>Parler could still go out and build their own servers.
Yes, and as someone on Twitter pointed out, as a customer also denied service, Rosa Parks could have gone out and started her own bus line (likely outside her financial range though).
The argument to "do it yourself" is silly. Europe sees it. The ACLU sees it. Why can't you?
For the record: I think these platforms should be responsible for what they host.
I've seen this sentiment before, and I can't figure out the logic.
I used to work for a company that didn't make 300K a quarter and we managed our own boxes. Yes our scale and problem domain was about an order of magnitude smaller, but it wasn't trivially small (optimization was still a relevant problem for us). What did people do 15 years ago before all of these could platforms did all the work for you? Do that. It's really not that hard!
The analogy above is ridiculous. The problem isn't that Rosa Parks couldn't start her own bus line (though at the time this was probably not feasible for more reasons than just money). The problem is that she was denied service because of her race. You cannot change your race by "doing it yourself".
If SpaceX denies me the opportunity to fly their shuttle do I have to build my own spacecraft to get to space? Yes... I do. I'm sure we could come up with all sorts of other fun examples!
The logic is that "your own boxes" is just another layer in the stack of places private companies can deny doing business with you. Did you manufacture those boxes yourself, from the silicon up? If you didn't, you better hope you don't get blacklisted by parts suppliers.
>You cannot change your race by "doing it yourself".
The analogy is: if she didn't like being denied because of her race, she should have started her own busline.
Of course, we have laws in place that say you can't deny someone service based on race. That's great, and solves that problem.
So tell me what law Parler broke? Has it been proven in court? Or did a private company decide that on their own? Why should they have that power?
I mean, I'm not naive; I understand what Parler is/was trying to do, and it's gross. But the process shouldn't be arbitrary, at the whims of liability protected pseudo-monopolies.
Sure we can move the goalposts. No, we did not mine for our own minerals. What is your point? If our company was unable to secure hardware it would have ceased to exist. A shame for the company, its employees, and clients, but that's business.
> The analogy is: if she didn't like being denied because of her race, she should have started her own busline.
Right. The above is not summarizing the reason why our society has a problem with the events that occurred. The problem is why Rose Parks was denied service. It has nothing to do with her ability to start her own bus line. Does that make sense? Again, the analogy is completely missing the point.
> So tell me what law Parler broke?
I have no idea nor the inclination to investigate. They don't need to break a law for another business to cut ties. This happens all. the. time. Your problem seems to be a case of "this instance is different than the rest". If you have a problem with antitrust behavior, argue that. You aren't going anywhere with this line of logic.
Nobody is moving goalposts. The point is that there's always another layer of service providers that can cancel you, some of which are monopolists. If you think that's fine, or "just business", good for you. I do not.
>What is your point?
People shouldn't be able to put you out of business because they have more power and don't like you.
>Does that make sense? Again, the analogy is completely missing the point.
You're overthinking things. For the third time: "If you don't like it, build your own competitor" -- oft-repeated-- is a ridiculous statement in most cases. No one is going to build their own App Store, Play Store, Facebook..or yes, bus line.
I'm glad you can poke holes in an off-hand analogy though. It was never intended to be a literal 1-1 translation, with Parler filling the role of Rosa Parks.
>They don't need to break a law for another business to cut ties.
That is fundamental axiom of free-market capitalism. How do you think it is supposed to work? I'm trying to imagine a system where competition doesn't exist... oh wait. It's called "Communism".
> People shouldn't be able to put you out of business because they have more power and don't like you.
You must be young. "I have a bridge to sell you". In 15 years you'll better-understand how the world works and your idealism now will feel rather foolish in retrospect. I'll leave it at that.
> some of which are monopolists
I think this is actually what you are meaning to argue against. Just poorly. There is nothing wrong with a company deciding that the profit they derive from selling me widgets eclipses the losses they realize elsewhere, and to therefore end the relationship. This literally happens constantly. I could give you an example last month where we had to end a relationship with a client because they are a competitor to a bigger (more profitable) client who didn't like us serving both. It happens. I promise.
