12 ms·

100% agree - but I think this can only be solved via legislation. Amazon has too much market power if it can shut down another company at the push of a button

by Closi 6y ago

100% agree - but I think this can only be solved via legislation. Amazon has too much market power if it can shut down another company at the push of a button for something that isn't illegal (even if it's distasteful).

caleb-allen 6y ago
Amazon is not the only cloud provider. Parler could have just as easily been a customer of Microsoft or Google
- nix23 6y ago
  Hehe as is if those are any better.
Johnny555 6y ago
Was the parler content legal? "Amazon Web Services suspended Parler from its web hosting services... citing a letter it had obtained that mentions 98 examples of Parler posts that "encourage and incite violence." Don't forget that Amazon also has legal liability for hosting and distributing illegal content. Amazon is not a monopoly -- the mitigation for AWS being able to cut off your business is to architect your application such that you can move it to another cloud vendor. If your content is so toxic that other cloud vendors won't accept you either, then maybe the problem isn't with the cloud vendors.
- sn_master 6y ago
  "legal" in a democracy is something that only a court can decide. I don't know what was Parler's size, but in any website with millions of visitors a handful will post aweful things each day. Were those 98 posts posted by the same user? Did anyone report them and Parler refused to take them down? Were they popular or downvoted with few views?
  - nix23 6y ago
    I don't know who downvotes you, but it has to be a really blind, one sided person(-s)
    - sn_master 6y ago
      Everyone nowadays is one-sided it seems. Its very sad..
      - nix23 6y ago
        It's the perfect setup going extreme to one or the other side, and peoples are happy because they think it's the right way to go....truly sad.
        sn_master 6y ago
        I got flagged when my post was literally only this one line: "Are MAGA-shouting or the anti-Obama rumors illegal? How about the countless anti-Trump rumors, including the ones involving his children?" Either both are illegal or neither is. If anything, the many of the anti-Trump rumors have reached a point that the anti-Obama have never had. I remember back when the Internet was the place to be open minded and avoid the real world biased or ill-informed discussions. Now its the total opposite.
  - flatline 6y ago
    If a service provider detects illegal activity taking place on their services, I assume the correct action is to contact the relevant authorities and suspend the activity until it gets straightened out. Which seems to be what has happened here. I don't know exactly what efforts were made to work with Parler in advance but I do believe there have been some, and Parler has refused to take action on their own behalf.
  - Johnny555 6y ago
    So if someone posts a plot to kill lawmakers, take over the government all while using their website to organize the insurrection, you're saying that they can't be held to ToS terms banning illegal content until a court has ruled on whether or not their insurrection is illegal? I haven't seen the examples that AWS provided to Parler, but I trust that AWS lawyers signed off on the plan so they show a lack of moderation on Parler's part.
- nix23 6y ago
  >98 examples of Parler posts that "encourage and incite violence." Just imagine how much that would be in Facebook numbers? I think we can block Facebook too, no?
  - Johnny555 6y ago
    Does Facebook have a moderation policy in place that will remove these posts? Does Parler?
    - nix23 6y ago
      >Does Parler That's not the point, i'm ~sure that illegal stuff is removed from parler too, and if not that's the Justice who should make the rules and NOT Amazon...like you know Facebook just made those moderation's after a justice ruling.
      - Johnny555 6y ago
        Isn't that exactly the point? Apple removed them because: Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues And AWS said: “Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms," the email reads. "It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service.” If they were removing the illegal content, then why did AWS say they don't have an effective process to remove it? If they can show that they already have effective moderation, then they should win their lawsuit against AWS and quickly be back online.
        nix23 6y ago
        >If they were removing the illegal content, then why did AWS say they don't have an effective process to remove it? Because you get a Sympathy-Star-Sticker in your book and Amazon is the good guy who try's to safe the United States, it's more Marketing then real fear being extreme right wing. BTW: Wanna buy a real Postage stamp from Hitler? No Problem: https://www.amazon.com/STRIKING-ORIGINAL-ANNIVERSARY-SEIZING-Condition/dp/B0776KMHJ4 https://www.amazon.com/STRIKING-ORIGINAL-ANNIVERSARY-SEIZING... or a beautiful flag? https://www.amazon.ca/German-Imperial-Germany-Ensign-Flags/dp/B000P404MU https://www.amazon.ca/German-Imperial-Germany-Ensign-Flags/d... The original "Mein Kampf" without comments? https://www.amazon.ca/Mein-Kampf-Adolf-Hitler/dp/0395925037/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mein+kampf+original&qid=1610396411&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.ca/Mein-Kampf-Adolf-Hitler/dp/0395925037/...
- imaginenore 6y ago
  I can easily find 98 examples of inciting violence on Twitter or Facebook. Does it mean Google will delete their apps, Amazon will drop them from the servers? Of course not. Because it has nothing to do with some users calling for violence.
- malandrew 6y ago
  > "encourage and incite violence." 98 examples is nothing. We dealt with an entire year of content on Facebook encouraging and inciting violence but it was okay because it was aligned ideologically with the powers that be. I personally lost track of how many people just in my own friend's list advocating for "punching nazis", where "nazis" is a generic term for "anyone I strongly disagree with politically". Heck, I saw multiple people post videos of violence against people they consider "nazis" and celebrating it. Personally, I'm 100% against the violence both last year and on Jan 6th, but it's amazing how egregious the double standard is between last year and Jan 6th.
- names_are_hard 6y ago
