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As someone who does deeply believe in and care about free speech (from all parties), I could not be in deeper agreement with you. (for non-native English speake

As someone who does deeply believe in and care about free speech (from all parties), I could not be in deeper agreement with you. (for non-native English speakers: I fully agree). Parler should not have been de-platformed. That was a clearly partisan act, and the truth would have come out shortly about the company's total lack of care for its users. Say what you will about Gab, but they never pulled any of those stunts. Looking forward to whatever the new solution is.

riffic 6y ago
> Parler should not have been de-platformed You obviously did not see the material that the company allowed to be posted on their services in contravention to their hosting provider's terms of services. Always abide by your host's AUP. Otherwise, you can get yeeted.
- mansion7 6y ago
  Twitter uses AWS like Parler did. We've seen many, many calls to assassinate the previous president stand on Twitter, for years. We've seen actual calls for purges, political violence, and mass execution of Trump supporters on Twitter, also for years. We've seen planning of Antifa rioting, including how to hide oneself from police, raise money for the culprits, destroy property, create flammable materials for the purpose of arson, etc. This appears to be selective enforcement.
- skynet-9000 6y ago
  > You obviously did not see the material that the company allowed to be posted on their services in contravention to their hosting provider's terms of services. Always abide by your host's AUP. AWS AUP: "You may not use.. or instruct others to use, the Services.. for any.. offensive use" "Offensive"? That word is so vague as to be meaningless. This turns into a dangerously simple attack. Just post something you know will offend someone. Et viola: you just killed a company. It's a lot cheaper and easier (and less likely to involve swat teams) than hiring some sketchy DDoS outfit.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    AWS provided multiple times over evidence of violent content that was against their policies and asked Parler to step up moderation, which didn't happen. AWS arguments: https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349200096345296897?s=20 https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349200096345296897?s=20 > Parler itself has admitted it has a backlog of 26,000 reports of content that violates its (minimal) community standards that it had not yet reviewed https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349203942614335488?s=20 https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349203942614335488?s=20 > When I said Amazon cited many vile and violent examples of posts that it flagged for Parler, I meant it. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErlVjN7U0AEr1gt?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErlVjN7U0AEr1gt?format=jpg&name=... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErlVjPBVEAEs9sg?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErlVjPBVEAEs9sg?format=jpg&name=... https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349202898459115520?s=20 https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349202898459115520?s=20 > Such a requirement also poses a risk to Amazon itself, with posts calling for others to "burn down Amazon delivery trucks" until they "reverse course."
    - echelon 6y ago
      I wonder whose side the FSF would take. Amazon shouldn't be making these decisions, and certainly not without giving the other party ample time to make other arrangements. This should have been litigated in court prior to taking deplatforming actions. Imagine if Amazon was a Chinese company and Parler hosted information about the plight of the Uyghur people. Community websites have the right to enforce rules. I'm not so sure common carriers do, and AWS is a common carrier. A good rule of thumb for American hosting companies is if the FBI won't seize the website for the content hosted therein, the website shouldn't be removed. For context, I'm a liberal and dislike the content on Parler. Defending free speech is more important than zapping the republicans. Imagine if the tables were flipped and talking about abortion was what conservatives wanted to ban.
      - judge2020 6y ago
        > Amazon shouldn't be making these decisions, and certainly not without giving the other party ample time to make other arrangements Amazon is still working with Parler to export their data off of AWS. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-parler-aws#126285512:~:text=We%20will%20ensure%20that%20all%20of,we%20can%20to%20help%20your%20migration https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-p... > We will ensure that all of your data is preserved for you to migrate to your own servers, and will work with you as best as we can to help your migration
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
randallsquared 6y ago
> the truth would have come out shortly about the company's total lack of care for its users The truth had come out, hadn't it? Even before the 2020 election, people had been mocking the network for arbitrary post removal and the requirement to show official IDs for at least some features.
wsatb 6y ago
Parler was never a "free speech" platform. This was always a lie, they heavily moderated their content. I've always felt like Parler was just a lazy attempt to make some cash by pulling some users away from Twitter claiming they could do what they want, it was never more or less than that. I'm interested in knowing how you think a real "free speech" platform can actually work, however. We have message boards that do this and they are just toxic cesspools. The idea of an online "public square" that isn't that sounds impossible. How many public squares are reaching millions of people instantly?
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  Precisely - the CEO literally hung out on Discord servers hunting for people to ban on Parler.
  - theptip 6y ago
    I hadn’t heard this one, and can’t find anything about this - can you give some links/pointers to this story so I can learn more about this please?
    - FireBeyond 6y ago
      https://imgur.com/WaAMEyn https://imgur.com/WaAMEyn
- portpecos 6y ago
  >Parler was never a "free speech" platform. This was always a lie, they heavily moderated their content. I assume you’re just spreading what you’ve read in liberal news about Parler, without having used the app yourself. Because the reality is, if the users didn’t like the post or comment, they simply downvoted it until it was buried. Even r/politics and HN does the same thing with their downvote option. If multiple users flag a post, then it went into Parler’s review, just-like-Hacker-News.
