17 ms·

1). AWS can suspend service for any customer immediately upon giving that customer notice. They do not have to provide a "remediation period" or give the custom

• COGlory 6y ago
  The question is whether that's legal, or anticompetitive
  • nostoc 6y ago
    Anticompetitive? Is parler competing with amazon in any ways, shape or form?
    • vmception 6y ago
      A court can definitely rule on the clauses of a contract, about time someone made some case law here on modern software agreements
    • COGlory 6y ago
      I don't think so. Maybe if competitors use AWS? Tough to imagine this won't get thrown out though.
    • jjcon 6y ago
      You didn’t read before posting did you? They make the case that Amazon is because they provide hosting for Parlers larger competitors.
    • tidepod12 6y ago
      Antitrust laws are broader than that. A company can be guilty of anti-competitive behavior even if that company is not a direct competitor of the parties affected.
    • syshum 6y ago
      That is not the only thing "AntiCompetitve" means, Favoring One customer over all other customers can also be Anti-Competitive under US Law, Parler does not have to compete with Amazon for them to be acting in an Anti-Competitive manner
    • Zuider 6y ago
      It may be a small point, but both Parler and Amazon make some income from advertising, so at least in this sense, they are competing.
    • brabel 6y ago
      The whole claim by Parlor (read the linked complaint) is that AWS is doing this in coordination with Twitter to stop the flood of conservative people (including Trump himself, allegedly) moving from Twitter to Parlor after Twitter banned Trump (this is substantiated with links from media claiming that could happen and by the fact Parlor had become the most downloaded app on the AppStore after Twitter announced the Trump ban)... they claim AWS and Twitter are basically trying to kill Twitter's competition. Why AWS would help Twitter is unclear to me, though.
      • Normille 6y ago
        Parl-fucking-LER! At least take the time to note the name of the company, before weighing in with your opinions. [None of this confusion would arise, if you Yanks spelled 'Parlour' properly]
        • brabel 6y ago
          Not a Yankee. And sorry for misspelling and hurting your feelings.
          • Normille 6y ago
            You didn't hurt my feelings. It just surprises me that someone thinks "Wow! I have a strongly held opinion about X which I really must share with the world!" but then doesn't even bother to take the minuscule amount of care required to note how X is spelled. It just suggests the poster's examination of the subject in question has been pretty perfunctory and their opinion slightly less than well thought out. [But congratulations on not being a Yank. That's something, at least]
      • ganoushoreilly 6y ago
        > https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/27/aclu-assist-kkk- https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jun/27/aclu-assist-kkk-... I imagine the legal argument will be based on AWS providing the services & hosting for Twitter. Which would be a clear and fair argument.
    • dgrin91 6y ago
      The claim is that AWS and Twitter are strategic partners, and Twitter is a direct competitor of Parler - > 4. AWS’s decision to effectively terminate Parler’s account is apparently motivated by political animus. It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter. 5. Thus, AWS is violating Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act in combination with Defendant Twitter > 15. Less than a month ago, AWS announced with a press release a new multi-year deal with Twitter. AWS will “provide global cloud infrastructure to deliver Twitter timelines.” Twitter Selects AWS as Strategic Provider to Serve Timelines, Press Center, Amazon, (Dec. 15, 2020), https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/twitterselects-aws-strategic-provider-serve-timelines https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-det....
• Majromax 6y ago
  Companies can follow their terms of service, but under some circumstances they must act in good faith. If Parler can show that Amazon deliberately applied its terms of service in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner, then arguably it could build a case for tortious interference in the business relationship between Parler and its advertisers.
  • awb 6y ago
    This seems to be the only possible argument, that Parler is being unfairly singled out and that other platforms have hosted similarly violent content without repercussion. The free speech / censorship argument doesn't seem to fly. The Lin Wood post on Parler (https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1347190280492089344 https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1347190280492089344) and dozens of other posts with screenshots on that thread are clearly targeted threats of political violence and have never constituted free speech: > common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public security, and perjury https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech Sedition, incitement and public security all seem to apply here to the content Parler was hoping to keep publicly accessible. But as far as other platforms go, like Twitter, they made Kathy Griffen delete her direct threats against Trump: https://www.waynedupree.com/2020/05/kathy-griffin-twitter-punished-trump/ https://www.waynedupree.com/2020/05/kathy-griffin-twitter-pu... So, I'm not sure they have enough examples of other platforms allowing this level of violent content to remain public for long.
    • lenkite 6y ago
      Kathy Griffen reposted her "Trump head" photo again two days ago. So much for her "sincere apology". No bans for her. https://twitter.com/kathygriffin/status/1348355262155878404 https://twitter.com/kathygriffin/status/1348355262155878404
• syshum 6y ago
  No ToS is valid until a Judge says it is valid There is all kinds of Untested legal claims about these click wrapped ToS "contracts" we all "sign" with out reading by clicking a check box on a sign up form.
• ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Ah, so we're back to "The bakery did nothing wrong."
  • lovecg 6y ago
    Everyone keeps bringing up Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission these last few days, but it seems very few people actually know what was decided in the case. The Supreme Court didn’t want to get its hands dirty with this issue so it was a very narrow reversal. Specifically, they said that the Civil Rights Commission was not neutral in it’s consideration, comparing the treatment of the baker (where the commissioner said that invoking freedom of religion is “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use”) to other cases where non-discrimination exceptions were granted when bakers refused to make cakes with anti-same sex marriage messaging. The question is still legally open. I personally think it’s ridiculous to argue that the baker’s right to free expression is involved in this. But then again we have people boycott service providers for their choices of customers all the time.
