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> "They made an attempt to not only kill the app, but to actually destroy the entire company. And it’s not just these three companies. Every vendor from text me

> "They made an attempt to not only kill the app, but to actually destroy the entire company. And it’s not just these three companies. Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day." If everybody else is an asshole, maybe you're the asshole.

Reedx 6y ago
Said the church to the scientist. Said the mob to the witch. Be careful about where this goes. This one doesn't affect you and I, but the next one might. It certainly will when it gets to HN or Signal. But then it'll be too late. First they came for...
- fuj 6y ago
  cry me a river
- throwaway189262 6y ago
  Ehhh I've looked at parler out of curiosity. Basically full of hate, conspiracy, calls for violence, blatant racism "kill blacks" type stuff. I'm amazed companies were willing to work with them in the first place. Providing services to a company like that is like providing service to the KKK
  - Reedx 6y ago
    That's pretty close to how Twitter is often described.
  - j8hn 6y ago
    Is this speech illegal?
    - loopz 6y ago
      Hate speech, discriminatory speech and defamation, lots of speech is criminal. It depends on context and intent, for which misguided tolerance for bullying we're now witnessing. For especially bad cults, ie. Germany banned Nazi symbols and speech. Policy is made in a context, not just blind ideology.
      - j8hn 6y ago
        What are tech companies liabilities for hosting criminal speech?
        loopz 6y ago
        If they know of criminal conduct, they might be liable for not reporting or supporting such activities. There's also bad PR and various guilt-by association. Take a hard look what happened to the founder of Wikileaks for instance.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - cygx 6y ago
      The right to refuse service isn't limited to illegal activity.
    - simonh 6y ago
      Inciting murder is illegal in the USA, here in Britain and in most countries.
  - tzs 6y ago
    And all of that except for the "kill blacks" and calls for violence would be perfectly fine on Reddit on /r/conservative. Most of it would also be fine on Twitter or Facebook, except that some of the conspiracy stuff might get a misinformation warning and/or a fact check link. That's why sites like Parler, Gab, and Voat end up as cesspools. Those who don't feel the need to post racism and calls to violence can just stay on the mainstream services, getting both their political discussion and their non-political discussion in one convenient place. Voat tried to have the non-political stuff too, but it just ended up with racism there too. For example, in /v/movies people complaining that the "Call of the Wild" cast included a black actor, and going off about how it was the Jews in Hollywood behind this for nefarious reasons.
chrismorgan 6y ago
Yet Galileo was indefinitely imprisoned for denying a geocentric model of the universe, which Everyone Knew to be True. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair The point is that the majority is often wrong, and consensus does not confer virtue. (I am deliberately making no remark on this instance; I am speaking purely of the underlying principle.)
- geofft 6y ago
  This underlying principle would argue that democracy itself is unjust, and that we cannot, say, have laws against murder simply because the majority of people think that murder is bad. What if it's actually good? Consensus does not infer virtue. Shall we suspend all laws? The answer is that, while such an argument is technically true, we have yet to find a better way to structure society. Your example of Galileo strongly suggests that we should not hand over this sort of decision-making to princes or priests, which are the usual alternatives to the ballot box. The judgment of the majority is regularly wrong, but it is also the most regularly not-wrong thing we know about. If you think the majority is wrong, convince them that they are wrong. It will take time. I'm sorry there isn't a better way.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    > This underlying principle would argue that democracy itself is unjust...while such an argument is technically true, we have yet to find a better way to structure society. We certainly have found a better way to structure society: a Constitutional government that honors certain principles that even the democratically elected Congress and President can only override with much more than a majority, with judges trusted to guard those principles.
    - geofft 6y ago
      Who writes the constitution, and more importantly, who gives it their assent? Who appoints the judges and decides that they are trustworthy? I'm not arguing for rule by simple majority. I do agree that important things need the consensus of much more than 51% of society (let alone 51% of people who bother to vote). If it were only a simple majority of cloud hosts, text messaging services, email providers, and lawyers that ditched Parler, they would be in no danger at all.
sto_hristo 6y ago
Everybody was not an asshole for the two years this existed and suddenly became one a mere week ago. Strange, innit?
- loopz 6y ago
  All those people became brainwashed last week then?
- nmjohn 6y ago
  Prior to a week ago, there hadn't been an attack against the US Capitol planned on the app while the owners defend the right of the planners to use it for that purpose ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It should be expected that when historically unprecedented things happen, people's viewpoints change.
  - sto_hristo 6y ago
    Trump can organize another attack on the next platform his followers migrate to. Will you ban that we well? What makes you think platforms are the problem and not the actual person that started it? Do you think with the ban of this platform the problem has been fixed?
- simonh 6y ago
  They almost certainly were assholes the whole time, it’s just that very recently they proved they were not just assholes but murderous treasonous ones in action in a way that removed all reasonable doubt.
- chomp 6y ago
  I mean, if for a few years you lead people to believe that you’re the type of person who poops in the pool, and then you finally do it one day, who’s gonna invite you over to their house? You can make the argument that it sucks that so much infrastructure is built upon orgs that have their own first amendment rights and I’d agree with that, but just that, no one is forced to associate with you. If a group of companies are refusing your cash, might want to reevaluate your viewpoints respective to the broader community.
nml100 6y ago
There have been enough mob rule systems in history to prove that saying entirely wrong. Was Oppenheimer an asshole during the McCarthy hysteria? Was Solschenizyn an asshole during communism? We are seeing similar methods of silencing now, starting with universities, open source projects and now free speech apps in monopolies or oligopolies that should be forced to adhere to common carrier rules.
bra-ket 6y ago
That’s how free speech ends.

