgusting and I absolutely support it being obliterated. I also think that the real world isn’t that hypothetical and there are a lot of rights and wrongs. You shouldn’t give these racists the same freedom.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
bpodgursky 6y ago
You fundamentally misunderstand the political divide, if you think that HuffPo is not viewed as "spewing hatred and fascism". It's not hatred towards things you like, or what you view as fascism, but I can assure you that the viewpoints it espouses are seen as fascist and oppressive to those who disagree.
- franklampard 6y ago
  Oh, I disagree a lot of these Leftist websites. Especially the NYT, they have so much BS and I can almost agree that they are fake news. But there is a huge difference between BSing and inciting violence.

Cookingboy 6y ago

That's a good point, but what you are describing would only happen if the vast majority of shareholders, employees, customers and owners of key telecom companies all have the opposite political/world value of the general public, so I think it's highly unlikely. If it does somehow happen, then yes, we should look at how come all the employees, customers, shareholders and owners of the key telecom companies all happen to hold the opposite value of the general public, that would be the bigger failure. >It seems obvious to me that sometimes companies become so large and have so much influence that they should not be allowed to just ban/block whoever they want, even if they are private. I disagree, there is a nuanced, but big difference in government allowing free speech and government guaranteeing free speech. I'm mostly for the former and mostly against the latter.

paxys 6y ago

Private companies still have to follow the law. What you mention would be anti-net neutrality and thus illegal.

tidepod12 6y ago
The US does not have any net neutrality laws that would make the posed scenario illegal. But! That brings up a great point, because I certainly am a proponent of net neutrality laws: would/should such laws not also apply to major internet infrastructure providers such as AWS, thus making it illegal for them to block/ban sites at their leisure?
- paxys 6y ago
  > The US does not have any net neutrality laws that would make the posed scenario illegal. It effectively does, since revocation of Obama-era net neutrality rules is still being litigated in courts and all providers are still following them while they wait for a decision. Now that the Democrats control the Senate, the House's net neutrality bill which passed in 2019 and was blocked in the senate by Republicans will likely become law. > would/should such laws not also apply to major internet infrastructure providers such as AWS Net neutrality applies in the other direction. Comcast can absolutely ban you, the consumer, from using its service if you run afoul of their terms of service, as can AWS.
  - tidepod12 6y ago
    Net neutrality is a principle that applies in both directions. One of the main ideals of the NN that was being pushed for in the early 2010s in the US was for "dumb pipes" where Comcast would not be able to ban you just because you used their "pipes" in a way that they didn't like.
    - paxys 6y ago
      That is definitely not the agreed upon definition of net neutrality today. Comcast is allowed to offer different classes of service (e.g. speeds) to different people. It is allowed to ban you for violations of terms of service (e.g. illegal downloads). It is allowed to impose data caps. None of these are against Obama-era net neutrality rules. It can't do any of these, however, to the websites it serves you.

dragontamer 6y ago

> I agree that Parler was deplorable and needed to go, but I keep seeing this "private companies can do whatever they want" argument, and it bothers me. It bothers me too. But I'm fine with supporting this temporarily, at least through the inauguration which is likely the highest-risk target. For the near future, the benefits of disrupting the rioters outweigh any of my other concerns. A month or two of emergency measures isn't a big deal. When I feel like America is peaceful again, then I'm willing to let my guard down. For now, this clear radicalization needs to stop at any costs. ---------- Over the long term: it is clear that both the left and the right are moving to break up the big internet companies with regards to antitrust, which is probably a stronger long-term solution to this situation. These companies never should have gotten this powerful in the first place, but here we are. Might as well take advantage of it while we're dealing with insurrectionists.

bra-ket 6y ago
> But I'm fine with supporting this temporarily, at least through the inauguration sounds like 'just a little bit of fascism, it won't even hurt'.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  Was it fascism when Wikipedia banned the Church of Scientology from their website? Or is it recognition that in discussion-based platforms, the only move you have is banning and de-platforming to various extents (from shadow-banning, to individual moderation of comments, to deletion of spam accounts). Literally the only actions you can do as an administrator to moderate discussions is cutting out speech in some way.
  - bra-ket 6y ago
    That's a tough job to be a mod, for sure, but there is also a thing called free speech which grants even lunatics like the scientologists, freedom of, you know, speech. And it doesn't mean 'free speech you agree with'. What happens now is that Capitol protest is used as an excuse to exclude half of the country in the conversation before the inauguration (and most likely after), silence their voice, the voice of opposition. And that doesn't smell kosher to me, to 75M people who voted with me, and thankfully many on the left, the classic liberals. I don't think it's good for the country to derail to this level of totalitarian censorship, even temporary, no matter what yours or mine political beliefs are.

ramraj07 6y ago

ATT and Verizon are consumer service providers. If they block parler that will be unacceptable. AWS is just a cloud vendor. Parler can choose to work with any number of other vendors or run their own servers. It's not the same comparison.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ehsankia 6y ago

First off, we've gone over this many times before in net neutrality arguments, but ISPs are quite different from websites. Most americans only have access to 1 or 2 ISP, but anyone can create and host their own website. Next up, look at the other side of the equation. Are you ok with websites banning child pornography? What about ISIS recruitment videos? Now, what about doxxing people or posts from QAnon recruiting people to raid the Capitol? Clearly you accept a line somewhere, you wouldn't want to live in a completely lawless internet where AWS hosts child pornography, you just don't agree with the exact position of the line then? Yes they have power, but they're not stupid, they'll never ban half the internet, it just doesn't make sense, either monetarily, morally or from a popularity point of view. I personally don't buy any of the slippery slope arguments, they seem to be thrown there by people who just want the line to be in a slightly different position.

alphabettsy 6y ago

It an an interesting thing to ponder, but I don’t think it’s analogous.