7 ms·

>If you are destroying the property you live in or using it to commit or facilitate illegal acts Ironically, this also feels like a false equivalency to me. I

by dimmke 6y ago

>If you are destroying the property you live in or using it to commit or facilitate illegal acts Ironically, this also feels like a false equivalency to me. I don't believe Parler was putting Amazon/AWS at risk in terms of legal liability (I'm pretty sure in the US you can only sue a hosting provider for material they host if it is copyrighted material and they don't take it down when they receive notices. A Google search didn't turn up anything else.) They also weren't at risk of bringing AWS down. What really happened, and should be plain to anybody is that something really awful happened last week that shook the country to its core. Parler played a role in that happening, and tech companies didn't want anything to do with them because of that. Both for reputation reasons and I'm sure personal feelings of large swathes of their employees (including leadership.) I don't actually think they were wrong for what they did. I think private companies should have the right to make such a decision. The problem for me is that these companies were in a position to wipe something out like this in the first place. This isn't what the web was supposed to be. First it was the switch by most people to using a phone that is locked down as their primary computing device. Now even websites are subject to unregulated private company control. After all - even if you set up your server somewhere, what's to stop CloudFlare or Google or anybody else who run these huge DNS services from simply blocking the domain? (assuming you can even keep one registered) Etc... I often hear the argument "Private company, they can do what they want" but at what point does a private company become so powerful that we really do need the government to step in? I've also heard people say that this isn't a slippery slope because it's all terrorist/white supremacist websites so far, but I think to this article I read a while ago about how Apple had decided to ban apps that had anything to do with vaping. This was when some people were dying due to bad black market cartridges. Vaping isn't illegal. It isn't hateful. It also isn't inherently harmful. People used those apps for legitimate reasons. Some of them used iPhone sensors through APIs that aren't available for websites/web apps. And Apple just decided "Nope, you don't get to exist anymore". I was not a Parler user and I do not support the attack on the Capitol. I also don't vape. But both of these things do bother me. And they should bother everybody.