  I don't know how the law currently works, but it seems reasonable to me that it should be the responsibility of the government to determine what's legal and what's not. I think Amazon would not be acting improperly if they alerted law enforcement that they suspect illegal activity and then waited for the authorities to issue an official order to take down the content (presumably based on a court order). I get that the current ToS allows Amazon to terminate the relationship unilaterally, but I don't think Amazon has to do that morally. And if they have to do that legally, I think it's fair to ask that the law be changed to allow private organizations selling a platform to not have to determine the legality of the actions of their customers. The FBI, police, and courts can do that.
  - Johnny555 6y ago
    It is the responsibility of the government to determine what's legal and not, there's an entire court system that does just that. And Parler is using that system by filing a suit against AWS. But that doesn't mean that I can help someone load a body into his car, then tell police later "Well, I wasn't sure if he was legally killed or not, so I was just trying to help out, it's not my job to determine legality, I was going to come in later today and ask you guys about that. You can probably still catch him if you want to, I got his contact info: he said his name was John and his car said he lives in the Ukraine"
    - names_are_hard 6y ago
      Ok, fair point. I think you convinced me that Amazon had a moral responsibility to terminate their relationship with anyone they believe is breaking the the law. I suppose that if the customer sues and wins they can try to recover damages.
- nautilus12 6y ago
  But is that Parler breaking the law or its users??
  - Johnny555 6y ago
    Yes.
  - jounker 6y ago
    Let’s be honest about this. Parler exists to host right extremists who are tired of being moderated and fact checked by twitter and facebook.
    - sn_master 6y ago
      how about all those who looted, burnt cities and rioted. that wasn't a double standard to keep them on the platforms?
- perryizgr8 6y ago
  > Was the parler content legal? Yes, unless there is a court judgement I missed. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of the land.
MartinCron 6y ago
Parler chose to use AWS for their hosting. When you build your company on someone else's platform, you're explicitly giving them that market power.
- sn_master 6y ago
  They needed 300-500 servers according to the CEO. There isn't much choice in the market when it comes to that kind of need, specially when you need to be hosted in the US because you're a political website. Imagine if they were hosted in Russia instead, they would have lost all their credibility.
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    Thousands of companies host 300-500 servers on a couple of racks in some data center in the Midwest. There is not reason at all to have your content hosted in the US if you felt its legislators or IT providers aren't up to par to your idea of what free speech represents. Credibility? Yeah, seems that the crediblity issues weren't exactly about the hosting provider.
    - sn_master 6y ago
      Look at their growth curve, they weren't planning from the beginning on that. I am sure they would have gone with their own DC if they did. The legislative and judicial system didn't say anything about Parler, and that's the core of the problem. Big tech acted by themselves to appease the new king.
      - pixl97 6y ago
        Which is both their right and prerogative. Fascists aren't a protected class.
        sn_master 6y ago
        In this Great country, everyone is a "protected class" unless a court determines otherwise. It is their "right" to kick anyone off because of their overly broad Terms and Conditions, but they have no right to label anyone as a criminal.
karmasimida 6y ago
> Amazon has too much market power if it can shut down another company at the push of a button for something that isn't illegal Amazon is leading Cloud yes, but it stands at 40% market share at best. Azure/GCP are pretty competent alternatives, though I am not sure if they would not do the same as AWS (probably yes) The wider impaction to me, is that AWS is setting some precedent, and many people are not fully comfortable with it, and I think it will haunt AWS for a long time to come.
chr1 6y ago
Was Parler blocked because Amazon did not like it, or because Democrats do not like it, and they have full control of government, and can pass arbitrary laws e.g. to break up Amazon? Edit: an unfairly flagged comment in reply to this says > Why would democrats break up Amazon, when it helps them in banning the republicans? That will not happen. That's exactly my point, this is a form of lobbying to stay on good side of the government.
- imaginenore 6y ago
  Why would democrats break up Amazon, when it helps them in banning the republicans? That will not happen.
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
AWS being able to shutdown a company is the fault of that company not having a multi-provider arch.
b0bb1z3r0 6y ago
It is illegal to conspire to commit violence against the US
- frockington1 6y ago
  How is any social media platform up? I understand why Parler was taken down, but why is this not applied to every single website? I'm sure we can find a 'conspiracy to commit violence against the US' in this single article thread
  - lindenksv85 6y ago
    Because there is a difference between 1% of your content being illegal and you actively working o it and like 50% of your content being illegal and you telling everyone profusely you refuse to moderate?
- Closi 6y ago
  Parler didn’t conspire to commit violence against the US. And it’s actually not illegal to host other people’s illegal speech. It’s super pedantic, but also very important! So what did Parler do that was illegal?
ncallaway 6y ago
Amazon can't shut down any company at the push of a button. It can only shut down a company from using its services. There are many other hosting providers in the world. If Parler hadn't hosted its service on AWS, then Amazon wouldn't be able to shut them down.
- Closi 6y ago
  It can definitely shut down companies - I used to work at a supermarket that had most of its infra in AWS. If AWS was totally nuked getting systems back up properly would probably have taken months. Even trading would have taken a few days to be fully back. Even distribution centres operate on the cloud these days. Cloud migration at any scale isn’t a 24 hour process.
  - ncallaway 6y ago
    What you've written doesn't contradict anything that I've said. > It can only shut down a company from using its services. > Amazon can't shut down *any* company at the push of a button If you've chosen to use AWS, then yes, Amazon can shut that down. If your business relies critically on AWS, then yes, Amazon can shut down your business. But they can't shut down *any* company. There are lots of companies that don't rely on AWS and Amazon can't shut them down.

