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No I wouldn't. Google is not necessarily wrong here. The issue is that you cannot easily 'own' a part of the internet, despite much of our life playing out ther

No I wouldn't. Google is not necessarily wrong here. The issue is that you cannot easily 'own' a part of the internet, despite much of our life playing out there. In the real world, if no one wants to host you and your group, the standard answer is to acquire money and buy your own land, your own broadcasting, etc. On the internet, this is much harder for 'normal' people to do, requiring them to use services like Google. Look, once parler was taken down, I purchased several servers off ebay, rented colocation space, and set up my own services. But I have the technical know-how to actually 'own' part of the internet without depending on anyone else. Most people can't really do this. Thus they depend on Google, et al, who are not selling them something akin to a land title, which is what people feel they ought to have, but rather a service. The reason people got Mad at AWS for taking down parler is because to the common man's mind, when Parler pays for its "website" (because let's be honest, that's as deep as most people go), it 'owns' it, and it ought to be able to hold title to that thing in perpetuity, like land. People felt upset because they felt that amazon simply seized what they perceived to be the equivalent of land or personal property. Of course websites are different because they require active serving by a computer, and parler was paying AWS to do that and Amazon decided not to. But that's not how people view it. To top it off, people are scared because they don't know how to own anything on the internet. Even tech savvy people have no idea how to purchase or lease IP space, set up servers, routes, etc. It's all very confusing.

jaywalk 5y ago
> once parler was taken down, I purchased several servers off ebay, rented colocation space, and set up my own services. But I have the technical know-how to actually 'own' part of the internet without depending on anyone else. You said you rented colocation space. You (I assume) are paying a monthly fee for an Internet connection for your servers. You are absolutely depending on others who can be pressured just like AWS was with Parler. Don't kid yourself.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Sure, but the difference is that... if that happens, I own the computers. They can take down my internet connection (although I have multiple colocation centers owned by different people... I guess I could go international if I really want to add extra redundancy), but the computer is mine. The data on the drive is mine. They cannot touch this stuff. If they did, I can accuse them of larceny, and sue for damages. It's written in the contract that they can take me offline, but they cannot touch my stuff. They can take it off the shelf for non-payment, but there's a period in which they have to retain it and offer it for pick-up. This is wholly different than Amazon not only taking parler down, but also deleting the data, forcing them to download terabytes in three days, over a weekend. And you're still right though. i don't actually own any IP space. In fact, IP space 'ownership' is handled by an NGO with little regulation. That's terrible. It ought to be governmental, because owning parts of the internet is an extremely important part of society. Too important to be left in any non-governmental organization's hands. There are blockchain like systems that could solve this problem in a distributed fashion. There's also urbit. Or we could have proper governmental authority.
8note 5y ago
Acquire money and buy land sounds like a very large challenge for most people. I'd say about as hard as setting up servers, but probably harder
- iammisc 5y ago
  But it's not hard. Look at the mormon exodus. Look at how minority religions have pooled money to buy large tracts of land and large temples. It's fairly easy for a group of people to do this.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    It is still cheaper to set up a server or pay someone to do it, than buy actual land to live on.
saltminer 5y ago
> In the real world, if no one wants to host you and your group, the standard answer is to acquire money and buy your own land, your own broadcasting, etc. On the internet, this is much harder for 'normal' people to do, requiring them to use services like Google. If anything, it's easier since you can own a small plot of land and host a few servers in a building you throw together, instead of having to feed a bunch of people, buy large tracts, build a temple, etc. Get a metro-e connection, and it doesn't matter how repulsive your legal content is - this isn't some residential connection bringing in <$100/month, they won't drop you until you become a liability (which is basically when the FBI comes knocking) because they make so much money on dedicated lines. (Plus, there's early termination clauses, and the last thing Comcast is going to do is pay that to appease a Twitter mob - what are you gonna do, switch ISPs? This is America, if you're using Comcast, it's probably because the next best thing is DSL.)

jaywalk 5y ago

> once parler was taken down, I purchased several servers off ebay, rented colocation space, and set up my own services. But I have the technical know-how to actually 'own' part of the internet without depending on anyone else. You said you rented colocation space. You (I assume) are paying a monthly fee for an Internet connection for your servers. You are absolutely depending on others who can be pressured just like AWS was with Parler. Don't kid yourself.

iammisc 5y ago
Sure, but the difference is that... if that happens, I own the computers. They can take down my internet connection (although I have multiple colocation centers owned by different people... I guess I could go international if I really want to add extra redundancy), but the computer is mine. The data on the drive is mine. They cannot touch this stuff. If they did, I can accuse them of larceny, and sue for damages. It's written in the contract that they can take me offline, but they cannot touch my stuff. They can take it off the shelf for non-payment, but there's a period in which they have to retain it and offer it for pick-up. This is wholly different than Amazon not only taking parler down, but also deleting the data, forcing them to download terabytes in three days, over a weekend. And you're still right though. i don't actually own any IP space. In fact, IP space 'ownership' is handled by an NGO with little regulation. That's terrible. It ought to be governmental, because owning parts of the internet is an extremely important part of society. Too important to be left in any non-governmental organization's hands. There are blockchain like systems that could solve this problem in a distributed fashion. There's also urbit. Or we could have proper governmental authority.

8note 5y ago

Acquire money and buy land sounds like a very large challenge for most people. I'd say about as hard as setting up servers, but probably harder

iammisc 5y ago
But it's not hard. Look at the mormon exodus. Look at how minority religions have pooled money to buy large tracts of land and large temples. It's fairly easy for a group of people to do this.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  It is still cheaper to set up a server or pay someone to do it, than buy actual land to live on.

saltminer 5y ago

> In the real world, if no one wants to host you and your group, the standard answer is to acquire money and buy your own land, your own broadcasting, etc. On the internet, this is much harder for 'normal' people to do, requiring them to use services like Google. If anything, it's easier since you can own a small plot of land and host a few servers in a building you throw together, instead of having to feed a bunch of people, buy large tracts, build a temple, etc. Get a metro-e connection, and it doesn't matter how repulsive your legal content is - this isn't some residential connection bringing in <$100/month, they won't drop you until you become a liability (which is basically when the FBI comes knocking) because they make so much money on dedicated lines. (Plus, there's early termination clauses, and the last thing Comcast is going to do is pay that to appease a Twitter mob - what are you gonna do, switch ISPs? This is America, if you're using Comcast, it's probably because the next best thing is DSL.)