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That's false. Please don't spread false information, whatever your politics. Parler had very similar terms of service to other content companies prohibiting ill

by ctrlp 6y ago

That's false. Please don't spread false information, whatever your politics. Parler had very similar terms of service to other content companies prohibiting illegal, violent, or copyrighted content. They also paid a team of content moderators to adjudicate flagged posts. They worked happily with their reps at Apple, Google, and AWS right up until the Friday Night Massacre. They were a small company experiencing massive user growth because if Twitter policies during the past year and especially the past months. There was not a peep about their content until from their reps until 1/6. Was it the riot or the senate flipping? My intel may be false, but my understanding is that they successfully cleared their backlog of flagged tickets before the deadline, working like hell to save their company, for nothing. The fix was in. This was a hit. We should all be very alarmed by this.

asxd 6y ago
I won't pretend to be close to the matter, but my understanding was Parler's value proposition to users was that they wouldn't moderate as heavily?
- lesstenseflow 6y ago
  There's a lot of space between "what violates the law" (or explicit ios/play store Terms of Use for that matter) and "what will get you kicked off twitter" and I believe Parler operated in that space. Users could post stuff that would get them booted off twitter, but that was legal speech. This was fine with iOS & play store & AWS until they all simultaneously and independently (wink wink) realized it violated their terms of use. Unless we grant that this had nothing to do with newly discovered terms of use violations, it was crushing Parler in reaction to a change in the political winds (read: this is what happened).
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    > Users could post stuff that would get them booted off twitter, but that was legal speech I'm curious what kind of posts would definitely fall into this distinction. I see plenty of really distasteful, vile comments show up on Twitter. And AFAIK inciting violence is illegal. So the area between those seems to me like it would be pretty narrow. My impression of Parler is more that they only deleted illegal speech of a particularly egregious nature, e.g. child porn.
    - cbozeman 6y ago
      Misgendering a transperson intentionally. That might make you an asshole, but it isn't violent, and it isn't illegal. This is what happened to that journalist from a year or two ago, who is a registered Democrat, feminist, etc.. Specifically she was talking about that transperson from Canada who wanted his - sorry, her - balls waxed.
    - bcrosby95 6y ago
      > And AFAIK inciting violence is illegal. Sure, but in the USA it's actually really hard to incite violence in the eyes of the law. For example, when it comes to USA laws, Trump almost definitely did not incite violence. But lots of people would disagree with the statement that he didn't incite violence.
      - asxd 6y ago
        Sure, it's up to interpretation, but I think we're fooling ourselves a bit to say he didn't incite violence. People raided the capitol on his behalf. His rhetoric must have had something to do with that.
        bcrosby95 6y ago
        I think morally he did. And he should be impeached for both that and his inaction in response to that. But the statement was "inciting violence is illegal". Which involves the law. That's a different question.
        nobody9999 6y ago
        >I think morally he did. And he should be impeached for both that and his inaction in response to that. And an impeachment trial is not an Article III court. Nor is it intended to be. It is inherently a political proceeding and not a criminal trial. As such, ethics and morals are certainly at issue and the rules of Article III courts are not relevant. Nor did the founders intend[0][1] them to be criminal trials. Which is why someone who is impeached and convicted is not immune from criminal prosecution in an Article III court. [0] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp [1] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed66.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed66.asp
  - vharuck 6y ago
    >This was fine with iOS & play store & AWS until they all simultaneously and independently (wink wink) realized it violated their terms of use. The timing seems more likely due to a major public event than a backroom coordination.
    - lesstenseflow 6y ago
      I agree. There are people on here seeming to argue that parler was booted “because of TOS violations” which they clearly were not. The winds changed direction and it became expedient to boot them, TOS rules don’t enter into the equation. But the platforms aren’t being honest about this – they’re claiming that it was about terms of use violations. I’m saying “stop pretending like this argument from the platform makes any sense and let’s have a real discussion about the ramifications of banning groups from a platform when they become political unpopular.”
