5 ms·

If you listen to Parler's CEO arguing about being shut down[0] (interview with Megyn Kelly), he was saying that their tech rep at Amazon gave no hints that they

by kyrra 6y ago

If you listen to Parler's CEO arguing about being shut down[0] (interview with Megyn Kelly), he was saying that their tech rep at Amazon gave no hints that they were in danger of being shut down. It sounded like they were doing a decent job and they tried to remedy Amazon's issues, but Amazon wanted nothing to do with them anymore. EDIT: to add, this is just his take. There is obviously 2-sides to the story, so hard to know the full truth here. [0] https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdGhlbWVneW5rZWxseXNob3c/episode/Mjg2MDhjYjAtNTU1Yy0xMWViLWJhNzUtZjc4YjhlZWZiNjA0?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwio8Lbo_q3uAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGh...

minikites 6y ago
What leads you to believe the Parler CEO is a reliable narrator?
- kyrra 6y ago
  100% agree, he has a reason to paint a certain narrative. (I added my edit before you replied I think). Either way, without knowing the full picture from both sides (like a court case going through discovering to fully put out the communciations between Amazon and Parler), we don't know the answer. We see that Amazon canceled Parler with little external communication. And we see what Parler is saying. Amazon could share what they communicated with Parler (assuming they legally can), then we could see another side to this story. It would be nice for this court case to go through discovery, then we'll know who said what and when. But until then, we have very imperfect data and have to weigh it as best we can.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    I've seen a copy of an email exchange between Amazon and Parler from Nov/Dec (which is difficult to Google for at the moment) which was shared publicly. Amazon bring up some examples of posts that concern them. Parler say they will look at the post that constitute actual threats but have a policy of not removing content like the post that's just a long, content free screed of racial abuse. That alone can easily be considered violation of Amazon's conveniently broad AUP. Amazon appear not to have chosen to terminate or threaten to at the time, presumably on the basis they were getting plenty of money and relatively little grief for hosting them, but it puts a very different perspective on the idea that Parler was caught completely by surprise, and would have cleaned up everything they could if only they'd had more time and resources.
    - Terretta 6y ago
      Note that Parler’s very first reply to AWS defends hate speech and misunderstands the first amendment: > The first example, as hateful as it is, would not be deemed a violation of our terms of service. Following Nadine Strossen (New York Law School, ACLU), Parler does not ban "hate speech" insofar as it would be protected by the First Amendment. By the time of the filing, Parler realized this was mistaken on both counts. As noted in the judge’s denial: > “Parler is not asserting a violation of any First Amendment rights, which exist only against a governmental entity, and not against a private company like AWS. And indeed, Parler has not disputed that at least some of the abusive and violent posts that gave rise to the issues in this case violate AWS’s Acceptable Use Policy.” Just to underline that first sentence, for end users on Parler, or Twitter, or AWS, “First Amendment rights” are not a thing.
  - DonHopkins 6y ago
    Since he cultivates and tolerates a customer base of Trump supporters, Q-Anon followers, virulent racists, gun nuts, virginal misogynists, frustrated incels, white supremacists, violent seditionists, death threateners, and Twitter rejects, then what reason do you have to believe that he doesn't lie as freely and easily and file as frivolous lawsuits as Trump himself does? What has he ever done to earn so much benefit of the doubt that you're heaping on him, against all the hard evidence we can already see with our own eyes? Parler Users Breached Deep Inside U.S. Capitol Building, GPS Data Shows https://gizmodo.com/parler-users-breached-deep-inside-u-s-capitol-building-1846042905 https://gizmodo.com/parler-users-breached-deep-inside-u-s-ca...