What it seems like you are actually railing against is anti-competitive behavior which is protected against in antitrust law. Monopolies are not against the law so long as they don't engage in certain market-making behaviors[0]. That is, behaviors that make "building your own competitor" impossible (i.e. undermining the fundamental axiom of FMC). This isn't a case of anti-competitive behavior. This is the market deciding that the financial/political cost of associating their business with an entity is greater than the profits they gain. It's business. Parler, in this moment, simply doesn't have a sustainable business model. The best thing they could do is to turn the narrative, lean in, and applaud AWS for exercising its freedom. But they are young too...
And for what it's worth I wasn't "poking holes" in your analogy. I was tearing it down entirely. It doesn't hold at all - even a little bit. To believe otherwise is to misunderstand the very foundations on which the civil rights movement was based, and some respects, liberal democracy altogether.
[0] Amazon is currently in court fighting the government in this respect. So is Facebook.
I haven't seen amazon claim that Parler broke the law. They have a TOS policy that forbids the hosting of illegal content.
> Has it been proven in court?
If a AWS customer is hosting child porn, does AWS take it down as soon as they're aware of the content, or do they wait for a court ruling?
> Or did a private company decide that on their own? Why should they have that power?
It's not power. You have a responsibility to exercise your judgement, and avoid participating in criminal acts. If you knowingly participate and profit until there's a trial in court, then you're an accessory. Section 230 has some exemptions -- you aren't protected if you maintain illegal content.
What happened on 1/6 was an armed crowd breached the capitol building. A plain reading indicates that this is an act of war, and AWS has enough legal problems without opening themselves to charges of aiding an enemy of the state in an act of treason.
This isn't "power" it's a matter of legal responsibility.
>I haven't seen amazon claim that Parler broke the law. They have a TOS policy that forbids the hosting of illegal content.
If Amazon is saying Parler hosted "illegal content" then they are saying they broke the law. How can it be any other way?
>If a AWS customer is hosting child porn, does AWS take it down as soon as they're aware of the content, or do they wait for a court ruling?
Child porn is illegal, hate speech (and in lots of places, "incitement") is not. In fact, in many jurisdictions the latter are protected speech. There is no moral equivalence here. Society's rules are clear on child porn. They are less clear on what constitutes incitement. That should be evident if you're following these events.
>It's not power.
"ALCU Counsel Warns of Unchecked Power of Twitter, Facebook After Trump Suspension"
> If Amazon is saying Parler hosted "illegal content" then they are saying they broke the law. How can it be any other way?
Because I'm not clear on the specific exemptions for section 230. I can't say one way or another whether Parler itself broke the law.
> That's kind of the point here. Society's rules are clear on child porn. They are less clear on what constitutes incitement. That should be evident if you're following these events.
Did people openly plan an armed attack on the capitol building? Yes.
Did people follow through on aforementioned plans? Yes. Violence was incited. Having read quite a few relevant posts on Parler, I'm reasonably sure that their users broke the law.
There is a lot of gray area between voicing frustration and incitement, but this is not one of those cases.
> Child porn is illegal, hate speech (and in lots of places, "incitement") is not.
Isn't "imminent lawless action" the limit of free speech? it seems clear after January 6th that a part of what was promoted on Parler was both imminent and lawless.
>it seems clear after January 6th that a part of what was promoted on Parler was both imminent and lawless.
Assuming the people planning on Parler were some of the same people who stormed the Capitol then yes, absolutely. With the benefit of hindsight, this was incitement, potentially criminal.
Now the tricky part: from Parler's perspective, content that at one minute is "free speech" is suddenly illegal, or at the very least ToS breaking, in a matter of hours. Were they given a reasonable amount of time to remove the content (and what good would that even do, after the fact)? Did Amazon make Parler a political target, and arbitrarily apply a rule to them that they did not apply to other customers (Twitter)? Likely, imho. Does any of it even matter if "businesses can do what they want"?
