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Comment by traveler01 | Hacker News Reader

I don't know why but what's happening to Parler doesn't feel right at all...

I think that's what's happening is that the big tech cos have had conversations with their lawyers along the lines of "it's one thing to host talk of insurrection from Bob in Knoxville when it looks like cosplay fantasising, but it's another to host it after they killed an on duty police officer while storming the Capitol building with intent to kill senators". The provider's potential liability in planning high crimes will tend to focus minds in a way way that "hosting deplorable speech" did not.

I'm not suggesting that the deplorable speech was mere harmless fantasising, as it seldom is, on a long-enough timeline. Just that this justification is manifestly no longer tenable.

This reminds me of the fascist movement in 1930s Britain. They became socially unacceptable when they started to use violence.

While it does feel reactionary (if that's the right word) that the services are only now revoking doing business with Parler, they are within their rights to stop the contract one-sidedly. I'm actually fairly sure that in the contract they don't even have to state a reason, but don't quote me on that.

Something something free market.

that would be cool if they also implemented the same policy towards other violent/inciteful players and terror organizations

They should, and many do. Once you start peddling in calls to violence against people, no just ideas, then you should lose access to your platform and well deserve to be investigated.

Being complacent with these things gets people killed. You can have free speech all you want but are also responsible for what you say.

Free speech doesn't mean you get a free pass without consequences.

except their efforts are largely focused and selective

switch to arabic language and you will see things that could be easily identified as violent propaganda,yet they stay up because FB censorship system is not interested in enforcing rules in that sector

from what i hear its pretty much the same for India

> While it does feel reactionary (if that's the right word) that the services are only now revoking doing business with Parler, they are within their rights to stop the contract one-sidedly. I'm actually fairly sure that in the contract they don't even have to state a reason, but don't quote me on that.

Yeah most of these services are doing that to avoid being associated with Parler and these Trump movements. But it has an anti-democratic feel to it.

Yep, there are no good choices here. Parler is an organizing venue for Trump supporters attempting to overturn a democratic election and/or storm the capitol, which also has a rather anti-democratic feel to it, no? So you can think of it as a trolley problem with "democracy" strapped to both sets of tracks. Since democracy will be a casualty, to one extent or another, in both the "do nothing" and "do something" options, the service providers must ask themselves: which scenario will hurt democracy worse?

> the service providers must ask themselves: which scenario will hurt democracy worse?

As I mentioned above, what they are likely asking themselves is pragmatic instead of moral, i.e. "which option exposes us as a company to the most legal problems? What hurts profits?"

That explains why service providers changed their thinking so suddenly and dramatically after, you know, a whole lot of serious crimes against the state happened on the 6th, and the evidence trail runs through those service providers.

> the service providers must ask themselves: which scenario will hurt democracy worse

Adendum: why _must_ they ask themselves that? Do you think Facebook ever has acted in that way? Do you think that Fox News does?

It would be nice, but recognise that none of these are entities dedicated to maximising democracy. They have been behaving otherwise for decades. They won't spontaneously change of their own accord.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebo...

You think that, democratically speaking, the majority of Americans are in favor of Parler conducting business? You think there should have been a vote or something?

Amazon, Apple, etc don't work democratically though so it doesn't matter.

We just had elections, see how that went.

Parler was set up by spivs and cranks to encourage fools and fascists to gather and destroy civil society. Now that same civil society has rejected them. Don't feel too bad.

Tech companies are shutting the Trump movement down because of public pressure. Its no different from any other boycott in that sense. Capitol Hill riot was the classic "free speech but not free from consequences" moment. Association with conservatives is now a financial liability.

> Association with conservatives is now a financial liability.

Considering they make up an enormous percentage of the population, I'm not sure that's a sound strategic move.

The left loves to defund/demonitize firearms content, the right nudity and lgbt content and both love deplatforming their opponents one moment and then get outraged if their stuff is removed the next. You see it with net neutrality, cda230, demonitization, forum moderation etc.

It seems people just don't care about consistency anymore, it's just whatever is convenient in the moment.

