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>free-market-participant We're talking about the situation in the United States, not a free market. If there were viable alternatives, nobody would care about

>free-market-participant We're talking about the situation in the United States, not a free market. If there were viable alternatives, nobody would care about being blocked from Twitter or Google or Facebook. The fact that these monopolies collude in their censorship campaign makes the impact that much more severe. The situation with these monopolies colluding to block an aspiring competitor is clearly an anti-trust issue.

dmitriid 6y ago
The greatest delusion free-market proponents seem to have is that there will always be a "viable alternative" in a free market. And that there will be no monopolies. There's literally no reason for a "viable alternative" to not appear. I mean, Parler is a "viable alternative" to Twitter, isn't it? It got kicked off AWS? Go ahead, and create your own viable alternative, there's literally nothing stopping you, just like in a "free market".
- wilsynet 6y ago
  You don’t need to create your own alternative to AWS. There are a large number of cloud infrastructure and hosting providers around the world. And multiple competitors to AWS in the US alone.
  - ttt0 6y ago
    It's all the way up to the banks though, Visa and Mastercard are deplatforming people too.
  - krzyk 6y ago
    Yeah, there are three large ones in US: AWS, Azure and GCP. And considering that Google banned the app GCP is also out of the question. BTW. You know that the largest cloud provides in the world are also the ones I mentioned above? There is only Alibaba Cloud that is outside US and all the rest are just small businesses (that might just resell what the big three is providing). And what would be next? Let's block the "new Parler" on the DNS or routing level - build yourself a new internet? I hate far right wing and also hate far left wing, but I will protect both right to speak.
    - wilsynet 6y ago
      1) Oracle also provides Cloud infrastructure. And Larry Ellison has hosted fundraisers for Donald Trump. Perhaps Parler should talk to Oracle. 2) Smaller providers like Digital Ocean are in fact not reselling the larger services, but you’re right that folks like Heroku are based on AWS. 3) They all have the right to speak. But private enterprises also have the right to decide for themselves if they want to do business with them. That too is a freedom of expression. It’s unclear to me why you think the far left or far rights freedom should supersede the moderates freedoms.
      - wilsynet 6y ago
        I think the next argument that you’re going to make is well these tech companies are monopolies and therefore the government needs to regulate them in a way that ensures they are platforms for even the extreme left and right to speak. But they aren’t monopolies. AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle, Digital Ocean. Sure, there are only a handful of news networks in the US, just like there are only a handful of cloud infrastructure providers. But the first amendment doesn’t guarantee that everyone gets their own hour on the nightly news, and it doesn’t force private corporations in general to do business with all comers. I don’t have to invite QAnon into my house, and I certainly don’t need to bake QAnon a wedding cake. And neither do AWS, Azure or Digital Ocean.
        krzyk 6y ago
        > I don’t have to invite QAnon into my house, and I certainly don’t need to bake QAnon a wedding cake. And neither do AWS, Azure or Digital Ocean. OK, but first you don't know if it is QAnon and second, are you also allowed not to bake wedding cake for a black couple, or maybe for Jewish one? It is your freedom, right? So where is the line you can't cross? For me it is: if you open business you have to deal with everyone, sorry. If you don't like it, don't open a business. You just need to follow the law, if courts say that "you can't sell wedding cakes to QAnon" you follow that, but until there is such law...
    - chrischen 6y ago
      You don't need a cloud provider to host a website, and there are cloud providers outside of AWS, Azure and GCP. Oracle, IBM, and probably still hundreds of shared hosting providers. At the end of the day you can also setup bare metal servers with your own fiber connection. It might be a little extra work/cost but to describe AWS, Azure, and GCP as the only ways to host a website is disingenuous.
austincheney 6y ago
Only if there is collusion opposed to simultaneous independent consideration.
iamacyborg 6y ago
> The fact that these monopolies collude in their censorship campaign Can you explain what you mean here? I wasn’t aware that tech companies worked with one another when choosing who or what to ban.
- zo1 6y ago
  Not OP. I don't think they "collude" in the traditional sense. But every time one of the entities takes some decision or step or action, whether censorship or otherwise, it makes it a little bit more excusable and easier for others to do it and justify it. E.g. (hypothetical) 1. Reddit bans /r/ABC for "TOS violations". 2. It's news and many reporters report on it across various articles. Some say it's due to "repeated" "alleged" "hate speech" violations, whether true or not. Probably 50% true, who knows. 3. ABC makes its own website and has a mailing list from some mail newsletter provider X because that's just what you do when you have a site and need to keep in touch with visitors/members. 4. Activists on Twitter notice. Outrage mob starts. "@X mail provider hosting known hate-speech movement" "@X mail provider...did you know you're hosting known white supremacists?" "Everybody, please stop using @X, they're supporting white supremacists!" "@AWS please look into what @X is using your infrastructure for!" ...all citing some selective articles as legitimacy. 5. Articles get written about a "movement" to have X drop service for controversial and "alleged" hate-speech website ABC. 6. X mail provider gets pressured and eventually drops service to ABC. At this point, X mail provider probably won't get many "legitimate", "official" and "mainstream" criticisms for effectively dropping customers (even if all the mail sent by those customers on X's platform is 100% legal and innocent). Nor can their shareholders complain about losing profit because "we can't be seen supporting racists". The problem is that each time this sort of thing happens, it adds "partial proof" of the accusations without an actual "court-like" process that decides if it's really true or not. After a certain point, it's just accepted and then carries an aura of truth/legitimacy. Edit. Formatting.
  - fortran77 6y ago
    I’ll give you a concrete example. I used to enjoy a popular anti-Obesity subreddit. People in it were impolite, but it was never worse than old-fashioned “your momma is so fat” type of humor. It was banned from Reddit for being “hate speech” and in fact you can no longer suggest that obesity is something to be ashamed of —- on nearly any platform! Including GitHub. (but you are allowed to mock mock cigarette smokers or meth tweakers).

