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Parler was, at the end of the day, a somewhat amateurish Twitter clone whose essential growth hack was that they decided to serve as a kind of ban evasion mecha

Parler was, at the end of the day, a somewhat amateurish Twitter clone whose essential growth hack was that they decided to serve as a kind of ban evasion mechanism for Twitter. They had virtually no organic growth of their own, they worked by accepting the banned castoffs from another service and promising not to do any moderation. And then we had a historical incident of political violence perpetrated by the same demographic. Move fast and break things indeed. But "staying online" isn't the Parler goal. Matze wanted to run an internet giant, not keep a seedy right wing reactionary forum alive. I mean, 4chan and 8kun already fill that market. He's just going to pack it up, keep his head down, and try not to get sued (or charged).

smitty1e 6y ago
We can all come by and ritually kick Parler and its suppoerts when they're down. PUNT #BONK# !BOOT! Bear in mind that, for all the accusations of Hitlerhood by the Adolphology experts, the conservatives aren't the ones nuking anyone's voices. Just keep that in mind as this French Revolution picks up angular momentum.
- toiletfuneral 6y ago
  cope
ggggtez 6y ago
Not sure why the downvotes. This essentially is the same as my take. This is the inevitable result of pushing your brand as "no content moderation" but not actually having any skills or plans on what to do when it eventually caught up with them. Anyone familiar with 4chan knows that some of the earliest content that was banned on the platform include childporn and organizing raids/doxxing. If you read the terms of service, you'll see that content is still banned (even if not uniformly enforced). The fact that parler couldn't muster even 4chan levels of moderation shows you that they really had no comprehension of the content creators they would be courting with their service.
- tmpz22 6y ago
  Its downvoted because a large portion of HN users prefer alternative facts that allow them to feel superior as opposed to actual reality.
- sbierwagen 6y ago
  Since when is "not enough moderation" grounds for terminating hosting? Amazon does a terrible job of moderating their own catalog and reviews. Should their ASNs be blackholed? You can read the comments on any given CNN article, and see racist statements. Should CNN reporters be barred from attending press conferences?
  - petroseskinder 6y ago
    It is grounds for terminating hosting when AWS has repeatedly asked you to remove said content AND they've offered to help you migrate you off of AWS. See court filings - https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664.10.0_1.pdf https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664... Or for specific sections, see https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/1349162165698252802 https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/134916216569825280...
    - CryptoGhost 6y ago
      I was skimming through it and couldn't really find any smoking gun about them missing any hard deadlines for content removal. If you take a site like Reddit, it can take days before all violent / threatening language is removed from a given thread. A lot of the content AWS uses as exhibits is borderline, so its not as simple as approve some auto filter. I am assuming Parler just took on the scale of weeks to months to fail to remove some bad stuff but it would great to see that in writing to confirm.
      - lapphi 6y ago
        It would be foolish of Amazon’s legal team to make an argument like they did and not be able to back it up with proof, imo.
rodgerd 6y ago
> Parler was, at the end of the day, a somewhat amateurish Twitter clone whose essential growth hack was that they decided to serve as a kind of ban evasion mechanism for Twitter. The growth hack was to be funded by the Mercer family (Cambridge Analytica, Brexit) to the tune of a few million a year to help promote their agenda.
- itsyaboi 6y ago
  This is really interesting. Where can I learn more about this?
  - rodgerd 6y ago
    WSJ, amongst other news sites, has provided coverage: https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-backed-by-mercer-family-makes-play-for-conservatives-mad-at-facebook-twitter-11605382430 https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-backed-by-mercer-family-... You can read about the Mercers winding up Cambridge Analytica, which they funded: https://apnews.com/article/64280ae1f30c44eb8b82049f6875dddd https://apnews.com/article/64280ae1f30c44eb8b82049f6875dddd Likewise their involvement with Brietbart: https://www.dw.com/en/who-are-the-mercers-the-wealthy-backers-of-breitbart/a-42100407 https://www.dw.com/en/who-are-the-mercers-the-wealthy-backer... As far as the "millions" figure, that's come out of claims that their AWS bill was in the region of $300k per month.
ookblah 6y ago
and w/ everyone moving to gab and them seeming to have their ducks more in order in terms of scaling/moderation, i think unless he really wants to die on the hill to preserve whatever was going on w/ parler, they will just drop it lol.

