Parler Goes Dark
Parler’s partners yanked the plug, accusing it of hosting violent content that contributed to last week’s Capitol Hill riot.
As a result, the Platform Favored by Trump Fans Struggles for Survival.
Parler launched in 2018 as a freewheeling social-media site for users fed up with the rules on Facebook and Twitter, and it quickly won fans from supporters of President Trump. On Monday, it went dark, felled by blowback over its more permissive approach.
Amazon.com Inc. abruptly ended web-hosting services to the company, effectively halting its operations, prompting Parler to sue Amazon in Seattle federal court. Other tech partners also acted, crippling operations.
Driving the decision was last week’s mob attack on the U.S. Capitol. On the afternoon of the riot, Amazon warned executives from Parler it had received reports the social-media platform was hosting “inappropriate” content, and that Parler had 24 hours to address it.
Within two days of that correspondence, Amazon announced it was booting Parler from its cloud platform, joining Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple Inc. in pulling the plug on the service. Other vendors turned their backs, too: Twilio Inc. cut off Parler’s two-factor authentication system, preventing it from weeding out fake new accounts, and Okta Inc. locked Parler out of key enterprise software tools.
On Dec. 14, Amazon flagged four posts to Parler, saying the content “clearly encourages or incites people to commit violence against others,” which was a violation of its terms of service, according to an email reviewed by the Journal. One of the posts calling for violence was from Nov. 16. Another, from early December, included comments such as: “My wishes for a racewar have never been higher. I find myself thinking about killing n—s and jews more and more often.”
Apple told Parler it received numerous complaints that the platform had been used to organize the assault on the Capitol and was being used to organize future violence. Its list of evidence began with a link to Sleeping Giants’ feed, which had screenshots of posts from influencers such as pro-Trump lawyer L. Lin Wood calling for firing squads to shoot Mr. Pence to an account with few followers calling for people to bring their weapons to the nation’s capital on Jan 19.
Daily News Take
The Daily News reports Parler Sues Amazon After App is Suspended by Web Service.
“AWS’s decision to effectively terminate Parler’s account is apparently motivated by political animus,” the lawsuit said. “It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter.”
Google and Apple, meanwhile, have removed Parler from their app stores.
“When Twitter announced two evenings ago that it was permanently banning President Trump from its platform, conservative users began to flee Twitter en masse for Parler,” the new 18-page complaint obtained by the Daily News states.
“The exodus was so large that the next day… Parler became the number one free app downloaded from Apple’s App Store,” the paperwork claims.
Parler accused Amazon of a double standard, scoffing at the company’s claim it decided to take action because it was “not confident Parler could properly police its platform regarding content that encourages or incites violence against others.”
Amazon, meanwhile, said in a Saturday email to Parler that it found 98 examples of “posts that clearly encourage and incite violence.”
The email, filed as an exhibit to the lawsuit, included a screenshot of one such post where a Parler user threatened starting “civil war 2″ last Wednesday and shooting a “damn bullet” in the heads of “dirty left” Democrats.
“We’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms,” the letter from AWS said. “It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service.”
Not a Free Speech Issue
Free speech does not extend to those promoting killing, hanging politicians, promoting violence, etc.
This is not a free speech issue.
But what about an antitrust violation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1KfXn-upQQ
Q&A on Parler
The Fox news clip above says there is collusion, but this antitrust Q&A believes otherwise.
Q: Google and Apple have both pulled Parler from its app stores and Amazon stopped hosting it. Is this the end of Parler?
A: “It is gonna be a long difficult slog to get back because there was very little notice. They basically had 24 hours to find new servers, so that makes it very difficult for them to operate. Now they’re off the app stores, and that is a major hurdle to overcome. So, they’re in trouble.”
Q: Parler is suing Amazon, on grounds of anti-trust laws. Does it have a strong legal leg to stand on?
A: “Well, they are saying that they were unfairly booted over politics and antitrust matters. The antitrust part of it might be difficult because it’s not like Parler was competing with them directly. Amazon and Parler are in two different universes, so that might be a tough sell. Certainly, it’s too early to see how a judge would react, but it is one step that they can take to express their frustration with Amazon and perhaps at some point they can come to an agreement as to how they might work together. Amazon has said that the problem is they feel that Parler is not capable of moderating the content on the platform. Mind you, it is relatively new and small; it’s not like Facebook that has thousands of people able to help moderate.”
