Amazon turns off Parler servers ... will MeWe and others be next? What options do they have?
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Yeah, actually they do. The majority of the backbone is owned or controlled by them. Oracle and Microsoft are still involved but nowhere close to as much.
any ‘movement’ against Amazon will fail. Americans are lazy and love convenience, they have helped many get through this pandemic
These platforms don't take away your free speech if you are banned. They are Private companies and they will shut you down if you incite violence or put out statements that are crimes. These platforms are not a free speech mechanism. Also, spreading false information, these companies feel like they need to control this.
Ugh. There is an in-sir-rectum joke here that I am avoiding, because I respect the folks on this board. Just wanted to say that.
Comparing a small business to a massive online communication tool is not the best way to view this.comparing Twitter to the CCP is more accurate. Just kidding. But nobody relies on a cake maker for mass communication. People really shouldn’t depend on Twitter, but they do.
Dialogue, however inane and childish, is being shutdown. Not just on twitter or whatever platform, but in classrooms and in the public sphere. Beyond Trump and his followers, you have college kids protesting every speaker they disagree with in order to shut down the conversation. That is where Twitter and Facebook are, possibly, leading us, into a global campus afraid of opposing views. Whether you are for or against the conservatives banned, this is a form of thought control.
The cake baker analogy doesn't work on a lot of levels, but the most important one is that the government actually did step in there and say "you can't do that".
Lmao at you people arguing over something that is completely unnecessary to sustaining human life or even furthering it.
Shut it all down. Now.
Shut it all down. Now.
Because it was a case of actual discrimination, which the government is allow to step in and prevent.
Meh. It didn't seem like that big of a deal.
I guess on the bright side, this makes it pretty hard to justify the fairness doctrine from the left now.
Baloney.
People have more access to more information of all kinds (including contrary opinions) than ever before in human history. Once-upon-a-time, Universities used to make a big deal about telling prospective students that their university library has x,xxx,xxx,xxx volumes, one of the top in the world. Nowadays, the average person has access to much more than that with his cell phone.
The only 'thought control' that conservatives -- or anyone else for that matter -- have to worry about is social media that is deemed dangerous.
A lot of you are missing the point in all of this.
These companies love that they can pick and choose when to enforce even their own rules, leaving up accounts that link to a host of illegal activities ranging from revenge porn and creep shots to illegal hidden cameras and child porn - all with the full legal immunity that comes from being a platform and not a publisher.
If you want to say that you shouldn’t be liable for the content users post on your platform, but then take an active role in deciding what legal content your users are allowed to post... you’re kinda acting like a publisher now.
These companies love that they can pick and choose when to enforce even their own rules, leaving up accounts that link to a host of illegal activities ranging from revenge porn and creep shots to illegal hidden cameras and child porn - all with the full legal immunity that comes from being a platform and not a publisher.
If you want to say that you shouldn’t be liable for the content users post on your platform, but then take an active role in deciding what legal content your users are allowed to post... you’re kinda acting like a publisher now.
They've basically voluntarily given up their section 230 protections now. Next time there is a riot that was organized there, somebody should probably sue them.
But who gets to decide what’s dangerous??? Don’t you think that’s important?
We already saw Twitter block the Hunter Biden story from the NY Post a few months ago... Doesn’t that bother you? Would it bother you if these companies were pro-Trump and just started deciding that information you wanted to share or discuss was too dangerous to allow?
And you’re making the point... because of the internet we have access to more info than ever. But if the biggest internet companies in the world start taking information and voices away, that will change very quickly.
The suppression of our access to information is far more likely to come from government cooperation with tech executives sympathetic to their agenda than it is to come from an outright government seizure of those companies.
Right now maybe they’re not coming for your viewpoint or mine. But I don’t like the idea of waiting until they do.
To me, most people can answer that question. It's like online porn, you sure as hell know it when you see it.
But the question of who is important... the consequences of overreach are devastating.To me, most people can answer that question. It's like online porn, you sure as hell know it when you see it.
Do you want Chinese-level internet access someday? This is a first step.
This is actually the exact opposite. Government has no say in moderation policies of the private realm. Chinese level would be Trump gets his own media and all other media is banned.
My point is that doesn’t happen overnight. The only way that happens is if private mainstream companies start censoring content they disagree with until dissent is squashed not by the government, but by sympathetic executives who are willing to use the power of their companies to do what their political heroes want.
AWS and Google absolutely do not control 98% of access to web content or serve/host 98% of websites on the Internet.
Ok, say its 60%. Say its 50%. Say a single baker controlled half of all cake baking. At what level does it become a problem where somebody needs to step in?
I think this comes from higher up. Like FBI had credible threats of terrorist plots utilizing Parler. With regards to Trump I think he will just be banned until after inauguration so as not to incite any more riots. I think they purposefully didn’t ban him prior to the finalizing of the election results. They didn’t moderate his tweets in his campaign leading up to the election (that I’m aware of). The political result, his loss, occurred months ago. The fallout on his Twitter feed came after when his tweets became more and more dangerous. No more dog whistles. If he wants to address us he can say it at a press briefing.
