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I have seen so many violent threats and incitements on Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram over the last 5 years that Parler could possibly make the case

I have seen so many violent threats and incitements on Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram over the last 5 years that Parler could possibly make the case that they've been singled out, but I doubt it. They're just too unsympathetic of a plaintiff, imho. That said, antitrust battles against Big Tech will dominate the next four years of economic policy, and rightfully so. GAFA is too big, too powerful, too manipulative, and needs to be brought to heel by every legal means necessary. The US government should also move to immediately outlaw targeted algorithmic advertising, which would make a huge impact on Big Tech's sectarian violence cashcow. (And yes, that's what this absolutely is. Sectarian violence is not just a term for non-Western countries.)

webXL 6y ago
They already had plenty of enemies on the left. Now they got a ton more on the right. Elon Musk was just tweeting about the hatred headed their way. Time to check my investments.
- pishpash 6y ago
  Left or right? No no, it's got nothing to do with that. They're in trouble because they've now got enemies in power. Did you notice things only move when those in power are threatened?
  - webXL 6y ago
    I didn't notice much 2009-2017.
  - meekmockmook 6y ago
    Yeah, the idea of GAFA as left wing is ludicrous. Sure, they plaster the internet with those ugly flat art cartoons of diverse people working together, (Corporate Memphis, I've learned the style is called) but they are anti-union, anti-competitive, and dedicated to growth at all cost, even if it means sectarian violence and loss of faith in democratic norms
- danaos 6y ago
  By the way didn't Elon Musk support the "reopen America" crowd? Exposing your millions of followers to unscientific misinformation and downplaying covid risk so as to keep your gigafactories open and enrich yourself further? Sounds totally fine.
gameswithgo 6y ago
It is weird to me that we people seem to be saying "These 4 companies need to be broken up". They are already 4 companies. It seems different than say, the Bell breakup, which was one company.
- camhart 6y ago
  Technically its 3 companies. Facebook owns instagram.
  - tremon 6y ago
    Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon.
    - zo1 6y ago
      Would we want to add Microsoft to the list now that we've removed Netflix?
- Uehreka 6y ago
  Well yeah: There can be 4 monopolies, monopolizing 4 different things.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  Do you remember the court testimony where Zuckerburge avoided the entire question about if they collude with other companies to make these decisions on the backend? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXuk-WSDDRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXuk-WSDDRw Apple may have banned Parler and then Google just decided to go with it, followed by AWS. However, it may also be equally valid they colluded via private channels to make this happen. BOTH ARE EQUALLY POSSIBLE. Discovery in this kind of lawsuit may lead to the answers. If they did collude, that is a strong argument for anti-trust. Just because they're 4 different companies doesn't negate the fact they control over 80% to 90% of the American market for hosting, non-SMS text communication and mobile access. It honestly doesn't matter what you believe about Parler's user contributions. That's the entire point of Section 230. From what I've seen they do make a good faith attempt to delete all illegal posts with direct calls to violence. Section 230 doesn't prevent Google/Apple/Amazon from being forced to have them as customers. You are protected if you're a minority and a business refuses to give you service based on that status. Opinions and viewpoints aren't protected, and maybe they should be. If you in any way praise this legal yet blatant corporate censorship because it fits your views, you will be next. We are not on a slippery slope. We are in a god damn free fall. If you don't see it, they will come for you next and no one will be there to speak for you.
greesil 6y ago
Yeah but these threats were actually carried out. Not the first time for Parler either, as I recall.
- meekmockmook 6y ago
  I mean, I watched as people on Twitter and Facebook Live coordinated to torch one of my favorites neighborhoods in L.A. this summer. I saw looters tweet about breaking into a drug store in Sherman Oaks. You can't say it's just talk there. The damage to Melrose and DTLA had to have been in the tens of millions, if not more.
  - ookblah 6y ago
    did you report them? was there any follow-up action? i'm not condoning it but it's unreasonable to expect them to be able to ban IN REAL TIME stuff like this if they aren't already observing specific people. not to mention one of the instigators of this entire thing has been the president of the united states. his actions have consequences that are 100x order of magnitude than your rioter on the street.
    - meekmockmook 6y ago
      Of course I reported them. Nothing happened. Twitter was totally supportive of everything that happened in June. They even put up billboards bragging about how their platform helped protests grow. During a pandemic.
  - greesil 6y ago
    Perhaps shutting down all social media would be a net gain for society. I will miss my "buy nothing" group though.
  - lenkite 6y ago
    And the fellows that organise this and boast about it on Twitter will never, ever get banned.
