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This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. I'm sure it's happened before, but probably not

This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. I'm sure it's happened before, but probably not in situations we'd like to emulate. Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good. When any possibility of insurrection is crushed, for everyone now and in the future (not just insurrectionists), that sounds like it won't end well for the people.

halukakin 6y ago
A good example to this is the founding of the US itself.
legutierr 6y ago
It happens all the time in the banking arena. Banks are frequently used to deny market access to businesses that are undesirable to the federal government but are otherwise legal businesses.
- yalogin 6y ago
  This is actually a great analogy. Its all about reducing risk for the overall business.
- raunakdag 6y ago
  I hadn't thought about it this way. I assume marijuana dispensaries/businesses are one of the examples you're referencing?
  - Mehdi2277 6y ago
    Porn type content also tends to have trouble with many services like payment processors. A simple example is paypal doesn't support most porn related content. I also recall a video game company that makes weirder porn (stuff like hypnosis hentai) saying hypnosis is a trigger for some payment processors so they've had to avoid that terminology.
- ThrowItAway2Day 6y ago
  And why sketchier businesses, such as casinos, had to turn to organized crime for loans and funding.
SiliconMage 6y ago
You can have any opinion you want so long as it is mine.
joering2 6y ago
Fun fact: I spoke with two of my good buddies one up high Amazon another at Twitter. The fellow from twitter told me they will never suspend Trump because despite what he says, Twitter makes few million dollars daily (!!) off of his feed. The reason you see him being booted out is because my buddy from Amazon told me they may be ready to drop Twitter as a client altogether (mostly because of Trump) and the way their contract is designed is that Twitter would still be up for tens of millions of (now unfulfilled) hosting contract fees. And that something they won’t digest. So really the decision to boot Trump had nothing to do with freedom of speech - its AWS who thretened to withdraw, and Twitter folks did some simple math and realized the loss from AWS contract would cost more than gains from RealDonaldTrump feed.
- lodovic 6y ago
  That math, combined with the drop in stock price, does not add up.
- Daishiman 6y ago
  This is speculation by an employee who clearly doesn't have power to make the associated business decisions.
throwaway5752 6y ago
It is hard to separate the fact that they are distancing themselves from a fascist, white-supremacist platform that was instrumental in a near-overthrow of the US government. And even if you think that's okay, this wasn't insurrection in response to oppression, it was an insurrection to overthrow an uncontested democratic result. I guess Parler is so radioactive that Amazon would rather be sued than continue to business with them. Further, there are reports Amazon gave them weeks of warnings and were ignored. AWS has rules.
- blitz_skull 6y ago
  "near-overthrow" A few hundred people stalled the counting of electoral votes for literally a few HOURS. Hardly a "near-overthrow" of anything other than Trump himself.
  - eclipxe 6y ago
    That's only because house and senate members were successfully evacuated - if they weren't, what exactly did you think the rioters were going to do? What do you think they had zip ties for? What was the gallows erected outside for?
    - wolco5 6y ago
      The government was in no danger of being overthrown.
- wolco5 6y ago
  Reports of the government being overthrown have been greatly exaggerated.
- mainstreem 6y ago
  If Amazon has rules, why is Twitter still up? The "PacNW Youth Liberation Front" Twitter account is still active. They frequently call for overthrow of the government and organize violent direct actions. Rose City Antifa is still active. They do the same. Salon's Tweet calling for more violence this summer and calling the violence that had already occurred against Federal properties by Leftist activists "justified" is still up, as is Salon's website. Khamenei's Twitter is still active, calling for the elimination of all Jews and Israel. I'm sure this will get downvoted. Probably flagged. But since the government can't shut down companies due to the content their users post, because of Section 230, I guess a small, colluding cartel of corporations can step in to silence people when the government will bend knee to the Leftist mob instead. It's only a matter of time before the people wielding this power find it turned against them, if they do not recognize what they are doing to discourse on the Internet. Pandora's box is fucking open now.
teddyh 6y ago
“The only thing that keeps leaders in check is the knowledge the population can rise up against them. By eliminating the Bowman’s Wolves ability to string you up by your own intestines, you’ve removed them from a very important part of the political process.” — Sam Starfall, Freefall, http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1600/fv01595.htm http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1600/fv01595.htm
bcrosby95 6y ago