  - Osiris 6y ago
beaner 6y ago
The solution clearly is that speech should be restricted, or even better, that you should not be allowed to have thoughts that are in conflict with the intolerant parts of today's zeitgeist.
seventytwo 6y ago
Sorry, but you don’t just get to incubate insurrection without facing societal consequences. You have free speech, but zero freedom from consequence.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  >You have free speech, but zero freedom from consequence. That's about the most Orwellian meme that is making the rounds and needs to be examined critically. Freedom to do a thing implies protection from consequence, or you're not free. Also there were articles on HN about how the Capitol riots were organized on Facebook.
  - CathedralBorrow 6y ago
    > Freedom to do a thing implies protection from consequence, or you're not free. This is a wild take on freedom. Do you seriously believe that free speech means that you should be able to say anything and be protected from any and all consequences?
    - mancerayder 6y ago
      I'm not sure what "any and all" means, but it certainly protects you physically and that implies that you get protection from criminal violence and harassment, and certainly should. No? It's so vague, these one-liners, that we're talking past one another. Surely you don't think you should be able to doxx or punch someone in the face that has extremist views?
      - CathedralBorrow 6y ago
        > Surely you don't think you should be able to doxx or punch someone in the face that has extremist views? How could you possibly believe this in good faith? Consequences can also be, for example, people expressing their distaste in your speech and choosing to boycott your products if you're a business. You said protection from consequences, not protection from criminal violence and harassment. If you meant protection from criminal violence and harassment, you should have said protection from criminal violence and harassment.
ramraj07 6y ago
If you keep insisting parler as a bastion of free speech then there's not much to argue with you. It was a clearly partisan highly censored place where anything other than right wing commentary was not tolerated. If signal gets deplatformed get your pitchforks. Till then I'm not worried. Also regarding the slippery slope, let it slide. If this is how we start regulating cloud services as utilities then so be it.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  > It was a clearly partisan highly censored place where anything other than right wing commentary was not tolerated. This is just false. Did you have an account there?
  - ramraj07 6y ago
    Do you? Please share. Will love to see what things you have said that ostensibly should have been censored but weren't.
pvg 6y ago
That was a clearly partisan act Asking a customer to stick to the rules they agreed to and eventually ending the business relationship when the customer chooses not to is hardly a 'partisan act'. Parler could have just done what AWS asked (even temporarily, to keep themselves online while looking for alternatives). They didn't.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- AnHonestComment 6y ago
  What, specifically, did AWS ask them to do that they could have done? From outside appearances, it seems they were given non-specific demands to remedy problems that Twitter has in greater magnitude (eg, Twitter being sued for their hosting of child porn, unremedied). Picking and choosing how to enforce rules based on political sentiments is a “partisan act”.
- someguydave 6y ago
  AWS also did not give Parler any time to cure their problems after making it clear that they wanted to terminate the contract for problematic content.
  - throwaway19937 6y ago
    According to https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/29095511/13/parler-llc-v-amazon-web-services-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/29095511/13/parler-llc-... it took several months of moderation problems before AWS dropped Parler as a client.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      Not only that, but Parler ran directly afoul of contract provisions they agreed to that specifically gave AWS the right to terminate without notice. People making these arguments about Parler's relationship with AWS don't seem to have actually read the AWS terms.
    - 6y ago
gregmac 6y ago
> Parler should not have been de-platformed With this statement you are implying one of two things: * You are very unhappy with AWS for de-platforming them * You think AWS should not have been allowed to do so If it's the first one, well, you are free to treat that however you like. Stop using AWS yourself, especially if you now fear AWS will do this to you. Don't do business with other companies that use AWS -- you can even block all AWS IPs at your firewall. Tell everyone how bad they are, and encourage others to boycott them too. If AWS continues to de-platform customers that don't seem to deserve it, this will get even easier over time. If it's the second one though, that raises all kinds of tricky issues. If you run anything that allows user content, and a user posts something that hurts you, are you now obligated to host it (leaving aside illegal content and the tricky jurisdiction issues that go with that)? What if other major customers or users start leaving because you're hosting said content -- are you just supposed to let your site/business effectively die? Are you also forbidden from raising the price to that harmful user to $1-trillion-per-month (since that effectively is a way to "de-platform" them), and if so, what is the maximum price you're allowed to charge and who figures that out?
- AnHonestComment 6y ago
  Telephones, mail, and electricity seem to operate just fine. Why would it be problematic is web hosting was treated as common civil infrastructure?
- jariel 6y ago
  If AT&T started banning any traffic: emails, websites etc. that 'talked poorly about AT&T' then it would be a breach of net neutrality, right? And totally unacceptable. Twitter and Partler are content platforms, AWS is not. They are an infrastructure, not a content company and there is a material difference. Ford, GM and Telsa collectively refusing to sell to XYZ customers for whatever reasons gets out of hand very quickly. 'You can just use another service' generally doesn't work as an argument in oligarchic situations. If AWS style services were as varied as grocery stores, maybe, but they are not.
dleslie 6y ago
If you stand for freedom of speech then you must stand for freedom of association; as "I stand with you" is a declaration of support. Speech isn't only vocal, it is all communication. Services that chose not to host Parler were exercising their freedom of association; they were _communicating_ that they did not wish to support Parler.