axlee 6y ago
> The US government should also move to immediately outlaw targeted algorithmic advertising, which would make a huge impact on Big Tech's sectarian violence cashcow. That is an interesting proposition, but I wonder what would fill the void created. I believe advertising does not increase consumption per-se, but that it redistributes it among a different set of product and services, so who would be the winners and losers of such an effort?
- meekrohprocess 6y ago
  What's wrong with targeting ads based on subject matter? TV channels and magazines know how this works. If the page is about fashion, sell ad space to clothing companies. If the page is about travel, sell it to hospitality companies and tourism boards. If the page is about politics or finance, sell it to people making catheters and stair lifts. It's much less creepy than trying to spy on everybody who reads the page, and then looking for an ad that fits your warped understanding of their preferences.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    It doesnt work as well as targeted ads. Why would hundreds of billions in ad spend willingly choose a lesser option?
    - COGlory 6y ago
      Is there evidence for this?
      - manigandham 6y ago
        Google and Facebook being two of the most valuable companies along with hundreds of billions of dollars and petabytes per hour. What kind of evidence are you looking for exactly?
        COGlory 6y ago
        That it works better. I'm wondering because of this submission the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25623858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25623858
burke 6y ago
A salient difference is that Big Tech will at least pay lip service to the idea of moderation, when push comes to shove. Parler is founded on the idea of absolutely unmoderated speech. Even if they win this one, the writing is on the wall for them. EDIT: This is not as true as I thought. Interesting information below!
- Miner49er 6y ago
  > Parler is founded on the idea of absolutely unmoderated speech. They claim they are for free speech, but they aren't even close. They remove all kinds of things, just not enough of the things that Amazon wanted. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200630/23525844821/parler-speedruns-content-moderation-learning-curve-goes-we-allow-everything-to-were-good-censors-days.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200630/23525844821/parle...
  - whymauri 6y ago
    No 'obscene usernames' is actually hilarious to me. The bastion of free speech won't even allow users to choose their own handles.
    - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
      I'm confused as to how some people here are simultaneously digging on Parler for speech they "allowed", and then also that "they weren't really free speech". What is it you wanted them to do? I think it's pretty reasonable to not have "See me on Parler @ParlerLovesNaziPussy" as that content that Parler could not control outside of their platform. Restricting usernames seems like a prudent move, even for a free speech platform.
      - KallDrexx 6y ago
        People aren't digging on parlor for speech they allowed while criticizing them for not being free speech. They are criticizing them because they heavily advertised to people that they should go to parlor claiming that it was meant to fight for free speech because Twitter and other platforms were restricting free speech. Except Parler itself was restricting free speech on it's own and thus people are rightfully pointing out the hypocrisy. It shows that Parler wasn't in favor of free speech, it was in favor of "our side".
partiallypro 6y ago
I still really doubt anything will come of tech being broken up. Democrats, which are usually for anti-Monopoly & pro-regulation, now get so much money/favor from Big Tech it will be near impossible to sway them. While Republicans are generally against regulation to begin with. You bring the two together and there isn't much political will, imo.
idk_bro_idk 6y ago
What reason is there to think the incoming Biden/Harris regime will look to break up these big tech companies?
- VyperCard 6y ago
  Idk, we talk again once it’s done
wpietri 6y ago
Twitter and Facebook have extensive systems for keeping the various horrors in check. They are not as good as I think they should be. But they're miles better than what Parler had, which was more of a fig leaf. (Full disclosure, I use to run an anti-abuse engineering team at Twitter. Now I'm at the ADL building the Online Hate Index.) I will note that whatever antitrust beefs people have with Big Tech, Twitter isn't really in that league. Twitter's market cap is something like 4% of Google's and 6% of Facebook's. I think conflating the two issues here is unhelpful.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  I will admit that I dislike the projects you are working on since nebulous 'hate speech' has been undermining US foundations of free speech, but I appreciate the level headed argument.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    Thanks! It depends on what one thinks the foundations of free speech are. For a long time, hate speech has been used to suppress particular groups. In practice, if people with social power can scare disfavored groups into staying quiet, free speech is harmed. Harmed more, in my opinion, than by hate speech restrictions. In practice, any platform has to choose between hosting abusers and hosting their targets. They will only get one or the other. Given that choice, I would rather boot the abusers. To me the goal of free speech in a democracy is about a maximally informed populace so we make optimal decisions. To the extent that any group wants to convey information, they can do it without abuse. But allowing abuse, especially that targeted at particular groups, limits speech more deeply.