dmitriid 6y ago

The greatest delusion free-market proponents seem to have is that there will always be a "viable alternative" in a free market. And that there will be no monopolies. There's literally no reason for a "viable alternative" to not appear. I mean, Parler is a "viable alternative" to Twitter, isn't it? It got kicked off AWS? Go ahead, and create your own viable alternative, there's literally nothing stopping you, just like in a "free market".

wilsynet 6y ago
You don’t need to create your own alternative to AWS. There are a large number of cloud infrastructure and hosting providers around the world. And multiple competitors to AWS in the US alone.
- ttt0 6y ago
  It's all the way up to the banks though, Visa and Mastercard are deplatforming people too.
- krzyk 6y ago
  Yeah, there are three large ones in US: AWS, Azure and GCP. And considering that Google banned the app GCP is also out of the question. BTW. You know that the largest cloud provides in the world are also the ones I mentioned above? There is only Alibaba Cloud that is outside US and all the rest are just small businesses (that might just resell what the big three is providing). And what would be next? Let's block the "new Parler" on the DNS or routing level - build yourself a new internet? I hate far right wing and also hate far left wing, but I will protect both right to speak.
  - wilsynet 6y ago
    1) Oracle also provides Cloud infrastructure. And Larry Ellison has hosted fundraisers for Donald Trump. Perhaps Parler should talk to Oracle. 2) Smaller providers like Digital Ocean are in fact not reselling the larger services, but you’re right that folks like Heroku are based on AWS. 3) They all have the right to speak. But private enterprises also have the right to decide for themselves if they want to do business with them. That too is a freedom of expression. It’s unclear to me why you think the far left or far rights freedom should supersede the moderates freedoms.
    - wilsynet 6y ago
      I think the next argument that you’re going to make is well these tech companies are monopolies and therefore the government needs to regulate them in a way that ensures they are platforms for even the extreme left and right to speak. But they aren’t monopolies. AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle, Digital Ocean. Sure, there are only a handful of news networks in the US, just like there are only a handful of cloud infrastructure providers. But the first amendment doesn’t guarantee that everyone gets their own hour on the nightly news, and it doesn’t force private corporations in general to do business with all comers. I don’t have to invite QAnon into my house, and I certainly don’t need to bake QAnon a wedding cake. And neither do AWS, Azure or Digital Ocean.
      - krzyk 6y ago
        > I don’t have to invite QAnon into my house, and I certainly don’t need to bake QAnon a wedding cake. And neither do AWS, Azure or Digital Ocean. OK, but first you don't know if it is QAnon and second, are you also allowed not to bake wedding cake for a black couple, or maybe for Jewish one? It is your freedom, right? So where is the line you can't cross? For me it is: if you open business you have to deal with everyone, sorry. If you don't like it, don't open a business. You just need to follow the law, if courts say that "you can't sell wedding cakes to QAnon" you follow that, but until there is such law...
  - chrischen 6y ago
    You don't need a cloud provider to host a website, and there are cloud providers outside of AWS, Azure and GCP. Oracle, IBM, and probably still hundreds of shared hosting providers. At the end of the day you can also setup bare metal servers with your own fiber connection. It might be a little extra work/cost but to describe AWS, Azure, and GCP as the only ways to host a website is disingenuous.

austincheney 6y ago

Only if there is collusion opposed to simultaneous independent consideration.

iamacyborg 6y ago

> The fact that these monopolies collude in their censorship campaign Can you explain what you mean here? I wasn’t aware that tech companies worked with one another when choosing who or what to ban.

zo1 6y ago
Not OP. I don't think they "collude" in the traditional sense. But every time one of the entities takes some decision or step or action, whether censorship or otherwise, it makes it a little bit more excusable and easier for others to do it and justify it. E.g. (hypothetical) 1. Reddit bans /r/ABC for "TOS violations". 2. It's news and many reporters report on it across various articles. Some say it's due to "repeated" "alleged" "hate speech" violations, whether true or not. Probably 50% true, who knows. 3. ABC makes its own website and has a mailing list from some mail newsletter provider X because that's just what you do when you have a site and need to keep in touch with visitors/members. 4. Activists on Twitter notice. Outrage mob starts. "@X mail provider hosting known hate-speech movement" "@X mail provider...did you know you're hosting known white supremacists?" "Everybody, please stop using @X, they're supporting white supremacists!" "@AWS please look into what @X is using your infrastructure for!" ...all citing some selective articles as legitimacy. 5. Articles get written about a "movement" to have X drop service for controversial and "alleged" hate-speech website ABC. 6. X mail provider gets pressured and eventually drops service to ABC. At this point, X mail provider probably won't get many "legitimate", "official" and "mainstream" criticisms for effectively dropping customers (even if all the mail sent by those customers on X's platform is 100% legal and innocent). Nor can their shareholders complain about losing profit because "we can't be seen supporting racists". The problem is that each time this sort of thing happens, it adds "partial proof" of the accusations without an actual "court-like" process that decides if it's really true or not. After a certain point, it's just accepted and then carries an aura of truth/legitimacy. Edit. Formatting.
- fortran77 6y ago
  I’ll give you a concrete example. I used to enjoy a popular anti-Obesity subreddit. People in it were impolite, but it was never worse than old-fashioned “your momma is so fat” type of humor. It was banned from Reddit for being “hate speech” and in fact you can no longer suggest that obesity is something to be ashamed of —- on nearly any platform! Including GitHub. (but you are allowed to mock mock cigarette smokers or meth tweakers).