Curious to know what the process other than market forces should be. Government? Paaah.. they can't even protect kids in schools being shot, control the pandemic or even distribute vaccine in any competent manner. (lots of other examples also come to mind!)
If the president calls for the boycott of Goodyear [0], isn't it also fair for Goodyear to not sell to any of Trumps companies? (Too lazy to look at other boycott tweets)
Because Parler would need 500 servers for the traffic they were getting (according to their CEO, but it's not qualified further), and 24 hours is the notice AWS had them.
Parler had no idea AWS would just yank them from service at 24 hours notice - I don't think there is any precedent for this from an AWS perspective. So this is the challenge they had if they wanted to move to physical infra after being given notice - 500 servers in 24 hours.
(As a side note, setting up physical infra at the scale of growth Parler was having wouldn't have been practically possible - they had a giant and rapid spike across the last month or so. It also wouldn't have been financially wise, considering they probably don't have the capital and the traffic spike was probably a temporary surge. Plus if you buy physical infra and then your apps get removed by the other cloud providers, that changes your traffic profile again... Parler really had both their hands tied behind their backs to fight this thing).
I never said they did, you said that they could just set up their own infra so it’s not a big deal - I just said that wasn’t possible as they can’t stand up 500 servers in 24 hours.
As an aside, I actually would continue serving a client if I had sold them a service, they were paying for it at the agreed price and keeping on top of invoices, and if me reneging would cause them to go out of business. And then if I had to end it, I would give them as much notice as I could practically provide (particularly if they were willing to profitably pay during the notice period).
I wouldn’t personally do business with you if I thought you would instantly back out of an agreement that you had already profited on with almost zero notice. AWS is no charity here, Parler were paying them for servers.
So it's not possible. So what? What is your point? We are back to square one. What conclusion are you trying to draw from the fact you can't set up 500 servers in 24 hours?
Are you trying to say it's unfair? I just don't see it that way. If Amazon violated the terms of their agreement then fine, let it be litigated. But if Parler can't get back up quick enough in the mean time that's on them. That's how business works. I know. I conduct it. It's not personal.
You are connecting unrelated dots. While it could be argued that the "cloud provider" space is an oligopoly (though I would not argue that), simply deciding to not serve a specific business, even as group, is not an antitrust issue. No business has a "right to service".
Antitrust is more concerned with anti-competitive behaviors: pricing-fixing, group boycotts[0], buying a competitor with the express purpose of removing competition, etc. Amazon and Parler are not in the same market - they are not competing for anything. Antitrust is not going to be a fruitful legal avenue.
If Amazon were somehow influencing Parler's ability to "do it themselves" (e.g. preventing a seller from providing them with boxes), then yes, there may be some legal standing.
[0] Look this one up. It's not what you are thinking.
1.3B page views per month, with I think 23 servers. Building a mostly (I guess?) view only site is different than something like twitter, but it's doable.
The 1st amendment gives all of the companies the freedom of association. They can deny doing business for any reason except for protected class. Are you trying to force companies to do business with entities that they do not wish to do business with?
>The 1st amendment gives all of the companies the freedom of association.
I was under the impression the First Amendment was about the government imposing laws that restricted religion or expression of the citizenry. Can you point to the part that says anything about how businesses (built off of public infrastructure) are to be run?
If there was a law preventing businesses from refusing service to a group of people, then the government is effectively requiring those businesses to associate with those people. Association is protected as free speech, so that's government-compelled speech. And the First Amendment prohibits the government from "abridging the freedom of speech," which means no compelled speech or association.