- cudgy 6y ago
  “Twitter and Facebook have extensive systems for keeping the various horrors in check. They are not as good as I think they should be. But they're miles better than what Parler had, which was more of a fig leaf.” If Twitter and Facebook (being multibillion dollar companies with a decade or more to build these algorithms) haven’t solve this problem yet, how can any upstart possibly compete with them? They’d be shut down as soon as users started posting content on their fledgling services.
yellowpencil 6y ago
> antitrust battles against Big Tech will dominate the next four years of economic policy Almost zero chance this happens, imo. Big tech spent _heavily_ on Democrats (98% of contributions [0]) and the Democrats have complete control for the next 4 years. an awfully prescient allocation of funds. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/02/tech-billionaire-2020-election-donations-final-tally.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/02/tech-billionaire-2020-electi...
- senkora 6y ago
  Nit: Congressional elections are held every two years, so complete control may disappear in 2022. If you’re implicitly depending on the presidential veto to block Republican attempts if they take control of congress, then yeah that’s fair.
  - binaryblitz 6y ago
    Will be interesting to see what happens to the GOP over the next two years. I'm thinking there could be a split.
overscore 6y ago
> Sectarian violence is not just a term for non-Western countries. Has it ever been? Probably the best known use of the word in many countries is The Troubles.
- meekmockmook 6y ago
  You're 100 percent right.. i just think it's turned into a buzzword for "foreigners fighting amongst themselves" since the War on Terror began.
- gerikson 6y ago
  Also, arguably, the Balkans.
atypicaluser 6y ago
> They're [Parler] just too unsympathetic of a plaintiff, imho. I don't know that sympathy has anything to do with the merits of their case.[1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio [2] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/27/aclu-assist-kkk-georgia-road https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/27/aclu-assist-kkk-... *edit--formatting
- curiouscatUSA 6y ago
  These cases apply to what governments can do. AWS is a privately held subsidiary of a publicly traded company. The 1st Amendment does not protect all free speech. It simply bans the US government from passing laws that limit free speech. for AWS, it will come down to whether they’ve defined situations where they can end their agreement / contract (MSA/EULA) with Parler. Btw, that’s the argument Parler is making that they had an agreement with AWS and not they’re in breech. The feee speech comment is weaker than arguing a binding contract exists. Of course, it sounds like they have the default MSA with AWS. So, likely has terms very much in AWS’s favor. Also, I’d say they probably have some type of clause related to activities that could hurt AWS’s brand equity as be grounds for early termination. Bottom line: as the cases referenced show, the government cannot limit free speech with laws - 1st Amendment (read full text). Private/public companies can do whatever is in their contracts that customers agree with at sign up.
wsinks 6y ago
Low energy comment here, but I haven't seen GAFA as an acronym yet (and it makes sense because Netflix no longer has the same power it used to). funny acronym too, because of 'making a gaffe' can kinda be, making a GAFA. I agree with you that there definitely will be a new relationship between gov and tech in the next 4 years.
- techbio 6y ago
  Lower-energy comment here to concur on first-time seeing that acronym, but also to iterate with the thought-network of: "GAFTA"
whycombagator 6y ago
> GAFA Google Apple Facebook Amazon for those unaware
jeofken 6y ago
I’d argue not to use law to dismantle big tech companies even if I disagree with their banning. Twitter, Facebook and Google’s social services (gmail and YouTube) are at their heights or just behind them. The cycle for when tech companies are devoured is coming to them. I’d wager something like PeerTube will take a big part of the void YT will leave behind, as the market for censorship-resistant video will grow along the growth of forbidden opinions. Centrally planned government interventions without fail do fail.
- erik_seaberg 6y ago
  They aren’t past their peaks, they just demonstrated their power for all the incoming politicians. “Nice campaign you got here, be a shame if something happened to it.”
  - jeofken 6y ago
    Well, they also created a huge market for alternative social networks, and made sure at least 70 mil people will be interested in that market. Markets and prices are like a force of nature.
olliej 6y ago
The core difference is every other platform at least attempts to moderate and remove violent content, whereas Parker is created explicitly to publish that content.
ketamine__ 6y ago
Parler is being singled out because instead of hiring moderators as full-time employees like all the other companies you mention they decided to go the volunteer route that is less efficient. If Parler held themselves to a higher standard they wouldn't exist because most of its user base would complain about censorship go somewhere else.

