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Citizens United gave corporations constitutional rights (specifically the first amendment). Which means they have freedom of association. The only way to stop A

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...

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...