Facebook Removes References to Stop the Steal
Also note that Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning ‘Stop the Steal’
Facebook Inc. said it is removing all content mentioning “stop the steal,” a phrase popular among supporters of President Trump’s unproven claims of election fraud, as part of a raft of measures to stem misinformation and incitements to violence on its platform ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
The announcement was one of a number of new measures announced by tech giants Monday in an effort to deter further unrest after the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol last week. Twitter Inc. said it has removed more than 70,000 accounts since Friday that spread the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose followers believe Mr. Trump is under assault by Satan worshipers.
Amazon.com Inc. said aid Monday it is removing some products related to the QAnon conspiracy theory. Followers of the fringe QAnon conspiracy, which has been labeled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a domestic terrorist threat, were among those that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
Amazon is still selling merchandise related to the president. Shopify Inc., a Canada-based e-commerce software provider, last week took down online stores run by the Trump Organization and Trump campaign following the riot.
Convinced? If so, of what?
Where are the lines? Where should they be?
I do not claim to have all the answers and I am troubled where this may potentially head.
Mish
he’ll be rush l. replacement.
There is already a House report ascertaining anti-competitive behavior.
This is obviously the collusive wholesale elimination of the competition: the literal texts are as usual just pretexts.
The question is not so much about the limits to free speech, it is about who owns and controls the (new digital) public square and who is in charge of the bullhorns.
The people now cheering on the new authoritarianism of the Corporate/Agency collaboration to control the narrative do not realize that the stakes are not some passing disturbance, but the future of public discourse in its entirety.
The left right paradigm is a danger to our democracy. The reality is nothing will ever change. Those at the top play on those down here and just laugh as they play the people against one another. Tribalism 100%
Amazon found 98 instances of violent comments that violated their policy. Some were taken down by Parler before Amazon notified the company. The remaining were all taken down by Parler. Note that Parler, like other social media, screen comments after they are posted and so the best you can hope for is for them to get taken down later, not to never show up. Amazon says this wasn’t good enough, so I have a few questions:
The next seven days may be harrowing. There is a theory out there that trump wants his sedition militia who plan to surround the Capitol and state capitols with armed vigilantes (maybe more of the ex military types too than at the Jan 6 insurrection) on Jan 17-20 to create violence and chaos so he can call an emergency and nationalize the national guard troops that are being placed to defend these places and people in them. Then who knows what he’d do next.
Normally states control the national guard (except for DC’s), but if martial law or the Insurrection Act are declared and he does that, this madman will tear the country apart, more than he has already. The sedition is thick in the air, and there is one person most responsible for it. I want none of this to happen, but if it does, the punishment must be severe.
Sounds crazy, I agree, but few expected Jan 6 to go that far either.
I agree. It’s a revolution. Overestimating it is sensible. Excess of caution is forgivable.
Just as the last 2 months has been a college-level civics course, the next few weeks will inform us of the strength of the US government.
At this moment in time, the idea that we’re anything like out of the woods……would just be bad thinking.
That’s why it’s completely justified to keep Trump off of social media….why we should worry about his access to the nuke button…why we should worry about Pompeo ruling around taking pokes at China and Iran……like he’s just hoping one of them will do something and Trump can declare some emergency.
If you aren’t scared right now, you should be.
running around.
“Sounds crazy, I agree, but few expected Jan 6 to go that far either.”
It only took a single Communist to set the reichstag ablaze for Hitler & Goebbels to scare the public into submission.
As much as I want to chastise you for fear-mongering, your point is worth note.
Or is it the reverse? People using fear of Trump’s people to consolidate power and permanently eliminate free speech?
“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Ben Franklin
Access to FB and Twitter are only very tangentially connected to free speech.
Trump can say anything he wants….he just can’t text it from his phone to millions of people instantly…..at this highly charged moment.
People aren’t being locked up for dissent. Nobody is being disappeared.