by Closi 6y ago

caleb-allen 6y ago

Amazon is not the only cloud provider. Parler could have just as easily been a customer of Microsoft or Google

nix23 6y ago
Hehe as is if those are any better.

Johnny555 6y ago

Was the parler content legal? "Amazon Web Services suspended Parler from its web hosting services... citing a letter it had obtained that mentions 98 examples of Parler posts that "encourage and incite violence." Don't forget that Amazon also has legal liability for hosting and distributing illegal content. Amazon is not a monopoly -- the mitigation for AWS being able to cut off your business is to architect your application such that you can move it to another cloud vendor. If your content is so toxic that other cloud vendors won't accept you either, then maybe the problem isn't with the cloud vendors.

sn_master 6y ago
"legal" in a democracy is something that only a court can decide. I don't know what was Parler's size, but in any website with millions of visitors a handful will post aweful things each day. Were those 98 posts posted by the same user? Did anyone report them and Parler refused to take them down? Were they popular or downvoted with few views?
- nix23 6y ago
  I don't know who downvotes you, but it has to be a really blind, one sided person(-s)
  - sn_master 6y ago
    Everyone nowadays is one-sided it seems. Its very sad..
    - nix23 6y ago
      It's the perfect setup going extreme to one or the other side, and peoples are happy because they think it's the right way to go....truly sad.
      - sn_master 6y ago
        I got flagged when my post was literally only this one line: "Are MAGA-shouting or the anti-Obama rumors illegal? How about the countless anti-Trump rumors, including the ones involving his children?" Either both are illegal or neither is. If anything, the many of the anti-Trump rumors have reached a point that the anti-Obama have never had. I remember back when the Internet was the place to be open minded and avoid the real world biased or ill-informed discussions. Now its the total opposite.
- flatline 6y ago
  If a service provider detects illegal activity taking place on their services, I assume the correct action is to contact the relevant authorities and suspend the activity until it gets straightened out. Which seems to be what has happened here. I don't know exactly what efforts were made to work with Parler in advance but I do believe there have been some, and Parler has refused to take action on their own behalf.
- Johnny555 6y ago
  So if someone posts a plot to kill lawmakers, take over the government all while using their website to organize the insurrection, you're saying that they can't be held to ToS terms banning illegal content until a court has ruled on whether or not their insurrection is illegal? I haven't seen the examples that AWS provided to Parler, but I trust that AWS lawyers signed off on the plan so they show a lack of moderation on Parler's part.
nix23 6y ago
>98 examples of Parler posts that "encourage and incite violence." Just imagine how much that would be in Facebook numbers? I think we can block Facebook too, no?
- Johnny555 6y ago
  Does Facebook have a moderation policy in place that will remove these posts? Does Parler?
  - nix23 6y ago
    >Does Parler That's not the point, i'm ~sure that illegal stuff is removed from parler too, and if not that's the Justice who should make the rules and NOT Amazon...like you know Facebook just made those moderation's after a justice ruling.
    - Johnny555 6y ago
      Isn't that exactly the point? Apple removed them because: Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues And AWS said: “Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms," the email reads. "It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service.” If they were removing the illegal content, then why did AWS say they don't have an effective process to remove it? If they can show that they already have effective moderation, then they should win their lawsuit against AWS and quickly be back online.
      - nix23 6y ago