Still, we do have some laws compelling speech (tobacco warning labels) and association (restaurants can't refuse to serve Muslims). But there has to be a good justification. Warning labels express facts and prevent harm. Protected classes are all things considered "inherent" to a person (gender, religion, ethnicity). But there's a high bar for these kind of laws. And preventing people from choosing relationships based on politics is clearly against the First Amendment.
>If there was a law preventing businesses from refusing service to a group of people
This isn't about refusing to do business with someone. The issue in my eyes is agreeing to do business with someone and then arbitrarily[1] deciding to not do business with someone, with no recourse to the customer because the provider is a massive conglomerate with unlimited resources.
AWS didn't refuse to do business with Parler, they did business with them for years. Then one day, based on ambiguous and discriminantly applied rules that may or may not apply to Parler's competitors on the same hosting platform, decided to not do business with them. I don't think that's right.
Look at Apple's letter to the Parler CEO regarding being pulled from the App Store: Apple says Parler is responsible for all the content on their site. And yet, Apple doesn't live by the same rules, in fact they actively lobby against them.
[1] Arbitrary because AWS, as far as I've seen, doesn't say "here are the rules you agreed to, here's where you broke them. Goodbye". There's a lot of ambiguity. Was Parler filled with hate and bullshit? From what I've seen, absolutely. But so is Twitter, and they're incoming, not outgoing.
I'm with you for preventing companies from using their size to force very unfair contracts. But I have to say, in this situation, a fairer contract would probably still let Amazon drop Parler.
> Was Parler filled with hate and bullshit? From what I've seen, absolutely. But so is Twitter, and they're incoming, not outgoing.
From the sound of it, Parler was not responding well to requests for moderation and didn't show signs of improvement. Twitter might be better at it. And, for contracts, it shouldn't matter if one party lets some parties slide but is a stickler for others. The contract was the terms on paper, not "These terms or the most lax behaviors for any parties agreeing to the same terms."
Citizens United gave corporations constitutional rights (specifically the first amendment). Which means they have freedom of association. The only way to stop AWS from dropping Parler would be if the government forced AWS to host Parler which would be a violation of AWS’s freedom of association.
The only caveat to this is protected class. There are some movements to make political affiliation a protected class, but I personally think that’s the wrong path to go down since it’s not an “inherent” attribute of a person like race, age, sexual orientation, etc.
>The only way to stop AWS from dropping Parler would be if the government forced AWS to host Parler which would be a violation of AWS’s freedom of association.
I don't have an answer to this, because I agree with you.
Maybe if you "arbitrarily" decide to stop doing business with someone, after you've already started, without a breech of any terms of service, you should be financially liable in some way? Contract law should cover that (I'm def no expert). Does it? Like, if Amazon decides to cut me off from hosting, and I haven't broken any laws, rules or ToS, they should have to pay for me to be up-and-running elsewhere. In other words, AWS can't boot someone without establishing wrong-doing.
It feels like this wouldn't require much more than tighter contracts, handing more power to the customer. I'm in favour of that.
If you sign a long-term contract, sure. For example, Pinterest just signed a multi-year $750M contract with AWS. If AWS kicked them off, there would be repercussion for breach of contract. But just signing up for AWS’s generic TOS’s with a credit card means AWS can likely kick you off for any reason.
Pretty much any large company with appropriate risk controls (not to mention the financial incentives) will negotiate and sign custom long-term deals with AWS’s extremely large sales staff.
I disagree since political opinions aren’t a well-defined class or even an idea. At least with religion you can restrict it to religion federally recognized by the IRS. With political opinions, literally every conceivable declarative statement could be considered a political opinion. It’s a degenerate case.
I don't want to force companies to do business with entities they do not wish to do business with, but I do want companies that engage in ideological censorship to lose their immunity to be held liable for damages caused by the entities they do continue to do business with - unless they stop engaging in moral editorializing.
The entire down-voting mob I've been railing against the last 2 days missed this.
"I want things that I like to be available to me and I want people who deny it to me to be held criminally liable because I don't understand the case law".