riffic 6y ago

> Parler should not have been de-platformed You obviously did not see the material that the company allowed to be posted on their services in contravention to their hosting provider's terms of services. Always abide by your host's AUP. Otherwise, you can get yeeted.

mansion7 6y ago
Twitter uses AWS like Parler did. We've seen many, many calls to assassinate the previous president stand on Twitter, for years. We've seen actual calls for purges, political violence, and mass execution of Trump supporters on Twitter, also for years. We've seen planning of Antifa rioting, including how to hide oneself from police, raise money for the culprits, destroy property, create flammable materials for the purpose of arson, etc. This appears to be selective enforcement.
skynet-9000 6y ago
> You obviously did not see the material that the company allowed to be posted on their services in contravention to their hosting provider's terms of services. Always abide by your host's AUP. AWS AUP: "You may not use.. or instruct others to use, the Services.. for any.. offensive use" "Offensive"? That word is so vague as to be meaningless. This turns into a dangerously simple attack. Just post something you know will offend someone. Et viola: you just killed a company. It's a lot cheaper and easier (and less likely to involve swat teams) than hiring some sketchy DDoS outfit.
- judge2020 6y ago
  AWS provided multiple times over evidence of violent content that was against their policies and asked Parler to step up moderation, which didn't happen. AWS arguments: https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349200096345296897?s=20 https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349200096345296897?s=20 > Parler itself has admitted it has a backlog of 26,000 reports of content that violates its (minimal) community standards that it had not yet reviewed https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349203942614335488?s=20 https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349203942614335488?s=20 > When I said Amazon cited many vile and violent examples of posts that it flagged for Parler, I meant it. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErlVjN7U0AEr1gt?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErlVjN7U0AEr1gt?format=jpg&name=... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErlVjPBVEAEs9sg?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErlVjPBVEAEs9sg?format=jpg&name=... https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349202898459115520?s=20 https://twitter.com/KYWeise/status/1349202898459115520?s=20 > Such a requirement also poses a risk to Amazon itself, with posts calling for others to "burn down Amazon delivery trucks" until they "reverse course."
  - echelon 6y ago
    I wonder whose side the FSF would take. Amazon shouldn't be making these decisions, and certainly not without giving the other party ample time to make other arrangements. This should have been litigated in court prior to taking deplatforming actions. Imagine if Amazon was a Chinese company and Parler hosted information about the plight of the Uyghur people. Community websites have the right to enforce rules. I'm not so sure common carriers do, and AWS is a common carrier. A good rule of thumb for American hosting companies is if the FBI won't seize the website for the content hosted therein, the website shouldn't be removed. For context, I'm a liberal and dislike the content on Parler. Defending free speech is more important than zapping the republicans. Imagine if the tables were flipped and talking about abortion was what conservatives wanted to ban.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      > Amazon shouldn't be making these decisions, and certainly not without giving the other party ample time to make other arrangements Amazon is still working with Parler to export their data off of AWS. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-parler-aws#126285512:~:text=We%20will%20ensure%20that%20all%20of,we%20can%20to%20help%20your%20migration https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johnpaczkowski/amazon-p... > We will ensure that all of your data is preserved for you to migrate to your own servers, and will work with you as best as we can to help your migration
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