        >If they were removing the illegal content, then why did AWS say they don't have an effective process to remove it? Because you get a Sympathy-Star-Sticker in your book and Amazon is the good guy who try's to safe the United States, it's more Marketing then real fear being extreme right wing. BTW: Wanna buy a real Postage stamp from Hitler? No Problem: https://www.amazon.com/STRIKING-ORIGINAL-ANNIVERSARY-SEIZING-Condition/dp/B0776KMHJ4 https://www.amazon.com/STRIKING-ORIGINAL-ANNIVERSARY-SEIZING... or a beautiful flag? https://www.amazon.ca/German-Imperial-Germany-Ensign-Flags/dp/B000P404MU https://www.amazon.ca/German-Imperial-Germany-Ensign-Flags/d... The original "Mein Kampf" without comments? https://www.amazon.ca/Mein-Kampf-Adolf-Hitler/dp/0395925037/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mein+kampf+original&qid=1610396411&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.ca/Mein-Kampf-Adolf-Hitler/dp/0395925037/...
imaginenore 6y ago
I can easily find 98 examples of inciting violence on Twitter or Facebook. Does it mean Google will delete their apps, Amazon will drop them from the servers? Of course not. Because it has nothing to do with some users calling for violence.
malandrew 6y ago
> "encourage and incite violence." 98 examples is nothing. We dealt with an entire year of content on Facebook encouraging and inciting violence but it was okay because it was aligned ideologically with the powers that be. I personally lost track of how many people just in my own friend's list advocating for "punching nazis", where "nazis" is a generic term for "anyone I strongly disagree with politically". Heck, I saw multiple people post videos of violence against people they consider "nazis" and celebrating it. Personally, I'm 100% against the violence both last year and on Jan 6th, but it's amazing how egregious the double standard is between last year and Jan 6th.
names_are_hard 6y ago
I don't know how the law currently works, but it seems reasonable to me that it should be the responsibility of the government to determine what's legal and what's not. I think Amazon would not be acting improperly if they alerted law enforcement that they suspect illegal activity and then waited for the authorities to issue an official order to take down the content (presumably based on a court order). I get that the current ToS allows Amazon to terminate the relationship unilaterally, but I don't think Amazon has to do that morally. And if they have to do that legally, I think it's fair to ask that the law be changed to allow private organizations selling a platform to not have to determine the legality of the actions of their customers. The FBI, police, and courts can do that.
- Johnny555 6y ago
  It is the responsibility of the government to determine what's legal and not, there's an entire court system that does just that. And Parler is using that system by filing a suit against AWS. But that doesn't mean that I can help someone load a body into his car, then tell police later "Well, I wasn't sure if he was legally killed or not, so I was just trying to help out, it's not my job to determine legality, I was going to come in later today and ask you guys about that. You can probably still catch him if you want to, I got his contact info: he said his name was John and his car said he lives in the Ukraine"
  - names_are_hard 6y ago
    Ok, fair point. I think you convinced me that Amazon had a moral responsibility to terminate their relationship with anyone they believe is breaking the the law. I suppose that if the customer sues and wins they can try to recover damages.
nautilus12 6y ago
But is that Parler breaking the law or its users??
- Johnny555 6y ago
  Yes.
- jounker 6y ago
  Let’s be honest about this. Parler exists to host right extremists who are tired of being moderated and fact checked by twitter and facebook.
  - sn_master 6y ago
    how about all those who looted, burnt cities and rioted. that wasn't a double standard to keep them on the platforms?
perryizgr8 6y ago
> Was the parler content legal? Yes, unless there is a court judgement I missed. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of the land.