    - aokiji 6y ago
      How much do you get paid to spin things on Hacker News?
  - Terretta 6y ago
    They shared it, in their court filing on 12 January: 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... “In mid-November 2020, AWS received reports that Parler was hosting content threatening violence, in breach of the agreement. Executive 2 Decl. ¶ 4. On November 17, 2020, seeking to better understand Parler’s approach to content moderation, AWS provided Parler two representative examples, asked whether “this type of content ... violate[s] [Parler’s] policies,” and asked for “more detailed information on [Parler’s] policies and processes for handling and mitigating” such content. Id. & Ex. D. Two days later, Parler responded that it had referred one of the examples to its “regular contact for investigation.” Id. Ex. D. Over the next seven weeks, AWS reported more than 100 additional representative pieces of content advocating violence to Parler’s Chief Policy Officer, including...” And some emails, from the Exhibits: 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...
    - kyrra 6y ago
      I'd be interested to know their response time to remove the content. And how that compares with other social media players. As well, these are just responses, not actually discovery. I'd be interested exact timelines of things and how emails played out within Parler and within Amazon. Amazon's response is just their take on it trying to justify their own actions.
duskwuff 6y ago
> he was saying that their tech rep at Amazon gave no hints that they were in danger of being shut down And I wouldn't expect them to do so! They're a tech rep, not a legal rep.
- echelon 6y ago
  So deplatforming by surprise is okay? Facebook and Twitter don't own their data centers. If the DCs responded to the same pressure about hosting illegal content, the social media giants would disappear too. Edit: the downvotes and rate limits are about to push me away from HN for good. This is ridiculous. My platform is anti-fascism. I'm tired of people on both sides trying to shut down the other side.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > Facebook and Twitter don't own their data centers. Facebook certainly owns quite a few. https://www.facebook.com/careers/life/facebook-infrastructure-inside-data-center-strategy-and-development https://www.facebook.com/careers/life/facebook-infrastructur... They lease some, but some are definitely custom built just for them: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/facebook/facebook-plans-huge-expansion-already-massive-georgia-data-center https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/facebook/facebook-plans-...
  - duskwuff 6y ago
    No, literally all I'm saying is that a technical support liason at AWS is not going to be in a position to discuss legal issues regarding the customer's account. It's not their job. If AWS operates similarly to most other companies I've worked with, technical support staff are strictly forbidden from discussing legal issues -- that's the responsibility of the legal department.
  - takeda 6y ago
    > Facebook and Twitter don't own their data centers. If the DCs responded to the same pressure about hosting illegal content, the social media giants would disappear too. Not true, they do have own data centers.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Parler's CEO claims were debunked by Amazon, which provided evidence that they warned Parler for months across multiple multiple violations: 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...
- disgrunt 6y ago
  Your source for "debunking" has a clear conflict of interest, no?
  - phire 6y ago
    The source is a legal document that amazon would be guilty of perjury for falsifying.
- SuoDuanDao 6y ago
  Anyone who used the term 'debunk' is hella sus.