I would argue it would be an issue if AWS or Google hosted >50% of all websites (which they still don't) and there were few other alternatives for people/business to turn to. As it stands there are thousands of alternative providers to stand up and host a website. It's not stifling ones ability to get their message out if 2 out of thousands of providers say they don't want to do business with Parler.
No, I don't but when it comes to plotting and/or promoting violence, it's pretty black and white - not much wiggle room for subjectivity.
Those 2 companies control over 90% of internet traffic. It has nothing to do with hosting because literally every connection you make from point to point goes through a server that is owned or operated by Amazon or Google. Microsoft and oracle still have a share in the backbone but its pretty small now. Its not like it just takes 2 servers to connect, there are hundreds that direct a DNS search to the address and most of them are owned by those 2 companies.
Knight time is when people get sleepy. Can we also call you Sleepy Joe?
But either way, this is why Joe is a ruling elder on this board. He cut to the core of the BS and took it all away. This is why we can’t have nice things, America.
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Boars head roast beef.
Yes there is access at the current time, but what about a few years from now. Google has threatened to shut down many conservative sites for their content. But I don’t really care about one particular ideology. I don’t consider myself a conservative, nor do I follow conservatives on the social medias.
My point was that we are moving to a place where conversation. Is impossible and children are now afraid of ideas that oppose their own.
Google controls something like 90 percent of searches. Facebook/Instagram and Twitter control most online dialogue. If they control what ideas are allowed to be propagated or what policies can be questioned, is that not thought control? At least for the intellectually lazy that don’t have the capacity or desire to try and discover truth.
I realize I am being somewhat hyperbolic, but it isn’t out of the question for the tech companies and the media groups to be the main drivers of what is believed in the coming decades.
Disclaimer: I already believe that tech companies and the media do that. Hell, the Transition Integrity Project gave away their entire game plan, for how they would control the election and the aftermath using media and tech, over the summer. It worked pretty well and exactly as planned.
Amazon and Google are not part of the internet backbone, nor is Microsoft or Oracle. They do not control 90% of internet traffic. People may rely on Google's DNS service for name resolution, but that doesn't mean their traffic is routing across Google's network and servers once the domain is resolved. People may also visit sites owned and operated by Google, but again that doesn't amount to 90% of internet traffic. Amazon offers a DNS registrar but clients outside AWS cannot point their PCs to Route53 for name resolution. I think at this point you're just throwing around words and stats without any backing. Have a good night!
Yes, Google and Amazon control the majority of internet connectivity in the US. Maybe you remember a couple of years ago when AWS had a hardware issue and it choked down all traffic worldwide. Wikileaks exposed this and Elizabeth Warren has been railing about it for at least that long. Its not just a matter of hosting a site on their servers, they literally control a huge part of the backbone that gets us from point a to point b.
They advertised as basically an unmoderated Twitter. So naturally people who had been having problems with keeping their content from being removed on Twitter moved over. Including those plotting violence. Not everybody on Parler was promoting violence, but I think the issue the hosting services had was lack of ability of Parler admins to moderate their content. It was a Wild West.
Almost all hosting services will soon be censoring posts with violence or placing Fake labels on subject matter that is false or that encourages violence..Democrats and Republicans will sponsor a Bill soon. This outlet will do same soon...I expect the Government to start a Governing board for monitoring and placing Fake news on many outlets. Thanks to MAGA freedoms will come with restrictions.
By this logic, societal rejection of Klan members is an example of corporate censorship.
You've described the scenario in a way that sounds dark and menacing. Keep something in mind - is certain speech being silenced or rejected? There is a difference. This is actually an example of the 1st Amendment at work - society regulating speech to protect itself, rather than government deciding what speech needs to be regulated.
I believe the core difference of opinion here is about how you assess the threat. For example, in a post 9/11 world if the attacks had been organized on a public social media platform, that platform refused to crackdown, and more attacks were being actively planned - would we really be concerned if AWS shut the site down?
So if you see this as an isolated incident unlikely to happen again, then you see what's happening as going too far. On the flip side, if you believe there's likely to be more violence - particularly through the inauguration - then this seems like something with a positive impact on disrupting the ability to organize.
I get that there's a fine line here. But it's like the saying that "one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist." The insurrectionists genuinely believe they are patriots fighting for the country. Meanwhile, a huge swath of America think they are in a cult, insurrecting against the legitimate government on behalf of a demagogue. People are being radicalized to political violence in front of our eyes and we need to figure out how to stop it.
As with everything, it all depends on which side your bread is buttered.
If it's me doing the discriminating, it's "the government shouldn't be telling me how I run my damn business!!!" When it's me being the one discriminated against for whatever reason, it's "these businesses shouldn't be allowed to do this to me!!!"
They have banned far more than just those, all while bankrupting competitors. That's the problem.
People have used the analogy of punishing a class for what one kid did. In reality this is like punishing 1/3 of the class for what one kid did, then punishing another 1/3 for being critical of punishing the first 1/3, leaving a minority 1/3 who are never questioned and never punished, but judging everyone else.
It's no longer about right or wrong. It's no longer about what people, or companies, or monopolies, can and can't do. What happens is everybody starts to resent the 1/3 that gets away with anything, is never questioned, and just labels everybody else as being as bad as that one kid.
It won't end well. Everybody is being alienated now for not blindly agreeing with that 1/3 that is judging everyone else.