> private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state Your choice of words implies some sort of conspiracy here. The response has been widespread and quite frankly should be unsurprising. No coordination is necessary. Any sane CEO running a profit driven organization will not tolerate a group of people whose words of violence against the state cross beyond hyperbole and words and into actual action. If more actions take place and are more successful and these companies decided to stick their heads in the sand then the existence of these companies would be under threat. This is about basic survival.
yongjik 6y ago
It's amusing that people are simultaneously complaining that tech companies are censoring the president of the US and "enforcing the supremacy of the state" at the same time. True "deep state" conspiracy material. After four years of running the country, they are still underdogs.
- wolco5 6y ago
  It's too out in the open to call it a conspiracy. Amazon,Google, Amazon and Apple (twitter, facebook) are putting out press releases that say this is what they are doing. They are enforcing the supremacy of the state for the next government. If he was going back as president these companies would not be making these press releases.
- chmod600 6y ago
  The president is not the government; he's one part of it. The insurrectionists were attacking the rest of it. Very wrong, in my opinion. But I'm not sure that I want to completely remove the possibility of anyone organizing to do so in the future. To be clear, I think insurrection is nearly always bad, but keeping some faint possibility around is not bad.
grahamburger 6y ago
> This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. It's maybe weirder than that, because of the involvement of the president. Even if you believe the president was entirely uninvolved and unaware, the purpose of the insurrection was to keep a leader in power, not remove one. The actions of tech companies are both a challenge to the supremacy of the (current administration of the) state and a way of enforcing the supremacy of the state.
- chmod600 6y ago
  The insurrectionists were attacking Congress, so that makes things more complicated.
xyst 6y ago
There was the case of PornHub/MindGeek and MC/Visa. PH was hosting a ton of videos which showed exposed minors (likely most of it was "revenge porn") and other unsavory content. It wasn't until Visa/MC decided to halt processing of all PH transactions that PH decided to haphazardly delete ALL non-partnered content on the platform. This all happened in less than a week of Visa announcing it. I think the outcome was "good" but the damage had already been done as these videos are likely residing on servers that are not owned or controlled by PH. Additionally, there's probably a shit ton of non-partnered content that was innocuous. timeline: * nyt publishes scathing article about PH and other sites on 2020-12-04 (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...) * MC and Visa announce to cut ties with PH on 2020-12-11 (https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/mastercard-and-visa-have-cut-off-pornhub-from-their-payment-services/articleshow/79678966.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/mastercard-and-visa...) * On 2020-12-14 (~3 days later), PH then purges all unverified content (https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgqjjy/pornhub-suspended-all-unverified-videos-content https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgqjjy/pornhub-suspended-all...) In just a matter of 10 days, a billion dollar corporation deleted a significant amount of their content without even having to step into a court room. To be honest, it's kind of scary. What if you are just on the wrong side of a person at XYZ company? Maybe a cloud executive wants Y company to succeed because he or she has significant capital investment in it, and X competing company is about to roll out their product to the masses. Executive then writes up a scathing internal report by X company to ban them from using their products, or even worse "leaks" false information about X company to get them tied up in a public opinion battle.
tmpz22 6y ago
Its called voting. That's how you change who's in power, you vote. We have democracy so you don't have to have an insurrection to change power.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  But what if you want to change who's in power but you don't have a majority? That's the fundamental problem facing Trump voters. How do they replace this slapdash democracy with one where they can determine who's votes actually count. Under our current system, they can only throw out a bunch of roadblocks to make it difficult. The new "Trumpocracy" would likely make voter discrimination a little more structured.
mrlala 6y ago
>Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good Let's be realistic here though. The ONLY reason "insurrection" was even close to being on the table is because of the delusional rantings of the President for the last two months (and everything leading up to that.. but that's a different discussion). This entire election fraud thing is absolute insanity, and anyone who was paying attention saw this coming months before the election with how he was setting everything up to look like if Trump didn't win- it had to be fraud. So my point is, no one is trying to "stop the possibility of insurrection". They are trying to actively say: 'I am not supporting giving you a platform to spout insane lies anymore, because it has and could cause real measurable harm".
labcomputer 6y ago
Do you have any evidence that they are "getting together" or is that just speculation?