randallsquared 6y ago

> the truth would have come out shortly about the company's total lack of care for its users The truth had come out, hadn't it? Even before the 2020 election, people had been mocking the network for arbitrary post removal and the requirement to show official IDs for at least some features.

wsatb 6y ago

Parler was never a "free speech" platform. This was always a lie, they heavily moderated their content. I've always felt like Parler was just a lazy attempt to make some cash by pulling some users away from Twitter claiming they could do what they want, it was never more or less than that. I'm interested in knowing how you think a real "free speech" platform can actually work, however. We have message boards that do this and they are just toxic cesspools. The idea of an online "public square" that isn't that sounds impossible. How many public squares are reaching millions of people instantly?

FireBeyond 6y ago
Precisely - the CEO literally hung out on Discord servers hunting for people to ban on Parler.
- theptip 6y ago
  I hadn’t heard this one, and can’t find anything about this - can you give some links/pointers to this story so I can learn more about this please?
  - FireBeyond 6y ago
    https://imgur.com/WaAMEyn https://imgur.com/WaAMEyn
portpecos 6y ago
>Parler was never a "free speech" platform. This was always a lie, they heavily moderated their content. I assume you’re just spreading what you’ve read in liberal news about Parler, without having used the app yourself. Because the reality is, if the users didn’t like the post or comment, they simply downvoted it until it was buried. Even r/politics and HN does the same thing with their downvote option. If multiple users flag a post, then it went into Parler’s review, just-like-Hacker-News.
- Osiris 6y ago

beaner 6y ago

The solution clearly is that speech should be restricted, or even better, that you should not be allowed to have thoughts that are in conflict with the intolerant parts of today's zeitgeist.

seventytwo 6y ago

Sorry, but you don’t just get to incubate insurrection without facing societal consequences. You have free speech, but zero freedom from consequence.

mancerayder 6y ago
>You have free speech, but zero freedom from consequence. That's about the most Orwellian meme that is making the rounds and needs to be examined critically. Freedom to do a thing implies protection from consequence, or you're not free. Also there were articles on HN about how the Capitol riots were organized on Facebook.
- CathedralBorrow 6y ago
  > Freedom to do a thing implies protection from consequence, or you're not free. This is a wild take on freedom. Do you seriously believe that free speech means that you should be able to say anything and be protected from any and all consequences?
  - mancerayder 6y ago
    I'm not sure what "any and all" means, but it certainly protects you physically and that implies that you get protection from criminal violence and harassment, and certainly should. No? It's so vague, these one-liners, that we're talking past one another. Surely you don't think you should be able to doxx or punch someone in the face that has extremist views?
    - CathedralBorrow 6y ago
      > Surely you don't think you should be able to doxx or punch someone in the face that has extremist views? How could you possibly believe this in good faith? Consequences can also be, for example, people expressing their distaste in your speech and choosing to boycott your products if you're a business. You said protection from consequences, not protection from criminal violence and harassment. If you meant protection from criminal violence and harassment, you should have said protection from criminal violence and harassment.