webXL 6y ago

They already had plenty of enemies on the left. Now they got a ton more on the right. Elon Musk was just tweeting about the hatred headed their way. Time to check my investments.

pishpash 6y ago
Left or right? No no, it's got nothing to do with that. They're in trouble because they've now got enemies in power. Did you notice things only move when those in power are threatened?
- webXL 6y ago
  I didn't notice much 2009-2017.
- meekmockmook 6y ago
  Yeah, the idea of GAFA as left wing is ludicrous. Sure, they plaster the internet with those ugly flat art cartoons of diverse people working together, (Corporate Memphis, I've learned the style is called) but they are anti-union, anti-competitive, and dedicated to growth at all cost, even if it means sectarian violence and loss of faith in democratic norms
danaos 6y ago
By the way didn't Elon Musk support the "reopen America" crowd? Exposing your millions of followers to unscientific misinformation and downplaying covid risk so as to keep your gigafactories open and enrich yourself further? Sounds totally fine.

gameswithgo 6y ago

It is weird to me that we people seem to be saying "These 4 companies need to be broken up". They are already 4 companies. It seems different than say, the Bell breakup, which was one company.

camhart 6y ago
Technically its 3 companies. Facebook owns instagram.
- tremon 6y ago
  Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon.
  - zo1 6y ago
    Would we want to add Microsoft to the list now that we've removed Netflix?
Uehreka 6y ago
Well yeah: There can be 4 monopolies, monopolizing 4 different things.
djsumdog 6y ago
Do you remember the court testimony where Zuckerburge avoided the entire question about if they collude with other companies to make these decisions on the backend? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXuk-WSDDRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXuk-WSDDRw Apple may have banned Parler and then Google just decided to go with it, followed by AWS. However, it may also be equally valid they colluded via private channels to make this happen. BOTH ARE EQUALLY POSSIBLE. Discovery in this kind of lawsuit may lead to the answers. If they did collude, that is a strong argument for anti-trust. Just because they're 4 different companies doesn't negate the fact they control over 80% to 90% of the American market for hosting, non-SMS text communication and mobile access. It honestly doesn't matter what you believe about Parler's user contributions. That's the entire point of Section 230. From what I've seen they do make a good faith attempt to delete all illegal posts with direct calls to violence. Section 230 doesn't prevent Google/Apple/Amazon from being forced to have them as customers. You are protected if you're a minority and a business refuses to give you service based on that status. Opinions and viewpoints aren't protected, and maybe they should be. If you in any way praise this legal yet blatant corporate censorship because it fits your views, you will be next. We are not on a slippery slope. We are in a god damn free fall. If you don't see it, they will come for you next and no one will be there to speak for you.

greesil 6y ago

Yeah but these threats were actually carried out. Not the first time for Parler either, as I recall.

meekmockmook 6y ago
I mean, I watched as people on Twitter and Facebook Live coordinated to torch one of my favorites neighborhoods in L.A. this summer. I saw looters tweet about breaking into a drug store in Sherman Oaks. You can't say it's just talk there. The damage to Melrose and DTLA had to have been in the tens of millions, if not more.
- ookblah 6y ago
  did you report them? was there any follow-up action? i'm not condoning it but it's unreasonable to expect them to be able to ban IN REAL TIME stuff like this if they aren't already observing specific people. not to mention one of the instigators of this entire thing has been the president of the united states. his actions have consequences that are 100x order of magnitude than your rioter on the street.
  - meekmockmook 6y ago
    Of course I reported them. Nothing happened. Twitter was totally supportive of everything that happened in June. They even put up billboards bragging about how their platform helped protests grow. During a pandemic.
- greesil 6y ago
  Perhaps shutting down all social media would be a net gain for society. I will miss my "buy nothing" group though.
- lenkite 6y ago
  And the fellows that organise this and boast about it on Twitter will never, ever get banned.