You could argue that this kind of technology has risks and benefits, like a medical procedure. If the risks outweigh the benefits, that has to be a part of our calculus.
I’m not sure social media has even been all that good for the world, ever. It doesn’t make my life better. As a matter of fact, I hate it enough not to participate on it at all.
To me………it seems to cause as many problems as it solves. Maybe more.
In any case, we had free speech before we had social media….and social media might seem synonymous to free speech to you, but that doesn’t mean it is.
William Dudley Pelley and the Silver Legion of America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOGlRQEfwPo&feature=youtu.be
Why aren’t any of these Trumpists smart enough to have a Trump supporter create their own brand of products from the ground up along with App store ?
Nihilists are notoriously inept at building. They’re kind of a single-purpose tool.
Anybody been reading the Chicago Tribune?
The Tribune is NOT a “left wing rag” as somebody said about the Houston Chronicle when I pointed out they called for Cruz’s resignation. (The Tribune and the Chronicle are both rated center by AllSides, fwiw.).
I’m going to link to a couple of Tribune op-eds for those who might have missed them.
At least you have PBS :/
All this shows is that you are really bad at judgement of sources.
Embarassing AF.
The beauty of modern media is that you can always find people in semi-important places saying completely off-the-wall things that some others can extrapolate it out to condemn a whole class of people. In ancient times, 20 years ago, when someone said really stupid things it would be buried and a week after the author would wonder why he ever said it. Now, thanks to our modern media we can make money out of the rage it engenders.
“Note that you can download Parler anyway,”
False
The Apps are turned off and thousands of people are accidentally downloading “ParlOr” not “ParlEr”
What worries me is that we fall into the China-style system that ties your opinions into a social score. If you fall below a certain score, meaning you dissent too much, you can’t take the plane or the train. You can’t get a loan or a job. Some people find that normal and even good. What is one to think of such people?
“What worries me is that we fall into the China-style system that ties your opinions into a social score.”
That would worry me too, if it were true.
Openly threatening or planning to harm or murder is not covered under free speech.
“Openly threatening or planning to harm or murder is not covered under free speech”
No they are not but they are covered by criminal law and has to be decided by a court who will look at the context and the circumstances.
To which I reiterate what’s been said already, these are privately owned co’s.
You might object because they’re too big/powerful, I’d agree and tell you that’s why I don’t have a Facebook, Twitter account.
At the end of this debate, there’s no possible way rule of law under the Constitution will allow openly threatening, planning harm or committing crimes.
For now, the default is “They’re private entities”, but the courts will undoubtedly back my point.
Yes, a lot of people have downloaded “Parlor” thinking they were getting “Parler”. Even more people have made the assertion that “Parler” is a mis-spelling of “Parlor”, and that it means a room where you can talk. Umm , actually, parler is a french verb, meaning “to speak” and it is spelled correctly, though not pronounced correctly. 😉
So, can you still download Parler? Not from Apple or Google, obviously, but Android users would have no difficulty downloading it. They just need to use an independent App Store. They will get a warning, asking if they really want to download from an untrusted site, but they can do it easily. Is it safe? That’s another question. I did download it on Sunday morning to see if it was that easy, and it was. My virus scan showed no problems, and I deleted the independent app store when done. Obviously I can’t actually test the function of it as I have no account, and you can’t set up new accounts, but it appears to be a working version.
Talk to your neighbors. Get a bullhorn and yell at your neigbors. Get on a stepstool on the corner and talk to everyone that goes by. Make your phone calls. Set up a phone tree. Did you know that you can phone multiple peole at once? Text. Send out mass texts. Zoom meetings. You can have massive zoom meetings. Set up your own radio station or tv network. Broadcast to all who care to tune in. Join darkweb and whatever group that floats your boat.
Ohhh, but twitter doesn’t like it when I say “Hang Pence” or “shoot Pelosi”. Are you serious?
And you’re the guys that are tyring to make social media more responsible by taking away section 230 protections?
Dumb and lazy.
Same old story, cheer when they censor people you hate; complain when they eventually turn their censors on you. Twitter is as much a hotbed of hatred and incitement to violence as Parler except that when advocating violence against the right or America in general it’s mostly fine.