halukakin 6y ago

A good example to this is the founding of the US itself.

legutierr 6y ago

It happens all the time in the banking arena. Banks are frequently used to deny market access to businesses that are undesirable to the federal government but are otherwise legal businesses.

yalogin 6y ago
This is actually a great analogy. Its all about reducing risk for the overall business.
raunakdag 6y ago
I hadn't thought about it this way. I assume marijuana dispensaries/businesses are one of the examples you're referencing?
- Mehdi2277 6y ago
  Porn type content also tends to have trouble with many services like payment processors. A simple example is paypal doesn't support most porn related content. I also recall a video game company that makes weirder porn (stuff like hypnosis hentai) saying hypnosis is a trigger for some payment processors so they've had to avoid that terminology.
ThrowItAway2Day 6y ago
And why sketchier businesses, such as casinos, had to turn to organized crime for loans and funding.

SiliconMage 6y ago

You can have any opinion you want so long as it is mine.

joering2 6y ago

Fun fact: I spoke with two of my good buddies one up high Amazon another at Twitter. The fellow from twitter told me they will never suspend Trump because despite what he says, Twitter makes few million dollars daily (!!) off of his feed. The reason you see him being booted out is because my buddy from Amazon told me they may be ready to drop Twitter as a client altogether (mostly because of Trump) and the way their contract is designed is that Twitter would still be up for tens of millions of (now unfulfilled) hosting contract fees. And that something they won’t digest. So really the decision to boot Trump had nothing to do with freedom of speech - its AWS who thretened to withdraw, and Twitter folks did some simple math and realized the loss from AWS contract would cost more than gains from RealDonaldTrump feed.

lodovic 6y ago
That math, combined with the drop in stock price, does not add up.
Daishiman 6y ago
This is speculation by an employee who clearly doesn't have power to make the associated business decisions.

throwaway5752 6y ago

It is hard to separate the fact that they are distancing themselves from a fascist, white-supremacist platform that was instrumental in a near-overthrow of the US government. And even if you think that's okay, this wasn't insurrection in response to oppression, it was an insurrection to overthrow an uncontested democratic result. I guess Parler is so radioactive that Amazon would rather be sued than continue to business with them. Further, there are reports Amazon gave them weeks of warnings and were ignored. AWS has rules.

blitz_skull 6y ago
"near-overthrow" A few hundred people stalled the counting of electoral votes for literally a few HOURS. Hardly a "near-overthrow" of anything other than Trump himself.
- eclipxe 6y ago
  That's only because house and senate members were successfully evacuated - if they weren't, what exactly did you think the rioters were going to do? What do you think they had zip ties for? What was the gallows erected outside for?
  - wolco5 6y ago
    The government was in no danger of being overthrown.
wolco5 6y ago
Reports of the government being overthrown have been greatly exaggerated.
mainstreem 6y ago
If Amazon has rules, why is Twitter still up? The "PacNW Youth Liberation Front" Twitter account is still active. They frequently call for overthrow of the government and organize violent direct actions. Rose City Antifa is still active. They do the same. Salon's Tweet calling for more violence this summer and calling the violence that had already occurred against Federal properties by Leftist activists "justified" is still up, as is Salon's website. Khamenei's Twitter is still active, calling for the elimination of all Jews and Israel. I'm sure this will get downvoted. Probably flagged. But since the government can't shut down companies due to the content their users post, because of Section 230, I guess a small, colluding cartel of corporations can step in to silence people when the government will bend knee to the Leftist mob instead. It's only a matter of time before the people wielding this power find it turned against them, if they do not recognize what they are doing to discourse on the Internet. Pandora's box is fucking open now.

teddyh 6y ago

“The only thing that keeps leaders in check is the knowledge the population can rise up against them. By eliminating the Bowman’s Wolves ability to string you up by your own intestines, you’ve removed them from a very important part of the political process.” — Sam Starfall, Freefall, http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1600/fv01595.htm http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1600/fv01595.htm

bcrosby95 6y ago

> private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state Your choice of words implies some sort of conspiracy here. The response has been widespread and quite frankly should be unsurprising. No coordination is necessary. Any sane CEO running a profit driven organization will not tolerate a group of people whose words of violence against the state cross beyond hyperbole and words and into actual action. If more actions take place and are more successful and these companies decided to stick their heads in the sand then the existence of these companies would be under threat. This is about basic survival.

