8 ms·

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 like

by moate 6y ago

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 enthusiasts" and not actual engineers means they're probably going to have a real hard time getting the engineering stuff back in line. Apple/Google refusing to sell your app is just that: a store refusing to sell a product.

itsoktocry 6y ago
>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.
- ABeeSea 6y ago
  The 1st amendment gives all of the companies the freedom of association. They can deny doing business for any reason except for protected class. Are you trying to force companies to do business with entities that they do not wish to do business with?
  - itsoktocry 6y ago
    >The 1st amendment gives all of the companies the freedom of association. I was under the impression the First Amendment was about the government imposing laws that restricted religion or expression of the citizenry. Can you point to the part that says anything about how businesses (built off of public infrastructure) are to be run?
    - ABeeSea 6y ago
      Citizens United gave corporations constitutional rights (specifically the first amendment). Which means they have freedom of association. The only way to stop AWS from dropping Parler would be if the government forced AWS to host Parler which would be a violation of AWS’s freedom of association. The only caveat to this is protected class. There are some movements to make political affiliation a protected class, but I personally think that’s the wrong path to go down since it’s not an “inherent” attribute of a person like race, age, sexual orientation, etc.
      - itsoktocry 6y ago
        >The only way to stop AWS from dropping Parler would be if the government forced AWS to host Parler which would be a violation of AWS’s freedom of association. I don't have an answer to this, because I agree with you. Maybe if you "arbitrarily" decide to stop doing business with someone, after you've already started, without a breech of any terms of service, you should be financially liable in some way? Contract law should cover that (I'm def no expert). Does it? Like, if Amazon decides to cut me off from hosting, and I haven't broken any laws, rules or ToS, they should have to pay for me to be up-and-running elsewhere. In other words, AWS can't boot someone without establishing wrong-doing. It feels like this wouldn't require much more than tighter contracts, handing more power to the customer. I'm in favour of that.
        ABeeSea 6y ago
        If you sign a long-term contract, sure. For example, Pinterest just signed a multi-year $750M contract with AWS. If AWS kicked them off, there would be repercussion for breach of contract. But just signing up for AWS’s generic TOS’s with a credit card means AWS can likely kick you off for any reason. Pretty much any large company with appropriate risk controls (not to mention the financial incentives) will negotiate and sign custom long-term deals with AWS’s extremely large sales staff. https://www.ciodive.com/news/underlying-pinterests-technology-is-a-long-term-750m-aws-contract/551406/ https://www.ciodive.com/news/underlying-pinterests-technolog...
    - 6y ago
  - klagermkii 6y ago
    Maybe, as with the opposition to the Citizens United ruling, rights that are given to people should not automatically apply to companies.
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    I don't want to force companies to do business with entities they do not wish to do business with, but I do want companies that engage in ideological censorship to lose their immunity to be held liable for damages caused by the entities they do continue to do business with - unless they stop engaging in moral editorializing.
    - nicpottier 6y ago
      Maybe you missed this last week. Section 230 says nothing about providers not being able to moderate: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...
      - moate 6y ago
        The entire down-voting mob I've been railing against the last 2 days missed this. "I want things that I like to be available to me and I want people who deny it to me to be held criminally liable because I don't understand the case law". I think people are misplacing their anger that big-tech has too much control over our world. This is fine to be upset about, but you can't say "they have too much control, therefor it's illegal for them to do the things they're doing". No, the laws you want haven't been written (or repealed). There's also a ton of pie-in-the-sky dreaming that if we could just undo the "bad-part" of 230 then magically Twitter would have to host things because reasons which is a gross misunderstanding. TL;dr- HN commenters tend to skew towards "Engineer" understanding and not "Lawyer" understand, and it's causing them friction with reality lately.
  - paulnechifor 6y ago
    Political opinions should be a protected class (certainly more than religious opinions).
    - ABeeSea 6y ago
