Comment by hiram112 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hiram112 | Hacker News Reader

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> people have a right to any platform they are able to create.

This argument is becoming increasingly disingenuous based on actions of just the last few days.

Didn’t Parler go ahead and do exactly what you recommended?

* cut off from Google Play and Apple Store. Most people don’t even have personal computers anymore, so their phone / IPad is the only way to access the platforms.

* Apple doesn’t allow side loading. Google makes it less and less viable and so many necessary APIs are moved out of the open Android Sdk and into the gated Play APIs.

* As if to demonstrate the absolute futility of your suggestion, AWS cut off Parler‘s servers.

* Any site need some sort of financial API. How many times have we seen companies like Stripe, GoFundMe, Visa and MasterCard, and even large banks give in to the mob.

* every other required piece of the puzzle will do the same: DNS providers, CDNs, and even the large backbone ISPs. Sorry, bigot, but we’ve decided we won’t be routing your traffic through our exchange.

* Even power companies are privatized in the US. Sorry, just go make your own power grid, right?

This argument is becoming increasingly disingenuous based on actions of just the last few days. Didn’t Parler go ahead and do exactly what you recommended?

Parler only went halfway there. They created a app/website. But, that's not an entire platform (as we see today). An entire platform in this context includes servers, fiber optic networks, routers, etc. If Parler wants to speak on the scale they envision, they can build their own infrastructure to do so. Yes, that's expensive, but it's also no different than the pre-internet era, where similar speech would be relegated to self-published fliers, because no newspaper or TV would carry the message.

'Ok, you've obtained a printing press and related supplies and are printing your own newspapers. But to distribute them, you first need to build your own road network, you're banned from our roads. And you'll need a power station, as you're about to get cut off the grid!'

Social media created a new type of platform. But people are forgetting that it also created a new and more vicious type of activism, too.

Roads and power grid are utilities managed by the government. If we want Twitter to be managed the same, we are free to do so. That may be the ultimate solution, but I'm not yet convinced.

It's more about Internet infrastructure itself.

Maybe you could compare AWS to a haulage company, the equivalent of trucks distributing the newspapers. If Parler were to buy their own 'trucks' (servers), would they be able to drive freely on the 'roads' of the Internet? Or would nobody be willing to provide them a connection?

The solution isn’t to nationalize social media, it’s to legislate that they be interoperable with other platforms. If you have an account on Facebook and Twitter you should be able to publish and read from both via an API. They can still ban people but you should be able to take your data seamlessly to another competing platform that is interoperable with a number of clients both official and independent. Utilities work because they follow common protocols, e.g. utility companies don’t require you to rewire your house and use a different voltage.

> But to distribute them, you first need to build your own road network, you're banned from our roads.

This argument is absurd and I feel in bad faith. We have public roads and you are free to travel on them to distribute your flyers. You still need permission to enter the premises of private owners though if you want to solicit or leave your property (flyer) on their property.

That's the point. Kicking Parler off AWS is not like Penguin refusing to publish your book, it's like MAN forbidding people to deliver your self-printed books in one of their vans. Well if MAN had a monopoly on delivery vans.

Didn’t Parler go ahead and do exactly what you recommended?

No, they didn't.

Parler set up a web site on AMAZON's platform, and it was subsequently shut down. If they had created their own platform with their own servers, they would still be running today.

But that requires an ISP and DNS (which are also often censorious).

So Parlar can bifurcate and build their own ISP/DNS.

That technology is not secret, they are “free” to build their own. Like every other company that builds broadcast platforms, if they want to play, they’ve got to pay.

With net neutrality, they would not need to own an ISP. They might need to find a friendly place to host their servers though.

But Parler won't need to do this - there are plenty of hosts who aren't going to join in with the coordinated effort to silence the speech of those who aren't on the 'correct' side. Info Wars and OAN are still on the internet.

Surely, if they wanted to, they could buy cloud compute resources from a company based outside the US. Why must they be on Amazon just for access to its web services platform?

Can you not see you’re suggesting segregation of the entire Internet?

What happens when registrars cut them off? No DNS routing for them until they build their own registrar? Will the point at which the segregated internet’s join become a DMZ guarded by both factions?

This entire app, and business, was shut down for a few bad actors. Traditionally you subpoena for info, but cancel culture stepped in again.

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