tw04 6y ago
>Ironically, this also feels like a false equivalency to me. I don't believe Parler was putting Amazon/AWS at risk in terms of legal liability (I'm pretty sure in the US you can only sue a hosting provider for material they host if it is copyrighted material and they don't take it down when they receive notices. A Google search didn't turn up anything else.) They also weren't at risk of bringing AWS down. You seriously don't think with the amount of publicity Parler was getting, that AWS' reputation was going to be hurt? When my Dad is talking about Parler and AWS it has become a PR nightmare... >I often hear the argument "Private company, they can do what they want" but at what point does a private company become so powerful that we really do need the government to step in? If the private company is "so powerful the government needs to step in" then it should be through breaking up a monopoly. But it turns out AWS doesn't have anything approaching a monopoly in hosting, so it would be absurd for the government to step in. There are literally THOUSANDS of other hosting providers out there. What you're seeing is that nobody agrees with the hate speech Parler is selling, and nobody wants to host it. That is the free market at work. >Vaping isn't illegal. It isn't hateful. It also isn't inherently harmful. People used those apps for legitimate reasons. Some of them used iPhone sensors through APIs that aren't available for websites/web apps. And Apple just decided "Nope, you don't get to exist anymore". So don't buy an iPhone? Buy any number of android phones that don't require Apple or Google's app store. If you want the government to dictate who companies do business with, you aren't for capitalism or free market, that's all there is to it. Parler isn't a protected class, vaping isn't a protected class, nobody should be forced to do business with them if they don't want to.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  As I keep saying: you probably have fewer options for takeout than you do for hosting.
- dimmke 6y ago
  >If the private company is "so powerful the government needs to step in" then it should be through breaking up a monopoly. I definitely agree that the government does need to break up some large tech companies. But I don't agree that that should be the only form of regulation. I think the government should regulate technology companies in several ways. Here are some no brainers: ISPs - Net neutrality required. No data caps allowed. Device manufacturers - Right to repair. Can't lock down the device the way that gaming consoles and mobile phones (and TVs, etc...) often do. Cloud providers - Greater privacy protections like they have in Europe. >There are literally THOUSANDS of other hosting providers out there. You're glossing over the other infrastructure examples I named. We're talking about a cumulative effect here. It makes me uncomfortable that key parts of the internet's infrastructure are controlled by private companies with little to no regulation on what they can do. And I feel like it's getting worse every year. >So don't buy an iPhone? Buy any number of android phones Not everybody gets to choose what phone they have. Maybe they got their phone handed down to them or donated to them and can't afford to buy a new one. For a lot of people, their phone might be their only computer. Also, vaping was just one example. Apple routinely blocks apps and only backpedals if the app creator has enough clout. They tried to do it with the open source blogging platform WordPress a few months ago. If there were regulation in place that Apple could maintain their own app store, but couldn't block or make it difficult for regular users to install other apps then nobody to choose. Same thing with like a gaming console - buy a gaming console and you could install Linux and use it as a general purpose machine without having to break some encryption scheme. It's clear that maintaining an operating system/platform is an expensive endeavor - and maybe it just isn't feasible for more than those two operating systems to exist. That's where regulation comes in. There need to be ground rules especially when the barrier to competition is so high. >Parler isn't a protected class, vaping isn't a protected class, nobody should be forced to do business with them if they don't want to. So companies should be able to do whatever they want as long as they're not discriminatory/racist about it?
ashtonkem 6y ago
AWS doesn’t have the power to wipe people out that don’t tie their stack to them. Parler could’ve avoided this, it’s not AWS fault that Parler could t move.
- nomel 6y ago
  I’m curious how many AWS houses could move to private hosting in that short of a timeframe.
  - staticassertion 6y ago
    Most probably couldn't. But most will likely never have to think of that. Parler's inherent value proposition increased this risk and they were foolish not to consider and plan for that. Risk management is part of the job. Businesses that don't do it properly will often fail. Sometimes this is an unfortunate thing, sometimes it's a happy accident.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Depends how much prep they did beforehand. Lots of businesses have contingency plans for negative situations including needing to leave AWS, and they're far less likely to get booted. I’m not sure why they didn’t just start with Epik; they already host Gab and won’t give a crap about what Parler does. FWIW the Parler CEO claimed 12 hours, an obvious falsehood, and that’s now being used against him in his lawsuit against AWS.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    It looks like none could, because AWS requires some very AWS-specific code ? But then they decided to be hosted by AWS willingly, and it's not like they haven't been warned about issues with it. "They made their bed…" This also reminds me of the situation with youtube-dl's very valuable information stored in GitHub's issues.
    - cestith 6y ago
      How AWS-specific your code needs to be depends on which AWS services you're using and how you use them. An EC2 instance is just a Linux system, as is a Lightsail system. Other systems like MinIO and Ceph have S3 interfaces for object storage, so the code could be kept. Operationally you'd need to retrieve it from Amazon S3 and re-store it. RDS is an export, transfer, and import away from being loaded into a normal database server, but that can take quite a bit of time. Getting geo-sensitive DNS and implicit testing of backends out of Route 53 isn't so simple. Getting stuff out of Lambda and onto a commodity platform isn't quick and easy. If you have data in Glacier there's a substantial lead time to recover your first byte.
ouid 6y ago
Vaping is, I think, fairly harmful. But it is absolutely clear that the government should step in and say no to these companies who are in the business of deciding which other companies are allowed to exist.
- dimmke 6y ago
  This isn't just about "other companies" though - that's what is so crazy to me about this. We've reached a point where the idea of creating and providing software is almost exclusively thought of through the lens of capitalism. That's so dystopian. I notice it in other areas too like verbiage such as "business logic" or "product owners"
gscott 6y ago
Parler set themselves up for this by not going with their own servers but wimping out and using a cloud provider. Get a high speed line and host it yourself straight up. Save money too.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  I'm guessing Rebekah Mercer didn't give them enough money to build their own datacenter.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Then the left would have gone after whichever hosting provider they did use. And it obviously doesn't help with smartphone apps getting banned.
raxxorrax 6y ago
Is there evidence that these people were incited on Parler instead of Twitter or Facebook?

by dimmke 6y ago

tw04 6y ago

>Ironically, this also feels like a false equivalency to me. I don't believe Parler was putting Amazon/AWS at risk in terms of legal liability (I'm pretty sure in the US you can only sue a hosting provider for material they host if it is copyrighted material and they don't take it down when they receive notices. A Google search didn't turn up anything else.) They also weren't at risk of bringing AWS down. You seriously don't think with the amount of publicity Parler was getting, that AWS' reputation was going to be hurt? When my Dad is talking about Parler and AWS it has become a PR nightmare... >I often hear the argument "Private company, they can do what they want" but at what point does a private company become so powerful that we really do need the government to step in? If the private company is "so powerful the government needs to step in" then it should be through breaking up a monopoly. But it turns out AWS doesn't have anything approaching a monopoly in hosting, so it would be absurd for the government to step in. There are literally THOUSANDS of other hosting providers out there. What you're seeing is that nobody agrees with the hate speech Parler is selling, and nobody wants to host it. That is the free market at work. >Vaping isn't illegal. It isn't hateful. It also isn't inherently harmful. People used those apps for legitimate reasons. Some of them used iPhone sensors through APIs that aren't available for websites/web apps. And Apple just decided "Nope, you don't get to exist anymore". So don't buy an iPhone? Buy any number of android phones that don't require Apple or Google's app store. If you want the government to dictate who companies do business with, you aren't for capitalism or free market, that's all there is to it. Parler isn't a protected class, vaping isn't a protected class, nobody should be forced to do business with them if they don't want to.