      I disagree since political opinions aren’t a well-defined class or even an idea. At least with religion you can restrict it to religion federally recognized by the IRS. With political opinions, literally every conceivable declarative statement could be considered a political opinion. It’s a degenerate case.
      - paulnechifor 6y ago
        :) Political opinions are more well-defined? At least political opinions are in realm of reality.
        mensetmanusman 6y ago
        We can’t even define reality, I would hesitate on that assertion;)
- moate 6y ago
  One major difference: Rosa Parks was an individual attempting to use a private service. Parler is a business attempting to use a private service to do business. Rosa Parks getting kicked off for being black is one thing, but what if she was on the same bus trying to sell candy bars? Weirdly, that's still a reason you can get kicked off a bus. I mean the question of the era is what "rights" do we have online. Do I have the "right" to have my site hosted by a private company, or is that a service? Do platforms have a "requirement" to act as neutrally as possible, or is it just better for business?
  - itsoktocry 6y ago
    >Do I have the "right" to have my site hosted by a private company, or is that a service? It's a good question, and I think we need to figure out where that line is. Because I agree, AWS should be able to say they don't want this customer. At the same time, when we live in a world where everything is privatized (and monopolized) you very quickly run out of options. Host it yourself? What if all server companies refuse to sell to you, or the internet service providers refuse to provide you with connectivity? Do you need to lay your own fibre and fab your chips? Where do you get those supplies? It's tough.
    - eejit_compiler 6y ago
      That is quite the hypothetical. Given that the internet is a worldwide phenomenon, it seems incredibly unlikely that all server companies and internet service providers would refuse their business. In particular, the 'bulletproof hosting' market is still going strong. For example, just look at The Pirate Bay, who have managed to stay online and operational despite years of attempts by powerful corporations and nation states to take it down.
      - itsoktocry 6y ago
        >Given that the internet is a worldwide phenomenon, it seems incredibly unlikely that all server companies and internet service providers would refuse their business. I can agree that getting up and running is, probably, always possible. But that is no consolation if you're a business that can arbitrarily be shut down on a whim, perhaps without even being given a warning. The financial circumstances might make restarting or moving around untenable. >In particular, the 'bulletproof hosting' market is still going strong. Yes, and if there's anything good to say about this mess, it's that this particular kind of service is likely to grow.
- kingdomcome50 6y ago
  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!
  - itsoktocry 6y ago
    >we managed our own boxes. The logic is that "your own boxes" is just another layer in the stack of places private companies can deny doing business with you. Did you manufacture those boxes yourself, from the silicon up? If you didn't, you better hope you don't get blacklisted by parts suppliers. >You cannot change your race by "doing it yourself". The analogy is: if she didn't like being denied because of her race, she should have started her own busline. Of course, we have laws in place that say you can't deny someone service based on race. That's great, and solves that problem. So tell me what law Parler broke? Has it been proven in court? Or did a private company decide that on their own? Why should they have that power? I mean, I'm not naive; I understand what Parler is/was trying to do, and it's gross. But the process shouldn't be arbitrary, at the whims of liability protected pseudo-monopolies.
    - kingdomcome50 6y ago
      Sure we can move the goalposts. No, we did not mine for our own minerals. What is your point? If our company was unable to secure hardware it would have ceased to exist. A shame for the company, its employees, and clients, but that's business. > The analogy is: if she didn't like being denied because of her race, she should have started her own busline. Right. The above is not summarizing the reason why our society has a problem with the events that occurred. The problem is why Rose Parks was denied service. It has nothing to do with her ability to start her own bus line. Does that make sense? Again, the analogy is completely missing the point. > So tell me what law Parler broke? I have no idea nor the inclination to investigate. They don't need to break a law for another business to cut ties. This happens all. the. time. Your problem seems to be a case of "this instance is different than the rest". If you have a problem with antitrust behavior, argue that. You aren't going anywhere with this line of logic.