MartinCron 6y ago

Parler chose to use AWS for their hosting. When you build your company on someone else's platform, you're explicitly giving them that market power.

sn_master 6y ago
They needed 300-500 servers according to the CEO. There isn't much choice in the market when it comes to that kind of need, specially when you need to be hosted in the US because you're a political website. Imagine if they were hosted in Russia instead, they would have lost all their credibility.
- Daishiman 6y ago
  Thousands of companies host 300-500 servers on a couple of racks in some data center in the Midwest. There is not reason at all to have your content hosted in the US if you felt its legislators or IT providers aren't up to par to your idea of what free speech represents. Credibility? Yeah, seems that the crediblity issues weren't exactly about the hosting provider.
  - sn_master 6y ago
    Look at their growth curve, they weren't planning from the beginning on that. I am sure they would have gone with their own DC if they did. The legislative and judicial system didn't say anything about Parler, and that's the core of the problem. Big tech acted by themselves to appease the new king.
    - pixl97 6y ago
      Which is both their right and prerogative. Fascists aren't a protected class.
      - sn_master 6y ago
        In this Great country, everyone is a "protected class" unless a court determines otherwise. It is their "right" to kick anyone off because of their overly broad Terms and Conditions, but they have no right to label anyone as a criminal.

karmasimida 6y ago

> Amazon has too much market power if it can shut down another company at the push of a button for something that isn't illegal Amazon is leading Cloud yes, but it stands at 40% market share at best. Azure/GCP are pretty competent alternatives, though I am not sure if they would not do the same as AWS (probably yes) The wider impaction to me, is that AWS is setting some precedent, and many people are not fully comfortable with it, and I think it will haunt AWS for a long time to come.

chr1 6y ago

Was Parler blocked because Amazon did not like it, or because Democrats do not like it, and they have full control of government, and can pass arbitrary laws e.g. to break up Amazon? Edit: an unfairly flagged comment in reply to this says > Why would democrats break up Amazon, when it helps them in banning the republicans? That will not happen. That's exactly my point, this is a form of lobbying to stay on good side of the government.

imaginenore 6y ago
Why would democrats break up Amazon, when it helps them in banning the republicans? That will not happen.

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago

AWS being able to shutdown a company is the fault of that company not having a multi-provider arch.

b0bb1z3r0 6y ago

It is illegal to conspire to commit violence against the US

frockington1 6y ago
How is any social media platform up? I understand why Parler was taken down, but why is this not applied to every single website? I'm sure we can find a 'conspiracy to commit violence against the US' in this single article thread
- lindenksv85 6y ago
  Because there is a difference between 1% of your content being illegal and you actively working o it and like 50% of your content being illegal and you telling everyone profusely you refuse to moderate?
Closi 6y ago
Parler didn’t conspire to commit violence against the US. And it’s actually not illegal to host other people’s illegal speech. It’s super pedantic, but also very important! So what did Parler do that was illegal?

ncallaway 6y ago

Amazon can't shut down any company at the push of a button. It can only shut down a company from using its services. There are many other hosting providers in the world. If Parler hadn't hosted its service on AWS, then Amazon wouldn't be able to shut them down.

Closi 6y ago
It can definitely shut down companies - I used to work at a supermarket that had most of its infra in AWS. If AWS was totally nuked getting systems back up properly would probably have taken months. Even trading would have taken a few days to be fully back. Even distribution centres operate on the cloud these days. Cloud migration at any scale isn’t a 24 hour process.
- ncallaway 6y ago
  What you've written doesn't contradict anything that I've said. > It can only shut down a company from using its services. > Amazon can't shut down *any* company at the push of a button If you've chosen to use AWS, then yes, Amazon can shut that down. If your business relies critically on AWS, then yes, Amazon can shut down your business. But they can't shut down *any* company. There are lots of companies that don't rely on AWS and Amazon can't shut them down.