ashtonkem 6y ago
As I keep saying: you probably have fewer options for takeout than you do for hosting.
dimmke 6y ago
>If the private company is "so powerful the government needs to step in" then it should be through breaking up a monopoly. I definitely agree that the government does need to break up some large tech companies. But I don't agree that that should be the only form of regulation. I think the government should regulate technology companies in several ways. Here are some no brainers: ISPs - Net neutrality required. No data caps allowed. Device manufacturers - Right to repair. Can't lock down the device the way that gaming consoles and mobile phones (and TVs, etc...) often do. Cloud providers - Greater privacy protections like they have in Europe. >There are literally THOUSANDS of other hosting providers out there. You're glossing over the other infrastructure examples I named. We're talking about a cumulative effect here. It makes me uncomfortable that key parts of the internet's infrastructure are controlled by private companies with little to no regulation on what they can do. And I feel like it's getting worse every year. >So don't buy an iPhone? Buy any number of android phones Not everybody gets to choose what phone they have. Maybe they got their phone handed down to them or donated to them and can't afford to buy a new one. For a lot of people, their phone might be their only computer. Also, vaping was just one example. Apple routinely blocks apps and only backpedals if the app creator has enough clout. They tried to do it with the open source blogging platform WordPress a few months ago. If there were regulation in place that Apple could maintain their own app store, but couldn't block or make it difficult for regular users to install other apps then nobody to choose. Same thing with like a gaming console - buy a gaming console and you could install Linux and use it as a general purpose machine without having to break some encryption scheme. It's clear that maintaining an operating system/platform is an expensive endeavor - and maybe it just isn't feasible for more than those two operating systems to exist. That's where regulation comes in. There need to be ground rules especially when the barrier to competition is so high. >Parler isn't a protected class, vaping isn't a protected class, nobody should be forced to do business with them if they don't want to. So companies should be able to do whatever they want as long as they're not discriminatory/racist about it?

ashtonkem 6y ago

AWS doesn’t have the power to wipe people out that don’t tie their stack to them. Parler could’ve avoided this, it’s not AWS fault that Parler could t move.

nomel 6y ago
I’m curious how many AWS houses could move to private hosting in that short of a timeframe.
- staticassertion 6y ago
  Most probably couldn't. But most will likely never have to think of that. Parler's inherent value proposition increased this risk and they were foolish not to consider and plan for that. Risk management is part of the job. Businesses that don't do it properly will often fail. Sometimes this is an unfortunate thing, sometimes it's a happy accident.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Depends how much prep they did beforehand. Lots of businesses have contingency plans for negative situations including needing to leave AWS, and they're far less likely to get booted. I’m not sure why they didn’t just start with Epik; they already host Gab and won’t give a crap about what Parler does. FWIW the Parler CEO claimed 12 hours, an obvious falsehood, and that’s now being used against him in his lawsuit against AWS.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  It looks like none could, because AWS requires some very AWS-specific code ? But then they decided to be hosted by AWS willingly, and it's not like they haven't been warned about issues with it. "They made their bed…" This also reminds me of the situation with youtube-dl's very valuable information stored in GitHub's issues.
  - cestith 6y ago
    How AWS-specific your code needs to be depends on which AWS services you're using and how you use them. An EC2 instance is just a Linux system, as is a Lightsail system. Other systems like MinIO and Ceph have S3 interfaces for object storage, so the code could be kept. Operationally you'd need to retrieve it from Amazon S3 and re-store it. RDS is an export, transfer, and import away from being loaded into a normal database server, but that can take quite a bit of time. Getting geo-sensitive DNS and implicit testing of backends out of Route 53 isn't so simple. Getting stuff out of Lambda and onto a commodity platform isn't quick and easy. If you have data in Glacier there's a substantial lead time to recover your first byte.

ouid 6y ago

Vaping is, I think, fairly harmful. But it is absolutely clear that the government should step in and say no to these companies who are in the business of deciding which other companies are allowed to exist.

dimmke 6y ago
This isn't just about "other companies" though - that's what is so crazy to me about this. We've reached a point where the idea of creating and providing software is almost exclusively thought of through the lens of capitalism. That's so dystopian. I notice it in other areas too like verbiage such as "business logic" or "product owners"

gscott 6y ago

Parler set themselves up for this by not going with their own servers but wimping out and using a cloud provider. Get a high speed line and host it yourself straight up. Save money too.

ketamine__ 6y ago
I'm guessing Rebekah Mercer didn't give them enough money to build their own datacenter.
thu2111 6y ago
Then the left would have gone after whichever hosting provider they did use. And it obviously doesn't help with smartphone apps getting banned.

raxxorrax 6y ago

Is there evidence that these people were incited on Parler instead of Twitter or Facebook?