      - watwut 6y ago
        They are not dishonest, this is just bad faith argument. Platforms were not passive regarding Parler for long time trying to make them comply with TOS. It is not true that they would ignore issue before. And the real world violence significantly raised the stakes - both legal and practical.
- dfxm12 6y ago
  That was their marketing, yes, but, as happens from time to time, the marketing was not truthful. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-predicted-parler-is-banning-users-it-doesnt-like.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-pr...
jf22 6y ago
Your first sentence says "please don't spread false information." Later you say: "My intel may be false"
- ctrlp 6y ago
  It is false that parler doesn't moderate its content. The details of their deplatforming are coming to light and subject to change. My intel may be false about those details so as a courtesy to you I called that out. What's the confusion?
  - jf22 6y ago
    I'm not confused. It's just curious to tell people to not spread false information and then admit you may be spreading false information.
    - ctrlp 6y ago
      I apologize if English isn't your native language but it is a simple fact satisfied with the simplest google search that Parler does moderate its content. Therefore it is false to say they do not. Please don't spread "known false" information. Pretty simple. What follows my caveat is supported by evidence and testimony. If the testimony was false, then my intel may not be reliable. I don't believe that to be true but I'm not infallible. What follows my intel is my opinion. My opinion is based on more than what happened to Parler. I'm sure I could have made that clearer. Maybe I should have put line breaks in to help people who have trouble parsing arguments in prose.
      - jf22 6y ago
        My English is good enough to understand your reply is thinly veiled insults without any substance.
enumjorge 6y ago
> There was not a peep about their content until from their reps until 1/6. Was it the riot or the senate flipping? Sounds like you answered your own question. Tech companies were lenient on hosting a questionable community, until members of that community tried to overthrow the government. For all the moderation the Parler admins allegedly did, it was an open secret that it was the hang out spot for right-wing extremists. Yet Parler was allowed to stay afloat until it became clear that doing so became an issue of national security. The riots happened. The cause and effect here are pretty clear. The Parler community did this to itself.
- ctrlp 6y ago
  Have you have spent time in parler and can speak to its content? Or are you just amplifying other people's opinions? It is trivial to cherry pick content from Twitter or Facebook that would be outrageous to decent people.
  - stevenwoo 6y ago
    Someone published an investigative report on 1/5 about different social media, the calls to violence were worst in his opinion on Parler https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2021/01/05/how-the-insurgent-and-maga-right-are-being-welded-together-on-the-streets-of-washington-d-c/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2021/01/05/how-the-...
    - ctrlp 6y ago
      I like and read bellingcat, but, if we're being honest, it is not a neutral source of information.
      - eclipxe 6y ago
        Yes it is.
      - Fnoord 6y ago
        > if we're being honest ... > it is not a neutral source of information Why not?
kingaillas 6y ago
>There was not a peep about their content until from their reps until 1/6 According to Amazon's response to Parler's lawsuit, they were warned for months about their content. https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664.13.4.pdf https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664... There is a handy summary of this on Ars Technica as well. That article also says Parler was relying on volunteer moderation to clear their backlog of over 26000 posts.
- waheoo 6y ago
  So they did moderate but not to your standard? Or they were completely hands off? Which is it? Goalpost one or two?
- IncRnd 6y ago
  The link you posted to courtlistener.com shows that Parler responded within two days to Amazon's request and apologized it took them a long time. You wrote that Amazon warned Parler about their content, but that's not what your link shows. It shows that Amazon asked a question about policies regarding specific posts, and Parler answered with their policies.
  - imnotlost 6y ago
    This is what AWS said in their letter to Parler before cutting them off. It sounds reasonable enough to me https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/read-amazons-letter-to-social-networking-app-parler-on-its-removal/articleshow/80206778.cms https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/read-amazons-letter-to-...