axlee 6y ago

> The US government should also move to immediately outlaw targeted algorithmic advertising, which would make a huge impact on Big Tech's sectarian violence cashcow. That is an interesting proposition, but I wonder what would fill the void created. I believe advertising does not increase consumption per-se, but that it redistributes it among a different set of product and services, so who would be the winners and losers of such an effort?

meekrohprocess 6y ago
What's wrong with targeting ads based on subject matter? TV channels and magazines know how this works. If the page is about fashion, sell ad space to clothing companies. If the page is about travel, sell it to hospitality companies and tourism boards. If the page is about politics or finance, sell it to people making catheters and stair lifts. It's much less creepy than trying to spy on everybody who reads the page, and then looking for an ad that fits your warped understanding of their preferences.
- manigandham 6y ago
  It doesnt work as well as targeted ads. Why would hundreds of billions in ad spend willingly choose a lesser option?
  - COGlory 6y ago
    Is there evidence for this?
    - manigandham 6y ago
      Google and Facebook being two of the most valuable companies along with hundreds of billions of dollars and petabytes per hour. What kind of evidence are you looking for exactly?
      - COGlory 6y ago
        That it works better. I'm wondering because of this submission the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25623858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25623858

burke 6y ago

A salient difference is that Big Tech will at least pay lip service to the idea of moderation, when push comes to shove. Parler is founded on the idea of absolutely unmoderated speech. Even if they win this one, the writing is on the wall for them. EDIT: This is not as true as I thought. Interesting information below!

Miner49er 6y ago
> Parler is founded on the idea of absolutely unmoderated speech. They claim they are for free speech, but they aren't even close. They remove all kinds of things, just not enough of the things that Amazon wanted. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200630/23525844821/parler-speedruns-content-moderation-learning-curve-goes-we-allow-everything-to-were-good-censors-days.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200630/23525844821/parle...
- whymauri 6y ago
  No 'obscene usernames' is actually hilarious to me. The bastion of free speech won't even allow users to choose their own handles.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    I'm confused as to how some people here are simultaneously digging on Parler for speech they "allowed", and then also that "they weren't really free speech". What is it you wanted them to do? I think it's pretty reasonable to not have "See me on Parler @ParlerLovesNaziPussy" as that content that Parler could not control outside of their platform. Restricting usernames seems like a prudent move, even for a free speech platform.
    - KallDrexx 6y ago
      People aren't digging on parlor for speech they allowed while criticizing them for not being free speech. They are criticizing them because they heavily advertised to people that they should go to parlor claiming that it was meant to fight for free speech because Twitter and other platforms were restricting free speech. Except Parler itself was restricting free speech on it's own and thus people are rightfully pointing out the hypocrisy. It shows that Parler wasn't in favor of free speech, it was in favor of "our side".

partiallypro 6y ago

I still really doubt anything will come of tech being broken up. Democrats, which are usually for anti-Monopoly & pro-regulation, now get so much money/favor from Big Tech it will be near impossible to sway them. While Republicans are generally against regulation to begin with. You bring the two together and there isn't much political will, imo.

idk_bro_idk 6y ago

What reason is there to think the incoming Biden/Harris regime will look to break up these big tech companies?

VyperCard 6y ago
Idk, we talk again once it’s done

wpietri 6y ago

Twitter and Facebook have extensive systems for keeping the various horrors in check. They are not as good as I think they should be. But they're miles better than what Parler had, which was more of a fig leaf. (Full disclosure, I use to run an anti-abuse engineering team at Twitter. Now I'm at the ADL building the Online Hate Index.) I will note that whatever antitrust beefs people have with Big Tech, Twitter isn't really in that league. Twitter's market cap is something like 4% of Google's and 6% of Facebook's. I think conflating the two issues here is unhelpful.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
I will admit that I dislike the projects you are working on since nebulous 'hate speech' has been undermining US foundations of free speech, but I appreciate the level headed argument.
- wpietri 6y ago
  Thanks! It depends on what one thinks the foundations of free speech are. For a long time, hate speech has been used to suppress particular groups. In practice, if people with social power can scare disfavored groups into staying quiet, free speech is harmed. Harmed more, in my opinion, than by hate speech restrictions. In practice, any platform has to choose between hosting abusers and hosting their targets. They will only get one or the other. Given that choice, I would rather boot the abusers. To me the goal of free speech in a democracy is about a maximally informed populace so we make optimal decisions. To the extent that any group wants to convey information, they can do it without abuse. But allowing abuse, especially that targeted at particular groups, limits speech more deeply.
cudgy 6y ago
“Twitter and Facebook have extensive systems for keeping the various horrors in check. They are not as good as I think they should be. But they're miles better than what Parler had, which was more of a fig leaf.” If Twitter and Facebook (being multibillion dollar companies with a decade or more to build these algorithms) haven’t solve this problem yet, how can any upstart possibly compete with them? They’d be shut down as soon as users started posting content on their fledgling services.