ramraj07 6y ago

If you keep insisting parler as a bastion of free speech then there's not much to argue with you. It was a clearly partisan highly censored place where anything other than right wing commentary was not tolerated. If signal gets deplatformed get your pitchforks. Till then I'm not worried. Also regarding the slippery slope, let it slide. If this is how we start regulating cloud services as utilities then so be it.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
> It was a clearly partisan highly censored place where anything other than right wing commentary was not tolerated. This is just false. Did you have an account there?
- ramraj07 6y ago
  Do you? Please share. Will love to see what things you have said that ostensibly should have been censored but weren't.

pvg 6y ago

That was a clearly partisan act Asking a customer to stick to the rules they agreed to and eventually ending the business relationship when the customer chooses not to is hardly a 'partisan act'. Parler could have just done what AWS asked (even temporarily, to keep themselves online while looking for alternatives). They didn't.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
AnHonestComment 6y ago
What, specifically, did AWS ask them to do that they could have done? From outside appearances, it seems they were given non-specific demands to remedy problems that Twitter has in greater magnitude (eg, Twitter being sued for their hosting of child porn, unremedied). Picking and choosing how to enforce rules based on political sentiments is a “partisan act”.
someguydave 6y ago
AWS also did not give Parler any time to cure their problems after making it clear that they wanted to terminate the contract for problematic content.
- throwaway19937 6y ago
  According to https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/29095511/13/parler-llc-v-amazon-web-services-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/29095511/13/parler-llc-... it took several months of moderation problems before AWS dropped Parler as a client.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Not only that, but Parler ran directly afoul of contract provisions they agreed to that specifically gave AWS the right to terminate without notice. People making these arguments about Parler's relationship with AWS don't seem to have actually read the AWS terms.
  - 6y ago

gregmac 6y ago

> Parler should not have been de-platformed With this statement you are implying one of two things: * You are very unhappy with AWS for de-platforming them * You think AWS should not have been allowed to do so If it's the first one, well, you are free to treat that however you like. Stop using AWS yourself, especially if you now fear AWS will do this to you. Don't do business with other companies that use AWS -- you can even block all AWS IPs at your firewall. Tell everyone how bad they are, and encourage others to boycott them too. If AWS continues to de-platform customers that don't seem to deserve it, this will get even easier over time. If it's the second one though, that raises all kinds of tricky issues. If you run anything that allows user content, and a user posts something that hurts you, are you now obligated to host it (leaving aside illegal content and the tricky jurisdiction issues that go with that)? What if other major customers or users start leaving because you're hosting said content -- are you just supposed to let your site/business effectively die? Are you also forbidden from raising the price to that harmful user to $1-trillion-per-month (since that effectively is a way to "de-platform" them), and if so, what is the maximum price you're allowed to charge and who figures that out?

AnHonestComment 6y ago
Telephones, mail, and electricity seem to operate just fine. Why would it be problematic is web hosting was treated as common civil infrastructure?
jariel 6y ago
If AT&T started banning any traffic: emails, websites etc. that 'talked poorly about AT&T' then it would be a breach of net neutrality, right? And totally unacceptable. Twitter and Partler are content platforms, AWS is not. They are an infrastructure, not a content company and there is a material difference. Ford, GM and Telsa collectively refusing to sell to XYZ customers for whatever reasons gets out of hand very quickly. 'You can just use another service' generally doesn't work as an argument in oligarchic situations. If AWS style services were as varied as grocery stores, maybe, but they are not.

dleslie 6y ago

If you stand for freedom of speech then you must stand for freedom of association; as "I stand with you" is a declaration of support. Speech isn't only vocal, it is all communication. Services that chose not to host Parler were exercising their freedom of association; they were _communicating_ that they did not wish to support Parler.