Anyone with integrity should be concerned about the implications of this kind of censorship. Yeah it’s fine to cite the text of the first amendment and say ‘well it’s not government passing a law’ or defend the corporate tech oligarchy by saying “well it’s their platform” but that is a myopic view IMO.
Well maybe first amendment jurisprudence needs to catch up to the reality of the internet and social media. But so far, the courts aren’t biting, and it has nothing to do with “integrity.”
It is a free speech issue. I along with many users used Parler and never threatened anybody. It is one thing if Twitter shutdowns a user. It has that right. This was a group of massive companies that conspired to destroy another. Sounds a lot like Standard Oil’s practices.
Free speech only applies to public spaces. The internet is a privately owned entity and a completely private space. Looks like you are arguing for public ownership of the internet ?
Also, there are limits to free speech, if you’re instructing a large group to, say, murder someone while lying to them that the target has done something atrocious enough to warrant murder, you’re not covered under the 1rst amendment.
It’s not a free speech issue. Not at all. It’s a contract issue and maybe a monopoly issue. The right to “free speech” is a right that people (including corporations, lol) have vis a vis government entities. In rare cases, the courts have held that private property shall be considered to be a “public square” so that free speech principles apply. But so far, the courts have ruled that Twitter, Facebook, youtube, IG, etc., are private social media platforms and do not have the obligations of a government entity to honor the free speech rights of its users. End of story.
I think this article gets most of it right….and puts the blame where it belongs…..on Trump and his band of sycophants.
The only thing I don’t agree with is that….expecting some of these opportunists….Hawley, Cruz, Pompeo, Nunes…or even the Republican leadership….to really take ownership of their part in the whole thing…..is naive and not about to happen.
Fiona Hill is really impressive. As sharp as they come.
Slow news day? Anthing moving the markets?
Oil’s doing well.
The slog through 2020 is finally paying off.
Yes. Oil isn’t finished by a long shot.
FYI – F-Droid exists for the Android platform for those who do not want to use Google Play. Yes, it involves a bit more effort up front. Apple is the truly closed eco system.
End of day though – nobody is forcing you to use a smart phone, chat apps, etc. Get a flip phone and text your friends. You’ll probably have more free time too.
Parler violated the AWS terms of service. They can cry all they want but can’t get around that fact. Same goes for Google Play and Apple. This is not about free speech, it is about free association and those in the Orange camp want to crush free association to their own ends.
the idea that amazon didn’t consult its lawyers before taking this action is laughable
Agree, and also, the “30 day rule” parler is suing AWS over is easily shot down in the face of the obvious, violent actions were planned and carried out through their forum.
They were warned to stop, they did not, AWS could be liable for not intervening in a proven threat to public safety.
I don’t care what’s written in the contract, if you’re a proven immediate threat to public health/safety, no court’s going to agree.
Glenn Greenwald explains the competition question very well.
I don’t understand why Fat Donnie cannot do what I do when I get banned.
Just come back with a different handle.
search john baron on twitter. its a parody but quite funny
I know you’re just being funny, but Trump’s tweets only have meaning if it’s known their his.
He tried to a couple of times, but they found him quickly.
The whole issue of “free” alternative social media is money.
Your data revealed on line is their income. Your purchasing tied to the on-line advertising is their income.
Now I can see the DOJ and DHS paying for that data, but where is the bedrock group of buyers for the data and the retailers for the advertising sales?
Parler was moving toward being a pornography retailer.
Is that a realistic way forward for “christian conservative right-wingers”?
The idea that Trump has learned his lesson like the boy who put his hands on a hot stove is farsical. Here he is today making at what is more than a veiled threat
…admirable attitude ….he doesn’ t seem to fear emprisonment nor going bankrupt ! Nevertheless I think he should ve been on the frontline last wednesday, leading (and controlling) the crowd towards the Temple of Corruption, that would ve made him the HERO of all times, now he will probably go down in history as just another clown, like his predecessors, and successor…
Trump’s once again the victim here. Bears no responsibility.