yellowpencil 6y ago

> antitrust battles against Big Tech will dominate the next four years of economic policy Almost zero chance this happens, imo. Big tech spent _heavily_ on Democrats (98% of contributions [0]) and the Democrats have complete control for the next 4 years. an awfully prescient allocation of funds. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/02/tech-billionaire-2020-election-donations-final-tally.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/02/tech-billionaire-2020-electi...

senkora 6y ago
Nit: Congressional elections are held every two years, so complete control may disappear in 2022. If you’re implicitly depending on the presidential veto to block Republican attempts if they take control of congress, then yeah that’s fair.
- binaryblitz 6y ago
  Will be interesting to see what happens to the GOP over the next two years. I'm thinking there could be a split.

overscore 6y ago

> Sectarian violence is not just a term for non-Western countries. Has it ever been? Probably the best known use of the word in many countries is The Troubles.

meekmockmook 6y ago
You're 100 percent right.. i just think it's turned into a buzzword for "foreigners fighting amongst themselves" since the War on Terror began.
gerikson 6y ago
Also, arguably, the Balkans.

atypicaluser 6y ago

> They're [Parler] just too unsympathetic of a plaintiff, imho. I don't know that sympathy has anything to do with the merits of their case.[1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio [2] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/27/aclu-assist-kkk-georgia-road https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/27/aclu-assist-kkk-... *edit--formatting

curiouscatUSA 6y ago
These cases apply to what governments can do. AWS is a privately held subsidiary of a publicly traded company. The 1st Amendment does not protect all free speech. It simply bans the US government from passing laws that limit free speech. for AWS, it will come down to whether they’ve defined situations where they can end their agreement / contract (MSA/EULA) with Parler. Btw, that’s the argument Parler is making that they had an agreement with AWS and not they’re in breech. The feee speech comment is weaker than arguing a binding contract exists. Of course, it sounds like they have the default MSA with AWS. So, likely has terms very much in AWS’s favor. Also, I’d say they probably have some type of clause related to activities that could hurt AWS’s brand equity as be grounds for early termination. Bottom line: as the cases referenced show, the government cannot limit free speech with laws - 1st Amendment (read full text). Private/public companies can do whatever is in their contracts that customers agree with at sign up.

wsinks 6y ago

Low energy comment here, but I haven't seen GAFA as an acronym yet (and it makes sense because Netflix no longer has the same power it used to). funny acronym too, because of 'making a gaffe' can kinda be, making a GAFA. I agree with you that there definitely will be a new relationship between gov and tech in the next 4 years.

techbio 6y ago
Lower-energy comment here to concur on first-time seeing that acronym, but also to iterate with the thought-network of: "GAFTA"

whycombagator 6y ago

> GAFA Google Apple Facebook Amazon for those unaware

jeofken 6y ago

I’d argue not to use law to dismantle big tech companies even if I disagree with their banning. Twitter, Facebook and Google’s social services (gmail and YouTube) are at their heights or just behind them. The cycle for when tech companies are devoured is coming to them. I’d wager something like PeerTube will take a big part of the void YT will leave behind, as the market for censorship-resistant video will grow along the growth of forbidden opinions. Centrally planned government interventions without fail do fail.

erik_seaberg 6y ago
They aren’t past their peaks, they just demonstrated their power for all the incoming politicians. “Nice campaign you got here, be a shame if something happened to it.”
- jeofken 6y ago
  Well, they also created a huge market for alternative social networks, and made sure at least 70 mil people will be interested in that market. Markets and prices are like a force of nature.

olliej 6y ago

The core difference is every other platform at least attempts to moderate and remove violent content, whereas Parker is created explicitly to publish that content.

ketamine__ 6y ago

Parler is being singled out because instead of hiring moderators as full-time employees like all the other companies you mention they decided to go the volunteer route that is less efficient. If Parler held themselves to a higher standard they wouldn't exist because most of its user base would complain about censorship go somewhere else.