smitty1e 6y ago

We can all come by and ritually kick Parler and its suppoerts when they're down. PUNT #BONK# !BOOT! Bear in mind that, for all the accusations of Hitlerhood by the Adolphology experts, the conservatives aren't the ones nuking anyone's voices. Just keep that in mind as this French Revolution picks up angular momentum.

toiletfuneral 6y ago
cope

ggggtez 6y ago

Not sure why the downvotes. This essentially is the same as my take. This is the inevitable result of pushing your brand as "no content moderation" but not actually having any skills or plans on what to do when it eventually caught up with them. Anyone familiar with 4chan knows that some of the earliest content that was banned on the platform include childporn and organizing raids/doxxing. If you read the terms of service, you'll see that content is still banned (even if not uniformly enforced). The fact that parler couldn't muster even 4chan levels of moderation shows you that they really had no comprehension of the content creators they would be courting with their service.

tmpz22 6y ago
Its downvoted because a large portion of HN users prefer alternative facts that allow them to feel superior as opposed to actual reality.
sbierwagen 6y ago
Since when is "not enough moderation" grounds for terminating hosting? Amazon does a terrible job of moderating their own catalog and reviews. Should their ASNs be blackholed? You can read the comments on any given CNN article, and see racist statements. Should CNN reporters be barred from attending press conferences?
- petroseskinder 6y ago
  It is grounds for terminating hosting when AWS has repeatedly asked you to remove said content AND they've offered to help you migrate you off of AWS. See court filings - https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664.10.0_1.pdf https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664... Or for specific sections, see https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/1349162165698252802 https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/134916216569825280...
  - CryptoGhost 6y ago
    I was skimming through it and couldn't really find any smoking gun about them missing any hard deadlines for content removal. If you take a site like Reddit, it can take days before all violent / threatening language is removed from a given thread. A lot of the content AWS uses as exhibits is borderline, so its not as simple as approve some auto filter. I am assuming Parler just took on the scale of weeks to months to fail to remove some bad stuff but it would great to see that in writing to confirm.
    - lapphi 6y ago
      It would be foolish of Amazon’s legal team to make an argument like they did and not be able to back it up with proof, imo.

rodgerd 6y ago

> Parler was, at the end of the day, a somewhat amateurish Twitter clone whose essential growth hack was that they decided to serve as a kind of ban evasion mechanism for Twitter. The growth hack was to be funded by the Mercer family (Cambridge Analytica, Brexit) to the tune of a few million a year to help promote their agenda.

itsyaboi 6y ago
This is really interesting. Where can I learn more about this?
- rodgerd 6y ago
  WSJ, amongst other news sites, has provided coverage: https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-backed-by-mercer-family-makes-play-for-conservatives-mad-at-facebook-twitter-11605382430 https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-backed-by-mercer-family-... You can read about the Mercers winding up Cambridge Analytica, which they funded: https://apnews.com/article/64280ae1f30c44eb8b82049f6875dddd https://apnews.com/article/64280ae1f30c44eb8b82049f6875dddd Likewise their involvement with Brietbart: https://www.dw.com/en/who-are-the-mercers-the-wealthy-backers-of-breitbart/a-42100407 https://www.dw.com/en/who-are-the-mercers-the-wealthy-backer... As far as the "millions" figure, that's come out of claims that their AWS bill was in the region of $300k per month.

ookblah 6y ago

and w/ everyone moving to gab and them seeming to have their ducks more in order in terms of scaling/moderation, i think unless he really wants to die on the hill to preserve whatever was going on w/ parler, they will just drop it lol.