by kyrra 6y ago

minikites 6y ago

What leads you to believe the Parler CEO is a reliable narrator?

kyrra 6y ago
100% agree, he has a reason to paint a certain narrative. (I added my edit before you replied I think). Either way, without knowing the full picture from both sides (like a court case going through discovering to fully put out the communciations between Amazon and Parler), we don't know the answer. We see that Amazon canceled Parler with little external communication. And we see what Parler is saying. Amazon could share what they communicated with Parler (assuming they legally can), then we could see another side to this story. It would be nice for this court case to go through discovery, then we'll know who said what and when. But until then, we have very imperfect data and have to weigh it as best we can.
- notahacker 6y ago
  I've seen a copy of an email exchange between Amazon and Parler from Nov/Dec (which is difficult to Google for at the moment) which was shared publicly. Amazon bring up some examples of posts that concern them. Parler say they will look at the post that constitute actual threats but have a policy of not removing content like the post that's just a long, content free screed of racial abuse. That alone can easily be considered violation of Amazon's conveniently broad AUP. Amazon appear not to have chosen to terminate or threaten to at the time, presumably on the basis they were getting plenty of money and relatively little grief for hosting them, but it puts a very different perspective on the idea that Parler was caught completely by surprise, and would have cleaned up everything they could if only they'd had more time and resources.
  - Terretta 6y ago
    Note that Parler’s very first reply to AWS defends hate speech and misunderstands the first amendment: > The first example, as hateful as it is, would not be deemed a violation of our terms of service. Following Nadine Strossen (New York Law School, ACLU), Parler does not ban "hate speech" insofar as it would be protected by the First Amendment. By the time of the filing, Parler realized this was mistaken on both counts. As noted in the judge’s denial: > “Parler is not asserting a violation of any First Amendment rights, which exist only against a governmental entity, and not against a private company like AWS. And indeed, Parler has not disputed that at least some of the abusive and violent posts that gave rise to the issues in this case violate AWS’s Acceptable Use Policy.” Just to underline that first sentence, for end users on Parler, or Twitter, or AWS, “First Amendment rights” are not a thing.
- DonHopkins 6y ago
  Since he cultivates and tolerates a customer base of Trump supporters, Q-Anon followers, virulent racists, gun nuts, virginal misogynists, frustrated incels, white supremacists, violent seditionists, death threateners, and Twitter rejects, then what reason do you have to believe that he doesn't lie as freely and easily and file as frivolous lawsuits as Trump himself does? What has he ever done to earn so much benefit of the doubt that you're heaping on him, against all the hard evidence we can already see with our own eyes? Parler Users Breached Deep Inside U.S. Capitol Building, GPS Data Shows https://gizmodo.com/parler-users-breached-deep-inside-u-s-capitol-building-1846042905 https://gizmodo.com/parler-users-breached-deep-inside-u-s-ca...
  - aokiji 6y ago
    How much do you get paid to spin things on Hacker News?
- Terretta 6y ago
  They shared it, in their court filing on 12 January: 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... “In mid-November 2020, AWS received reports that Parler was hosting content threatening violence, in breach of the agreement. Executive 2 Decl. ¶ 4. On November 17, 2020, seeking to better understand Parler’s approach to content moderation, AWS provided Parler two representative examples, asked whether “this type of content ... violate[s] [Parler’s] policies,” and asked for “more detailed information on [Parler’s] policies and processes for handling and mitigating” such content. Id. & Ex. D. Two days later, Parler responded that it had referred one of the examples to its “regular contact for investigation.” Id. Ex. D. Over the next seven weeks, AWS reported more than 100 additional representative pieces of content advocating violence to Parler’s Chief Policy Officer, including...” And some emails, from the Exhibits: 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...
  - kyrra 6y ago
    I'd be interested to know their response time to remove the content. And how that compares with other social media players. As well, these are just responses, not actually discovery. I'd be interested exact timelines of things and how emails played out within Parler and within Amazon. Amazon's response is just their take on it trying to justify their own actions.

duskwuff 6y ago

> he was saying that their tech rep at Amazon gave no hints that they were in danger of being shut down And I wouldn't expect them to do so! They're a tech rep, not a legal rep.

echelon 6y ago
So deplatforming by surprise is okay? Facebook and Twitter don't own their data centers. If the DCs responded to the same pressure about hosting illegal content, the social media giants would disappear too. Edit: the downvotes and rate limits are about to push me away from HN for good. This is ridiculous. My platform is anti-fascism. I'm tired of people on both sides trying to shut down the other side.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > Facebook and Twitter don't own their data centers. Facebook certainly owns quite a few. https://www.facebook.com/careers/life/facebook-infrastructure-inside-data-center-strategy-and-development https://www.facebook.com/careers/life/facebook-infrastructur... They lease some, but some are definitely custom built just for them: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/facebook/facebook-plans-huge-expansion-already-massive-georgia-data-center https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/facebook/facebook-plans-...
- duskwuff 6y ago
  No, literally all I'm saying is that a technical support liason at AWS is not going to be in a position to discuss legal issues regarding the customer's account. It's not their job. If AWS operates similarly to most other companies I've worked with, technical support staff are strictly forbidden from discussing legal issues -- that's the responsibility of the legal department.
- takeda 6y ago
  > Facebook and Twitter don't own their data centers. If the DCs responded to the same pressure about hosting illegal content, the social media giants would disappear too. Not true, they do have own data centers.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

Parler's CEO claims were debunked by Amazon, which provided evidence that they warned Parler for months across multiple multiple violations: 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...

disgrunt 6y ago
Your source for "debunking" has a clear conflict of interest, no?
- phire 6y ago
  The source is a legal document that amazon would be guilty of perjury for falsifying.
SuoDuanDao 6y ago
Anyone who used the term 'debunk' is hella sus.