• dboreham 6y ago
  Surely they're observing best practice cloud process and can therefore just spin up the service in another provider pronto?
  • bigtones 6y ago
    Parler have actually said they don't use any of the proprietary AWS Services because of the danger of lock in - so I think they could. They just have to move 50TB+ of data to a new provider, which is not something that can be done quickly.
    • blackearl 6y ago
      Seems bizarre to be running a controversial service and not have any disaster recovery planning in place. Did they really think that these companies wouldn't eventually get tired of the controversy and kick them?
    • ArchOversight 6y ago
      Their lawsuit alleges differently though... https://imgur.com/uu2dRPf https://imgur.com/uu2dRPf
  • ch33zer 6y ago
    If another provider will host them. Also, with a big enough service even if you are doing everything right in terms of cloud interoperability, just moving everything from one cloud to another can be a massive logistical challenge.
  • brabel 6y ago
    In the link posted by OP, they say the code needs to be re-written for another cloud provider, and that it cannot be done fast enough to capture the alleged flood of conservatives, Trump included, trying to move From Twitter to Parler (which would probably die out within a few days if Parler did not come back up). They also claim no other cloud provider has accepted their business because AWS, by leaking its email to Parler to Buzzfeed (which showed lots of violence threats on Parler) before even sending it to Parler, had tarnished its reputation (i.e. it was trying to manipulate popular opinion by leaking the worst posts they found - and Parler claims the same content could be easily found on Twitter at the same time - I don't know as I don't see this shit in my stream but everyone has very different streams based on their preferences, so it's plausible I think). This looks like a dirty game they're playing, and to be honest, it's hard to say for sure that AWS and Twitter are completely clean in this... AWS is probably betting Parler will get enough hate so that other customers who may have controversial businesses running on AWS will not consider moving elsewhere (or al least preparing to do so at short notice)... which to me, kind of shows that Parler may have a point in this argument... On the other hand, Parler had very disturbing content (I did manage to have a peek just before they went offline) which I think goes well beyond the acceptable level, but for AWS to "kill" them, as they claim AWS is trying to do, seems quite heavy handed.
• dragonwriter 6y ago
  Yeah, I think the contract claims are the most transparently weak (I think all the claims are weak and that the lawsuit is more perfomative gesture for PR grievance than filed with substantial expectation of recovery, but its not laughable on the level of most of the Trump election lawsuits.)
  • jcranmer 6y ago
    > but its not laughable on the level of most of the Trump election lawsuits. I don't know, they do have some of the greatest hits from those lawsuits: * Let's ask the court to prevent things that have already happened (it wants to restrain AWS from cutting off service to Parler, but it filed the suit after that happened). * File exhibits that are atrociously unusable (the PDF of the service agreement clearly cuts out several lines of text, although I think this was unintentional). * Provide a single paragraph of argument to address the single claim that actually gives your claim federal jurisdiction at all. * Clearly incapable of reading contract plain text (in this case). The contract claims are likely to fail since AWS has a right to terminate it unilaterally (which they don't address in their filing all), but it's moot anyways because binding arbitration clause means the court has no right to hear it. * Evidence for their claim boils down to "there's no other possible reason anyone would want to shut us down than CONSPIRACY!" * Urgency is requested, but there's no motions to actually grant urgent relief (e.g., an emergency filing or motion for expedited relief). * Plaintiff fails to spell its own name correctly in a few cases (admittedly, only one here).
• Phil_Latio 6y ago
  I see the following: > We may terminate this Agreement for any reason by providing you at least 30 days’ advance notice. and > Either party may terminate this Agreement for cause if the other party is in material breach of this Agreement and the material breach remains uncured for a period of 30 days from receipt of notice by the other party. The latter obviosuly applies here. Am I missing something?
  • bigtones 6y ago
    7.2 B ii). We may also terminate this Agreement immediately upon notice to you (A) for cause if we have the right to suspend under Section 6
    • Phil_Latio 6y ago
      Ahh thanks. Looks like Parler missed it too.
  • mumblemumble 6y ago
    Up one section: > 6.1 Generally. We may suspend your or any End User’s right to access or use any portion or all of the Service Offerings immediately upon notice to you if we determine: > (a) your or an End User’s use of the Service Offerings (i) poses a security risk to the Service Offerings or any third party, (ii) could adversely impact our systems, the Service Offerings or the systems or Content of any other AWS customer, (iii) could subject us, our affiliates, or any third party to liability, or (iv) could be fraudulent;
• jcranmer 6y ago
  3) The claim for contract violation is invalid because the contract says it has to be arbitrated instead: > Disputes will be resolved by binding arbitration, rather than in court, except that you may assert claims in small claims court if your claims qualify. The Federal Arbitration Act and federal arbitration law apply to this Agreement.
• cudgy 6y ago
  If that is so, why would any company that has a critical business utilize these cloud services? For example, a 911 emergency software provider, a law enforcement agency, a hospital or other medical organization, political organizations, religious organization, or any other organization that either has critical services to deploy or may get caught in the crosshairs of a political movement. I think given these events companies should reassess the risk of using these cloud services and the potential for disruption of their businesses going forward.
  • tenebrisalietum 6y ago
    A social network is not a critical business, like a hospital or 911 emergency software provider. No one needs Facebook, Twitter, or Parler to survive.
  • kiwidrew 6y ago
    > companies should reassess the risk of using these cloud services Absolutely! If the horror stories of companies losing access to their accounts due to automated processes going haywire haven't convinced us that "cloud risk" is real, perhaps this incident with Parler will focus our minds to this possibility.