Mish, you are right to be worried. Digital Markets and the monopiles it has engendered is relatively new phenomena in human experience and we are only now trying to work through the implications but generally most people on both sides see that something is wrong. It’s a complicated subject but essentially these companies have built multi-product ecosystems to lock in customers. That isn’t new but when combined with setting up multi-party ecosystems then we are in Trust territory. It gives them the power to snuff out competition. Elon Musk said of Silicon Valley that there are only Sequoias and no undergrowth. Innovation suffers. If it was limited to technology then no big deal but these firms have swept up almost all of the ad revenues that used to support local newspapers, killed them leading to an rapid drop in quality journalism which lead to media adopting business models that divide rather than to build consensus. Hysteria pays and calm analysis does not.
Here is a nice article in Forbes about the Digital Services Act.
Maybe not the largest, but one of the motivations of the providers must be that there is a non-trivial possibility of a bombing, assassination, etc on Jan 20th, and no one wants to be “the platform where the Election Day Massacre was planned.”
No president(s) needed ! The FANGS now rule the world, they decide how we live, behave and what we are allowed to say, it is only a matter of time for the Thought Police to even control what we think….The future looks GREAT ! Democracy ?? LOL ! You can kiss that illusion good bye, democracy has been crumbling for years, with C19 and the fraudulent elections dealing the final blow !
If “they” rule the world and decide how you live, how you behave, and what you say, why are you still yapping away?
Be very afraid…isn’t there a basement you should be hiding in?
I am not on Facebook, Twitter etc so I wouldn’t know whether I d still be ‘yapping away’ by now… The Guardian, of all ‘democratic’ outlets, and being a paying member, eliminated me for being a fervent anti EUr and for my occasional pro Russia stance I guess, they don t give you any detailed justification….That being said, I am grateful Mish still allows me to be here, Maybe he thinks I am right once in while, I am not pushing my luck either, so I really try to be moderate…. You on the other hand will never be eliminated from no fckn platform, you are a ….I ve been trying to find the right word, in the online dictionary(thank you G ) there are several options, so have your choice : a sellout, enabler, foot soldier, a joiner , fellow traveller, another gangbanger(that’s weird), a gutless flip flopper etc … so long buddy…
The fashionable term of art nowadays is ‘useful idiot’
sounds good…
I think we’ve underestimated Trump again. If you can raise your army to attack the people “in power” without consequences, are they really in power?
that, my friend, is a too philosophical issue within the rather technical context of the present intricate events….I think.
Now we’re getting down to brass tacks.
Sovereignty undefended is negation of sovereignty.
On Wednesday we saw insurrectionists. By 1/20/21 they will rebrand as revolutionaries — that is unless the sovereign reasserts its supremacy.
Either way, it appears that this is the culmination of 40 years of recruitment and radicalization. The leaders of this would-be revolution know this is their best, perhaps only, shot.
Barring an absolute decapitation of the revolutionary movement immediately, war is imminent.
I now understand the seriousness of the threat. It will not disappear by ignoring it or acting like it’s business as usual.
“Either way, it appears that this is the culmination of 40 years of recruitment and radicalization. The leaders of this would-be revolution know this is their best, perhaps only, shot.
Barring an absolute decapitation of the revolutionary movement immediately, war is imminent.”
You’re giving them FAR too much credit, among the “leaders of the revolution” is Jacob Chansley, a 20 something kid with face paint & a ridiculous= horn-hat who’s now on a “hunger strike” because jail won’t serve him organic food his mom makes him.
I can’t honestly say I’m worried, just divert these people with, say, a WrestleMania reboot, they need bright, shiny, angry & colorful distractions to busy them away from politics.
CORRECTION: “I can’t honestly say I’m ~NOT~ worried…”
What’s the downside to overestimating the threat?
You can’t possibly think Horndude is a revolutionary leader. The carnival of freaks we saw is just a diversion. There are seriously motivated, activated operatives with military and law enforcement experience. There are criminal minds organizing and directing them.
It doesn’t lend legitimacy to these revolutionaries to consider them a serious threat. The Capitol Insurrection happened precisely because they weren’t taken seriously, and most likely because the Capitol Police and DoD have been infiltrated.
“What’s the downside to overestimating the threat?”
We become like them, paranoid, deluded, altering entire lifestyles based on conspiracy theory alone.
