Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

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> So tell me what law Parler broke?

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"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/aclu-counsel-warns-o...

> 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"?

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