I think people are misplacing their anger that big-tech has too much control over our world. This is fine to be upset about, but you can't say "they have too much control, therefor it's illegal for them to do the things they're doing". No, the laws you want haven't been written (or repealed).
There's also a ton of pie-in-the-sky dreaming that if we could just undo the "bad-part" of 230 then magically Twitter would have to host things because reasons which is a gross misunderstanding.
TL;dr- HN commenters tend to skew towards "Engineer" understanding and not "Lawyer" understand, and it's causing them friction with reality lately.
One major difference: Rosa Parks was an individual attempting to use a private service. Parler is a business attempting to use a private service to do business. Rosa Parks getting kicked off for being black is one thing, but what if she was on the same bus trying to sell candy bars? Weirdly, that's still a reason you can get kicked off a bus.
I mean the question of the era is what "rights" do we have online.
Do I have the "right" to have my site hosted by a private company, or is that a service? Do platforms have a "requirement" to act as neutrally as possible, or is it just better for business?
>Do I have the "right" to have my site hosted by a private company, or is that a service?
It's a good question, and I think we need to figure out where that line is.
Because I agree, AWS should be able to say they don't want this customer. At the same time, when we live in a world where everything is privatized (and monopolized) you very quickly run out of options. Host it yourself? What if all server companies refuse to sell to you, or the internet service providers refuse to provide you with connectivity? Do you need to lay your own fibre and fab your chips? Where do you get those supplies? It's tough.
That is quite the hypothetical. Given that the internet is a worldwide phenomenon, it seems incredibly unlikely that all server companies and internet service providers would refuse their business.
In particular, the 'bulletproof hosting' market is still going strong. For example, just look at The Pirate Bay, who have managed to stay online and operational despite years of attempts by powerful corporations and nation states to take it down.
>Given that the internet is a worldwide phenomenon, it seems incredibly unlikely that all server companies and internet service providers would refuse their business.
I can agree that getting up and running is, probably, always possible. But that is no consolation if you're a business that can arbitrarily be shut down on a whim, perhaps without even being given a warning. The financial circumstances might make restarting or moving around untenable.
>In particular, the 'bulletproof hosting' market is still going strong.
Yes, and if there's anything good to say about this mess, it's that this particular kind of service is likely to grow.
Yes but considering the business Parler are in, i.e. publishing the sort of controversial content that gets its users banned on more mainstream social media sites, they would have been wise to have a disaster recovery plan for hosting that covered this possibility.
>they would have been wise to have a disaster recovery plan for hosting that covered this possibility.
I agree, and don't feel upset about their particular circumstances.
However, as others have noted, Twitter (moving to AWS) has vastly more controversial content. What are the guidelines as far as what content is tolerable and/or needs to been moderated, and at what rate of "urgency", for them versus Parler? These things aren't spelled out. How can a small business comply?
I think the general guideline is, don't provide your hosting provider with incentives to enforce their terms of service against you, to the point where you're denied any further business from them.
It's not, this has happened many times previously.
Including against similarly far-right sites, e.g. Stormfront, Gab, 8kun/8chan, etc. All of which are still operational, after changing hosting providers.
I mean that's really the crux of my argument. Nothing illegal happened unless AWS violated their TOS/contract. The idea that someone HAS to do business in perpetuity with you or else you'll be ruined is...bizarre? It's the whole reason contracts exist in the first place.
If you don't like the laws, you get the laws changed. There are all sorts of legal, but icky things that exist in the world (bakers being allowed to discriminate based on sexual identity, jobs being allowed to fire you for political affiliation, etc)
Yes, and as someone on Twitter pointed out, as a customer also denied service, Rosa Parks could have gone out and started her own bus line (likely outside her financial range though).
The argument to "do it yourself" is silly. Europe sees it. The ACLU sees it. Why can't you?
For the record: I think these platforms should be responsible for what they host.