Granted, I suspect this is an IQ related thing, these folks aren’t going to be Nobel Laureates any time soon.
If I were social scientist, I think it would be interesting to see exactly how much wresting fans and Trump fans have in common…because I think it’s a lot…..I could be wrong……but from time to time it has occurred to me that there is both a great deal of similarity between Trump and some of the stars of that “sport”…and Trump supporters and wrestling fans.
Braggadocio and threatening opponents on the part of Trump. Lots of attention to hairstyle and costume. Affiliation with a particular locale.
Easy suspension of disbelief on the part of people who find the time to watch wrestling…..and the way they become so attached to their favorites….the sheer hero worship they are capable of…and a lack of concern for pesky details that might trouble some of us.
Maybe we could learn something from putting sensors deep in these subjects’ reptilian brainstem…see what particular neurons are firing…..that the rest of us seem to have been born without.
Trump and Vince McMahon are best friends. McMahon is Trump’s mentor. There is video of Trump studying WWE and appearing as a participator at their events. The Trump Cult has near-perfect overlap with the WWE fandom.
WWE is grand guignol theater, the lowest form of group entertainment. Trump learned that the audience doesn’t care if you’re the hero or the villain — all that matters is the passionate reaction.
The worst thing for Trump always has been being ignored. I call this the Publicity Theory of Absolute Value. Positivity or negativity is irrelevant. The worst outcome is zero. Thus, the media have been complicit, knowingly or ignorantly, by giving him publicity, positive or negative. All that matters is the attention.
During the 2016 election, the online dating site FarmersOnly.com was ascendant. I attribute this to the same divide-and-conquer strategy by separating rural and city dwellers. “Cityfolk just don’t get it” was their tagline. All part of the same cult-building mission.
We now see the poison fruit of the rotten tree. It will take decades, if not forever, to uproot it.
The idiots at Parler turn to their enemy, big tech, to host their new social media Web site rather than take the time to put their code on their own servers–thus their own private property–or with a conservative proven company. Trump did say he loves the uneducated! Now they want big government to infringe upon the private property rights of these corporations.
Keep in mind that that CEO of Parler worked for AWS for three years. It’s not surprising that he didn’t view his former employer as “the enemy”. He knew that they were capable of providing good service, and knew the people there. It turned out to be a mistake, but it is easy to see how it happened.
Note that we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all if Amazon had honored their contract, and given Parler the 30 days notice in their contract.
Hard for me to believe the CEO of Parler had no clue to the power of Amazon noting this has been a Trump talking point going back to the early days of his presidency when he began taking on Bezos.
Good article
That has to be the stupidest article I have read in a long time. Why would you block a site just because it is hosted on AWS? Sounds like a self inflicted wound.
Headline on Fox:
Unrestrained Tech Titans Target Conservatives
Which implies that conservatives want:
Restrained tech titans that don’t target conservatives.
This is in the name of “freedom of speech”.
Ironic to see the role reversal, isn’t it? Normally, “liberals” want to see aggressive anti-trust enforcement.
They’d probably settle for consistency, but whatever. People are fine with just whining ultimately.
This is clearly a political attack against the right. You have to be extremely ignorant to not see it. And you’ll see more and more of it once Biden is sworn in. Fox news may be next.
Armed protestors are clearly a political attack on freedom of speech.
The clear intent is to intimidate.
A conservative would see Amazon, Apple, and Google have private property rights and can regulate their property as they see fit for the benefit of their companies.
Sounds like you want big government to infringe upon the rights of these corporations.
Had the people who founded Parler had brains, they would not have looked to Amazon to host their product while asking Apple and Google to promote it in THEIR STORES.
If you think this is an attack on “the right”, what you’re saying is that “the right” now stands for:
That’s not “the right” I remember. But that’s what Trump and his brainwashed Q/MAGA cult believe in and actively promote online. They do not deserve a single kilobyte of internet bandwidth.
Trump who?
Reporting from Axios is that Trump is more upset about losing social media access and the PGA tournament than anything else going on.
The suit against Amazon, as I understand it, is based on the fact that their contract required Amazon to give them 30 days notice, and they actually gave notice of about a day. It would be difficult to believe that Amazon could show irreparable harm that would have resulted from allowing Parler to exist another 29 days, so it is possible that Parler could win.