    - IncRnd 6y ago
      Thanks!
  - arp242 6y ago
    Full story: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/filing-amazon-warned-parler-for-months-about-more-than-100-violent-threats/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/filing-amazon-wa... Also note that it wasn't removed. I'm not even going to repeat that post here, but absolutely no platform would keep this online if reported, so "very similar terms of service to other content companies" as someone up this thread claimed isn't exactly true.
fsociety 6y ago
Links for reference? When the CEO spoke with Kara he said that they have groups of five random individuals on platform moderating each decision. That’s a filter bubble style of moderation and poor compared to Facebook/Twitter’s efforts for moderation. The CEO also made it sound like they ignore context and instead only respond to direct threats of violence, allowing vague remarks on platform.
- Aunche 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler#Moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler#Moderation > In January 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported that Parler had increased its moderation team to 600 people, and began paying them. They also had begun hiring full-time employees to moderate the service. It may be that Parler did too little too late, but I find it concerning that most mainstream news outlets are failing to report this.
  - astura 6y ago
    What did they moderate though? I mean, was their standing orders to delete posts that advocate violence? Or were they just to ban people who criticize Donald Trump? My overall question is was there an actual effort to come into lines with Google/Apple/AWS TOS? Just because they had moderators doesn't mean they were making an effort to remove the sorts of posts that got them banned.
    - Aunche 6y ago
      I don't have WSJ, so I'm not sure: https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-struggles-survival-amazon-lawsuit-trump-fans-11610414745 https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-struggles-survival-amazo... Chance's are, they're probably not paying people to ban political content, since they can get their users to do that for free.
  - brown9-2 6y ago
    and did they begin that hiring before or after AWS shut them off? the WSJ article is dated January 11 2021.
jsjohnst 6y ago
> They worked happily with their reps at Apple, Google, and AWS right up until the Friday Night Massacre. Source? That’s the exact opposite of everything I’ve seen, including the CEO’s own public messages.
brown9-2 6y ago
I don't think that Parler removing violence-encouraging posts after Apple, Google, and AWS reported it to them is the argument that you think it is. It seems to show that their moderation was lax or non-existent, if AWS finding violent content is what it took for Parler to remove it.
trianglem 6y ago
Absolutely misleading. They were warned many times and took no action.
notahacker 6y ago
Parler's entire marketing schtick was that it was a haven for 'free speech' that might get you banned or fact checked on other networks. Yes, in practice its pretensions to "free speech" were pure pretence and there was a list of things Parler would delete and ban you for, like posting pictures of shit, as well as things it wouldn't, like comparing other races to shit. But having based its entire marketing around its terms of service being unlike other providers, with a particular emphasis on its greater level of tolerance for certain forms of political extremism, with predictable consequences for the community, it's obviously not in a position to use the "but we're no different from Twitter" defence
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >Parler's entire marketing schtick was that it was a haven for 'free speech' that might get you banned or fact checked on other networks. Note that "free speech" in the US is far from absolute. And there is some speech that, if Parler (or anyone else) doesn't remove it, they can be subject to criminal (e.g., child porn, setting up drug deals, etc.) and/or civil (copyright violations) litigation. As such, anyone who claims they don't moderate is probably lying, unless they want to go to jail, get sued into oblivion or both.
nonfamous 6y ago
In the interview with Kara Swisher, the Parler CEO said explicitly that Parler does not have paid moderators, but instead uses 5-person “juries” recruited from the user base to adjudicate content.
shlant 6y ago
> "There was not a peep about their content until from their reps until 1/6" as per articles linked below, you are wrong: "Amazon's filing included copies of emails it sent to Parler in mid-November" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/filing-amazon-warned-parler-for-months-about-more-than-100-violent-threats/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/filing-amazon-wa... You have not provided any evidence to back up your claims, however.