by moate 6y ago

itsoktocry 6y ago

>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.

ABeeSea 6y ago
The 1st amendment gives all of the companies the freedom of association. They can deny doing business for any reason except for protected class. Are you trying to force companies to do business with entities that they do not wish to do business with?
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  >The 1st amendment gives all of the companies the freedom of association. I was under the impression the First Amendment was about the government imposing laws that restricted religion or expression of the citizenry. Can you point to the part that says anything about how businesses (built off of public infrastructure) are to be run?
  - ABeeSea 6y ago
    Citizens United gave corporations constitutional rights (specifically the first amendment). Which means they have freedom of association. The only way to stop AWS from dropping Parler would be if the government forced AWS to host Parler which would be a violation of AWS’s freedom of association. The only caveat to this is protected class. There are some movements to make political affiliation a protected class, but I personally think that’s the wrong path to go down since it’s not an “inherent” attribute of a person like race, age, sexual orientation, etc.
    - itsoktocry 6y ago
      >The only way to stop AWS from dropping Parler would be if the government forced AWS to host Parler which would be a violation of AWS’s freedom of association. I don't have an answer to this, because I agree with you. Maybe if you "arbitrarily" decide to stop doing business with someone, after you've already started, without a breech of any terms of service, you should be financially liable in some way? Contract law should cover that (I'm def no expert). Does it? Like, if Amazon decides to cut me off from hosting, and I haven't broken any laws, rules or ToS, they should have to pay for me to be up-and-running elsewhere. In other words, AWS can't boot someone without establishing wrong-doing. It feels like this wouldn't require much more than tighter contracts, handing more power to the customer. I'm in favour of that.
      - ABeeSea 6y ago
        If you sign a long-term contract, sure. For example, Pinterest just signed a multi-year $750M contract with AWS. If AWS kicked them off, there would be repercussion for breach of contract. But just signing up for AWS’s generic TOS’s with a credit card means AWS can likely kick you off for any reason. Pretty much any large company with appropriate risk controls (not to mention the financial incentives) will negotiate and sign custom long-term deals with AWS’s extremely large sales staff. https://www.ciodive.com/news/underlying-pinterests-technology-is-a-long-term-750m-aws-contract/551406/ https://www.ciodive.com/news/underlying-pinterests-technolog...
  - 6y ago
- klagermkii 6y ago
  Maybe, as with the opposition to the Citizens United ruling, rights that are given to people should not automatically apply to companies.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  I don't want to force companies to do business with entities they do not wish to do business with, but I do want companies that engage in ideological censorship to lose their immunity to be held liable for damages caused by the entities they do continue to do business with - unless they stop engaging in moral editorializing.
  - nicpottier 6y ago
    Maybe you missed this last week. Section 230 says nothing about providers not being able to moderate: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...
    - moate 6y ago
      The entire down-voting mob I've been railing against the last 2 days missed this. "I want things that I like to be available to me and I want people who deny it to me to be held criminally liable because I don't understand the case law". I think people are misplacing their anger that big-tech has too much control over our world. This is fine to be upset about, but you can't say "they have too much control, therefor it's illegal for them to do the things they're doing". No, the laws you want haven't been written (or repealed). There's also a ton of pie-in-the-sky dreaming that if we could just undo the "bad-part" of 230 then magically Twitter would have to host things because reasons which is a gross misunderstanding. TL;dr- HN commenters tend to skew towards "Engineer" understanding and not "Lawyer" understand, and it's causing them friction with reality lately.
- paulnechifor 6y ago
  Political opinions should be a protected class (certainly more than religious opinions).
  - ABeeSea 6y ago
    I disagree since political opinions aren’t a well-defined class or even an idea. At least with religion you can restrict it to religion federally recognized by the IRS. With political opinions, literally every conceivable declarative statement could be considered a political opinion. It’s a degenerate case.
    - paulnechifor 6y ago
      :) Political opinions are more well-defined? At least political opinions are in realm of reality.
      - mensetmanusman 6y ago
        We can’t even define reality, I would hesitate on that assertion;)
moate 6y ago
One major difference: Rosa Parks was an individual attempting to use a private service. Parler is a business attempting to use a private service to do business. Rosa Parks getting kicked off for being black is one thing, but what if she was on the same bus trying to sell candy bars? Weirdly, that's still a reason you can get kicked off a bus. I mean the question of the era is what "rights" do we have online. Do I have the "right" to have my site hosted by a private company, or is that a service? Do platforms have a "requirement" to act as neutrally as possible, or is it just better for business?
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  >Do I have the "right" to have my site hosted by a private company, or is that a service? It's a good question, and I think we need to figure out where that line is. Because I agree, AWS should be able to say they don't want this customer. At the same time, when we live in a world where everything is privatized (and monopolized) you very quickly run out of options. Host it yourself? What if all server companies refuse to sell to you, or the internet service providers refuse to provide you with connectivity? Do you need to lay your own fibre and fab your chips? Where do you get those supplies? It's tough.
  - eejit_compiler 6y ago
    That is quite the hypothetical. Given that the internet is a worldwide phenomenon, it seems incredibly unlikely that all server companies and internet service providers would refuse their business. In particular, the 'bulletproof hosting' market is still going strong. For example, just look at The Pirate Bay, who have managed to stay online and operational despite years of attempts by powerful corporations and nation states to take it down.
    - itsoktocry 6y ago
      >Given that the internet is a worldwide phenomenon, it seems incredibly unlikely that all server companies and internet service providers would refuse their business. I can agree that getting up and running is, probably, always possible. But that is no consolation if you're a business that can arbitrarily be shut down on a whim, perhaps without even being given a warning. The financial circumstances might make restarting or moving around untenable. >In particular, the 'bulletproof hosting' market is still going strong. Yes, and if there's anything good to say about this mess, it's that this particular kind of service is likely to grow.
kingdomcome50 6y ago
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!
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  >we managed our own boxes. The logic is that "your own boxes" is just another layer in the stack of places private companies can deny doing business with you. Did you manufacture those boxes yourself, from the silicon up? If you didn't, you better hope you don't get blacklisted by parts suppliers. >You cannot change your race by "doing it yourself". The analogy is: if she didn't like being denied because of her race, she should have started her own busline. Of course, we have laws in place that say you can't deny someone service based on race. That's great, and solves that problem. So tell me what law Parler broke? Has it been proven in court? Or did a private company decide that on their own? Why should they have that power? I mean, I'm not naive; I understand what Parler is/was trying to do, and it's gross. But the process shouldn't be arbitrary, at the whims of liability protected pseudo-monopolies.
  - kingdomcome50 6y ago
    Sure we can move the goalposts. No, we did not mine for our own minerals. What is your point? If our company was unable to secure hardware it would have ceased to exist. A shame for the company, its employees, and clients, but that's business. > The analogy is: if she didn't like being denied because of her race, she should have started her own busline. Right. The above is not summarizing the reason why our society has a problem with the events that occurred. The problem is why Rose Parks was denied service. It has nothing to do with her ability to start her own bus line. Does that make sense? Again, the analogy is completely missing the point. > So tell me what law Parler broke? I have no idea nor the inclination to investigate. They don't need to break a law for another business to cut ties. This happens all. the. time. Your problem seems to be a case of "this instance is different than the rest". If you have a problem with antitrust behavior, argue that. You aren't going anywhere with this line of logic.