yongjik 6y ago

It's amusing that people are simultaneously complaining that tech companies are censoring the president of the US and "enforcing the supremacy of the state" at the same time. True "deep state" conspiracy material. After four years of running the country, they are still underdogs.

wolco5 6y ago
It's too out in the open to call it a conspiracy. Amazon,Google, Amazon and Apple (twitter, facebook) are putting out press releases that say this is what they are doing. They are enforcing the supremacy of the state for the next government. If he was going back as president these companies would not be making these press releases.
chmod600 6y ago
The president is not the government; he's one part of it. The insurrectionists were attacking the rest of it. Very wrong, in my opinion. But I'm not sure that I want to completely remove the possibility of anyone organizing to do so in the future. To be clear, I think insurrection is nearly always bad, but keeping some faint possibility around is not bad.

grahamburger 6y ago

> This is a weird case of private companies getting together and voluntarily enforcing the supremecy of the state. It's maybe weirder than that, because of the involvement of the president. Even if you believe the president was entirely uninvolved and unaware, the purpose of the insurrection was to keep a leader in power, not remove one. The actions of tech companies are both a challenge to the supremacy of the (current administration of the) state and a way of enforcing the supremacy of the state.

chmod600 6y ago
The insurrectionists were attacking Congress, so that makes things more complicated.

xyst 6y ago

There was the case of PornHub/MindGeek and MC/Visa. PH was hosting a ton of videos which showed exposed minors (likely most of it was "revenge porn") and other unsavory content. It wasn't until Visa/MC decided to halt processing of all PH transactions that PH decided to haphazardly delete ALL non-partnered content on the platform. This all happened in less than a week of Visa announcing it. I think the outcome was "good" but the damage had already been done as these videos are likely residing on servers that are not owned or controlled by PH. Additionally, there's probably a shit ton of non-partnered content that was innocuous. timeline: * nyt publishes scathing article about PH and other sites on 2020-12-04 (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...) * MC and Visa announce to cut ties with PH on 2020-12-11 (https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/mastercard-and-visa-have-cut-off-pornhub-from-their-payment-services/articleshow/79678966.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/mastercard-and-visa...) * On 2020-12-14 (~3 days later), PH then purges all unverified content (https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgqjjy/pornhub-suspended-all-unverified-videos-content https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgqjjy/pornhub-suspended-all...) In just a matter of 10 days, a billion dollar corporation deleted a significant amount of their content without even having to step into a court room. To be honest, it's kind of scary. What if you are just on the wrong side of a person at XYZ company? Maybe a cloud executive wants Y company to succeed because he or she has significant capital investment in it, and X competing company is about to roll out their product to the masses. Executive then writes up a scathing internal report by X company to ban them from using their products, or even worse "leaks" false information about X company to get them tied up in a public opinion battle.

tmpz22 6y ago

Its called voting. That's how you change who's in power, you vote. We have democracy so you don't have to have an insurrection to change power.

ogre_codes 6y ago
But what if you want to change who's in power but you don't have a majority? That's the fundamental problem facing Trump voters. How do they replace this slapdash democracy with one where they can determine who's votes actually count. Under our current system, they can only throw out a bunch of roadblocks to make it difficult. The new "Trumpocracy" would likely make voter discrimination a little more structured.

mrlala 6y ago

>Insurrection is bad, but the possibility of insurrection is good Let's be realistic here though. The ONLY reason "insurrection" was even close to being on the table is because of the delusional rantings of the President for the last two months (and everything leading up to that.. but that's a different discussion). This entire election fraud thing is absolute insanity, and anyone who was paying attention saw this coming months before the election with how he was setting everything up to look like if Trump didn't win- it had to be fraud. So my point is, no one is trying to "stop the possibility of insurrection". They are trying to actively say: 'I am not supporting giving you a platform to spout insane lies anymore, because it has and could cause real measurable harm".

labcomputer 6y ago

Do you have any evidence that they are "getting together" or is that just speculation?