by ctrlp 6y ago

asxd 6y ago

I won't pretend to be close to the matter, but my understanding was Parler's value proposition to users was that they wouldn't moderate as heavily?

lesstenseflow 6y ago
There's a lot of space between "what violates the law" (or explicit ios/play store Terms of Use for that matter) and "what will get you kicked off twitter" and I believe Parler operated in that space. Users could post stuff that would get them booted off twitter, but that was legal speech. This was fine with iOS & play store & AWS until they all simultaneously and independently (wink wink) realized it violated their terms of use. Unless we grant that this had nothing to do with newly discovered terms of use violations, it was crushing Parler in reaction to a change in the political winds (read: this is what happened).
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > Users could post stuff that would get them booted off twitter, but that was legal speech I'm curious what kind of posts would definitely fall into this distinction. I see plenty of really distasteful, vile comments show up on Twitter. And AFAIK inciting violence is illegal. So the area between those seems to me like it would be pretty narrow. My impression of Parler is more that they only deleted illegal speech of a particularly egregious nature, e.g. child porn.
  - cbozeman 6y ago
    Misgendering a transperson intentionally. That might make you an asshole, but it isn't violent, and it isn't illegal. This is what happened to that journalist from a year or two ago, who is a registered Democrat, feminist, etc.. Specifically she was talking about that transperson from Canada who wanted his - sorry, her - balls waxed.
  - bcrosby95 6y ago
    > And AFAIK inciting violence is illegal. Sure, but in the USA it's actually really hard to incite violence in the eyes of the law. For example, when it comes to USA laws, Trump almost definitely did not incite violence. But lots of people would disagree with the statement that he didn't incite violence.
    - asxd 6y ago
      Sure, it's up to interpretation, but I think we're fooling ourselves a bit to say he didn't incite violence. People raided the capitol on his behalf. His rhetoric must have had something to do with that.
      - bcrosby95 6y ago
        I think morally he did. And he should be impeached for both that and his inaction in response to that. But the statement was "inciting violence is illegal". Which involves the law. That's a different question.
        nobody9999 6y ago
        >I think morally he did. And he should be impeached for both that and his inaction in response to that. And an impeachment trial is not an Article III court. Nor is it intended to be. It is inherently a political proceeding and not a criminal trial. As such, ethics and morals are certainly at issue and the rules of Article III courts are not relevant. Nor did the founders intend[0][1] them to be criminal trials. Which is why someone who is impeached and convicted is not immune from criminal prosecution in an Article III court. [0] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed65.asp [1] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed66.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed66.asp
- vharuck 6y ago
  >This was fine with iOS & play store & AWS until they all simultaneously and independently (wink wink) realized it violated their terms of use. The timing seems more likely due to a major public event than a backroom coordination.
  - lesstenseflow 6y ago
    I agree. There are people on here seeming to argue that parler was booted “because of TOS violations” which they clearly were not. The winds changed direction and it became expedient to boot them, TOS rules don’t enter into the equation. But the platforms aren’t being honest about this – they’re claiming that it was about terms of use violations. I’m saying “stop pretending like this argument from the platform makes any sense and let’s have a real discussion about the ramifications of banning groups from a platform when they become political unpopular.”
    - watwut 6y ago
      They are not dishonest, this is just bad faith argument. Platforms were not passive regarding Parler for long time trying to make them comply with TOS. It is not true that they would ignore issue before. And the real world violence significantly raised the stakes - both legal and practical.
dfxm12 6y ago
That was their marketing, yes, but, as happens from time to time, the marketing was not truthful. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-predicted-parler-is-banning-users-it-doesnt-like.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-pr...

jf22 6y ago

Your first sentence says "please don't spread false information." Later you say: "My intel may be false"

ctrlp 6y ago
It is false that parler doesn't moderate its content. The details of their deplatforming are coming to light and subject to change. My intel may be false about those details so as a courtesy to you I called that out. What's the confusion?
- jf22 6y ago
  I'm not confused. It's just curious to tell people to not spread false information and then admit you may be spreading false information.
  - ctrlp 6y ago
    I apologize if English isn't your native language but it is a simple fact satisfied with the simplest google search that Parler does moderate its content. Therefore it is false to say they do not. Please don't spread "known false" information. Pretty simple. What follows my caveat is supported by evidence and testimony. If the testimony was false, then my intel may not be reliable. I don't believe that to be true but I'm not infallible. What follows my intel is my opinion. My opinion is based on more than what happened to Parler. I'm sure I could have made that clearer. Maybe I should have put line breaks in to help people who have trouble parsing arguments in prose.
    - jf22 6y ago
      My English is good enough to understand your reply is thinly veiled insults without any substance.

enumjorge 6y ago

> There was not a peep about their content until from their reps until 1/6. Was it the riot or the senate flipping? Sounds like you answered your own question. Tech companies were lenient on hosting a questionable community, until members of that community tried to overthrow the government. For all the moderation the Parler admins allegedly did, it was an open secret that it was the hang out spot for right-wing extremists. Yet Parler was allowed to stay afloat until it became clear that doing so became an issue of national security. The riots happened. The cause and effect here are pretty clear. The Parler community did this to itself.

ctrlp 6y ago
Have you have spent time in parler and can speak to its content? Or are you just amplifying other people's opinions? It is trivial to cherry pick content from Twitter or Facebook that would be outrageous to decent people.
- stevenwoo 6y ago
  Someone published an investigative report on 1/5 about different social media, the calls to violence were worst in his opinion on Parler https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2021/01/05/how-the-insurgent-and-maga-right-are-being-welded-together-on-the-streets-of-washington-d-c/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2021/01/05/how-the-...
  - ctrlp 6y ago
    I like and read bellingcat, but, if we're being honest, it is not a neutral source of information.
    - eclipxe 6y ago
      Yes it is.
    - Fnoord 6y ago
      > if we're being honest ... > it is not a neutral source of information Why not?

kingaillas 6y ago

>There was not a peep about their content until from their reps until 1/6 According to Amazon's response to Parler's lawsuit, they were warned for months about their content. https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664.13.4.pdf https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.294664... There is a handy summary of this on Ars Technica as well. That article also says Parler was relying on volunteer moderation to clear their backlog of over 26000 posts.