I totally agree that Google and Apple have a right to choose what they will download from their stores. Note that you can download Parler anyway, if you want to. I do not have a Parler account, but had no difficulty in downloading Parler from an independent store. I used one called “ApkPure”. Was it safe? I don’t know. I did remove ApkPure not long afterwards as it was eating my phone battery for no apparent reason; perhaps it was bitcoin mining?
Also, Amazon can certainly choose who they do business with, as can banks, etc. Yet, it is troubling to me that Big Tech appears to be colluding to prevent competition. As someone who strongly favors free speech, I favor speech being allowed that I don’t agree with. I don’t want to live in a place like China where “someone” gets to choose what it “true”, and nothing else is allowed. Freedom depends on free speech.
Hopefully all this will sort itself out, and Parler can get back on the air. Twitter should have competition. So should Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. If they provide the best service, and the most enjoyable user experience, they should prosper. If not, they should lose market share.
In the short run, people now seem to be turning to Gab. Gab is another company dedicated to free speech that has been through what Parler is now going through. The lost their hosing service. Credit card companies refused to process their payments, forcing them to go back to actual checks, and to bitcoin for payments. They were originally a browser extension. Google, Apple, and Firefox all banned them. They ended up turning into the Dissenter browser, which, so far as I know, if only available on desktops. Supposedly it allows you to leave comments on related to any website that is not actually on that website, so the owner of the site has no control over it and can’t moderate it, with such comments visible only to other Dissenter users. They also have a forum site where people can post. When the site was up briefly, I saw forums related to various religions, and to home schooling, but nothing particularly unusual.
I have tried to access Gab, and the website had vanished as of yesterday, but then one time, I was able to get through long enough to reach a post from the CEO that they are experiencing difficulty because they are adding a million users a day right now.
My best guess is that this will all sort itself out. Gab will boost their capacity, and handle a lot of free speech communication for now, and in time Parler will find a web host, or will build their own. The world will go on.
Good luck against Bezo’s army of lawyers.
I like to think that the law also plays a part in who wins in legal cases. I’m not privy to the actual contract, nor any inside facts. If Amazon breached their contract, they should pay. If not, then it’s on Parler for signing a contract that gave them no protections.
I’m sick of the extreme right pressing constitutional rights to obvious extremes.
No, the 2nd amendment doesn’t give criminals, mental patients or terrorists the right to own military assault weapons.
No, the 1rst amendment doesn’t give these people the right to plan, promote or threaten to murder or commit acts of sedition.
They clearly don’t understand the First Amendment if they are using it to claim they have rights on someone’s private property. Congress didn’t stop Parler. Parler decided to host ugly free speech on someone else’s property. This is a property rights issue.
It isn’t a loss of free speech per se…..but loss of what one might call “amplified speech”…..which in my mind is a different thing.
Amplified speech in this day and age of half-truths and fake news and out-and-out lies being perpetuated as truth….is a big problem, in case you haven’t noticed.
Maybe Parler has a case against Amazon….but it won’t matter if they don’t get rapid adjudication. In the short run, I’m willing to let the free speech crowd take their lumps. The right has been abused to no end by Trump and his minions.
I noticed more cancellations including two banks, DB and Signature, cutting ties to Trump. This matters a lot, and I’m glad to see him getting squeezed out of financing. There should be a price to pay for attempting to overthrow the system by means of social media.
I have a strong feeling of chickens coming home to roost, in spite of being in favor of people having a voice…..There is a balance….and the players have some responsibility. I’d like to see the craven hustlers like Alex Jones get their comeuppance too, as long as we’re deplatforming assholes…..just sayin’.
A 2019 study, Into the Web of Profit, conducted by Dr. Michael McGuires at the University of Surrey, shows that things have become worse. The number of dark web listings that could harm an enterprise has risen by 20% since 2016. Of all listings (excluding those selling drugs), 60% could potentially harm enterprises.