Reedx 6y ago

Said the church to the scientist. Said the mob to the witch. Be careful about where this goes. This one doesn't affect you and I, but the next one might. It certainly will when it gets to HN or Signal. But then it'll be too late. First they came for...

fuj 6y ago
cry me a river
throwaway189262 6y ago
Ehhh I've looked at parler out of curiosity. Basically full of hate, conspiracy, calls for violence, blatant racism "kill blacks" type stuff. I'm amazed companies were willing to work with them in the first place. Providing services to a company like that is like providing service to the KKK
- Reedx 6y ago
  That's pretty close to how Twitter is often described.
- j8hn 6y ago
  Is this speech illegal?
  - loopz 6y ago
    Hate speech, discriminatory speech and defamation, lots of speech is criminal. It depends on context and intent, for which misguided tolerance for bullying we're now witnessing. For especially bad cults, ie. Germany banned Nazi symbols and speech. Policy is made in a context, not just blind ideology.
    - j8hn 6y ago
      What are tech companies liabilities for hosting criminal speech?
      - loopz 6y ago
        If they know of criminal conduct, they might be liable for not reporting or supporting such activities. There's also bad PR and various guilt-by association. Take a hard look what happened to the founder of Wikileaks for instance.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - cygx 6y ago
    The right to refuse service isn't limited to illegal activity.
  - simonh 6y ago
    Inciting murder is illegal in the USA, here in Britain and in most countries.
- tzs 6y ago
  And all of that except for the "kill blacks" and calls for violence would be perfectly fine on Reddit on /r/conservative. Most of it would also be fine on Twitter or Facebook, except that some of the conspiracy stuff might get a misinformation warning and/or a fact check link. That's why sites like Parler, Gab, and Voat end up as cesspools. Those who don't feel the need to post racism and calls to violence can just stay on the mainstream services, getting both their political discussion and their non-political discussion in one convenient place. Voat tried to have the non-political stuff too, but it just ended up with racism there too. For example, in /v/movies people complaining that the "Call of the Wild" cast included a black actor, and going off about how it was the Jews in Hollywood behind this for nefarious reasons.

chrismorgan 6y ago

Yet Galileo was indefinitely imprisoned for denying a geocentric model of the universe, which Everyone Knew to be True. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair The point is that the majority is often wrong, and consensus does not confer virtue. (I am deliberately making no remark on this instance; I am speaking purely of the underlying principle.)

geofft 6y ago
This underlying principle would argue that democracy itself is unjust, and that we cannot, say, have laws against murder simply because the majority of people think that murder is bad. What if it's actually good? Consensus does not infer virtue. Shall we suspend all laws? The answer is that, while such an argument is technically true, we have yet to find a better way to structure society. Your example of Galileo strongly suggests that we should not hand over this sort of decision-making to princes or priests, which are the usual alternatives to the ballot box. The judgment of the majority is regularly wrong, but it is also the most regularly not-wrong thing we know about. If you think the majority is wrong, convince them that they are wrong. It will take time. I'm sorry there isn't a better way.
- leereeves 6y ago
  > This underlying principle would argue that democracy itself is unjust...while such an argument is technically true, we have yet to find a better way to structure society. We certainly have found a better way to structure society: a Constitutional government that honors certain principles that even the democratically elected Congress and President can only override with much more than a majority, with judges trusted to guard those principles.
  - geofft 6y ago
    Who writes the constitution, and more importantly, who gives it their assent? Who appoints the judges and decides that they are trustworthy? I'm not arguing for rule by simple majority. I do agree that important things need the consensus of much more than 51% of society (let alone 51% of people who bother to vote). If it were only a simple majority of cloud hosts, text messaging services, email providers, and lawyers that ditched Parler, they would be in no danger at all.

sto_hristo 6y ago

Everybody was not an asshole for the two years this existed and suddenly became one a mere week ago. Strange, innit?

loopz 6y ago
All those people became brainwashed last week then?
nmjohn 6y ago
Prior to a week ago, there hadn't been an attack against the US Capitol planned on the app while the owners defend the right of the planners to use it for that purpose ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It should be expected that when historically unprecedented things happen, people's viewpoints change.
- sto_hristo 6y ago
  Trump can organize another attack on the next platform his followers migrate to. Will you ban that we well? What makes you think platforms are the problem and not the actual person that started it? Do you think with the ban of this platform the problem has been fixed?
simonh 6y ago
They almost certainly were assholes the whole time, it’s just that very recently they proved they were not just assholes but murderous treasonous ones in action in a way that removed all reasonable doubt.
chomp 6y ago
I mean, if for a few years you lead people to believe that you’re the type of person who poops in the pool, and then you finally do it one day, who’s gonna invite you over to their house? You can make the argument that it sucks that so much infrastructure is built upon orgs that have their own first amendment rights and I’d agree with that, but just that, no one is forced to associate with you. If a group of companies are refusing your cash, might want to reevaluate your viewpoints respective to the broader community.

nml100 6y ago

There have been enough mob rule systems in history to prove that saying entirely wrong. Was Oppenheimer an asshole during the McCarthy hysteria? Was Solschenizyn an asshole during communism? We are seeing similar methods of silencing now, starting with universities, open source projects and now free speech apps in monopolies or oligopolies that should be forced to adhere to common carrier rules.

bra-ket 6y ago

That’s how free speech ends.