waheoo 6y ago
So they did moderate but not to your standard? Or they were completely hands off? Which is it? Goalpost one or two?
IncRnd 6y ago
The link you posted to courtlistener.com shows that Parler responded within two days to Amazon's request and apologized it took them a long time. You wrote that Amazon warned Parler about their content, but that's not what your link shows. It shows that Amazon asked a question about policies regarding specific posts, and Parler answered with their policies.
- imnotlost 6y ago
  This is what AWS said in their letter to Parler before cutting them off. It sounds reasonable enough to me https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/read-amazons-letter-to-social-networking-app-parler-on-its-removal/articleshow/80206778.cms https://www.gadgetsnow.com/tech-news/read-amazons-letter-to-...
  - IncRnd 6y ago
    Thanks!
- arp242 6y ago
  Full story: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/filing-amazon-warned-parler-for-months-about-more-than-100-violent-threats/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/filing-amazon-wa... Also note that it wasn't removed. I'm not even going to repeat that post here, but absolutely no platform would keep this online if reported, so "very similar terms of service to other content companies" as someone up this thread claimed isn't exactly true.

fsociety 6y ago

Links for reference? When the CEO spoke with Kara he said that they have groups of five random individuals on platform moderating each decision. That’s a filter bubble style of moderation and poor compared to Facebook/Twitter’s efforts for moderation. The CEO also made it sound like they ignore context and instead only respond to direct threats of violence, allowing vague remarks on platform.

Aunche 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler#Moderation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler#Moderation > In January 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported that Parler had increased its moderation team to 600 people, and began paying them. They also had begun hiring full-time employees to moderate the service. It may be that Parler did too little too late, but I find it concerning that most mainstream news outlets are failing to report this.
- astura 6y ago
  What did they moderate though? I mean, was their standing orders to delete posts that advocate violence? Or were they just to ban people who criticize Donald Trump? My overall question is was there an actual effort to come into lines with Google/Apple/AWS TOS? Just because they had moderators doesn't mean they were making an effort to remove the sorts of posts that got them banned.
  - Aunche 6y ago
    I don't have WSJ, so I'm not sure: https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-struggles-survival-amazon-lawsuit-trump-fans-11610414745 https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-struggles-survival-amazo... Chance's are, they're probably not paying people to ban political content, since they can get their users to do that for free.
- brown9-2 6y ago
  and did they begin that hiring before or after AWS shut them off? the WSJ article is dated January 11 2021.

jsjohnst 6y ago

> They worked happily with their reps at Apple, Google, and AWS right up until the Friday Night Massacre. Source? That’s the exact opposite of everything I’ve seen, including the CEO’s own public messages.

brown9-2 6y ago

I don't think that Parler removing violence-encouraging posts after Apple, Google, and AWS reported it to them is the argument that you think it is. It seems to show that their moderation was lax or non-existent, if AWS finding violent content is what it took for Parler to remove it.

trianglem 6y ago

Absolutely misleading. They were warned many times and took no action.

notahacker 6y ago

Parler's entire marketing schtick was that it was a haven for 'free speech' that might get you banned or fact checked on other networks. Yes, in practice its pretensions to "free speech" were pure pretence and there was a list of things Parler would delete and ban you for, like posting pictures of shit, as well as things it wouldn't, like comparing other races to shit. But having based its entire marketing around its terms of service being unlike other providers, with a particular emphasis on its greater level of tolerance for certain forms of political extremism, with predictable consequences for the community, it's obviously not in a position to use the "but we're no different from Twitter" defence

nobody9999 6y ago
>Parler's entire marketing schtick was that it was a haven for 'free speech' that might get you banned or fact checked on other networks. Note that "free speech" in the US is far from absolute. And there is some speech that, if Parler (or anyone else) doesn't remove it, they can be subject to criminal (e.g., child porn, setting up drug deals, etc.) and/or civil (copyright violations) litigation. As such, anyone who claims they don't moderate is probably lying, unless they want to go to jail, get sued into oblivion or both.

nonfamous 6y ago

In the interview with Kara Swisher, the Parler CEO said explicitly that Parler does not have paid moderators, but instead uses 5-person “juries” recruited from the user base to adjudicate content.

shlant 6y ago

> "There was not a peep about their content until from their reps until 1/6" as per articles linked below, you are wrong: "Amazon's filing included copies of emails it sent to Parler in mid-November" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/filing-amazon-warned-parler-for-months-about-more-than-100-violent-threats/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/filing-amazon-wa... You have not provided any evidence to back up your claims, however.