You can buy credit card numbers, all manner of drugs, guns, counterfeit money, stolen subscription credentials, hacked Netflix accounts and software that helps you break into other people’s computers. Buy login credentials to a $50,000 Bank of America account for $500. Get $3,000 in counterfeit $20 bills for $600. Buy seven prepaid debit cards, each with a $2,500 balance, for $500 (express shipping included). A “lifetime” Netflix premium account goes for $6. You can hire hackers to attack computers for you. You can buy usernames and passwords.
But not everything is illegal, the dark web also has a legitimate side. For example, you can join a chess club or BlackBook, a social network described as the “the Facebook of Tor.”
It’s also used by people who live in dictatorships with controlled press to speak their views.
Assuming a replacement to Parler comes along or Parler finds a new host they will have to evolve into a twitter. the companies providing this have legal exposure if they do not. social media isn’t a virtual playground where people can act in a laisez faire fashion and say anything such as promoting the hanging of politiicans or plotting sedition.
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
“social media isn’t a virtual playground where people can act in a laisez faire fashion and say anything such as promoting the hanging of politiicans or plotting sedition.”
How do you feel about promoting the execution of cops, organizing protests that turn into riots repeatedly, organizing intimidation campaigns of private citizens or politicians at their homes, or showing pictures that simulate decapitated presidents? Or, since hosted by private companies, all of these are ok?
Just to be clear, all of the “free speech” websites prohibit illegal speech. Gab, for example, comes with a warning that if your speech is illegal, they provide your IP address to authorities when they get subpoenas, so you should not think that illegal speech is in any way private or protected.
The anti-trust seems kind of stupid. There are plenty of providers that will provide server space. Take your data and machine images and deploy them somewhere else. I am sure they signed a contract with Amazon’s clauses that allow it to determine to cut off the services if they felt it necessary.
As far as Facebook and such, there is that little checkbox that you check when you sign up that links to the terms of service. People should read what they agreed to when they signed up.
For the right wing…
Youtube
And then, dark web servers are going to be busy.
Expansion of the PRISM program will follow.
Youtube is very tightly regulated, and they decide what is true and what is not. Early on in the Covid pandemic, any video that suggested taking Vitamin D might be helpful was immediately taken down. Since it turned out that taking Vitamin D was extremely helpful, Youtube did their viewers no favors here. I used to routinely watch videos from MedCram, which are primarily medical lectures intended for medical students. Many of their Covid videos were taken down. In time they have all been restored, but it took awhile.
Trump hasn’t lost his free speech. he could give a press conference today and the cameras would be there. He could call up Jonathon Swan and he’d have an interview set up for that day. You are correct this is not a free speech issue.
I don’t understand why we are combining a fee speech with an anti-trust issue. Sure I’d argue there is excessive concentration of ownership but that’s a separate topic. We should not conflate them.
Those saying thi is free speech are either intentionally mis-using the term but are not familiar with the constitution.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It mean the government can’t prosecute you, it doesn’t mean twitter must host you or that we have to listen to Trump’s bullshit.
Wouldn’t your argument also support the elimination of minimum wage laws and all affirmative action requirements for private companies? I’m normally very sympathetic to libertarian arguments but your argument appears to be a libertarianism of convenience.
We’re still learning how to deal with a “public square” that is owned by private entities (that can be pressured by partisans to deny service). Part of the problem is the potential for double standards based on the owners political leanings. There are many, many politicians who encouraged the protests cum riots of last summer even after they had become violent, including our incoming Pres and VP. There are many politicians who spread, wink at, and exploit the conspiracy theory that police are hunting down black men for execution. (The BLM organization claims exactly this.)
You seem not able to recognize that the protests of last summer were not directed at stopping a fundamental, critical-to-democracy, consitutional process or physically threaten lawmakers with hanging and shooting, or targeting the Presidential line of sucession.
Apples and oranges.
The federal courts have so far ruled that social media platforms are not “public squares.” So no first amendment issues there. Really. A private company can impose any standards it wants to, and it cannot be forced to allow “speech” on its platform that it doesn’t like. Just like the New York Times cannot be forced to publish any article or comment that anyone wants. Or Mish for that matter.
What does this have to do with minimum wage laws or the enforcement of civil rights laws. These are separate laws passed by congress. So?
Nice article from Glenn Greenwald just came up that explains it well.