You're talking about authoritarians on both sides. There are still libertarians on both sides (and even independent) who care more about civil liberties like freedom of speech (the ideal, not just the first amendment).

This! It frustrates me so much that so many people constantly just talk about left and right while completely ignoring the Y-axis of the political spectrum! To me, both parties are firmly in authoritarian land, and no amount of calling it "both sides-ism" will change that fact.

Another frustrating thing is seeing people take a position and just label everything one or the other side, while there are a huge swath of voters and non-voters who don't identify with either party.

(sidenote: Right now, I am liking the Movement for a Peoples Party.)

It frustrates me that people mistake the political compass meme for a thing that actually exists.

It's more complex than "left" vs. "right" and authoritarian vs. libertarian. Compressing politics down to literally two dimensions is a disservice to any political discussion.

What better way is there to condense the political "spectrum" into an easily digestable product? Of course it's not perfect by any stretch, but the multi-axis charts are much more useful than the line-chart of left right most people tend to talk about. It's certainly much more than just a "meme" that doesn't exist.

From The Decision Lab: "A single-axis model conflates liberal and conservative ideologies with right-wing and left-wing stances, excluding the nuances that can exist in someone’s political ideals. Single-axis models like the right/left-wing divide have been criticized for being too simple and reductionist, and it has been suggested that the right/left divide only captures economic issues but that it need not be reflective of one’s social political identity.2 Instead of having to have left-wing mean liberal and right-wing mean conservative, the political compass proposes that we are better off measuring political ideologies on two separate axes: a right/left economic axis and an authoritarian/libertarian axis.3 With such a model, it would be possible for someone to be right-wing and libertarian, or left-wing and authoritarian; none of the views are made mutually exclusive with another. The political compass proposes this alternative model because research has suggested that one’s economic views do not always align with their overall political identity, and therefore, the model would allow people to more accurately understand where they stand in relation to other views, which could mean a less polarized political landscape." [1]

https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guides/test/political-c...

At least we can agree that a two dimensional spectrum is infinitely better than a one dimensional spectrum. Especially when terms such as "left" and "right" are incredibly vaguely defined and differ greatly based on who you're talking to.

Doing principle component analysis on political views to try to determine the number of axes required to account for variability in political views is an interesting endeavour.

e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/PRINCIPAL-COMPONENT-ANAL...

https://escholarship.org/content/qt1c192923/qt1c192923.pdf?t...

It's true but feels like a loosing battle for principled moderates/libertarians these days. Everyone loves to critique and tear down what we have for real or perceived injustices but few are willing to the context and compromises that led to them or propose realizable, incremental solutions.

If any competitors pop up, they can just get AWS or VISA to pull the plug. We're now officially living in a totalitarian state and Silicon Valley is the secret police.

I would draw a distinction between "Conservatives" and a small subgroup within the right that is actively fomenting a violent insurrection.

I agree. As much as I feel it should be taken down, this has all the makings of a (corporate) lynch mob.

I guess you dont get the irony of using 'Lynch Mob' figuratively, because Parler was de-platformed for helping organize literal Lynch Mobs

No, I was aware of that. It was why I used the term.

It’s not the same at all, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Legal action against the platform would have been fine.

No judge would take the case though. Not from an ideological stand, but from a technical one. Amazon (presumably) has a contract that says they can nullify the contract if you do things that violate certain conditions.

Say it was Amazon suing Parler here. Amazon says that Parler is doing stuff Amazon doesn't like. Parler says tough cookies, we're still gonna do that stuff. So Amazon brings Parler to court. The Judge asks what Amazon wants to do about this. Amazon says it wants to kick Parler off. The Judge says 'Yes, the contract between you two says you can do that. Why the hell are you wasting my time? Read your own contract, what are you, a buncha pre-laws?' Parler is then kicked off.

Bad taste or not, Amazon (it appears) is well within it's rights to dissolve the contract with Parler (which I have not seen).

I believe GP is referring to government legal action against Parler for "helping" organize lynch mobs. Extralegal retribution from oligopolistic service providers is of course also allowed by law, that just doesn't make it fine.

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